Wow...it has been a LONG time...exams eating up a large portion of my time, leading me to halt most of my hobbies, leading to this deserted piece of work... Ah well, that's over now, and there's some news! I have decided to perhaps discontinue this page, I'm not quitting writing don't worry. Basically, I have decided with a few others to start a blog together, and it might not be easy for me to put equal effort into both these pages, and I'm not a fan of half-hearted work. So, with that being said, I'll most probably be working on that page full time through the summer, so once we do create it, I'll let everyone know.
Thanks to anyone and everyone that actually read everything that I wrote, as much as I wanted to help more people, I'm glad that it reached anyone at all, and it helped me as well.
So...maybe for the last time, HERE atleast....stay strong...
"We seem to always care more about what others think of us to the extent where we are not truly what they are seeing, rather just a creation of who they want us to be" Our minds are strange...They're complex, which is what makes them strange I suppose, but the working of a human mind is so very difficult to grasp yet...it's sometimes quite simple. Perception is also strange, the entirety of humanity could be listening to the greatest music score created in all of history, and yet there will still be some that will have a complete distaste for it, not because the music is bad, but because the way they perceive the music is different.
Everyone is different, I've talked about that before, but the frequency and magnitude at which someone's perception can change are crucial. The environment and people we are surrounded by can effectively influence our perception of the world at any given moment. Of course not always, it is possible to resist against this influence with enough determination to hold on to a certain type of view, but usually, it changes quite often. To give an example, a person that is quite introverted, when put around the correct people will eventually become the opposite, not because something has changed in them, but just because now they perceive the world as something that is not to be feared. It works similarly for other things as well, but it's important to note that this depends on the specific person and the specific environment. I've said this before as well, one cannot change no matter how much they are influenced if they are not WILLING to change. Some have perceptions that are set in stone while others are more fluid; both can choose to let themselves change, but some simply don't.
I know what it's like to be insecure. To see yourself and see a mistake, something that should not exist upon this world. To feel so out of place in your own body that you can barely gather the strength to walk out of your room every morning. To be so afraid of what others think of me to an extent where I stopped being afraid of who I was becoming in the process. We become shells, vessels for the expectations of others, we turn hollow within but decorate ourselves externally to please the world and it drains you...Life is siphoned out of you every time you choose to restrict yourself, change yourself, transform yourself into what you believe is the image that others expect of you. To satisfy what you think will keep you safe, you give away your energy, until there's nothing left, and you're you no longer.
It's not something we choose to do, right? Our minds are made a certain way and it would be quite difficult not to be insecure if you were brought up a certain way or if the trait was simply in your genetic makeup. However, it is not impossible, I KNOW that it's something that can be done...because I've done it. If there's anyone out there that thinks that dragging oneself out of the pit of insecurity is not possible, then I can use my past as living proof that it is not the case. You may need help, you may need to believe more than you ever thought possible, but I assure you, it will not go to waste. Just like a computer system can be recalibrated to work a certain way, so can our minds, but unlike a machine, we need to love our mind, we need to treat it with kindness. Most or one of the most important factors is belief. You NEED to be able to believe that it can happen. I said earlier that people that can change but are not willing to, it works similarly. In your mind, if you don't believe that you can get out of this mindset, which is pretty much a loop at this point, then it can't happen. I call it a loop because it's extremely difficult to BELIEVE when you are insecure. But all it takes is one glimmer, one small crack in that wall and your belief will flood back like an ocean that has been trapped behind a small door for its entire existence.
