Recent Thoughts

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Whatever

Sometimes, people try to run away from pain and their troubles. Imagine a linear track. You run into an obstacle which will trouble you and cause you pain. You run away from it. You might have saved yourself from that trouble and pain and ended up taking an easy path. Ultimately, all you’re doing is running back to where you came from. That’ll explain the easy path for the obstacles have already been removed.

You’re not going to get anything for running back because you’ve passed through there and have taken whatever there is to pick up.

There’s no pride in running away. There’s nothing to be gained from it. (I’ll ignore all the minor arguments here. Also, no need to quote the cliché “He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.”) I’m a strong believer in tackling my problems for even if I fail, I’d still like to believe that I gained something.

When you run away, you’re just causing yourself more harm than going through the obstacle would have.

If you’re knowingly headed for a dead end, don’t bother pursuing the path for when you reach the end, you’ll have to turn back and that’s where the pain and suffering lies. When you realised that you were headed for a dead end, you thought to yourself that you’d just deal with the problem when you faced it. That way, you wouldn’t have to turn back right now (I’m linking turning back to pain and troubles). It’s the easy way out. Problem is, when you reach the end, you’ve just set yourself up for loads more pain since you have a longer way to go back.

Life’s not linear. So, imagine when you’re running away from your problem. Running along a straight track, what do you notice? The path splits into several different ones. Now you’re really screwed. All these paths are headed away from the obstacle (beyond which lies progress) but you don’t know where they lead. Enjoy!

Once Man learnt how to continue working after sunset (through the use of fire), they managed to increase their progress rate. That’s the way to go. When you have to wait for the light to return before you can continue, those hours of darkness are simply wasted. Similarly, when you’re running along the track and then you have to wait for something to happen before you can continue, then the time spent waiting is wasted.

Imagine being in a relationship. Now, the two of you are running down the track together. Every now and then, you have to split to take separate paths but you meet up again when the paths rejoin. When one reaches the rendezvous point before the other, the first one has to wait. Time’s being wasted.

Here’s a second train of thought. Perhaps that time isn’t being wasted. Or it’s only being wasted if it’s spent waiting. The time could be spent paving the path to make it easier for other people to run down. Or, it could be spent preparing a nice welcome for your significant other. Then again, you could just spend the time reflecting on the paths you’ve taken. You could slow down and smell the proverbial flowers.

A third one? What am I working towards? Progress will only get me so far. Is the whole concept of perhaps trivialising life into a series of winding paths flawed so profoundly that I need to rethink the whole thing?

It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to just lean back in my chair and stare out the window. Before, I just felt like doing it. Now, I don’t get that feeling. I look out the window but I don’t see anything. I have too many things on my mind all the time now to let me relax and tune out the world. My mother would tell me that I shouldn’t worry about things especially at my age. It’s not worrying about pointless things. My burdens are those imposed by others for every time I get a stable base to experiment with, others tend to disrupt the base.

Two people who’ve been frequenting the tag-board are “Lola” and “Gucci”. I don’t know who these two are. I imagine that they are friends of the person who used to have this URL before and when I took over the site, they stumbled across mine. I’m surprised that they’ve continued to read my thoughts.

In any case, I thought “Lola” was a girl but now there are hints that it’s a He. I always was under the impression that “Gucci” was a girl by the nick. Guys simply aren’t into fashion that much though I know some are. But her style of talking makes me think that it has to be a girl. Especially now, after her heart-rendering speech of 200 characters per tag on the board.

University students perhaps? For a while, I thought that they might be Oriental too, but I’m undecided about that again.

I said girls are clingy. I don’t think I said that they were needy. They certainly don’t need me because I know women are capable of getting along perfectly fine. I like my personal space and maybe someday, I’ll be willing to share it with some girl. However, at the moment, I can’t do that. I need to meet the girl first. She’ll be worth giving up my personal space.

You’re just stereotyping us guys, “Gucci”. We’re not all stinky and hairy. We don’t all walk funny. We don’t all have bloated egos or need to complain about everything. (I am doing a typical guy thing though… getting defenseive).

I, for one, am quite hairless. So are most Oriental men. My friend “Artsie” never stinks. We might walk funny but perhaps that’s just relative to a girl’s way of walking.

I have an ego. However, it’s dormant when I need it to be. I couldn’t care less about what I thought of myself or what other people thought about me. There’s no ego to inflate. Yet, there are many aspects of my thinking that are egotistical. I always imagine myself being a strong person and not needing others to support me. There was a time when I was confident of being able to get by on my own. I suppose I’ve crossed the fine line between confidence and arrogance.

I only make eye contact with girls and my pants fit me nicely, thank you very much!

I wonder if it’s the same case with you as it is with some of my female friends. They said that every guy who’s passed through their life has been a jerk, etc. I wonder what sort of guys they hung out with because I know that the people I call my friends would never be jerks to girls.

I’ve been saying it for a long time that my attitude would drive away everyone (not just girls). My attitude is that of a lone wolf. I keep everyone else away from me but I make sure I’m noticed. Does that sound right? I don’t quite know…

There’s no way that I’ll ever hook up with some blonde cheerleader with blue eyes. I prefer good old-fashioned desi girls. There’s nothing that can ever beat them in my opinion.

How many people know what it’s like to like someone but not know whether they like you back as much? I’m not talking about romance here. Relationships take a back seat to friendships with me. There’s a friend of mine who I trust completely. I’d go to “Friend” for any problem I have and I’d listen to whatever “Friend” would have to say. Yet, I feel that as much as I cherish that friendship, I don’t think “Friend” feels the same. “Friend” doesn’t rely on me and doesn’t confide in me as much as I think “Friend” would with a better friend.

One -> I’m whining about why my friend doesn’t like me more! How sad is that?
Two -> I always push people away and now I’m complaining about why this one isn’t “close”.

Why can’t people just leave things as they are? Why can’t people accept the simple truth instead of burrowing deeper for a reason that is better suited for them?

“Don’t you care, Taab?”
“Not one bit. There’s no point to caring about that.”

Then ensues a long conversation where I’m analysed. Was there something wrong with my answer? I said I don’t care because there’s no point in caring about that thing.

I’m tired… I’ve had enough of people trying to get close to me. There are only a few to whom I’ve given unrestricted passage and when others try to get in, I just push them away.

I make it sound like it’s all about me. That everyone wants to get close to me. I’m that good that everyone wants to be good friends with me. I know that’s not true. It sounds like that, but it’s misleading. I know that at the end of the day, I can count my close friends on one hand and I’ve got enough good friends to know that I’m lucky to have them around.

Everything becomes a big deal here in blogworld. It sounds like everything means so much to me and that I’m so worked up over it. Everything I write here just becomes a huge ordeal. I’d be better off shutting up again.

I’m just trying to lead a simple life. I don’t need people complicating it.