|
TheTome /
ShadowVsManArchiveTheTome.ShadowVsManArchive HistoryHide minor edits - Show changes to output Changed lines 1-230 from:
!!!Cold... On the way into varsity the wind was really giving me hell when Ir ealised something, not only was it going through my jacket, but it was also going through me. Is my soul really that ventilated by recent events? I stood there for a moment as if in a trance and just let it blow away, trying to feel, deep down in my soul, whether or not there was actually a point in taking another step. Clearly I gave up trying and did it anyway. What's the point, I'm trying to fight for something that isn't here any more as far as I can tell. When nothings left to motivate, what motivates one to find some motivation again? Exactly. !!!Betrayal just rolls off the tongue like a badly balanced smint. I love betrayal, I really do. How most of the time people don't notice it, but I can see it there and I won't pretend that it's not. Off the cuff, here's a snapshot of my current attitude: What is the definition of a friend?\\ A helping hand, a kind word? But when it comes down to it at the end,\\ When your existance feels absurd, A cold shoulder and silence is what you get.\\ Trying to reach out, trying to be nice While I lie here in my grave, cold and very fucking wet.\\ This time Vengance will NOT be thinking twice. So what is it that motivates someone to have this impression in their mind that they are a close mate, and can make demands of your behaviour that impact their lives but fail to take yours into consideration? Yes this IS a direct insult to them and yes the people involved WILL feel the brunt of what they earned because I can't be bothered to let them get away with it. But this still doesn't get me any closer to understanding what it is in the human psyche that allows this sort of contradiction between behaviour and belief? It's shit like this that doesn't help a man get back on his feet, when your so-called support structure crumbles like paper-mache under the world trade center. This of course is not applicable to everyone and I know there are friends out there who do give a shit, and they know who they are. If this raises a question mark in your mind as to which you are just ask me and you'll know soon enough.\\ Friendship is not a handful of dookie to be thrown in the face of others. Being a friend isn't blank cheque. !!!Cards in a hurricane To be honest, I don't particularly see the need to avoid treading on toes these days, what's the point. This existence we all lead seems to always get bogged down in inconsequential crap. Bickering, arguing over whether or not cereal should come in bigger boxes and other shit. It doesn't matter. Our psyches are all just houses of cards built through painstaking effort and experience. It is this experience which hardens us in different ways. For myself, it has taught me that honour above all things is what makes existence possible. Be an island amongst the immoral debauchery around you and at the very least you will be able to feel human and not like an animal. How I wish this were true.\\ The most recent bonus my honour has brought me is the destructive removal of the most crucial card in the entire house: My faith in the L-word. This is the only thing that has allowed me to believe that deep down everyone has the ability to be pure and give unconditionally to another, or be it only for a short time in some cases. Yet somehow the words "Yes, I love you too, but.." never finish off well and leave that faith shattered. If the L-word isn't enough then what is? What is left to motivate me from within if I cannot rely on the one part of me that has saved me when all was lost, time and again? The answer is absolutely nothing. The house will fall, and I'm getting the distinct impression that this house of cards is falling down. So then what is the point of honour, it doesn't seem to be a reward unto itself. !!!The Moral of the story This isn't a cry for help, it's beyond that. It's more a case study for life from someone who has been there and done that. I think it's crucial that everyone knows themselves, because if you don't how can you measure or judge yourself? Before you can properly percieve anything you first need to know where you are coming from i.e. what are you at your core? Once you know what this core is, protect it, because once its gone I really don't think it's coming back. I can tolerate existing with no purpose or meaning, but I'm not so sure that I'm a typical person. A storm is coming, of this I'm sure,\\ And the trees begin to creak and sway. Those with disease and without cure,\\ Pray for their cards to be swept away. ---- !!It's snowing. Woo-fuckin-Hoo. -19/09/03 Apart from feeling extra nonplussed about life today, I just learned that a good friend of mine who I thought might be dead is in fact not. I should really be a tad more excited about this but I don't have the energy to waste on that sort of thing. Oh well.\\ The heading doesn't really have anything to do with anything, but I thought there needed to be some voicing of my absolute apathy towards this momentously boring event. Everyone seems excited but I see no reason to give a shit. Anyway. Today I think I'll quote a piece written a little while ago which I think sums up a lot of what this page is really about in terms of me being full of shit: !!!Disclaimer The words of a depressed man shouldn't be trusted\\ After unattainable happiness he lusted From a darkened mind, dark thoughts\\ Not necessarily realistic reports Cynicysm vs. Truth, you decide what's real\\ This is what I think, do and feel Consider yourself warned ---- !!Hope is a difficult fucker to live without, but more difficult to kill. -20/08/03 It seems a least testosterone will not let me down. Much anticipation at arrival of aforemention female person is at least some indicator that there is some humanity remaining within me. Plus I think I feel some alien thing deep down trying to resurrect itself, unsuccessfully as yet: Hope. It's too dangerous though because hope opens up the door for disappointment and rejection, neither of which I am prepared to deal with at this point.\\ Perhaps then I will simply quote form the archives again since the creative spirit is not with me at the mo. Mainly cuz it's not 2AM and I'm not horribly plastered. In the world of comics the hero always has hope because he always triumphs in the end. Here's my view of those kind of guys in the real world: Where have all the superheroes gone?\\ So many battles to fight, none won Not a single mask, leotard or hat\\ They're all saying "Would you like fries with that?" It's really amazing that when someone comes up to you and asks you if you are angry with them you reply in a friendly tone "Of course not! Why would you think that?". This is of course someone who you would gleefully disembowel with a blunt, rusted pickaxe given the opportunity and immunity from prosecution. The more amazing thing is that the person regularly believes you despite circumstantial evidence and your actions for the last week telling them you think they're the largest asshole this side of the equator! Hell I could be sitting next to them and typing this about them and they could ask if it was and I would deny vehemently. Is is just me or is there something very fucked about that? ---- !!Vacant space to let -21/08/03 I should feel like a million bucks this morning. Yesterday was one of those blitzkrieg days where I was germany for once. Finished a 12 page PCU report (with help from my partner of course), caned a test which I hardly even studied for and topped it off with a good amount of extra-curricular activity into the evening. Yet somehow this doesn't seem to have chnaged the general stutus quo, not even in the very short term. Odd. I suppose I should be thankful for one thing at the very least: I didn't dream during the 3 hours of sleep I got last night.\\ That may sound like a very strange thing to say but no matter what the horrors of one's life may be, the subconscious sometimes has the knack of making it exponentially more disturbing inside your own head. I even find myself thinking that I'd rather face the daily torment of what's left of my life for 24 hours a day instead of giving my subconscious a blank cheque to withdraw as much as it wants from the Anguish Bank every night. So the moral here is that esacaping from problems in your conscious is only temporary and it tends to boomerang back with significant (compounded) interest. Hooray for me. Here's a little ditty I came up with while not doing drugs last month, this stuff is getting a bit cliched: After fighting for countless years\\ Shedding litres of tears I have finally run out of meaning\\ Broken the crutch on which I was leaning Now I'm back, face down in the mud\\ Which I once likened to spilled blood However, this time there's no way ahead\\ No other path to take instead I've stumbled, I've fallen, I'm down\\ Just one more dead loser clown !!!There's a storm a-coming.. Much bristling of hairs on backs. A part of me rubs its hands in anticipation of an upcoming "retaliation" <derisive snort>. To re-iterate what I said in SeanRantsAboutStuff, you find something here that's general and take it very personally there's a reason. Regarding the first installment on the 18th, you will know if it applies to you or not. If it does and you get pissed off, do something about it. Like I said the truth hurts, so be mature enough to realise why it hurts if it is the truth and do something to fix it instead of crapping on me. If you think I've lied and slagged you, stop for a moment and realise that this is because it probably doesn't apply to you so chill the fuck out.