My life is in a dreamlike state rn. I had dreamt of it often (in morbid moments) but now it has come to pass and is yet to register in my mind conditioned to my usual lifestyle. I’m officially a drifter now. All I own is packed in 3 bags and been 2 weeks I’m flitting aimlessly from town to city, wasting my meagre savings on the cheapest possible modes of transport, dingy hotel rooms and bad food. Writing this from an unclean double-bed in a shady lodge above a lingerie shop. It’s no bother actually. Could get a lot worse. I think by now I’m ready for the depths of hell. I’m tired and my feet are hurting. I think I’ll end this nonsense long before I run out of money.
It’s really not hellfire but the present living judgment on earth thats terrifying. It’s the broken people I’ll leave behind on earth that’ll make hell unbearable.
I don’t recall how I came across this, now I have to pass it on like those haunted VHS tape movies.
Seriously I wish I hadn’t listened to this last night trying to sleep. It induced a sickening feeling that in a few years, probably a decade, my parents might begin their old age decline and all their hopes and feelings they put in me will wither away with them. And even if I’d have succeeded in not killing myself before their time, I’d still have failed them and left them at the banks of styx unfulfilled and even wronged. Unable to sleep rn, thinking of what bleak destinies some decent folk may be subjected to.
But at the drop of the curtain, it’ll end in general disapproval. I accept the blame tho. I consistently disappointed people who put hopes in me. Let everyone down from teenage upwards. Worst thing is, I couldn’t do justice to the love and affection of good, honest folk and in my self-loathing, been pushing them away too. It pains not so much that I’ve failed in the game of life as it pains to realise that I’ve failed well-meaning fellow beings who deserved better.
If I could foresee the course of my life and had a choice, I’d gladly choose either not being brought to life at all or else born an orphan in a decadent, crime-infested environment, where my follies would impinge only upon other low-lifes like me that had it coming anyway as their bad karma. That’d atleast relieve me of this suffocating regret.
Right now feels like there’s a churning happening somewhere. I’ve spent the last few days in silent anguish and near constant torment over this and that, mostly work-related stress. Everyday for the past week I expected to be fired and it could’ve culminated at a Friday meeting but ended in anticlimax. Nothing happened.
I just can’t keep doing this week after week. Certainly not year after year because this is not living. Or else living without reason. I’m ashamed of even admitting any sincerity in my line of work cause it is simply frivolous as far as making the world go round is concerned.
But today, power’s out in the whole area so I can’t work. And oh, it feels great! I can’t explain the feeling as I write this down lying on the cold floor. This just feels so right that things have come to standstill at this moment. It’s a blissfully still moment. Like fresh, clean, cool, still mountain water without a ripple.
I’m preparing this coming weekend for quitting next week. This has to stop. Don’t have much in the way of savings tho. But fuck it, we’ll see, this has to stop somewhere.
Only not yet but sometime in the future, most probably after my parents have passed.
Silly pop culture reference to take inspiration from but my living condition now is a lot sillier, and not even in a dark humored way like in the movies. Anything’s an improvement really. More solemn inspiration, I read somewhere about early christian monastics from 2nd or 3rd century who went so crazy for Jesus as to wander off into the desert and remain there as way of taming the flesh before seeing the light.
While I don’t mind meeting Jesus in the desert, taming the flesh isn’t a concern. I’m rather fond of flesh tbh. My simple reason is to be able to log out on my own terms, in secret and with no drama around it.
I had a strange dream the night before yesterday (maybe it was early morning) in which I saw one of my former friends (by now Ive pushed them all away for good). He was a cool friendly dude back when I knew him and quite healthy as far as I remember. But in this dream he bumped into me at an airport lounge and I was dream shocked at his wasted appearance. His mouth was twisted and spine was crooked. I couldn’t make sense of his impaired speech. Then there was a nonsensical flash back into what had happened to him – he got hit by a police water cannon while street protesting about something. Back to the dream present, I asked him if we eat something in the cafeteria to which he told he can only drink his food as fluids and just turned about and limped away.
At which point I woke up with a heavy feeling of sadness lodged somewhere in my chest. A sense of shame and guilt of having been cruel to good people in my life – a few good, decent people in a world crowded with assholes. I recalled instances when someone had tried to be friends and I had brazenly ignored them because, you know, they be killin my darkaf vibe.
