.

Don’t we all want the world to smile upon us, admire us, smile upon us, want us. Statistically speaking, that is nearly impossible. Most will trudge through their ignominious lives and die the same way they lived.

I used to look at people, faces, eyes, as I walked around. These days, i catch myself looking at the ground. Sighing shoulders and heaving sighs, questions of worth and confidence dismissed under a cloud, a sense of futility.

There’s no point telling someone to love the status quo – we want the status quo to love us, to oblige our every whim and shift its cobblestones to meet our feet, walking where we please. Wealth, honour, love – the cardinal virtues of life that we all dream of but at the end of every mind-numbing day, we struggle to content ourselves with the little we have and think them much more than they really are. Delusion is a form of self-defense.

Another should-be: I should be making new notes exploring the theme of reputation in Othello. Instead I am exploring the recalcitrance of living. It gnaws and grates my mind demanding attention till my mind is fogged and all meaningful thought is lost in a sea of misery.

Clarity of thought – absent. No wonder the essays turn out confused. No wonder I only get Ds instead of Bs, Cs, and the occasional As of yesteryears. No wonder why I’m so afraid of handing up essays. No wonder I’m see my therapist today. No wonder I feel like cowering in a corner.

Because there’s no wonder left.