Dependence

I've blown 4 inner tubes in 5 days in the exact same way.
There's no cycling now, and I'll probably have to forfeit Sunday's ITT race.
It feels depressing.
I've never realized how much I depend on cycling to start each new day the right way.

Dreams

2008...

Roman aqueducts, 7 or 8 of them piled up one on top of the other in a semi-cylindrical shape with the arches of each row stacked partially off-center. The set-up is placed against a rolling hills and a blue, dawning sky. The whole thing spins - each alternating row in the opposite direction - and clowns run in and out of the arches. It makes me giddy. It makes me fall backwards.

2010...

"YOU, Benjamin Low, are found guilty of practicing Witchcraft and sentenced to Death by Hanging."

It is a precipitous brown brick skyscraper, but the ocean has covered half of it. I'm left to carry out my own sentence, effectively making it a suicide. I wonder if jumping down with the noose lynched around my neck would snap the nerve column and bring a swift death.

Or perhaps I should ride a cart inside the building. Strangely, the flow has a gagged gaping hole as if something massive crashed right through it. It is an office building, with frayed wires sparking through the ceiling and hanging down like treacherous serpents. The computers are flashing on and off, files lie strewn everywhere, and the gale picks up stray white papers, tossing them around like forgotten leaves. The electric passenger carts whizz around it. I wonder if I could whizz in one of them while the noose is tied to a pillar. Maybe that will make it quick as well.


What would Freud or Jung say about these queer dreams (nightmares) that have no apparent cause, association or real-world correspondence? I do not study Roman architecture, only having seen a documentary on the History Channel detailing its construction. I do not watch post-apocalyptic movies where the seas have risen that high. I am not superstitious, most certainly don't believe in witchcraft or similar metaphysical notions, and will definitely contest any such accusation or sentence. Yet I acquiesced. Even worse, I sought to carry it out, albeit with a melancholic air.

While we map the stars, we get lost in in our own psyches. These movies play behind my eyelids.

And I wonder what I'll see tonight.

I hate writing here.

The rear tyre on my precious bicycle has caused multiple friction punctures, and I gotta replace it. It's definitely going to be costly, and I've already spent so much getting a pair of 'aerobars' to boost my speed. It sucks to enhance one aspect only to have problems creep up elsewhere.

Cheap thins are fucked, as are the cheap merchants that sell them. Cutting costs for 'adequate' quality is futile.

It only takes one little incident like this to destroy the past week's high. Life is still so fragile.

Fuck it.

Residual Effects

I've been reading and studying, and not always liking it. Why do I read when the next few years will be full of it?

I think it's to make up for something lost. When I had to stop JC, it dealt a severe blow. I feared that I would lose that 'intellectual status', both in an academic and social sense. JC is over now, but the residual anxieties remain. I believe everything I write on one of my blogs, Deconstruction, is just an attempt to reaffirm my own capabilities.

Mind you, I can't restore the social status given to an intellectual. Only society can do that for me. Very few people read that blog, and no one ever leaves a note about the articles posted there. It's just a more intellectual version of this blog - a shouting box - for me to combat my own fears. This one, Soliloquy, is for existential and affective shadows that won't go away. Anxieties from possible cognitive breakdowns are fought in each post on Deconstruction.

Well, I wonder what my psychologist will have to say about these when we meet next week. It's our first appointment. I hope she'll be more constructive than the previous, deprecating one :)

Self-Diagnosis

I have a penchant for writing intellectual articles with thick, academic language - even though I despise that practice myself. These articles are partly referenced, if at all, and revolve around fundamental issues.

So why do I do this? I don't publish them. All I do is keep them in a desktop folder on my macbook. A few of the better ones make it onto my deconstruction blog. The explanations I find is simple: it is to assure myself that intellectual value is among my personal attributes. It relates to the desire to be recognised for this capacity, and the entailing social status accorded to such individuals.

It is further enhanced by the loss of formal education over the past two years. The JC is an institution that endows members with a certain special status based on the premise of their academic intellect. The episodic compromise of intellect brought about by chronic insomnia threatened not just my self worth, but also my social status as a JC student. I never reclaimed that title, and the latent desire was consciously repressed for a year in order to reduce my misery.

Since then, it has been a constant goal to assimilate back into the JC system - but that chance has gone. Also, having been disillusioned by its incompetence, apathy and commodification of students, that goal has since been tainted with a deep and sordid stain. I have thus been jettisoned from my world view of a proper social phase - that of a pre-university student - and need to reclaim the self-esteem lost back then before I can comfortably head to university without looking back.

Without looking back... that's probably the hardest part. The doubt, the fears, the scars and the anxieties must be removed before I am liberated. It is not a rational issue, explaining the problem doesn't solve it. It is an affective issue that requires an affective solution.

And when I want to celebrate, all my friends are busy elsewhere. Well done man. It's a cold and lonely world. Why am I still alive?

Disbelief

I made it through. On half a JC education under a cloud of drowsy pills, I made it through when others didn't. An 'A' for a highly competitive subject and respectable grades for the rest.

