The Long-forgotten Post

Haha, I haven't updated in a long, LONG time. Heh. Not that I don't want to post anything, though. I just.. have no idea what to talk about.

So what's been happening? Nothing much. Semester ended. Life goes on.

It's silly how we wait and wait for the holidays to arrive, but when they do, we find that we have nothing to do. Or we lose the motivation to go out. I guess the main reason why we're so excited about holidays is because it breaks the monotony of college/school/working life. On the other hand, once the holidays arrive... well, it might be exciting at first, but later on it becomes monotonous too.

I've been relaxing a lot :) As usual. Playing World of Warcraft - it's amazing. Either than that, I haven't really been doing much. It's a great feeling though, knowing that you don't have to do anything today, knowing that you don't have a deadline to meet - for now, at least, for the next semester will eventually begin.

I do enjoy the fact that I have all this time to myself. I don't know. It may be boring after awhile due to the lack of human interaction, but in the end we do find more time to think about our life, think about ourselves and what we want to do. I find that people - at least to me - show their true nature whenever they're alone, or when they do not notice others around them. I don't know. Either that, or when they're sleeping. When they're relaxed, no sneer, no smile, no nothing. Just them.

Weird, huh? I just think that people are real when they don't have others around them observing and judging them. Moments where it's just them in their own little world, no mask, no persona... just them. Like athletes or performers sometimes say... right at the pinnacle of the moment, everything else fades away, it's just them, and the rest of the world ceases to exist.

And it's the same with love, isn't it? Not that I know much of it, but from second-hand accounts I'm sure I know a little :p. Two people lost in their own little world, when they see each other in a moment where they are both real, genuine, with no mask or walls between them.

That's why I do enjoy being alone. I don't feel like I have to act a certain way. It's just me, myself and I, and there's no real way to hide from yourself. We're amazing at lying to others, but for me, I find that lying to ourselves is much harder. You can stick your hand into a flame and it would be painful - trying to lie to yourself is like telling yourself that the flame doesn't burn you, that you remain unharmed from it, that your hand is fine and untouched by the flame; something that it is not.

Different people expect me to behave in different ways, or rather they are so used to seeing me behave in a certain way that it becomes a tendency to me to simply do as I have done before this. Some expect me to play the spoiled rich kid - which I am not, I assure you. Some expect me to be wise. Some expect me to be silly. Some expect me to be smart and successful.

And I play along. Silly, I know, but I do. I just feel like if I deviate from the normal, if I introduce an element of uncertainty in my interaction with friends and family, the dynamic will change. I don't want people to have to judge me a 2nd time. One time is enough. You know how sometimes... a friend whom you thought you knew all this time suddenly tells you something that you would never have expected?

It's not just that one message that changes. The whole relationship changes. You begin to wonder if you really knew the person after all. You begin to question every moment, scrutinize every word to see if it fits with the new mold. It changes. You're not as open anymore, because you don't want to be surprised again. Of course, if you are kind, gracious, and open-minded - qualities that are sorely lacking in today's society - you might probably brush it off and go on with the other person like nothing happened.

But, the fact still remains that more questions will appear, more doubts and fears. I don't want that to happen to the people I know. I don't want them to look at me as if they never knew me, as if there were miles and miles between us when there were none before. I know, I talk about wanting to be myself and how people are honest with themselves blablabla, but we all put up masks in front of people. As for how much the mask reflects the truth? I don't know. Some are elaborately painted, changing the person completely. Some are half-masks. Some are hardly masks. But we all cover ourselves, as much as we try to deny it.

Save for those few moments, perhaps, like what I mentioned earlier - like two lovers who are caught in their own world, seeing the honesty and sincerity of each other. But it can work both ways. A wife, for example, could be in denial if her husband keeps abusing her and yet she claims that he loves her. Then one day, in a long, long moment, they would again be caught in the moment, and in that moment the wife truly sees her husband for who he is.

Heh, that's why I like being on my own sometimes. It allows me to be myself. Whether that is good or bad... well, I don't know, but I guess we do sometimes need to take a good look at ourselves. We are, after all, responsible for who we are. Some people claim that their behavior is out of their control, that it is who they are - but we, and the people around us - are the ones who really shape ourselves. It IS within our control, despite the locus of control being slightly out of our reach sometimes.

Those who claim that they can't change? Well, nice way to say that you just don't want to put in the effort to change. Even if it's for the better, even if there are people who depend on them and hope that this change takes place. People who say things like 'sorry, I can't understand where you're coming from because I've been brought up that way' just don't want to change.

Bah. Sometimes self-reflection sucks, because you see things you don't want to see. But it's good that we see these things. We'll know what to do with ourselves. By understanding ourselves, we understand the world, because the world around is defined by who we are. Everyone sees things in their own way. Their memories and experiences define how they interpret things, how they approach a topic... defines how the world around them is.

We always wonder what the meaning of life is. Don't bother. We don't even know ourselves yet, so why bother with life?

And.. with that, I've run out of things to say. That's all for now.

Read on...

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