\\ The core of this argument: Fortune favours the brave, do something about it or nothing will get unfucked. Half the reason the situation is like this is because people do nothing and hold their cards close to their chests while maintaining appearances. Just because I'm a hypocrite doesn't mean I'm wrong, besides I'm doing something about it aren't I? !!!The open road. It's strange how certain combinations of stimuli bring out different instinct within oneself. Music is a particularly interesting case of this phenomenon. For a man whose mind is heavy with darkness this becomes a potential source for control or loss thereof. A song as simple as Mark Knopfler's "What It Is" shouldn't really instill any kind of passionate response should it? Yet for me it awakens the nomad inside who longs to the fuck out of this shallow, corrupt society and leave all this crap I'm standing in behind. Nothing can equal the tranquility of cruising by yourself at 140. Just you, the purring of the engine and an open road. Can you really say that you've never thought how nice it would be to just keep on driving and not get on the offramp. Just blast away, no stress, no deception. You are in control of your destiny for that moment in time and everything fits. Most of us get pulled out of this state pretty quickly by things like capetonian drivers nearly killing you or needing petrol etc. But don't you wish you could just stay there? Stuff the world, the vast unknown can't possibly be worse than the gruesome reality of the lives we lead (some of us are perhaps a bit more blessed in this regard than others). Surely if you could start a new life and put your past behind you, one could avoid the mistakes made in the past and live life like you always wished you could? Fuck riding into the sunset! Drive into that time just before dawn when the whole sky begins to turns a faint blue overlayed on the darkness of night with the stars still poking through. What better way to fill the void with a perfect moment like this leading onto a new and improved life?\\ Yet such a tantalising image cannot be maintined under the pressure of cynicism and attachments we form to the lives we currently lead. People are allowed to dream right? One day, one day... Quick question: In terms of issues is it actually possible to scar a scar? If not, then I am invincible! But it really doesn't feel like it, which means I'm fucked. ---- !!More shit -01/09/03 Good Gauteng weather and people who can drive have failed to restore my faith in humanity. For every event that goes the way it should there are always 1000's of fuckups waiting in the wings to flood them stage with their inevitability\\ and plaster the headlines with BIG BOLD BULLSHIT (at all leading stockists now!). Yay for society. !!!It ends here. Call it cowardice, call it whatever you want. I find the disposition of potenial readers of this rather personal page to be contrary to the spirit of the whole thing. Because some people decide to get pesonal about useless issues and be all immature about it, I no longer feel comfortable mainting this particular page. I've decided that I don't want something as personal as this being spoiled by collateral damage from the cellspool of existence that we call society.\\ Adios. ---- !!Brief resurrection -11/09/03 !!!Like Creedence Clear Water I will simply not die, not yet. I changed my mind. I know I said this page ended, and it's spirit did. However I need to make one last entry for my own reaons, assholes of society be damned. If they dare to take me on and tread in here there will be '''''blood''''', not mine. This entry gets a little rough, so I feel like I should apologise even though I'm not really sure why. I guess I feel I owe the world an apology. Just in case you were checking if I had a comment to throw in from this page as well about responses, I don't. Decent argument is good, and my gauntlet is in its place. I stare at the pale light\\ As it stares through me Can't taste the cold air tonight\\ Nothing left to feel or be. Yes, I am a very weak man. Yes I've made lots of mistakes in my life. It's always the big ones that have no takebacks. Today I was fed a nice large chunk of my own vindictiveness, and was shown just how the past has twisted me. It didn't feel good at all. This is a lesson I hope no-one I know has to learn the way I have, because vengance can be a double-edged, razor-sharp blade with no handle. It doesn't matter how you hold it, it will change you. There's not really much left of me anyway, but I just thought I could be a hypocrite and try to let people know what it can do so that they don't make the same mistakes as me.\\ As far as I can tell we only get to live this life once, I can't be certain that any religion promising an afterlife is actually right. I suppose I really should change the way I do things, but I figure it's too late anyway. Next time you stand out in that shitty Cape Town rain and wind getting soaked and frozen, you'll understand one fiftieth of what's going on inside my head. Life's just a game\\ One that requires us to think Always more shit, more of the same\\ I am the weakest link. !!!Those who are about to die salute you ColdChamber is back, and in a way I am glad, but also very much disheartened by the circumstances. I have been to that terrible place called limbo (where one or two people now stand) many times, and its horrors are as familiar to me today as they were at the time. I can't do anything to change what will happen, but in spirit I stand by your side for support because I think I know to some extent what its like and no-one deserves that. No-one. Your strength in the face of the curent situation is astounding, and gives me renewed vigour to continue my fight here once more despite the consequences. I may be badly fractured, but if I give in now then I'm just a pile of broken glass on the floor. Nothing more. I won't let that happen, not to me or anyone else that I give a shit about. Just know that someone out there, however fractured he may be, still gives a shit.\\ You know it's one of those days when... ---- !!Bittersweet nothings -14/09/03 Quick quiz:\\ Question: When driving down main road at 140km/h, which of the following is the correct reason why this is a bad thing: A) Because the road isn't designed for speeds like that B) Because you might get a whopper of a speeding fine C) You might kill someone, including yourself D) It's not wrong, I can handle myself at those speeds If there's a difference between the actual answer and the one you know should be the most correct, there's a problem there somewhere... ---- !!Cardiovascular Activity -02/10/03 A tribute to the blue skies above:\\ To those who found and held on to love, The bodies lining the road in that direction\\ And anyone who discovered resurrection I am all of the above but also none\\ Walking contradiction, I am one. ---- !!Confusion reigns supreme... -06/10/03 An interesting weekend indeed\\ Maybe the world isn't going to end In my heart there is planted a seed\\ I want it to grow, but my will won't bend A battle rages between what is right\\ And what is darker yet stronger I'm still an oxymoron, half dark half light\\ I guess it's a matter of which will last longer... ---- !!Optimism is its own punishment -09/10/03 first of all, I know I said this was ending, but I changed my mind. I guess that makes my previous comments a 'lie', but I meant them at the time. I'm feeling a bit funny these days. Sorry. A proverb-type thingy came to me yesterday during the DR DP campaign:\\ A lifetime spent in fear of a moment is merely an elabotately long preparation for that exact same moment. By running away from it we govern the direction of our lives to some extent by how close we are to it, so even if we are far away it still influences us. One should turn around and run straight towards it and confront the fucker head-on. Walk up to it and say: 'piss off, you're in my way'. This is precisely what I intend to do. I'm not gonna put any crappy poetry here in this entry, just gonna state it plain and simple. There's a long-term battle between the two parts of my psyche who respectively want to save me and destroy me in order to end this hell that has been my existence. The destoryer attempts to subvert my work-ethic and place me between rocks and hard places, the saviour is what most see on the surface if they dig a little. The destroyer, i think, has managed to checkmate me. My heart has been manoeuvred into a position where I deserve to and will take a very serious knock just at a time when I absolutely ''cannot'' afford it. Oh well. In one sense I have to say that I'm not entirely scared by this prospect, since having things taken completely out of my hands will at least stop a lot of the what-ifs. We shall see. ---- !!A Change in the Wind -14/10/03 It turns out that I was right, and so I can't be called a cynic if I'm right a good proportion of the time. Being right about something like this somehow lacks the satisfying taste it does in other spheres of life. Funny that. I can feel the time running very short and I can't truly say I feel disappointed by this. Bourne above the pain on angels's wings\\ Their multitudes of green and red protect my broken soul They help me to forget and not feel so many things\\ Yet they must go now and leave me: a deep, dark hole The reason for the name change? The word 'boy' no longer feels in any way applicable. All the other reasons I leave to the imagination. Somehow I don't think it's too hard to figure out given the last few entries. ---- !!Endgame -21/10/03 To be honest I don't even know why I'm writing this entry. It goes way too deep in all the wrong places. I suppose as I face my demons I feel the need to break the silence in some way. Scream out to the world in the silence of a monitor and let my pathetic prose fall on deaf eyes. Basically, I have no idea. If I get squeamish I'll just delete it.\\ Tread lightly, for you tread on my dreams. This gets ''rough'', so once again I strongly advise you to turn your eyes to somewhere else. '''You''' '''have''' '''been''' '''warned'''. What is pain? Is it somthing that can truly be described in words? My god, I wear ''way'' too little black to be writing shit like this, but I guess it's a state of mind anyway. Besides, I care too much about the world anyway. Anything I can do to distract myself from the home front. From this pain in my head, in my heart and in the hand that types these things.