But this is all there is. No fanfare, no big celebration, just a night out with xue wen. She means a lot to me, yes, but so do my other friends. But they were all busy. Army, relationships, internships overseas, theatre projects, personal issues - the reprieve I thought would come was an illusion, or maybe a delusion. I don't know.

I joined a cycling club and an ethics club. No friends there. They are all so old. All working adults. We have nothing to talk about, nothing personal. It's just 'hi' and 'bye'. I have no one to share my elation with, no one to tell me I've done well. I need someone to say this. I need someone to tell me that the light at the tunnel's end is full of affirming warmth, not just a cold, blind dazzle.

Nevermind...

Congratulations

One of my friends in UniMelb tell me that my scores give me a very high chance on entry into my desired course! I can cast my fears aside!

And all my friends are congratulating me on facebook too! I feel so... happy! :D

Despondence

Why am I never satisfied with my grades?

I got the grades A, B and C for full A-Level subjects with only a year of formal schooling. But why do I still feel incensed when the university representatives give me a tenuous smile? Why do I feel like murdering the liaison when he said I may not make the grade for UniMelb even though the university's representative already said I did?

I still hate NYJC. They messed up my testimonials and CCA records. They left me to study on my own when I needed them. They didn't even give me, their student, a tutor or subsidise me when I hired one privately. They even charged me with dishonesty. So tell me, why do I still wish for their respect? Top KI student, distinction. There had better be a plaque of commendation for me on College day. Lest I will become an arsonist.

I still feel disappointed. I could have done so much better if my school actually bothered to find good teachers. I hate my school. I hate my teachers. And above all else, I wish I didn't have to hate anyone at all.

But to win your esteem, Xue Wen, will make up for all the injustice inflicted.

Synthesis

Ataraxia has been achieved, and it's the path to heaven on earth that's prevailed: HURRAH!

Ataraxia

It's like trying to stay happy in the ballroom of the Titanic, when everyone's frantically searching for hope.

Alprazolam 0.25, Clonazepam 0.5 - all just for tomorrow's moment, all this on top of the Lexapro, Remeron, Seroquel Sodium Valporate and a host of other drugs that make other doctors gasp.

Two years I've suffered hell to get here. It must be worth it. Tomorrow I'll be packing a few special items into my bag.


1. My black belt, a symbol of years of hard work and the friends made along the way. A home of sorts, with people, not places.

2. My first Joy Riders jersey - the club where I've begun to make new friends and forge a new away from the horrors of the past. Where for the first time in many years, I've made heads turn and gained status.

4. A black Chinese seal that my team made during our lovely economics trip to China. For new friends in new places, laughing through many joys together.

5. Hayley Westenra's album "Pure" - the album that made me a fan of hers. Hayley's music always cuts through the gloom no matter what they were or how many times I've heard the same songs.

6. A cloud list of names of friends and people who have been special in my life. Xue Wen's will be at the center.

7. (I wish I had some token of affection or consolation from Xue Wen to keep with me)

8. The University of Melbourne 2010 prospectus, where I can meet old friends and make new ones with a fresh start. My dream, my destination, my hope.

9. The book "The Story of Philosophy" by Bryan Magee. It started me on my intellectual journey and has been a constant academic companion ever since.

10. A blank note with a black gash saying "This is what I've been through" - because nothing can describe the pain of nothingness for so long.

11. My Othello script. We put up this play in 2007 for the NYJC Drama Night. I played Iago, and people loved me for it. Henceforth, Iago became my pseudonym.

12. My Peircean Voices choir tie and T-shirt. There, I found a greater purpose for my leadership skills. I've rarely found the same meaning ever since then.

13. The 'A'-grade history essays in my first year that made me so proud of myself :)

14. I'll wear my Suunto T3c heart rate monitor on my wrist. Its logs show how hard i've tried to sail away from the past and into a brighter future.

15. My first Victorinox, because I love the outdoors and think that Richard Dean Anderson (in McGyver and Stargate SG-1) is so cool!


On my laptop, there is a folder labelled "Writings" and a locked subfolder called "File X". It has things I've always wanted to say to her but never did, because I didn't want to lose her. The authentication code is 24-12-08. In fact, everything about me is in what I write.

This blog chronicles my weary days. My other blogs are:
a) http://ben--low.blogspot.com [for optimism and possibilities]
b) http://de-con-struc-tion.blogspot.com [as an approximate intellectual record]
c) http://picturesque-pedale.blogspot.com [for pictures taken from the saddle]

I write all this because it could be the last thing I ever write again. It is a suicide note if suicide becomes... necessary. I am not contented with second-best. I loathe it. There's no point in life if all one can see ahead is misery. You could say it's a mid-life crisis - I don't know where I'm going, where meaning lies or how it's created. I just hold on to what I have and lead a hedonistic life, because that's a panacea for all things dark.

Hayley once sang:

"But you are still so young with so many years to come.

You have too many cares."

I suppose that's enough. No one can understand what I've been through. It's better this way. No one should have to go through what I've been through. I love my friends.

That's it.