Past

“We will never cease our critique of those persons who distort the past, rewrite it, falsify it, who exaggerate the importance of one event and fail to mention some other; such a critique is proper (it cannot fail to be), but it doesn't count for much unless a more basic critique precedes it: a critique of human memory as such. For after all, what can memory actually do, the poor thing? It is only capable of retaining a paltry little scrap of the past, and no one knows why just this scrap and not some other one, since in each of us the choice occurs mysteriously, outside our will or our interests. We won't understand a thing about human life if we persist in avoiding the most obvious fact: that a reality no longer is what it was when it was; it cannot be reconstructed. Even the most voluminous archives cannot help.” ~ Milan Kundera

Swaying

The minutes crawl by as I sit here watching the march of hands circle by towards what remains of a yesterday that is a day that's meant to be special, a day that's 'mine', a day as they unhesitatingly proclaims is meant to be 'great'.

But I'm just here at the end of what is an extremely ordinary day punctuated only by intermittent buzzes of well-wishes and reminders of good-willed wishers parting with formalities only because the marvels of technology have now allowed us to 'not-forget'.

Amidst the doodle on the board, the random scribblings of cliche and vacuous greetings, delivered by those once-a-year greeters who remember your existence only because of electronic reminders (and spout further of how it's 'been a long while'), I inch closer to search for a familiar name, a familiar voice that I miss dearly.

But I see none, I hear none. And though the tears have stopped rolling and the pain has eased, I still hope. Hoping that you'd remember, that you'd still remember. Because I do.

Because I still love you.

Fantasy

Have you ever felt out-of-joint and out-of-place, never quite fitting in, never quite 'human,' never quite being in and with the crowd, never quite part of the 'norm,' never quite believing in the fictions that life has turned reality, never quite belonging to any place, any one, or anything; always an alien in a dislocated time and place.

I've always and that has never changed.

Perhaps, in theories of past-life regressions, it is who I once was in a different life; perhaps its the neurons that have shot wrong-way round in my head; perhaps its the unconscious manipulating consciousness.

Whichever the reason, if there is, I long to be in a different time, a different place. Where the world was still right-side up and humanity had clarity of mind and vision (perhaps there never was); a place and time where we knew less and believed more, rationalised less yet understood more.

I long to be in a time and place where my life meant less than truths and beliefs that extended beyond selfish desires which centre no more than the meaningless and incessant materialism and consumption. A time and place that I would readily give life up for a greater value, a deeper purpose. A time and place that had meaning...

It's probably a romanticisation of the heroic past or the idyllic pastoral, a world of More's utopia that never was when we strip history of its nostalgia. Perhaps it's a world that exists only in Tolkein's imagination, where myth, fantasy, sacrifice and truth had greater value thanthan an iPhone or crude oil...

But it's a world that I long to be in. Even if it were only in imagination.

Modernity, for all its material progress, has lost its soul...

Own

Back to being alone.

Nobody ever replies when I need them...

Mist

At this point in what has been such a long journey of my life, all I really want is to

Dissipate

into the air like wisps and mists. I am already forgotten.

All that is material disappoints and living with materiality is a life that can only be burdensome.

They say happiness is a choice but if happiness were the natural condition, why do we need to 'pursue' it?

I just want to fade away.