\\ It is possible that there is a medical explanation for all three: For the head, a rear-sinus infection that won't go away. For the heart, a chemical inbalance involving the dopamine receptors (i think). For the hand, carpal-tunnel syndrome. Separately these all make sense to the person who would be doing the diagnosing, yet no-one has been in a position to diagnose all three to date. This is because I won't let them. I know where the sickness truly is. My subconscious wants out. Out of this body, out of this endless iron maiden existence and I won't let it. So it fights back. With a shattered heart I have no vast reserve of energy to fight it. There is no-one out there who is willing or able to stand right beside me and fight with me. In short, I am outnumbered, outgunned and outmaneuvered. Alone, I think they call it. !!!It's all about gold Life is all about choices, and I'd like to think I made mine decisively. I cose to go for gold, because in the scheme of things it's about striving for perfection. It's about showing that gold medal that it matters above all others, so that at least it knows that someone out there cares. Sometimes the gold is friendship, sometimes a relationship, sometimes marriage. Whatever the target, any wavering shows a lack of confidence in the outcome and insufficient faith in the prize. When feelings are involved, I'm always in it for the benefit of both parties. I want them to be happy too. This is why the silver medal of friendship stings. Too many times I have been labelled as second best, lost out to the competition. It's happened again. Why? NICE GUYS FINISH LAST. I was honest and upfront. I spoke from the heart and trusted a piece of it first, hoping for some return. Always second. I want to condemn the whole podium to last place, but the truth is I just don't fucking care anymore. Words ring true in my head\\ The last blade in place: A "distraction" am I Knee high, viscous, red\\ In second place I fall, choke,... Those of you who want to know the latest installment, wait for the grapevine as it winds its sick and twisted way through the distortions of human ideals and perception. Maybe I'm flattering myself there, we shall see. The truth is irrelevant, so why give a shit how it gets disorted. It might even come out sounding better. I settle not for second. It's first or nothing at all. Therefore my choice has already been made, and is clear. Drawing a path to a terrible place is easy, walking it is another matter. I'm too tired for this shit. Hence the name. Nothing that fades is every missed. Only those that go out in a blaze of glory. I don't have the strength for that. Enough. ''Enough!'' ---- !!Bloodlust -27/10/03 Wrote the first in this string of exams today. Probably failed, but I can't chalk this up to lowered expectations as a result of a depressive state of mind. Nope, I just didn't graft enough. But of late a strange thing has been happening, I have been completley unable to constructively work for anything longer than about 15 minutes in one concentrated sitting. Doesn't make studying easier at all. But this I expected, it's the other attitude changes that are worrying.\\ The more I think about putting distance between myself and the sources of the pain, the more it starts to make sense. The Jerry Bruckheimer mentality is telling me to fill up the tank and drive. This of course would otherwise be known as running away from the problems like a coward. On this subject, I'd say that the line between cowardice and survival is defined by a healthy dose of realism. Many of the lines have already been cast off and the ship is making ready to sail on this boat, that's for sure (must.. resist.. nnnnggh!.... OK fine: Avast ye landlubbers!! Sorry, couldn't resist). Staring out at the endless blue unknown and preparing to venture into it are two wholly different things however. One can't do half of each, keep one foot in this life and pack up for one far away with the other. More entries. Why? Why the fuck am I still doing this?! What is the point? I know what the point ''was'', but it's changed in some way and I lost it in the fog. Damn this mortal vessel, damn this weak flesh and yielding psyche! Curse everything that erodes our morality and decieves us into fucking with others peoples lives. Why am I constrained to look on while evil shit happens every day, and people who are supposed to do something about it do nothing? It is my hope that one day I will look down on them through the eye of a crosshair, then society will begin to change. To heal a wound, sometimes one must first open it and remove the poison. One day. Yes, I am indeed having a scintillatingly fantastic day with birds in the air and the sun shining its festering deception down on all those stupid enough to believe there's hope for this fucking place. ---- !!More -01/11/03 A familiar form of torture found me out again last night. The party itself was actually really great, however I was not able to truly allow myself to enjoy it. The hurry up and wait syndrome is not fun when you're lurking in limbo. Also, there was the lengthy discussion of how everything that makes a decent man is not me (which I found especially appropriate as is was occurring while I was in the room). Any attempt to leave the aforementioned room was met with a whining comment that this was not the way forward and a brief spurt of cuddly body langauge. ''Slight'' contradiction I feel. Isn't it ironic that the people we most need to save us are those who inevitably put the last nails in the coffin as we scape feebly at the inside of our sealed, pine scented fate. I'm not second and never was. It would appear that I'm not on the list at all in this case. I believe the appropriate comparison would include the word 'disqualification' somewhere. Frustration, pain, anger and a small dose of blackened warm and squishy. I feel them all galvanising into one another now. After arriving home for the second time during the night it was as if it all made sense in some twisted way, the darkness and the pain. I was to be an avatar of the underdogs in this world and the open road called me in a way no man can refuse. I wanted to stand tall and correct the injustice my life had suffered, but for all humanity and with a Desert Eagle (and lets not forget the stacks of ammo to go with that). The fantasy had to fade there unfortunately, I had no such weapon and not enough cash to make it past the week. The terrible thing is that I feel cheated, since if this had happened two days later I could have made a plan. I would have had the means to do it and finally do something decisive to end this waking (and sleeping) nightmare that is by definition an existence. If this dust were to settle, what would be left? What would I be without all of this to struggle with? My nearest guess would be a skeleton of moral principals barely strung together, no feeling or motivation to flesh it out. I feel like the title of a bad Kevin Bacon movie (except in this case I have my clothes on thank you very much). What would any of us be when it comes right down to it? An interesting question for everyone to ask themselves I feel... * ''I know the feeling. Different circumstances, same feeling. Just as you encouraged me, so I encourage you. Not to return the favour, but to help you see value in what you put up here, showing your pain for all to see. But know this: you are stronger than it. You will not be broken. Watch the roiling, rumbling wave of pain as it hurtles towards you, and let it hit you. And let it do nothing. Because you are stronger than it. Reach down, deep into your centre, and know no fear, no pain, no anguish. Fear not going forward slowly, fear only standing still.'' GloomiNati ---- !!Carnivals and depression -16/11/03 A tough semester it certainly has been, as can clearly be seen. Normally I would have truckloads of stuff to bitch about in SeanRantsAboutStuff but this isn't the case. What you say is indeed true about fearing only standing still GloomiNati, and now I can feel myself slowly drawing my face out of the mud and entrails I fell into many months ago. The wave of pain I faced now was only a small mockery of the one which struck me in the middle of the year, but because the first hit me directly at my core I was unable to adequately counter this one and was forced back down into the ground. My centre was shattered by the first, but something tells me I've found a tube of glue within myself to put a replacement together because I sure as hell wasn't going to find salvation where I was looking (as several individuals have pointed out to me). At this point I think I need to explain my 'funhouse mirror' analogies to states of mind and depression. At baseline/"normal" levels of stress and pain life is viewed as it is. When depression begins to strike, this view becomes warped in negative ways, the beginnings of cynicysm. However, as many find out the hard way, one can be pushed further beyond where you thought your tolerance level was and into a new place where everything becomes difficult. Coping mechanisms begin to fail as the world beyond this second funhouse mirror is difficult to deal with as everything feels like a burden and reality is so far away that one questions its relevance. But there is a third. If the pressures and strains persist without relenting or some traumatic event strikes unexpectedly one finds that the warping has become so severe that it begins making sense in a way. The kind of sense that the criminally insane must have, the kind that can 'rationalise' self-termination. It can make you believe that the only thing that matters is finding a way to stop the pain, at any cost. the funny thing is that it's also kinda peaceful too, because you are forced to analyse what it is that makes up your life and what's important even if it is by deciding how to leave it behind. This is the way I see the whole thing. I've just emerged from behind the third mirror, and the stale air on this side still feels like a breathe of pure oxygen after near-asphyxiation. It burns, but it means you're alive and not a walking ghost any more. The third mirror is a bad thing to cross, I spent too long there and I hope I never have to again. Even though I'm forced to face the pain now instead of accepting it as a part of me it still feels better because I can feel distinct parts as opposed to an all-encompassing darkness pressing on my conscious and subconscious mind. My first order of business was to more objectively analyse what it was I was trying to do by caring about a specific person (the grapevine still amuses me much in this respect!). After an afternoon of pool and vicious torment I came to the conclusion that she is very likely unable (or just indifferent) to determine when she hurts others and that it is highly unlikely that she would care even if she was able to. This is one curse I have encountered before, but this time I do it ''*right!