the bittersweet chocolate starfish

Just today, a good friend of mine (you know who you are *blueks!) asked me the most interesting question i’ve been asked for ages :

"If you were born intoxicated, would you want to wake up and be sober?"

Hmm….Let’s see. First of all, that doesn’t make sense. Unless you were given birth by a super alchoholic mum that is way past recovery of her addiction. And somehow you survived the pregnancy and were born alive, but intoxicated. Sounds like an episode of Ripley’s Believe-It-Or-Not  - ‘The World’s First Drunk Newborn Infant’. Or something like that.

Okay, nevermind that illogical impossibility.

My answer to him was, to my own surprise, quite immediate and spontaneous. I guess I waiting for a question like this..dejavu, perhaps?

"Hmm..Okay, if i was born intoxicated, and then i got to know what consciousness is and the troubles and pains that it can bring, i think i’d rather stay intoxicated for life."

My friend said that was the coolest answer ever. I thought so too. ( hehe..very perasan, i know.. but it was honest)

Anyway, the answer really depends whether i get to experience what consciousness is
after being born a drunkard (if that is remotely possible at all). Come to think of it, an alternative answer would be :
If i were born intoxicated and if i were to never sober up in my entire life, as in i would stay drunk and high every minute, then i wouldn’t even come close to question the possibility of a sober existence, right? So it just ends there. I was born that way, and will remain that way. I wouldn’t prefer to be sober, because that other reality didn’t exist for me from the very beginning. It’s like never getting to know how good it feels to eat and be full when you have never felt hunger before.

Then it wouldn’t be cool. Because you wouldn’t learn to appreciate how good being intoxicated is, if you weren’t deprived of it. You’d never go through the emotional rollercoaster ride that consciousness takes you in. You’d never know what it feels like to be angry, sad, frustrated, jealous, stupid, hurt..and many many other variants of human emotions. And then to feel happy, relieved, satisfied and contented after all that, or between all that, when you take a dive into intoxication. A temporary relief from your unwanted reality. It only lasts for a while, but its short-term existence is what makes it so desirable. It shares the philosophy of ‘ you never know what you’ve got til you lose it’. So this justifies my first answer, which is undeniably, my most honest answer to this question.

Okay, i’ve decided for once to try and not make my blog sound so dark and morbid anymore. Um..that is, if i can help it lah. Sigh. Sometimes you just want to share with the world about your personal woes..but when they know and start questioning you, you feel like retreating to a corner in embarrassment and doubt. What if they don’t get it? What if they get it, but all they’d do is profile you as a helpless  emotional wreck after their critical review of your publicized thoughts?

There i go again. Worrying what others think. Expressing my doubts in a silly, fretful way. Sometimes I wish i could rap, or sing, or draw them out instead. You know, like one of those more creative and artistic individuals who wouldn’t for one minute doubt their own talent and potential in self-expression.  Right. If  I were  artistically  gifted in any way, i’d be complaining less about life in a blog like this. No. I’d still be complaining about life. But in a more creative and inspiring way, i suppose.

Today i watched Oprah Winfrey. Yes, that’s right. Oprah. Well, there was nothing much interesting on other channels and MTV, kays. Anyways, it wasn’t that bad. It was about this ex-supermodel and former muse of DKNY called Lynn something (i don’t remember her last name). The woman practically went through the worst imaginable hell on earth. Imagine going through severe breast cancer that costs her both her breasts to be taken away, and not long after that, going through another major episode of Stage 4 brain cancer that led to a 9 inch titanium stapled stich on her skull. *shudder* Really touching though. She came out of all that shit alive and well..and happy. Amazing. And it puts a pessimistic young thing like me to shame, i have to admit that. But one can’t help wonder : Do you really get to learn how to appreciate and love life more only after a major traumatic experience such as cancer or an accident? No, i suppose. I’m sure there are many other small and harmless ways to gain that attitude towards life. It doesn’t always have to involve pain and regrets..i hope.

‘I kept imagining the end, the despair I would suffer when it came, and it made any happiness I had in the present seem not merely ephemeral, but doomed. Because the happier I allowed myself to be now, the more miserable I would be later.’ - Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation.