Then I had a bad day at work and felt like just quitting and running away. No matter where, just run away. And keep running until my legs crumpled like rags leaving me to gasp my last in the middle of some desert.
I understand life is short for everyone. I know, despite of their personal troubles, a lot of people manage to turn their lives into beacons of light and hope for others around them. If I could possibly play that part, I’d like to live a thousand years. But there is something irredeemable about this constant tide of sorrow because it tends to spread my gloom out upon the world and I can’t help it. I’ve tried and always failed. It’s as if some gods have written down into the script that so long as I live I’ll keep hurting me and my fellow beings who get too close.
I’m scared out of my wits most of nowadays, feeling like sneaky mouse surrounded by giants. That’s my place in the world and I’m scared of evrything, of men and women stronger than me, smarter than me, better looking, wittier, more successful one way or another, kinder or morally superior to me.
I realize now how little I understand the world. I’m like a human with a chimp’s mind, worthy only of condescending pity.
I just don’t know what to believe/disbelieve anymore. It’s beyond me to deal with reality. And what is reality btw? Everything is supernatural so far as I can see because I’m a witless beast in a bizarre universe with no physical limits which doesn’t make any sense to me (or maybe with limits which still doesnt make sense).
I’m a puppet in the hands of mere chance. There’s nothing deliberate about me. I do what is usually done; why, because others do the same. I’m not in control of anything. I eat food that is harvested, stored, transported, distributed, sold by a series of strangers. I can’t wrap my head around the process used to make my clothes or my shoes. I’m ignorant of all the technology that makes my phone work. Ditto every other big and small article I have. Totally dependent on unknown unkonwns. I can buy all this stuff because I have a wad of money which I got by doing meaningless work. If I could grow a potato that would have more purpose to it than what I do. And yet I somehow OWN real stuff by getting paid for doing unreal stuff. My undeservedness scares me.
I’m not sure what I’m trying to say. Apologies to anyone who read this expecting coherence. Guess I just need some outlet to my mental torrent. Fucking hell I’m tired of constant thinking.
Drawn partly while listening on loop to The Funeral by Band of Horses
No shit, our little mudball just got done with yet another long, dreary circuit around the big fireball! For the 2,019th time since Jesus. And here we go again for Round#2,020. Hold tight, fellow astronauts, and try not to get bumped off, for it might get a bit bumpy this time around.
Good hope for y’all. Farewell to the fallen – RIP.
Rifling my garbage of memories, kind of auditing my choices and mistakes I’ve made, I realized how many speedbumps, potholes, ditches and wrong turns there had been en route to Shitlifetown, where I’ve taken up lodging. Why did I keep going like that?
I just couldn’t apply the brakes and stop for any course correction. I had no map for my life in front of me either. Okay that’s a dishonest excuse, I guess. Nobody got it except freakin’ Nostradamus. But still so many people make it to Disneyland in season.
Fact is, they made use of their compass and I pawned it off upon hard times. Compass comes in different makes – purpose, happiness, faith, religion, etc. – and is never precise. Mine sure wasn’t. I was seeking my true North and no compass showed it. Others, men and women of the world, put their trust in their compass and followed it even if the damn dial wouldn’t move at all.
In the end, they did get somewhere better than Shitlifetown. Doesn’t matter if the purpose was hollow, happiness shallow, faith deluded or religion out and out demented. Many of them simply didn’t bother about their true North and doggedly drove on towards some fucking North that their faulty compass dictated and behold! they’ve got something to show for it, the men and women of the world! Me, I got nothing but half-assed nihilism and agnosticism.
Given the cocoon of existence within which we pass our lives with no absolutes, is it then better to hold onto some faulty compass, any compass, than none at all? Who knows, I’d have arrived at some shiny happy place as well, where R.E.M’s ‘Shiny Happy People’ loops in the background.
I feel like I’ve lived out my time of life. I find the world around me increasingly unfamiliar. It’s only natural, I suppose. The law of life – the old making way for the new. And I’m fine with that. But it’s happening all too suddenly for me. Too fast to grasp my new place among things. It’s like change accelerated manifold.
But it’s a universal phenomenon. Look at evolution; took us millions of years to get here and now they’re talking of bionic man coming this very century. Take climate change; for ages temperatures varied just a few degrees and now we’re looking at being cooked at 2 degrees higher this very century. Humans have been mostly hand to mouth since cavemen era, kept busy with work in order to survive and now they’re bringing AI to gradually take out most jobs by the end of this century.