So that's all I ask, to try...to try and believe even slightly that you can be better than what you think you can be, to aim further than you think is in your capacity, to love yourself just as you love the people around you. Weakness is an illusion...so is strength, everything is in our minds, and we command our mind, but only if we stop our mind from controlling us first. “Weaklings will stay weak forever. But weakness is not evil, since human beings are weak creatures to begin with. Alone, you feel nothing but insecurity; that’s why we form guilds, that’s why we have friends. We walk together in order to live a strong life. The clumsy ones will walk into more walls than the others, and it may also take them longer to get there. If you believe in tomorrow and put yourself out there, you can naturally obtain your strength. That’s how you will be able to smile and live strong.”- Hiro Mashima
"Time heals all wounds, it may take a while, but nonetheless it will happen" - Unknown
Time is an interesting thing, isn't it? We seem to have so much of it but yet...we feel like we have too little of it. I've tried to imagine time in many ways; like a river, like the branches of a tree, like ribbons or strands, like globules that glow larger, but time seems like none of these, although, sometimes all of them. It's very confusing, that much is certain, but another aspect that I am sure of is that time heals a person. All of us go through difficult times, we face iniquity from those around us, people find foible in you and they exploit it, pretending to be trustworthy but being gnathonic in reality. Sometimes it leaves us apathetic; it seems as though nothing in life grants happiness anymore, and it breaks us. We suddenly feel that time is worthless, because every new second that we receive is just filled with more pain, and it feels as though it may never end.
Listen, pain is the most temporary of all emotions, even when one tries to hold on to it, eventually it will fade because our minds naturally want to resist pain. These tenebrous times, no matter how derelict, will come to an end eventually. We never seem to have enough time because we let the time we have slip away by focusing on what has happened...what has gone. Time heals all, as time passes and passes, you will find yourself believing that there is still light in the world; the sun will not be so lurid each time you walk out that door; you will not flinch every time someone tries to talk to you; joy will sprout within you and finally...finally a smile will glow upon you.
Trust me when I say it, everything that you're going through right now, it will leave you if you just let it. The reason we are in pain for so long is because deep down, we want to feel something, we desire to feel an emotion, to give reason for why we feel this way, and we chose the easiest of them to hold on to; pain. Choose the other side. I know it is not so easy to simply say it and do it, but try to replace those parasitic emotions that remain as tinctures after a painful experience. As long as you try, slowly and slowly those emotions will lose their power; their host is no longer supporting them, so there is no choice but to leave. Believe that good will always prevail, and I know optimism may not be the mindset that everyone will posses, but you do not need optimism to see a good in the world. See good in yourself, let the efflorescence of your emotion flood the space around you, driving away the presences of darkness that threaten to bring back the past.
With all that being said, do not get me wrong, I am not implying that one should completely let go of their past. On the contrary, I think that holding on to those experiences, bad and good alike will help us adapt, change and eventually evolve into a better person. You have been in the situation before, thus you will always be able to make the choice better than someone who had not already been through it. No matter how bad a situation is, there will always be the advantage of you having learnt something for it, whether it helps you or not, it is certain that every single one of our memories have changed and affected us in one way or another. When faced with a difficult scenario, we assume that there is always an answer. Sometimes, the answer to all problems is not trying to find one. We need to understand that we cannot solve every problem, we cannot help everyone and everything, sometimes we have to know that we've done all we could have done, and the next time, we can do better. This emotion that you feel right now, no matter what it is, will always be replaced by happiness and hope, but only with your consent.
If you decide to let everything and everyone go, decide to let a single emotion destroy everything you have built with everything and everyone over so much time, then it will consume you. Accept help, there are battles you cannot face alone, and in a reality such as this, that is almost always the case. If all things must come to an end, then pain certainly must but if you refuse to let it go, then it will leech onto you, sapping your life away like a parasite, leaving you with nothing but that single feeling of pain. Don't let it take you, never let it take control of you. RESIST...resist with all you have, use the last reservoir of strength you hold within you and fight it, do not give it an easy way to your mind.
"Never look at this world with glasses tinted with one color. When you take them off, it will be clear that you were never seeing the world, but yourself"- Unknown
"The measure of love is to love without measure" - Unknown
Unconditional love and unconditional trust, these are usually seen as dangerous aren't they? Two things that people fear delving into, even though it is supposed to be a mark of great bonding and friendship. I suppose it is understandable, who would want to trust someone completely without expecting them to be a hundred percent honest with you all the time, right? Who would want to love without expecting the same magnitude of love back from them? It would not be fair for ourselves to give our all to someone and have them give only a margin of enthusiasm as return.