*'' The ultimatum was issued with the ending words being something like "If you care now would be the time to do something about it." Since I have recieved no reply I think it's safe to assume the response is "No dice.". Time is a funny animal so we shall see, I make only a judgement to stand as long as there is no reply, but as a statistician I gotta say its ''fucking'' unlikely (that's a technical term) that I'm wrong. Now all I have to do is fight my way out the next two mirrors. Fuck. ---- !!The Edge -11/12/03 You'll notice that there's a significant time difference between posting and authouring of this piece, which is due only to the despicable lack of internet acess where I currently reside. !!!And in a little wood somewhere Pooh-Bear wiped his axe and said: Fuck this shit. Back behind the third! Before there was the phoenix which arose briefly out of this wrecked spirit and playfully set out for vengeance in a misguided and ultimately unsucessful way. It burnt out and its ashes remained on the ground, but as everyone knows they don't die that way. Each coming burning brighter and stronger, improving on the previous effort. I sit here fueling the fire with the remains of my determination to kindle some kind of twisted hope to drive me onward in this existence. Even if I burn out, at least I will go out at maximum speed. The motivation? A combination of things. Mostly the fact that individuals of little or no decency or moral fibre continue to exist peacfully while the good guys suffer under the painful daily reminder of twisting pain and the sting of betrayal. ''Not'' acceptable! the other part of the reason I will not expose here, I cannot yet express it adequately. Those close to me will know in the near future, that will have to suffice. !!!Yin and Yang Emotions can be a powerful thing. They can make people accomplish amazing things for their loved ones, whether it be to save them, gain their affection or make their lives better. What happens when you take that power along with its refusal to die and seal it in a dark hole with no light and no food?\\ I'll tell you: It's entire purpose becomes getting out of that hole above all else. It clings onto anything it can to survive, unintentionally sucking the life out of it sometimes. Yet even this isn't enough so it begins to feed on the darkness around it, turning its curse into an energy source with which it will learn to tolerate its surroundings and hibernate safely until another way presents itself. This way a broken man (in my case at any rate) can learn to survive. In reality this can be considered a victory, however there is still one more card fate can play in this game. By adding one more brutal and unexpected wounding from the source of the l-word to piss off the beast, it can be turned into a terrible monster. Hate in its purest form is something that I cannot describe in words alone. The fire that burns inside of you flares up a thousand times higher and suddenly things become clear, but not in the same way that we percieve clarity on an everyday basis. It's like the layer of candy-floss that the world comes wrapped in is removed and you can see the cold hard truth beneath it. Squatting there like a spent shotgun lying on the floor beside a murdered lover. Suddenly one realises the true horror one is capable of using the tools normally reserved for kindness. Trust becomes a weapon and truth the ammunition within it.\\ And it feels good. Seductive and powerful, like molten steel it courses through your veins and solidifies into a strength so cold you can imagine the air around you crystallising. The cold numbs feeling in your soul and turns the chains that held you down into the very tools of destruction you need, becoming extensions of yourself instead of burdens. Its liberating and frightening all at the same time, which form an exhileration that one would only expect from some decent drugs. !!!It subsides Now I feel this feeling subsiding along with mixed feelings of reluctance, disappointment and relief. I fear I have become a gruesome Jeckyll and Hyde. No part of me entirely human, yet I cannot escape the true nature of my humanity: Imperfection. My advice is to become neither Jeckyll nor Hyde in ones life because the one is doomed to be killed and the other to do the killing. I have the worst of both. I have both the wounds on my soul that I cannot heal, and the vengeful spirit inside that longs to return to sender. I have no more reasons to withhold the beast within since I am no longer the bastion of morality and strength I once thought I was. Reap and sow. You play, you pay. These are the words ringing throughout my contorted mind, and I happen to agree. If I can manufacture the strength to take action required why shouldn't I go ahead? The world needs a wake-up call doesn't it? All I can contemplate is which way is forward from this disoriented present day. If ever a saviour was needed I would say that now I need one bigtime, because I think I give up. All I can make out is the way to the nearest McDonalds. Having said that, I still refuse to let the world drag me down to dealing with it on its own level. If the world is fair to you all that sentiment will hold. If only.... ---- !!Signal to noise ratio falls... -21/12/03 As far down into my soul I've allowed you all to see I'm afraid I must take a break. The barriers I have to work my way through so that I can get to 'rational' thought are becoming rather tiresome. I am starting to need things that I should not have because they are not mine. Need things that I want to flow through my veins instead of the alcohol I love so much, but which will destroy my body and my mind. Yet I cannot bring myself to let it all go down the drain, which leaves me stuck between what feels like an inevitable fate and my own fading will. It hurts like 5 shots of stroh snorted in succession combined with an ice-cream headache (don't try this at home kiddies). With the static closing in on the edges of my mind, I must dedicate everything I have to this. Since laying my soul bare here drains me it is one of the things that I cannot afford to do in the short term. I have to fight it back for your sake because although I see no saviour around the corner, I know that some people give a shit on occasion. There are those out there who could save me in a heartbeat and make my task sooo much easier, but that's not how it works here. It would be unfair of me to burden some with this because that guilt is not due to them. They shall not be named, some know who they are anyway.\\ Yes, I am posting about as regularly as Bob Mugabe apologises but that has mainly been due to lack of access unfortunately. This is different, not an excuse (believe me I wish it was). Here I think NOFX said it best courtesy of Fat Mike:\\ "Lost the battle, lost the war/Lost the things worth living for/Lost the will to win the fight/One more pill to kill the pain" I'll say it once again: War isn't about who's right, but who's left. ---- !!The pieces return but no longer fit the puzzle... -11/02/04 Happy new-fuckin-year. Had to get it out the way. Once again I have internet time to bravely/stupidly bare what's left of my soul to those who care and those who find it in some sick way amusing. I have finally raised myself of my knees and find myself glaring once again into the unforgiving sun of reality. No longer overcast and gloomy, yet still with the grim determination that comes from being fucked over way too much. This semester ''will'' be different. I have resolved to use the spiritual equivalent of Nitrous Oxide to maintain sanity in short spurts and actually feel human. It may be bad for my body but my I no longer care about that shite. It's all or nothing, soul vs body: I've made my choice. ---- !!The fast and the mildly annoyed -20/02/04 The only sure way to avoid hitting a wall in life is to grab the steering wheel and, at high speed, swerve towards any wall on the side of the road. Life will make sure that there is a road there filled with pedestrians. I made the choice to save myself by seriously risking destruction. The result took me down a very promising road indeed, however in the resulting swerving and oversteer involved in taking the corner at high speed, two pedestrians got in the way. The moral justifications are solid and I do not regret choosing the one person I did (or more aptly my heart did) but that still does not entirely dissipate the guilt. !!!New beginnings This brings me to the next point. As surprised as i am at not smashing into the wall, the road ahead looks and feels very prosperous indeed. I'm not gonna mount a large neon banner, jump up and down on a harpsichord wearing a purple bikini shouting out the nature of my current affairs. The grapevine will get hold of it if it hasn't already. I have nothing to hide at this point. The first intake of breath after asphixiation is quite painful, but now I feel something that I hardly recognise: happiness. Therefore, I will not violate the spirit of this page by happy thoughts or optimism since the me that wrote the earlier stuff would surely kick the me doing the writing of this kind of stuff squarely in the nuts if I did. So I won't. Perhaps all the fighting was worth it after all...? to:
