And Linkin Park’s Breaking the Habit does it so awesomely!

This video won the Viewer’s Choice Award for the 2004 MTV VMA.

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Remains to be seen. Just a question of time I suppose, before I lock up and die inside. Or am I already dead? Am I just a living husk of a life, devoid of true sentiments? A reflection of what I presume to be should be? Like crying for a sad movie, even if I do not feel the appropriate sadness.

It be, that world which I so love to loathe, yet love unequivocally. Why do I bring this on myself? Is it a self induced test? Or is it just a hatred of my being? What is it that I desire? What is it that I want?

I don’t know.

I just feel sad, and bad, and hopeless. What is there to live for? If I feel that what I’m living for is unattainable, through where I am living this, why should I even bother to live it so? It’s a measure, I suppose, of how confused I am. And it may not be just confusion. It might go beyond that. Is what I feel just plain laziness or is it a sadness I can’t comprehend?

Life, who lives it the way it’s supposed to? What is life? The culmination of dreams? If so, once these are reached, do you dream of life all over again?

That too, remains to be seen. But to see is to believe. Believe. Beliefs. What are mine? Are they truly mine or someone else’s? Are they what I feel to be is mine?

I cannot say.

Do I think clearly? I suppose as well as the next person. But is seeing clearly the ideal? Maybe in life, some things are meant to be seen as murky.

But does that really make sense?

Who am I to know all this? Even if I knew, what possibilities can I derive from it? Not much, just think on them I suppose.

So, will today shape up to be that day?

On a piece of paper, scribbled some years ago, I found this.

LogsLeft.

But then, I do think that it’s a whole lot better than walking around after having my skull cracked open with an axe.

Ouch!

So that’s one good thought happening today. In context, of course.

(I think I brought in my punch line way early in this post.)

I didn’t have the terrible ache in me heads this morning. It kind of built up over the day, for no apparent reason that I can isolate. I don’t think I even noticed it until I slowed down and had to mull over something. But mulling was impeded by the discovery of the throb throb THROB THROBBBbbbb.

Of course I got irritated at first. I mean, there’s an unwanted situation going on in my control room, forcing me to allocate a significant portion of my scarce resources to resolving that. But I didn’t have the time to heed what Control was telling me. You know, stuff like, lie down, take some painkillers, massage temples, so many remedies on the spot. All shot down, on the spot.

Pound Pound POUND!

So here I am now, sipping a cuppa coffee, squinting through my lashes at this horrendously bright screen, trying to get a word in edgewise through the thrumming. My gawd, why are headaches so LOUD?

This is a physical headache. Then there are those headaches that are situational. And of the two, the latter fares worse. Oh so much worse.

It’s pouring and am stuck here. Headache.

Why is my ex talking to my potential? Headache.

I have another case to work on? Headache.

I have so much to do, I can’t afford to have a headache now. Headache.

But then the good thing that can be said about a situational headache is that they don’t physically affect you. They just have the knack of sapping away any strength or will or satisfaction you may have at that point in time. Knowing that and understanding that is vital.

Coz a headache inducing situation is, how can I say… all in the head!

LogsLeft.

This, uttered by the insightful craziness from my opposite sex doppelganger, has stuck to me. This phrase, so simple and yet so encompassing of, like, everything, has given me a confidence in my daily, weekly and projectly dealings ALONG with accessing a level of tolerance and understanding of others and situations that I would not have had if I had not heard that.

And thought about it.

She might not even realise the impact she had when she made that statement, in passing at that, as she referred to my less than neat handwriting. A handwriting that was once compared to what a cockroach dipped in ink would leave across a piece of paper as it scurried across.

I had suffered throughout my school years with my handwriting. I remember once, in primary school, I got a 9.5 out of a 10 for the essay in this English exam. But just next to that, crossed out in the stern red ink that teachers’ employ to exert their authority, was a 2!

A TWO! Out of a possible TEN!

I asked my class teacher about it and she said that the one who marked the paper gave me that abysmal mark initially, and that she had to sit down with the marker and read out the essay, word by word. And then only did my score jump to a 9.5.

And art classes were worse. And I couldn’t have anyone around to explain on my behalf that this was a coconut palm and that was a boat now, could I?

So, going back to my doppelganger’s words, I became fuelled with the idea that everything is perfect, in it’s own way, and undertook the most daring of modules (I was doing my first degree then). One on graphic design that was all about the drawing and stuff. Stepping so out of my comfort zone that, when I was handed the module outline, every pore on my skin erupted in a frenzy of sweat. Especially considering that the previous batch barely scraped through, a C their highest. I already had unintelligible handwriting, how on earth was I supposed to DRAW?

My work would be perfect, in it’s own way. Mantra.

I poured my heart and soul into the formidable module (formaduble), going overboard trying to get the lines drawn with Pantone markers to not dry when I applied the next jagged one, understanding that red was HOT and blue was COOL, updating my design ledger so much that it became a scrapbook of doodles, spending hours on end poring over art books in the library…

And I got an A.

Me, whose handwriting was indecipherable and couldn’t draw a proper stick figure, was hailed as a hero in my class.

Cockroach scurries still emerge from the tip of my pencil (as you can well attest to, dear reader). But now, I don’t feel apologetic for it, nor worried. At all.

Coz, it’s perfect, in it’s own way.

LogsLeft.

P.S. Thank you, doppelganger. You are perfect.