I can’t relate to turns of events anymore. I’m not following any pop culture the way I used to. I’m not up to date with current affairs, tired of news. Not keeping up with latest tech. Not abreast with social dynamics like relationships.
It all points to my decaying psyche. That’s how growing old works, I guess, though I’m aging quite prematurely, poor me. Nah, that’s fine by me. I’m not enchanted with youth and beauty anyways, not anymore. I’m ready to be left behind in the darkness, stillness and silence of bygone time. Leave me in peace, restless lives! Let me die in peace…
Wonder what spectacular, momentous events are taking place right now in places out of human reach. As I go about my days fretting over my sorry lot – lack of money, poor health, sucky job, low social status, zero relationships, no dreams and pathetic desires, there is something grand happening far out above, unconscious of me. Planets are floating, comets zipping by, stars exploding, molten lava furiously churning, gas clouds sparkling with the birth of stars, chaos amidst silence. Eternal unlike my time on earth and infinite unlike the ground I amble upon.
Sure they’re just dead matter whereas I’m a sentient Human of the 21st century. But would I be any worse off if I turn into a rock this moment? Will the universe a shit? Regardless of what I do with my silly little life here on this planet, would it in the end have any more meaning to it than it’d have if I was a hobo asteroid hurtling alone across the cosmic emptiness for eons, before finally banging head-on into some reptile infested planet?
But here I am, stuck in a particular way of being, so I’ll go on living like billions of others do and carry my curse of consciousness till the very end. Effectively, my life is already over. I’ve no goals ahead. No ambitions. I’ve been eating from the toil of poor farmers all these years without giving anything back. I’m no benefactor of humankind and society got a dirty deal off me. I’m not going to marry and spawn offspring either, so my genes get a dirty deal too from their organism. In short, I’m going to live like a rock lying in mud, oblivious to the wonder of existence in a mind-boggling universe. I’ll continue to exist. I won’t kill myself . Just for the heck of it.
End of pointless rant. Sorry for wasting anyone’s time.
“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The town’s poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. Maybe they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which should be more disreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do
not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.”
…this is the only ‘social’ media that I’ll grace with my presence from now on.
Months ago I read a serious article online, advising netizens on their way out to make sure not to leave behind their digital footprint lest it be misused after their exit. Decided to act on the advice now.
Never been on snapchat or instagram. Put facebook for deactivation more than a month ago. Checked outta linkedin and behance last week. Left my whatsapp groups (except four that’d raise questions); will uninstall it after quitting my job next to next month. Deleted an alternate email account (wasn’t using it much anyway, tbh). I’ll soon be deleting my only email account and get rid of my cellphone. Way to go, hobo!
The infinite void outside this planet is so perfect and sublime precisely because its limitless. How silly of me for seeking perfection all the while being trapped within a limited body.
Truly the best of all existence is one that does not exist. They can never point me out at my grave because the chunks of meat being feasted upon by maggots down there are not the person they define. That person is indefinite – nowhere and everywhere at the same time.
The dead of all time are free. They’re above the mediocrity of existence and they’re infinite like the universe. I’m just wasting my time here “enjoying life”.
…but even Once is too much.
Had a bad day at office. I’m not one of the gunner kind but rather dumb. Just some pathetic faceless employee right at the bottom of the pecking order. Today I was the last one to leave after a hectic project delivery. I felt so bitter thinking about what a chronic loser I am. Drifting half-assedly through life, working for peanuts, and even then not knowing what to do with whatever spare dime I’m making. I just couldn’t make any sense of my being in this world.
But then, while waiting at the bus stop, a strange peace descended upon me, like a whiff of cool breeze in prickly humidity. I was reminded that my days of living through this shitty existence are numbered. I’m not hanging around for long now. I won’t keep letting myself be humiliated by my incompetence. I’m not living life my own way but I’m going out on my own terms. And that’s a win I’d say. Better than dying old as fuck on a hospital bed, shitting in pans, pissing in bottles, attended by tired nurses, ‘cared for’ by weary relatives secretly wishing I die already. I was exhausted but thinking about my situation in this new light, I commuted back home quite upbeat.
I just hope I can fix a definite time-bound plan for my exit and somehow be at peace all that while. I hope to die with an empty mind without any thoughts buzzing in my head.
End of rant.
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