Just to make it easier to determine what happened when: [[http://claws.uct.ac.za/TheTome/ShadowVsManArchive/2003|2003]] - A year filled with many fun revelations and stuff\\ [[http://claws.uct.ac.za/TheTome/ShadowVsManArchive/2004|2004]] - One or two entries, but then there wer some changes...\\ [[http://claws.uct.ac.za/TheTome/ShadowVsManArchive/2005|2005]] - Nothing of import, no entries. Seriously. Just for continuity purposes. April 21, 2006, at 06:15 AM
by - Moved old to archive
Added lines 1-230:
!!The madness, it's actually not so bad once you get to know it... -18/08/03 !!!Cold... On the way into varsity the wind was really giving me hell when Ir ealised something, not only was it going through my jacket, but it was also going through me. Is my soul really that ventilated by recent events? I stood there for a moment as if in a trance and just let it blow away, trying to feel, deep down in my soul, whether or not there was actually a point in taking another step. Clearly I gave up trying and did it anyway. What's the point, I'm trying to fight for something that isn't here any more as far as I can tell. When nothings left to motivate, what motivates one to find some motivation again? Exactly. !!!Betrayal just rolls off the tongue like a badly balanced smint. I love betrayal, I really do. How most of the time people don't notice it, but I can see it there and I won't pretend that it's not. Off the cuff, here's a snapshot of my current attitude: What is the definition of a friend?\\ A helping hand, a kind word? But when it comes down to it at the end,\\ When your existance feels absurd, A cold shoulder and silence is what you get.\\ Trying to reach out, trying to be nice While I lie here in my grave, cold and very fucking wet.\\ This time Vengance will NOT be thinking twice. So what is it that motivates someone to have this impression in their mind that they are a close mate, and can make demands of your behaviour that impact their lives but fail to take yours into consideration? Yes this IS a direct insult to them and yes the people involved WILL feel the brunt of what they earned because I can't be bothered to let them get away with it. But this still doesn't get me any closer to understanding what it is in the human psyche that allows this sort of contradiction between behaviour and belief? It's shit like this that doesn't help a man get back on his feet, when your so-called support structure crumbles like paper-mache under the world trade center. This of course is not applicable to everyone and I know there are friends out there who do give a shit, and they know who they are. If this raises a question mark in your mind as to which you are just ask me and you'll know soon enough.\\ Friendship is not a handful of dookie to be thrown in the face of others. Being a friend isn't blank cheque. !!!Cards in a hurricane To be honest, I don't particularly see the need to avoid treading on toes these days, what's the point. This existence we all lead seems to always get bogged down in inconsequential crap. Bickering, arguing over whether or not cereal should come in bigger boxes and other shit. It doesn't matter. Our psyches are all just houses of cards built through painstaking effort and experience. It is this experience which hardens us in different ways. For myself, it has taught me that honour above all things is what makes existence possible. Be an island amongst the immoral debauchery around you and at the very least you will be able to feel human and not like an animal. How I wish this were true.\\ The most recent bonus my honour has brought me is the destructive removal of the most crucial card in the entire house: My faith in the L-word. This is the only thing that has allowed me to believe that deep down everyone has the ability to be pure and give unconditionally to another, or be it only for a short time in some cases. Yet somehow the words "Yes, I love you too, but.." never finish off well and leave that faith shattered. If the L-word isn't enough then what is? What is left to motivate me from within if I cannot rely on the one part of me that has saved me when all was lost, time and again? The answer is absolutely nothing. The house will fall, and I'm getting the distinct impression that this house of cards is falling down. So then what is the point of honour, it doesn't seem to be a reward unto itself. !!!The Moral of the story This isn't a cry for help, it's beyond that. It's more a case study for life from someone who has been there and done that. I think it's crucial that everyone knows themselves, because if you don't how can you measure or judge yourself? Before you can properly percieve anything you first need to know where you are coming from i.e. what are you at your core? Once you know what this core is, protect it, because once its gone I really don't think it's coming back. I can tolerate existing with no purpose or meaning, but I'm not so sure that I'm a typical person. A storm is coming, of this I'm sure,\\ And the trees begin to creak and sway. Those with disease and without cure,\\ Pray for their cards to be swept away. ---- !!It's snowing. Woo-fuckin-Hoo. -19/09/03 Apart from feeling extra nonplussed about life today, I just learned that a good friend of mine who I thought might be dead is in fact not. I should really be a tad more excited about this but I don't have the energy to waste on that sort of thing. Oh well.\\ The heading doesn't really have anything to do with anything, but I thought there needed to be some voicing of my absolute apathy towards this momentously boring event. Everyone seems excited but I see no reason to give a shit. Anyway. Today I think I'll quote a piece written a little while ago which I think sums up a lot of what this page is really about in terms of me being full of shit: !!!Disclaimer The words of a depressed man shouldn't be trusted\\ After unattainable happiness he lusted From a darkened mind, dark thoughts\\ Not necessarily realistic reports Cynicysm vs. Truth, you decide what's real\\ This is what I think, do and feel Consider yourself warned ---- !!Hope is a difficult fucker to live without, but more difficult to kill. -20/08/03 It seems a least testosterone will not let me down. Much anticipation at arrival of aforemention female person is at least some indicator that there is some humanity remaining within me. Plus I think I feel some alien thing deep down trying to resurrect itself, unsuccessfully as yet: Hope. It's too dangerous though because hope opens up the door for disappointment and rejection, neither of which I am prepared to deal with at this point.\\ Perhaps then I will simply quote form the archives again since the creative spirit is not with me at the mo. Mainly cuz it's not 2AM and I'm not horribly plastered. In the world of comics the hero always has hope because he always triumphs in the end. Here's my view of those kind of guys in the real world: Where have all the superheroes gone?\\ So many battles to fight, none won Not a single mask, leotard or hat\\ They're all saying "Would you like fries with that?" It's really amazing that when someone comes up to you and asks you if you are angry with them you reply in a friendly tone "Of course not! Why would you think that?". This is of course someone who you would gleefully disembowel with a blunt, rusted pickaxe given the opportunity and immunity from prosecution. The more amazing thing is that the person regularly believes you despite circumstantial evidence and your actions for the last week telling them you think they're the largest asshole this side of the equator! Hell I could be sitting next to them and typing this about them and they could ask if it was and I would deny vehemently. Is is just me or is there something very fucked about that? ---- !!Vacant space to let -21/08/03 I should feel like a million bucks this morning. Yesterday was one of those blitzkrieg days where I was germany for once. Finished a 12 page PCU report (with help from my partner of course), caned a test which I hardly even studied for and topped it off with a good amount of extra-curricular activity into the evening. Yet somehow this doesn't seem to have chnaged the general stutus quo, not even in the very short term. Odd. I suppose I should be thankful for one thing at the very least: I didn't dream during the 3 hours of sleep I got last night.\\ That may sound like a very strange thing to say but no matter what the horrors of one's life may be, the subconscious sometimes has the knack of making it exponentially more disturbing inside your own head. I even find myself thinking that I'd rather face the daily torment of what's left of my life for 24 hours a day instead of giving my subconscious a blank cheque to withdraw as much as it wants from the Anguish Bank every night. So the moral here is that esacaping from problems in your conscious is only temporary and it tends to boomerang back with significant (compounded) interest. Hooray for me. Here's a little ditty I came up with while not doing drugs last month, this stuff is getting a bit cliched: After fighting for countless years\\ Shedding litres of tears I have finally run out of meaning\\ Broken the crutch on which I was leaning Now I'm back, face down in the mud\\ Which I once likened to spilled blood However, this time there's no way ahead\\ No other path to take instead I've stumbled, I've fallen, I'm down\\ Just one more dead loser clown !!!There's a storm a-coming.. Much bristling of hairs on backs. A part of me rubs its hands in anticipation of an upcoming "retaliation" <derisive snort>. To re-iterate what I said in SeanRantsAboutStuff, you find something here that's general and take it very personally there's a reason. Regarding the first installment on the 18th, you will know if it applies to you or not. If it does and you get pissed off, do something about it. Like I said the truth hurts, so be mature enough to realise why it hurts if it is the truth and do something to fix it instead of crapping on me. If you think I've lied and slagged you, stop for a moment and realise that this is because it probably doesn't apply to you so chill the fuck out.