today.

life is a tangled mess of misfortune and failure, and here I am trying to book tickets to watch ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ for the lowest I could afford.
Sometimes I am never quite sure of how to deal with all the wretchedness. You see, when I am alone, I feel inclined to be strong and vow not to be brought down by all the continued setbacks. When I am alone, I don’t despair nearly as much as I do when I lock myself in a room only because people make me feel shut-out. Most miraculously, when I am alone, I succeed at my attempt to see the humor in every struggle to keep myself alive. Also, never forget about perspective, you know? With the current state of things, I have come dangerously close to losing my sense of perspective and my sanity. Loss of perspective comes very easy when you’re alone in a room and there’s lots of uncontrollable sobbing involved and strange pains in your worn-out chest. So when I come to work, which, although at this point in my life is the single most nerve-wracking duty of the day I have no choice but to attend to, something as simple as deciding to go read the daily news is enough to remind me of the thoughts my much saner self was capable of forming: the world is burning, quite literally so, and it is essential that I not lose it completely and elevate my own weeny conflicts to much exaggerated levels, considering how the world is at war and people are dying as a result of thoughtless decisions on the part of a few ruthless men.

I started the day off looking at a picture of small children in Israel escaping the monstrosity- their safety precarious and not guaranteed. Browsing through other articles lead me to a news report on how Gaza was using civilians as a human shield and there was all this talk of war strategy- coldly, blandly, in the face of death and misery among real humans whose fate wasn’t factored into the decision to set off explosions all over the place; there was mechanical reporting, the 21st century substitute for real journalism, perhaps; and there were cryptic quotes from people supposedly in control of the situation. Depressing, hugely depressing. I, however, mention this not to set off a debate that shall never end (I hate obnoxious political discussions), but to explain how the larger picture is a not-so-gentle reminder to keep our own pictures in perspective with the sufferings of others. It’s hard, understandably so, but I can’t help but feel strongly about this, perhaps with an urgency because personally, I currently live in an environment where important matters are trivialized and menial things are given undue attention.
Not a single day goes by without me wondering: ‘what has the world come to?’ Where I live (not by choice), all I see are people who’ve become robots, nothings, brought up on whacked-out norms and convention, dictated and handed down for ages by people we no longer can trace in order to push them off a cliff.
I doubt whether a lot of people really grasp how deep the fire burns. A while ago I had made a note in my journal how one fine day reading the international section of the News couldn’t help but make you feel like too many countries were in turmoil all at once, and the respective reasons bordered more along dubious lines (but aren’t all modern man-made conflicts dubious?) than sane ones. I wrote about how the world had reduced to something so easily inflammable, people blowing up and taking offence at the merest comment or observation. Turmoil, more turmoil. There is more talk of rape and teaching women to stay away from men than there is healthy talk of sex and the good it does and the beauty of real lovemaking. There are more shouts of ‘why?!’ than attempts to understand tough policy decisions that may be beneficial in the long run. There is an endless debate on gun-control and violence. Perhaps the lone genuine gun-enthusiast cannot have an opinion without being judged and probably cannot proudly teach his son to be a good aim and a responsible human at the same time. This is the 21st century and my country has banned homosexuality. What good is it to have ‘equality’ emblazoned in dramatic letters in Constitutions and Declarations of Independence if we do not even understand the word’s literal meaning? Nobody’s equal, man. Nobody. Watch how people treat their house help. Look at how the different girl hides who she really is. Ignore the man who is slave to his parents. Walk through an office place and you see the difference between the fancy and the excessively fancy and the enigmatic fanci-est determined to stay in fancy glass cabins – Nope, no such thing as equality. I’d like to see Fanciest cabin-man have lunch with a non-fancy new employee and I’ll go easy on humanity. Maybe. (Not if they talk about number-crunching or an obnoxious political discussion ensues.)

The Internet is flooded by the voice of the ‘rebel’ youth, you know everywhere you look people putting it out there that they’re all for women’s rights and such. Article after article I seem to come across, loud arguments for feminism and equal rights and against rape and rape culture- stop! I’m not denying the internet can reach places and it’s good young people are aware of what’s morally right, but if everybody starts saying the same thing over and over on a virtual space that the right people at the top may not even notice, it gets a little redundant and -(I foresee your expression of contempt) overstated. If you know a certain act is wrong, and if you’re just writing to say it’s wrong- what’s the point? I’m sorry (I really am. You should look at my face right now) but will it stop the particular bad-doer in some creepy part of the city from doing said bad thing? Would it broaden the mind of that little-minded creep who tends to stare at women? Would it stop a murdering hand from slaying his victim?

Believe me, I am as helpless as you. If I am questioning the need for raucously loud opinions on the web and other media, I am also wondering what, then, could actually bring about some sort of change. I am saddened by an uneducated man, more so by an uneducated woman. I am angered by educated men and educated women who cannot teach their children to be better humans. I ridicule the foolish rich, happily. I am perplexed by pointless confrontations and road rage. And though it makes me uncomfortable to reveal this: suffering makes me suffer. So maybe this is why reading all the shouts made me feel like they were just getting lost in the noise.
It made me feel like I had nothing to write about when everybody was talking about these current issues day after day. Perhaps selfishly, I wished just to live in some part of this world where all kinds of crazy artists and intellects were accepted and where people didn’t kill each other so often. That’s when I noticed that fact about the International section. Oh well. Never pays to be selfish.

today has been strangely not bone-crushingly hard to get through. Perhaps because I decided to try and face just this one day more. Perhaps because I held on to my sanity (not without effort). Or perhaps because I decided to actually write something. This is both depressing and encouraging depending on which way I look at it: that i had no work to do so i turned to writing; OR that it’s a bit of a personal achievement, me reaching this far in a single attempt and so close to hitting publish for the very first time. The whole thing comes full circle to the necessity of perspective I spoke of: it’s very easy for some and very hard for others to look at the bigger picture. For me it becomes easy whenever I’m able to separate my own demons as far as possible from my sense of reason. ‘Cause you know you’re in trouble when the two get introduced.