Why? Why are we so accustomed to expecting an equal reciprocation? Can we not spread an emotion without needing something in return? It's strange, it has become such a norm to refuse unconditional emotion towards a person. If you truly and genuinely want to make someone feel better in a time of need, I'm pretty sure nobody would want them to suddenly start smiling, laughing and helping you with your problems. It's not a feeling that we have. We understand that in this state, this specific person cannot be the same as what they normally are and that we cannot expect the same reactions from them all the time (At least I hope we understand). What's even stranger is it isn't even a bad feeling, trusting someone unconditionally ease the burden of paranoia from your mind many times, leaving your mind free to converse entirely rather than having to worry about whether or not you should tell your friend what happened at school, wondering whether you can trust him anymore.
It's not completely baseless, nothing is I suppose. In a sense, unconditional emotion is completely handing yourself over to someone else with the hope that you will not come out of this scenario with fewer pieces of yourself than when you entered. It's handing someone a loaded gun, asking them to aim at your head but expecting, or wanting to expect that they will not pull the trigger. Giving that kind of power to someone can be frightening. Information is power and choosing to trust someone is an ordeal that may or may not cause great distress in the future. It is a way for people to feel secure, and a way to avoid their past. Some have had their trust shattered so many times that their minds simply erase the concept of trust from their mind. At that point they are but a shell of their former self, it is no way to live.
If you really think about it, it makes very little sense to believe that two people have the same capacity to keep a person's trust. We already know that everyone is in some way or form different from each other and emotions definitely change drastically from person to person. Yet when someone breaks our trust, we go into a state of thought, one that eventually leads to us believing that everyone is similar. The words "trust"and "love" spark negative memories in their mind but in every sense it is ridiculous. Why must the actions of one decide the other. Even if it were true, it may be just a mere co-incidence. I digress, what I mean to say is that you cannot love and trust two people the same way and you cannot predict what they will give in return for your dedication but we occasionally decide that they will. Personally, I feel that these two emotions are best placed without expecting anything back, simply because when you do expect, you subconsciously reduce the intensity of the emotion to compensate for that level of expectation, leading the bond with that person to be marginally weaker compared to a version of yourself where you had loved unconditionally.
At the same time, I feel as though "unconditional" may be too strong a word although I cannot place a specific word to represent the definition I need to convey. Either way, the point is simple: love and trust without expecting. If both people have this mindset and give their entirety to their friendship, then both of them will get what they needed, without even expecting it to happen. You will feel better about your bond; when the mind is free of constant need for something, it is free to enjoy something purely for what it is rather than what you gain from it.
"Life is not an investment. Love because you want to, not because you will gain something from it" - Unknown
"Remind yourself that its not okay to be perfect" - H. Midorikawa
We are never one person. We grow, we change, we become different people as time passes slowly but surely. In this passage of time, occasionally we forget that treating one part of us the wrong way can do more than it seems. What I mean is, we don't realize that we have to be kind to ourselves and our body. Often we think of ourselves as a single entity, a collection of organs, thoughts and processes that come together to form a complete being. We never think of them as being separate entities of their own, but the more you look at it, the more it seems that way. You cannot treat your mind the way you treat your body and vice versa. Each part of yourself needs to be dealt with in a different way because they are not the same. You cannot handle two completely different people the same way because the way they have been brought up and taught does not allow them to function that way, the same goes for our mind and body. In the midst of all of this, we bury the thought of rest beneath our workload, we give rest to our body when our mind is aching for a comforting presence or a bit of enjoyment. We spend hours and hours cramming information into our heads, thinking that its for the better, but while I think of these two as separate, I still believe they are connected. A tired mind will lead to a tired body, driving yourself physically to the point of exhaustion will lead to poor mental performance. What I'm getting at is, be kind to yourself, to your body and mind. Treat it as if it were another person, a person that you love dearly, one that you would never harm or cause pain to. Give love and kindness to your mind, be happy, forget the things that are dragging you down and for a moment, just be free, let yourself off of those shackles that you put on yourself, screaming at your body to stay awake when it has done all it could for you. Empathize.