\\ The core of this argument: Fortune favours the brave, do something about it or nothing will get unfucked. Half the reason the situation is like this is because people do nothing and hold their cards close to their chests while maintaining appearances. Just because I'm a hypocrite doesn't mean I'm wrong, besides I'm doing something about it aren't I? !!!The open road. It's strange how certain combinations of stimuli bring out different instinct within oneself. Music is a particularly interesting case of this phenomenon. For a man whose mind is heavy with darkness this becomes a potential source for control or loss thereof. A song as simple as Mark Knopfler's "What It Is" shouldn't really instill any kind of passionate response should it? Yet for me it awakens the nomad inside who longs to the fuck out of this shallow, corrupt society and leave all this crap I'm standing in behind. Nothing can equal the tranquility of cruising by yourself at 140. Just you, the purring of the engine and an open road. Can you really say that you've never thought how nice it would be to just keep on driving and not get on the offramp. Just blast away, no stress, no deception. You are in control of your destiny for that moment in time and everything fits. Most of us get pulled out of this state pretty quickly by things like capetonian drivers nearly killing you or needing petrol etc. But don't you wish you could just stay there? Stuff the world, the vast unknown can't possibly be worse than the gruesome reality of the lives we lead (some of us are perhaps a bit more blessed in this regard than others). Surely if you could start a new life and put your past behind you, one could avoid the mistakes made in the past and live life like you always wished you could? Fuck riding into the sunset! Drive into that time just before dawn when the whole sky begins to turns a faint blue overlayed on the darkness of night with the stars still poking through. What better way to fill the void with a perfect moment like this leading onto a new and improved life?\\ Yet such a tantalising image cannot be maintined under the pressure of cynicism and attachments we form to the lives we currently lead. People are allowed to dream right? One day, one day... Quick question: In terms of issues is it actually possible to scar a scar? If not, then I am invincible! But it really doesn't feel like it, which means I'm fucked. ---- !!More shit -01/09/03 Good Gauteng weather and people who can drive have failed to restore my faith in humanity. For every event that goes the way it should there are always 1000's of fuckups waiting in the wings to flood them stage with their inevitability\\ and plaster the headlines with BIG BOLD BULLSHIT (at all leading stockists now!). Yay for society. !!!It ends here. Call it cowardice, call it whatever you want. I find the disposition of potenial readers of this rather personal page to be contrary to the spirit of the whole thing. Because some people decide to get pesonal about useless issues and be all immature about it, I no longer feel comfortable mainting this particular page. I've decided that I don't want something as personal as this being spoiled by collateral damage from the cellspool of existence that we call society.\\ Adios. ---- !!Brief resurrection -11/09/03 !!!Like Creedence Clear Water I will simply not die, not yet. I changed my mind. I know I said this page ended, and it's spirit did. However I need to make one last entry for my own reaons, assholes of society be damned. If they dare to take me on and tread in here there will be '''''blood''''', not mine. This entry gets a little rough, so I feel like I should apologise even though I'm not really sure why. I guess I feel I owe the world an apology. Just in case you were checking if I had a comment to throw in from this page as well about responses, I don't. Decent argument is good, and my gauntlet is in its place. I stare at the pale light\\ As it stares through me Can't taste the cold air tonight\\ Nothing left to feel or be. Yes, I am a very weak man. Yes I've made lots of mistakes in my life. It's always the big ones that have no takebacks. Today I was fed a nice large chunk of my own vindictiveness, and was shown just how the past has twisted me. It didn't feel good at all. This is a lesson I hope no-one I know has to learn the way I have, because vengance can be a double-edged, razor-sharp blade with no handle. It doesn't matter how you hold it, it will change you. There's not really much left of me anyway, but I just thought I could be a hypocrite and try to let people know what it can do so that they don't make the same mistakes as me.\\ As far as I can tell we only get to live this life once, I can't be certain that any religion promising an afterlife is actually right. I suppose I really should change the way I do things, but I figure it's too late anyway. Next time you stand out in that shitty Cape Town rain and wind getting soaked and frozen, you'll understand one fiftieth of what's going on inside my head. Life's just a game\\ One that requires us to think Always more shit, more of the same\\ I am the weakest link. !!!Those who are about to die salute you ColdChamber is back, and in a way I am glad, but also very much disheartened by the circumstances. I have been to that terrible place called limbo (where one or two people now stand) many times, and its horrors are as familiar to me today as they were at the time. I can't do anything to change what will happen, but in spirit I stand by your side for support because I think I know to some extent what its like and no-one deserves that. No-one. Your strength in the face of the curent situation is astounding, and gives me renewed vigour to continue my fight here once more despite the consequences. I may be badly fractured, but if I give in now then I'm just a pile of broken glass on the floor. Nothing more. I won't let that happen, not to me or anyone else that I give a shit about. Just know that someone out there, however fractured he may be, still gives a shit.\\ You know it's one of those days when... ---- !!Bittersweet nothings -14/09/03 Quick quiz:\\ Question: When driving down main road at 140km/h, which of the following is the correct reason why this is a bad thing: A) Because the road isn't designed for speeds like that B) Because you might get a whopper of a speeding fine C) You might kill someone, including yourself D) It's not wrong, I can handle myself at those speeds If there's a difference between the actual answer and the one you know should be the most correct, there's a problem there somewhere... ---- !!Cardiovascular Activity -02/10/03 A tribute to the blue skies above:\\ To those who found and held on to love, The bodies lining the road in that direction\\ And anyone who discovered resurrection I am all of the above but also none\\ Walking contradiction, I am one. ---- !!Confusion reigns supreme... -06/10/03 An interesting weekend indeed\\ Maybe the world isn't going to end In my heart there is planted a seed\\ I want it to grow, but my will won't bend A battle rages between what is right\\ And what is darker yet stronger I'm still an oxymoron, half dark half light\\ I guess it's a matter of which will last longer... ---- !!Optimism is its own punishment -09/10/03 first of all, I know I said this was ending, but I changed my mind. I guess that makes my previous comments a 'lie', but I meant them at the time. I'm feeling a bit funny these days. Sorry. A proverb-type thingy came to me yesterday during the DR DP campaign:\\ A lifetime spent in fear of a moment is merely an elabotately long preparation for that exact same moment. By running away from it we govern the direction of our lives to some extent by how close we are to it, so even if we are far away it still influences us. One should turn around and run straight towards it and confront the fucker head-on. Walk up to it and say: 'piss off, you're in my way'. This is precisely what I intend to do. I'm not gonna put any crappy poetry here in this entry, just gonna state it plain and simple. There's a long-term battle between the two parts of my psyche who respectively want to save me and destroy me in order to end this hell that has been my existence. The destoryer attempts to subvert my work-ethic and place me between rocks and hard places, the saviour is what most see on the surface if they dig a little. The destroyer, i think, has managed to checkmate me. My heart has been manoeuvred into a position where I deserve to and will take a very serious knock just at a time when I absolutely ''cannot'' afford it. Oh well. In one sense I have to say that I'm not entirely scared by this prospect, since having things taken completely out of my hands will at least stop a lot of the what-ifs. We shall see. ---- !!A Change in the Wind -14/10/03 It turns out that I was right, and so I can't be called a cynic if I'm right a good proportion of the time. Being right about something like this somehow lacks the satisfying taste it does in other spheres of life. Funny that. I can feel the time running very short and I can't truly say I feel disappointed by this. Bourne above the pain on angels's wings\\ Their multitudes of green and red protect my broken soul They help me to forget and not feel so many things\\ Yet they must go now and leave me: a deep, dark hole The reason for the name change? The word 'boy' no longer feels in any way applicable. All the other reasons I leave to the imagination. Somehow I don't think it's too hard to figure out given the last few entries. ---- !!Endgame -21/10/03 To be honest I don't even know why I'm writing this entry. It goes way too deep in all the wrong places. I suppose as I face my demons I feel the need to break the silence in some way. Scream out to the world in the silence of a monitor and let my pathetic prose fall on deaf eyes. Basically, I have no idea. If I get squeamish I'll just delete it.\\ Tread lightly, for you tread on my dreams. This gets ''rough'', so once again I strongly advise you to turn your eyes to somewhere else. '''You''' '''have''' '''been''' '''warned'''. What is pain? Is it somthing that can truly be described in words? My god, I wear ''way'' too little black to be writing shit like this, but I guess it's a state of mind anyway. Besides, I care too much about the world anyway. Anything I can do to distract myself from the home front. From this pain in my head, in my heart and in the hand that types these things.