What comfort and assurance can you offer me when you deny and defy my pain? Does it mean anything to you when you are the only one i turn to in times of my misery? You might even be the cause of my misery sometimes. But i’m willing to share it and show it in the comfort of your presence. I’m willing to take it all out and give it up in the hope you will make it okay. At the end of the day, it’s alright if you don’t understand it, if you aren’t willing to accept it. But there is one thing you cannot do. You cannot condemn it. You cannot say, "It’s bullshit. It’s stupid." To my utmost disappointment, you might even ignore it and let me go through it alone. But you simply cannot condemn it. Because it is a part of me, even if i don’t want it to be. I’d destroy it if i could. I’d tear it out from my soul as if it were nothing but useless paper. My pain might be wrong to you, but it is a right to me. It is my right. My right to own it. Not because I want to, but because circumstances made me a bearer of its existence, to an extent that there is a need for me to own it. So if you turn it away with your selfish conviction that i’m just being silly, you are turning me away from you. And it hurts me greatly. It hurts to realize that you are right here with me now in this space and time, yet knowing that you will probably not be there to catch me when i fall…

it’s coming to d end of d hols. This is my last week of bumming around and wasting away. well, in my case, it’s more of the former than the latter activity. i’m not wasting myself away as much as i’d like to do during this break from assignment deadlines and daily lectures. Bumming around for me means waking up to no plans for the day, hoping fervently that one could visualize by noontime..and  in the meantime just killing time away in front of the t.v. or a book or the bed till night falls and i’m saved by whoever i’m meeting for the night. Wasting away, as i’d like it to be, would be carefree partying, drinking and not having a minute to spare for feeling consciously and hopelessly bored, lazy and depressed. A few shots of tequila. A couple of bottoms up.  Lively, popping-good music. Crazy laughter, vain smiles and happy poses for the camera. Friends bonded by the wondrous pleasure effects of alcohol with hugs and kisses.  That’s the way life should look like in a polaroid picture. My non-existent polaroid pictures. They are always in my head, though. Making up my fantasy of a life defined by polaroid moments of happiness and madness. Misery not included, though.

Five weeks of doing a mindless holiday job deprived me of the luxury of rest and relaxation, though it sure helped me while away my abundant time in a productive and profitable way. There are loads of stuff i’d like to buy with my hard-earned pay. But is anything ever enough at this age? So much on the list, so little in the bank.So much on my mind, so little space for expression. So much time I had, so little i’ve learnt about life in four months.

Yet I’ve come to know what relationships are made of, what makes them and what breaks them. How much can a person expect from the other in a relationship? Not his or her complete devotion or total obedience, that’s for sure. noone in a relationship should be domineering and selfish at the expense of the other person’s honest disposition and values. Yet, sometimes, you can’t help wonder if the other person would really do things for you if he/she really loves you..you know, like how Ben Stiller ate dirty nuts on the ground in Along Came Polly just to prove to Jennifer Aniston that he was able to do that - overcome his hygiene phobia- simply because he loved her. Okay, that’s probably a corny example. But nothing esle comes to my mind at this point..The point is, some guys are willing to do things. Big things or small things. They do something. They make things happen for the girl so that she knows how much she means to him. And there’s the other thing about attachment and detachment. If you’ve been deprived of something which you’ve needed for so long, and then when you get to experience it, you tend to go to the extremes of emotion every time you feel that something  slipping away. You fear separation when you pull away from that source of salvation, yet you fear suffocation when you get too close to it. You have been unhappy for too long, but when you get a chance to explore the possibilities of happiness..you freak out at the alienating sight of its high price. It’s your mind that’s gonna pay for it. Not your heart. It’s the mind that’s priceless and precious. The heart is too careless and emotionally untamed to be of any absolute true worth. It gets too ironic. Too overwhelmingly ironic.

Some days this confusion just wears you out. Other days it gets you fired up. You think, if only you could give and love and live with just that, you could actually enjoy it without hoping for anything in return. No way. Bullshit. That will never work. Selfless love has been overrated in the happy-ever-after romantic love movies. Selfish love, on the other hand, is underrated in the now-and-what’s-next reality of relationships in the real world. What did i expect anyway? I’m in the real world where my heart is but one fragile commodity that is lost in the marketplace of feelings..