Work is important, that is obvious but it will never be as important as your physical and mental health. Whatever ambition and goal you hold in your thought, you need to be alive to achieve it, working yourself to the bone and eventually running out of energy to even lift yourself off of the bed every morning will get you nowhere. Be kind to your body, and it will be kind to you. Do not throw and kick it around like a punching bag, hold yourself close and give yourself a little break. See those papers on the table? The ones filled with scribbles and numbers that might as well mean nothing at all if you aren't happy in the end? Yeah, forget those, forget everything and give a single, perfect moment to yourself. Take a deep breath and smile, knowing that you got this far and you can keep going without being too harsh on yourself. Don't be a victim to guilt, understand that you're doing this because its unhealthy to keep working.
In a structure, if you put too much strain on a member, it will fail to function and the entire structure falls apart, you are not so different. Treat one part of yourself without kindness and eventually, as time passes you will start to see changes, small changes but changes nevertheless. You won't be as efficient at completing tasks as you once were, you find yourself exhausted after just a few minutes of work, you find it harder to take care of yourself and you start becoming strangely lazy. Your body and mind have given up on you. Like a child that runs away from home after years of abuse from their parents, you have been abandoned by the very things that you thought were utterly in your control. You took advantage and thought you could keep going, over and over, endlessly through sleepless nights and restless days. Again and again you chose to take the path that gives the most pain to your body, the most stress on your mind, that is until there was no more to take.
Don't end up there, you are more valuable than any kind of academic performance or occupation. Live your life, don't grind through it like a punishment. Do things that you enjoy doing and spend time with people you enjoy being around. Give time to those you love and give love to yourself, at the end of the day, at some point you will go to sleep with yourself, and its better to sleep with someone that isn't battered and furious at you. Life is difficult, it will take everything from you, but don't let that turn you into a mindless machine. See life for the good it gives, and focus on those, too much strain on yourself will do nothing to help, so be kind, be kind to yourself, spread it all across and be happy, in the end that's all that really matters, that you're happy. "When you get too wrapped up in everything that goes on in our lives, take a moment to look within you, and the answers will show themselves. Stop trying to take every step at the same time, take it slow, one step at a time...then another"- Unknown
"The mountains are calling and I must go" - John Muir
The boreal atmosphere was not being especially lenient towards me. It felt as though I was pulled into the depth of a glacial lake, trapped by hyperborean tendrils that refused to release my body from piteous captivity. The temperature alone was enough to cast regret upon my mind, inflicting a shadow of a wound, just barely slipping into the cracks of my volatile perception, breathing uncertainty and doubt upon the choices that I made in the time that had very recently evaporated into nothingness, even in this extremely hibernal weather. It felt strange after a short moment, the comparison of the passing of time with the mere juxtaposition of aquatic molecules from the surface of an object, or in this scenario, the outer plane of my human body and skin, in no way built or born to withstand this form of icy torture, or any form of torture for that matter, but it can only be blamed upon me. The shambles of my mind reiterated itself, ridding the caliginous, stymie thoughts that were carefully prodding at the doubtful extracts of my mind, hoping to force upon me a resolution that would find myself in front of a blazing hearth, within a cozy cottage, drifting off to an eventual sleep on a large, maroon couch. It would not come to that, I would only return to my home after I had reached the palmary goal of my venturesome expedition, which was reaching the frost-bound peak that, from a distance, seemed to scrape the sky itself. As the skeletal trees around me, malnourished of leaves parted ways, revealing a great pathway that spiraled like an ancient python up the mountainside, the image of the mount rose gracefully. It was indeed true, the highest point, which was shaped like a serrated, mordant dagger split the clouds above neatly and carefully. A laceration seemed to occur around the area where the summit reached the heavens, making it seem as if the clouds were forming a vortex around the very top of that dagger, gyrating around like miniature hurricanes, the clouds colliding and entwining themselves impetuously. I found myself frozen, ironically not because of the cold, in a few seconds, I found myself trekking up that path, imagining the top of that mount, where perhaps if I reached out my arms far enough, I could feel the celestial heavens above as well.