\\ It is possible that there is a medical explanation for all three: For the head, a rear-sinus infection that won't go away. For the heart, a chemical inbalance involving the dopamine receptors (i think). For the hand, carpal-tunnel syndrome. Separately these all make sense to the person who would be doing the diagnosing, yet no-one has been in a position to diagnose all three to date. This is because I won't let them. I know where the sickness truly is. My subconscious wants out. Out of this body, out of this endless iron maiden existence and I won't let it. So it fights back. With a shattered heart I have no vast reserve of energy to fight it. There is no-one out there who is willing or able to stand right beside me and fight with me. In short, I am outnumbered, outgunned and outmaneuvered. Alone, I think they call it. !!!It's all about gold Life is all about choices, and I'd like to think I made mine decisively. I cose to go for gold, because in the scheme of things it's about striving for perfection. It's about showing that gold medal that it matters above all others, so that at least it knows that someone out there cares. Sometimes the gold is friendship, sometimes a relationship, sometimes marriage. Whatever the target, any wavering shows a lack of confidence in the outcome and insufficient faith in the prize. When feelings are involved, I'm always in it for the benefit of both parties. I want them to be happy too. This is why the silver medal of friendship stings. Too many times I have been labelled as second best, lost out to the competition. It's happened again. Why? NICE GUYS FINISH LAST. I was honest and upfront. I spoke from the heart and trusted a piece of it first, hoping for some return. Always second. I want to condemn the whole podium to last place, but the truth is I just don't fucking care anymore. Words ring true in my head\\ The last blade in place: A "distraction" am I Knee high, viscous, red\\ In second place I fall, choke,... Those of you who want to know the latest installment, wait for the grapevine as it winds its sick and twisted way through the distortions of human ideals and perception. Maybe I'm flattering myself there, we shall see. The truth is irrelevant, so why give a shit how it gets disorted. It might even come out sounding better. I settle not for second. It's first or nothing at all. Therefore my choice has already been made, and is clear. Drawing a path to a terrible place is easy, walking it is another matter. I'm too tired for this shit. Hence the name. Nothing that fades is every missed. Only those that go out in a blaze of glory. I don't have the strength for that. Enough. ''Enough!'' ---- !!Bloodlust -27/10/03 Wrote the first in this string of exams today. Probably failed, but I can't chalk this up to lowered expectations as a result of a depressive state of mind. Nope, I just didn't graft enough. But of late a strange thing has been happening, I have been completley unable to constructively work for anything longer than about 15 minutes in one concentrated sitting. Doesn't make studying easier at all. But this I expected, it's the other attitude changes that are worrying.\\ The more I think about putting distance between myself and the sources of the pain, the more it starts to make sense. The Jerry Bruckheimer mentality is telling me to fill up the tank and drive. This of course would otherwise be known as running away from the problems like a coward. On this subject, I'd say that the line between cowardice and survival is defined by a healthy dose of realism. Many of the lines have already been cast off and the ship is making ready to sail on this boat, that's for sure (must.. resist.. nnnnggh!.... OK fine: Avast ye landlubbers!! Sorry, couldn't resist). Staring out at the endless blue unknown and preparing to venture into it are two wholly different things however. One can't do half of each, keep one foot in this life and pack up for one far away with the other. More entries. Why? Why the fuck am I still doing this?! What is the point? I know what the point ''was'', but it's changed in some way and I lost it in the fog. Damn this mortal vessel, damn this weak flesh and yielding psyche! Curse everything that erodes our morality and decieves us into fucking with others peoples lives. Why am I constrained to look on while evil shit happens every day, and people who are supposed to do something about it do nothing? It is my hope that one day I will look down on them through the eye of a crosshair, then society will begin to change. To heal a wound, sometimes one must first open it and remove the poison. One day. Yes, I am indeed having a scintillatingly fantastic day with birds in the air and the sun shining its festering deception down on all those stupid enough to believe there's hope for this fucking place. ---- !!More -01/11/03 A familiar form of torture found me out again last night. The party itself was actually really great, however I was not able to truly allow myself to enjoy it. The hurry up and wait syndrome is not fun when you're lurking in limbo. Also, there was the lengthy discussion of how everything that makes a decent man is not me (which I found especially appropriate as is was occurring while I was in the room). Any attempt to leave the aforementioned room was met with a whining comment that this was not the way forward and a brief spurt of cuddly body langauge. ''Slight'' contradiction I feel. Isn't it ironic that the people we most need to save us are those who inevitably put the last nails in the coffin as we scape feebly at the inside of our sealed, pine scented fate. I'm not second and never was. It would appear that I'm not on the list at all in this case. I believe the appropriate comparison would include the word 'disqualification' somewhere. Frustration, pain, anger and a small dose of blackened warm and squishy. I feel them all galvanising into one another now. After arriving home for the second time during the night it was as if it all made sense in some twisted way, the darkness and the pain. I was to be an avatar of the underdogs in this world and the open road called me in a way no man can refuse. I wanted to stand tall and correct the injustice my life had suffered, but for all humanity and with a Desert Eagle (and lets not forget the stacks of ammo to go with that). The fantasy had to fade there unfortunately, I had no such weapon and not enough cash to make it past the week. The terrible thing is that I feel cheated, since if this had happened two days later I could have made a plan. I would have had the means to do it and finally do something decisive to end this waking (and sleeping) nightmare that is by definition an existence. If this dust were to settle, what would be left? What would I be without all of this to struggle with? My nearest guess would be a skeleton of moral principals barely strung together, no feeling or motivation to flesh it out. I feel like the title of a bad Kevin Bacon movie (except in this case I have my clothes on thank you very much). What would any of us be when it comes right down to it? An interesting question for everyone to ask themselves I feel... * ''I know the feeling. Different circumstances, same feeling. Just as you encouraged me, so I encourage you. Not to return the favour, but to help you see value in what you put up here, showing your pain for all to see. But know this: you are stronger than it. You will not be broken. Watch the roiling, rumbling wave of pain as it hurtles towards you, and let it hit you. And let it do nothing. Because you are stronger than it. Reach down, deep into your centre, and know no fear, no pain, no anguish. Fear not going forward slowly, fear only standing still.'' GloomiNati ---- !!Carnivals and depression -16/11/03 A tough semester it certainly has been, as can clearly be seen. Normally I would have truckloads of stuff to bitch about in SeanRantsAboutStuff but this isn't the case. What you say is indeed true about fearing only standing still GloomiNati, and now I can feel myself slowly drawing my face out of the mud and entrails I fell into many months ago. The wave of pain I faced now was only a small mockery of the one which struck me in the middle of the year, but because the first hit me directly at my core I was unable to adequately counter this one and was forced back down into the ground. My centre was shattered by the first, but something tells me I've found a tube of glue within myself to put a replacement together because I sure as hell wasn't going to find salvation where I was looking (as several individuals have pointed out to me). At this point I think I need to explain my 'funhouse mirror' analogies to states of mind and depression. At baseline/"normal" levels of stress and pain life is viewed as it is. When depression begins to strike, this view becomes warped in negative ways, the beginnings of cynicysm. However, as many find out the hard way, one can be pushed further beyond where you thought your tolerance level was and into a new place where everything becomes difficult. Coping mechanisms begin to fail as the world beyond this second funhouse mirror is difficult to deal with as everything feels like a burden and reality is so far away that one questions its relevance. But there is a third. If the pressures and strains persist without relenting or some traumatic event strikes unexpectedly one finds that the warping has become so severe that it begins making sense in a way. The kind of sense that the criminally insane must have, the kind that can 'rationalise' self-termination. It can make you believe that the only thing that matters is finding a way to stop the pain, at any cost. the funny thing is that it's also kinda peaceful too, because you are forced to analyse what it is that makes up your life and what's important even if it is by deciding how to leave it behind. This is the way I see the whole thing. I've just emerged from behind the third mirror, and the stale air on this side still feels like a breathe of pure oxygen after near-asphyxiation. It burns, but it means you're alive and not a walking ghost any more. The third mirror is a bad thing to cross, I spent too long there and I hope I never have to again. Even though I'm forced to face the pain now instead of accepting it as a part of me it still feels better because I can feel distinct parts as opposed to an all-encompassing darkness pressing on my conscious and subconscious mind. My first order of business was to more objectively analyse what it was I was trying to do by caring about a specific person (the grapevine still amuses me much in this respect!). After an afternoon of pool and vicious torment I came to the conclusion that she is very likely unable (or just indifferent) to determine when she hurts others and that it is highly unlikely that she would care even if she was able to. This is one curse I have encountered before, but this time I do it ''*right!