He’s a bundle of fun in the smallest of packages, and yet annoyingly riddled with the most adorable of questions. He just has to open his mouth, and out spills all these sentences trailed by question marks.

And because of the wide eyed intensity that is dispelled with these, it’s hard not to answer each and every one.

“If the world is round, why are my feet flat?”

I mean, seriously! How can you not just cuddle the breath out of him for that? I try, believe me, I really do try to answer each question. I do reward myself with an effusive squeeze of whatever elusive limb within my grasp. Lil bro is quite adept now at shirking away from the usually painful responsibility of being my real life teddy bear, though his intense curiosity makes him wander within the range of my snaring hands all the time.

Him: “Don’t go, stay “
Me: “Ok, I’ll stay”
Him: “Why?”

The most frequent and normally dreaded “Why?” Dear reader, tell me how to answer that sequence up there.

And I’ve been stumped for any number of countless reasons in trying to come up with an explainable AND coherent answer to the inexplicable…

“Why?”

And not just from my wee bro.

Think about it.

It’s not like we don’t ask the why all the time in our daily routines. In fact, I think I ask the same every five minutes of my existence.

“Why do I have to get out of bed today?”

“Why am I getting a phone call?”

“Why is the sun so hot?”

“Why is there a &*$?@!% cloud in front of the sun?”

And the All-Time-Non-Stop-Classic-Hit…

“WHY is this happening to me???”

Yes, the “why” crops up a lot.

While my buddy bro grills me purely to sate his insatiable curiosity (one answer ironically initiates ten thousand befuddling inquiries), we ask the same, but less out of curiosity than to… maybe… complain?

So, why not just answer the why?

… Zed.

Because old habits die hard.

LogsLeft.

Yes, character. The kind that some inanimate objects possess in higher quantities than their animated cohabitants. Us.

And of such gifts that I got, the most endearing are those that were randomly picked up. Stones, rocks, pebbles top the pile here. I have a growing collection of earthy bits swiped off from various nooks, crannies and crevices from all over the earth.

Just today, I got a bag of gravel that my little brother picked up from a construction site in a nearby island. He said that the moment he saw the battered stones, he rushed over to pick them up, because he had noticed my ever increasing presents pile.

I can just imagine him fisting up the sharp edged stones and shoving them in his pockets, all the while excited about how excited his big brother would be when he eventually presented his hurried harvest.

And big bro was, majorly!

Now that’s a present with character. And I have displayed the shiny specked grey stones across the shelf. Just think of the story of thoughts that went into them being scattered there.

Do you see it?

Over the years, I have accumulated quite a lot of these. Small pebbles from a stream in Geneva, granite chips from the trail leading to Khyber Pass, a bit of a cobblestone from a narrow walkway in London, sand grains from Liberty Island, a red rock from an island near Bali, a lump of lava from Iceland…the list goes on and on.

Each and every one of these presents, when received, has a meeting, loud exclamations of gratitude, long conversations, and recollection of travels.

But the most important of all this is that I was there, in their thoughts, when they swooped down to do some collecting.

Inexpensive and effortless. Wholly priceless.

Now, that’s a true present.

LogsLeft.

Turning around in the night
To find the joy of light
I find nothing but absence
No sign, no clue, no essence

I hopelessly search the darkness
For any light in the distance
I find my eyes are closed
For fear of seeing naught

My endless soul, I grope
To find even a flicker of hope
Making another countless tear
Ruptured wounds do fester

Screaming silently for sight
I huddle away as from blight
Scars bleed to weep sorrow
Into my trembling marrow

When all hope is sundered
Life itself is surrendered
With abating terror so slow
I sense an ever faint glow

Hands caress my eyes wide
My soul is healed with light
For you are in front of me
Close to me, where I can see

LogsLeft.

There, I said it. It’s out there. There. Can you see it? Yes, there!

And that happened monumentally today. I mean, it was epic how I was arrested by the cops of unawares and thrown into a cagey situation. I wanted to pound myself against the bars of unexpectedness and scream unintelligibly and throw myself on the floor – a ball of convulsions.

Of course, all this happened in my head. For all the good it did.

Some years ago, I had a few sessions with a shrink, and while I came out all normal and… mundane, I was discovered to have a little something of a disorder. Catastrophisation. In very diluted strains. Like the strength of a cup of tea if the teabag is dipped in and pulled out in one quick motion.

But to live it is like having left the teabag in for years, on end.

As the name suggests, I have an inclination to make a catastrophe of any given situation. Brewing storms in teacups is a way of life. Couple this with an overly active imagination that functions at warp speeds, I become, in essence, an impromptu mess.

So, today, I built up the surprise attack situation to galactic proportions, exploding star-red giant- white dwarf-black hole-birthing proportions. Oh, this has to be the worst thing that has ever happened to me. My poor little me can’t take it. Can’t. Can’t. CAN’T!

When I had about peeled off the skin off my internal face grating it against the imagined floor in a fit of terrified whimpering (and this is a milestonic low)…I thought…

Really? Impossible? Unbearable?

No it wasn’t. Just… (hating to admit it)… mildly… uncomfortable, and about as intimidating as the strength of a cup of tea if the teabag is dipped in and pulled out in one quick motion.

Point!

Cosmic catastrophic events can be created in cups. But it’s the situation which is confined. Not me.

Next time, I’ll remind myself of that.

LogsLeft.