"The problem isn't distance. Two people could be separated by the span of continents and still be held strongly together, two people might be physically entangled every moment yet still have doubts about their placement with each other" - Unknown
Distance, a word that typically, when paired with "long" tends to strike fear in the hearts of people. I mean, who would want to have a close friend, colleague or lover be on the other side of the world, kept away from them for large portions of time, never having the comfort of a physical presence nearby? Not many I would assume. When someone dear to us has to leave the country, or move schools, houses or simply relocate for that matter, we are filled with dread, especially if it is a childhood friend or someone we have spent large portions of time with and it hurts, it hurts so much to see someone like that just...move away from you because we got so accustomed to their presence. We get attached to their jokes, laughs, advice, so much time spent with someone allows us to enjoy being around them so much that it often physically and mentally
aches to watch them leave.
Isn't that so? I'm sure all of you have had a moment where you've had to say goodbye to someone close, had to hold in tears and emotion as you watch them enter the car, bus, train or airport, not knowing the next time you might meet them. It changes you as a person as well. You start to realize how short a time you have with everyone and you start cherishing the time you have with others more because you now know that it is impossible to tell when someone may have to leave. In essence, it is a horrible feeling, to have to part ways with someone you had dreams with, having to let go of those images you had in your mind of vivid and joyous futures together, laughing and joking, just as you used to.
It often separates us, not just physically but emotionally. It is something I always find...in some way shape or form, wrong about society. People often say that trying to hold a relationship with a friend that is living far away from you is a difficult thing and that it shouldn't be held on to because it "probably won't last". It's not a good mindset to have. Trust me in the end, what separates two people that used to be extremely close isn't actually distance, but each individual's need and want to hold the relationship together.
If you really want to stay friends with someone you've known for a long time, you will obviously try and keep contact with them, manage however you can because you still value them and you want to hold on to the friendship that you created as best as possible. It's come to a point in the world where people immediately assume that just because there is a distance between two people, it is quite impossible to hold a friendship. Yes, it does "work out" if you actually try to make it work. A bond only fails when you let it break when you stop trying to hold that bond together, no matter how close you are physically. It will not matter because, in your mind, you don't want to hold on to it.
Distance is not what separates people, it is our will and needs to hold the bond that grows weak and ends up in friends and lovers growing apart. Patience is an important factor in situations such as these. You need to...believe that one day you will get to meet the said person(s) again, it starts with you. Make a phone call every now and then, arrange a voice chat or just simply text the person once or twice a day, it does not take much time and it will ensure that time passing between your friends, even in different time zones do not affect the emotional bond as much because even if they are not always physically there, the PERSON, their personality can still be transferred through a screen or simply through their voice. Believe in the bonds you have built, they are not broken that easily. To be honest they are hardly "broken", what usually happens is that both parties just decide to "let go".
Don't let friends become just a memory. Down the path, you will look back and you will hope that you would have kept your friends when you were still close, and you will be filled with regret. Trust me the feeling of overwhelming nostalgia is all too familiar to me and it does not feel pleasant. Have hope, trust that one day you will have what you dreamt of having, our power, while it may not be "supernatural" relies on being able to believe in what may not initially look possible and turn it into a reality. Nothing is out of reach as long as we do not give in. Your will is the only thing that stands between you and your hopes, as long as YOU believe, the world will be inclined to provide.
"The distance between us doesn't matter, as long as I find you at the end of this road"