*'' The ultimatum was issued with the ending words being something like "If you care now would be the time to do something about it." Since I have recieved no reply I think it's safe to assume the response is "No dice.". Time is a funny animal so we shall see, I make only a judgement to stand as long as there is no reply, but as a statistician I gotta say its ''fucking'' unlikely (that's a technical term) that I'm wrong. Now all I have to do is fight my way out the next two mirrors. Fuck. ---- !!The Edge -11/12/03 You'll notice that there's a significant time difference between posting and authouring of this piece, which is due only to the despicable lack of internet acess where I currently reside. !!!And in a little wood somewhere Pooh-Bear wiped his axe and said: Fuck this shit. Back behind the third! Before there was the phoenix which arose briefly out of this wrecked spirit and playfully set out for vengeance in a misguided and ultimately unsucessful way. It burnt out and its ashes remained on the ground, but as everyone knows they don't die that way. Each coming burning brighter and stronger, improving on the previous effort. I sit here fueling the fire with the remains of my determination to kindle some kind of twisted hope to drive me onward in this existence. Even if I burn out, at least I will go out at maximum speed. The motivation? A combination of things. Mostly the fact that individuals of little or no decency or moral fibre continue to exist peacfully while the good guys suffer under the painful daily reminder of twisting pain and the sting of betrayal. ''Not'' acceptable! the other part of the reason I will not expose here, I cannot yet express it adequately. Those close to me will know in the near future, that will have to suffice. !!!Yin and Yang Emotions can be a powerful thing. They can make people accomplish amazing things for their loved ones, whether it be to save them, gain their affection or make their lives better. What happens when you take that power along with its refusal to die and seal it in a dark hole with no light and no food?\\ I'll tell you: It's entire purpose becomes getting out of that hole above all else. It clings onto anything it can to survive, unintentionally sucking the life out of it sometimes. Yet even this isn't enough so it begins to feed on the darkness around it, turning its curse into an energy source with which it will learn to tolerate its surroundings and hibernate safely until another way presents itself. This way a broken man (in my case at any rate) can learn to survive. In reality this can be considered a victory, however there is still one more card fate can play in this game. By adding one more brutal and unexpected wounding from the source of the l-word to piss off the beast, it can be turned into a terrible monster. Hate in its purest form is something that I cannot describe in words alone. The fire that burns inside of you flares up a thousand times higher and suddenly things become clear, but not in the same way that we percieve clarity on an everyday basis. It's like the layer of candy-floss that the world comes wrapped in is removed and you can see the cold hard truth beneath it. Squatting there like a spent shotgun lying on the floor beside a murdered lover. Suddenly one realises the true horror one is capable of using the tools normally reserved for kindness. Trust becomes a weapon and truth the ammunition within it.\\ And it feels good. Seductive and powerful, like molten steel it courses through your veins and solidifies into a strength so cold you can imagine the air around you crystallising. The cold numbs feeling in your soul and turns the chains that held you down into the very tools of destruction you need, becoming extensions of yourself instead of burdens. Its liberating and frightening all at the same time, which form an exhileration that one would only expect from some decent drugs. !!!It subsides Now I feel this feeling subsiding along with mixed feelings of reluctance, disappointment and relief. I fear I have become a gruesome Jeckyll and Hyde. No part of me entirely human, yet I cannot escape the true nature of my humanity: Imperfection. My advice is to become neither Jeckyll nor Hyde in ones life because the one is doomed to be killed and the other to do the killing. I have the worst of both. I have both the wounds on my soul that I cannot heal, and the vengeful spirit inside that longs to return to sender. I have no more reasons to withhold the beast within since I am no longer the bastion of morality and strength I once thought I was. Reap and sow. You play, you pay. These are the words ringing throughout my contorted mind, and I happen to agree. If I can manufacture the strength to take action required why shouldn't I go ahead? The world needs a wake-up call doesn't it? All I can contemplate is which way is forward from this disoriented present day. If ever a saviour was needed I would say that now I need one bigtime, because I think I give up. All I can make out is the way to the nearest McDonalds. Having said that, I still refuse to let the world drag me down to dealing with it on its own level. If the world is fair to you all that sentiment will hold. If only.... ---- !!Signal to noise ratio falls... -21/12/03 As far down into my soul I've allowed you all to see I'm afraid I must take a break. The barriers I have to work my way through so that I can get to 'rational' thought are becoming rather tiresome. I am starting to need things that I should not have because they are not mine. Need things that I want to flow through my veins instead of the alcohol I love so much, but which will destroy my body and my mind. Yet I cannot bring myself to let it all go down the drain, which leaves me stuck between what feels like an inevitable fate and my own fading will. It hurts like 5 shots of stroh snorted in succession combined with an ice-cream headache (don't try this at home kiddies). With the static closing in on the edges of my mind, I must dedicate everything I have to this. Since laying my soul bare here drains me it is one of the things that I cannot afford to do in the short term. I have to fight it back for your sake because although I see no saviour around the corner, I know that some people give a shit on occasion. There are those out there who could save me in a heartbeat and make my task sooo much easier, but that's not how it works here. It would be unfair of me to burden some with this because that guilt is not due to them. They shall not be named, some know who they are anyway.\\ Yes, I am posting about as regularly as Bob Mugabe apologises but that has mainly been due to lack of access unfortunately. This is different, not an excuse (believe me I wish it was). Here I think NOFX said it best courtesy of Fat Mike:\\ "Lost the battle, lost the war/Lost the things worth living for/Lost the will to win the fight/One more pill to kill the pain" I'll say it once again: War isn't about who's right, but who's left. ---- !!The pieces return but no longer fit the puzzle... -11/02/04 Happy new-fuckin-year. Had to get it out the way. Once again I have internet time to bravely/stupidly bare what's left of my soul to those who care and those who find it in some sick way amusing. I have finally raised myself of my knees and find myself glaring once again into the unforgiving sun of reality. No longer overcast and gloomy, yet still with the grim determination that comes from being fucked over way too much. This semester ''will'' be different. I have resolved to use the spiritual equivalent of Nitrous Oxide to maintain sanity in short spurts and actually feel human. It may be bad for my body but my I no longer care about that shite. It's all or nothing, soul vs body: I've made my choice. ---- !!The fast and the mildly annoyed -20/02/04 The only sure way to avoid hitting a wall in life is to grab the steering wheel and, at high speed, swerve towards any wall on the side of the road. Life will make sure that there is a road there filled with pedestrians. I made the choice to save myself by seriously risking destruction. The result took me down a very promising road indeed, however in the resulting swerving and oversteer involved in taking the corner at high speed, two pedestrians got in the way. The moral justifications are solid and I do not regret choosing the one person I did (or more aptly my heart did) but that still does not entirely dissipate the guilt. !!!New beginnings This brings me to the next point. As surprised as i am at not smashing into the wall, the road ahead looks and feels very prosperous indeed. I'm not gonna mount a large neon banner, jump up and down on a harpsichord wearing a purple bikini shouting out the nature of my current affairs. The grapevine will get hold of it if it hasn't already. I have nothing to hide at this point. The first intake of breath after asphixiation is quite painful, but now I feel something that I hardly recognise: happiness. Therefore, I will not violate the spirit of this page by happy thoughts or optimism since the me that wrote the earlier stuff would surely kick the me doing the writing of this kind of stuff squarely in the nuts if I did. So I won't. Perhaps all the fighting was worth it after all...? |