The black hole: an emptiness inside my heart

You know when something shatters you? Gets deep inside your heart and just rips it out of its place? Do you know the feeling when you just want to give up and let go, because you just don’t have the strength to go on? I don’t know about you, but from time to time, I get that feeling.

I don’t know what it is, or where it comes from, but sometimes I wake up and there’s a hollow, empty feeling inside. It’s like I’m missing an organ, or there’s nothing where my heart was supposed to be. Maybe I’m missing someone, or I’m just somehow incomplete, I honestly could not tell. From time to time I’ve contemplated, I’ve thought about it and tried to decipher it, but with no such luck to get to an end result. 

It’s not only feeling hollow and empty that gets to me. Sometimes that hollowness decides to really go for it, and couples up with loneliness. I could be surrounded by a million friends yet still feel emptier than the Grand Canyon. I feel like there’s no one by my side, and I’d have to fight life alone. From time to time, I have to put my feelings aside and just smile; I can’t share these feelings with anyone. I have to keep it to myself, or people will just think I’m crazy or really sad. And although it might not be a vaccine, acting crazy and wild does act as a temporary medication, until of course, the feelings hit again.

When being crazy isn’t an option, and times like that come, it’s usually just me and my music, in a cold night out, looking at the city lights glimmer in a far distance. The soft music coupled with noises from the street as people go about in their hustle bustle really soothes me. I let the songs drain away my sorrow, as if they were building a deep crevasse where all the sorrow collected and was disposed of. Time then heals the emptiness and reconstructs happiness pipelines inside me for the time being. And sometimes, just sometimes, when it gets too hard and too dark to handle, I feel like jumping off a bridge will put an end to it. But then I think, what's life worth if I succumb to a feeling? What's life worth if loneliness gets to me? What were all the fights up till now worth, if I am just going to give it all away in a second.

  

I haven’t looked into why this happens or researched it in anyway; maybe I’m just afraid that if I come to know more about the reality of the matter I might get to know something that I don’t want to know. Sometimes I feel like I know what it is, and perhaps that research will affirm my thoughts and feelings, and by that given affirmation, I will no longer be subject to imagination. I would no longer be able to avoid the topic by thinking about different possible scenarios of my emptiness and hollowness. And if that affirmation comes through, I will live in fear of what I believe is the cause of this hollowness, and knowing that belief will slowly feed on what happiness I have left till I’m nothing but dark inside. I do not of course wish to disclose what my subconscious has to say, but sometimes I believe what it says.

I thought all along that I was one of a kind, or at

 least one in a million. Alas, where would I find one of the other 7000 people that felt the same way? As it turns out, this is more common than I thought it would be. And I think that those who have faced some hardship to end up in this position help others because they do not wish for others what befalls on them. They strive for other people’s happiness because they are incapable of bringing happiness to themselves sometimes. I also believe that those are the strongest of people, and sometimes even the freest of them all, because they have in some way learnt to deal with it and let the dark forces over take them. Although from time to time they succumb to these dark forces, they overcome them and are victorious. And although I might not be one of the elite few I’ve praised, but I pray that no one has to endure the same fate that some of us have to, I hope that you never feel alone, I wish you nothing but happiness and content.

The child inside me

I lay on my mother bed, my head buried into her arm and my knees tucked, and I made a baby noise and in her ear I said "mama!" like a little kid. Of course my mother got annoyed and therefore I was up for one of her legendary slaps. But it didn't really matter, because I was still going to keep on doing it.

Like or it not, some of us are still children trapped in adults bodies. There is a part of our childhood that we still hang on to. I still go crazy when I see balloons, I still eat with a small spoon, and I know for a fact that toy story 3 was watched mostly by older people who lived through toy stories 1 and 2. The reasons for this might vary from person to person, but I like to believe that there is a single straightforward reason to it. We hang onto a much better time.

We have seen those pictures that remind us of how simple and easy it was being a kid. Our biggest concern of the day was should I use the play in the sand or on the swing? Sadly, time flies, and the complexity of decisions gets bigger as the moments we call years pass. Its no longer how I should have fun, or at least its not just limited to that. Now it's "What do I want to be in my life?" or "What do I need to study?" or "Where do I need to study?", and of course there are a million other questions that we strive every single day looking for their answers.

There have been cases were people have actually grown up, perhaps even at a very young age, but I highly doubt there were like most of us. Pampered, given high quality treatment and seen as royal princes and princesses. I think that those who grow up fast, or rather grow up really, are those who faced a harsh time in their younger years as children, and their only escape was to become adults and grow up. Their childhood was in fact the worse part of their life, be it abusive parents, bad living conditions or being bullied at school, these people grow up and actually become adults because they have a reason to change. We on the other hand have no need to, because for us, those were the golden years.

Don't get me wrong, I have a sense of reality and I have a deep knowledge of the different forms of art, be it being a doctor, a businessman or a lawyer, and if someone were to slam a million dollars in my face, I would know what to do with them and I'd deal with them like a mature adult. I'd put on a suit, go to an investment firm, or a real estate firm and invest the money somewhere where it benefited me in both worlds, todays and tomorrows. I know how to make key decisions about my life, educationally and otherwise. There are very few decisions that my parents take for me, I'd like to think I have the mentality to think for myself.

There was a saying I once read that said "we never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public", and I can take an oath to verify that claim. Many of us don't grow up, we really do just learn how to act in public. We learn how be formal, we learn etiquette, we learn how to act based upon the surroundings that we in, but we don't grow up. Growing up is when I guess everything we learned becomes a fixed part of us and actually can be seen in our personality and these qualities define who we are. Even the most grown up people sometimes act stupid and do silly things.

Hanging onto our childhood makes some of feel safe and secure, and others feel like they have no care in this world. Some people do it becomes it makes them smile and reminds them that happiness does exist if we dig deep into ourselves, whatever the reason be, I can say that I don't want to grow up. I have learnt how my surroundings entails me to act, and I'm happy stopping at that. I'm happy that there is still a child trapped inside me because I know that whenever I feel low or I feel like having fun, I can bring out the child in me and not have a care in this world and just enjoy what I have, even for a moment. I'm happy that life won't wrap me up like a little hamburger and eat me, because I've doused myself with the salt of childhood. 

Are we puppets of mass education?

There has been a question that I've been pondering for quite a while now, and it has to do a little bit with my last post about starting out at a young age to accomplish something earlier on in life. It kept bugging me that why all of a sudden people have slowed down the pace in trying to reach the hilltop. What had changed since the past few centuries? Was it to do with our diet? My mind went to the most absurd places trying to understand why, and I think I finally have an answer. We have become puppets of mass education. 

Everyday we wake up to go to school, trudging out of our beds as we heave towards the door to get to school. Once we get there, its lesson, break, lesson, break, lesson, break and so on and so forth. Has anyone else realised that we've just become machines? We repeat similar routines day in day out, the ability for us to think has been virtually sucked out of us. There is no adventure, its a series of steps that just keep on going in a loop. By the time we're 15-16, so much life has been sucked out and we've been trained so well to follow the routine, we just basically close our eyes and follow. 

I was once on 9gag (admittedly not the perfect place for seriousness) and I found a post that described something that I thought was really worth sharing. A group of scientists placed 5 monkeys in a cage, and in the middle a ladder with a banana on top. Every time a monkey climbed the ladder, the scientists soaked the rest of the monkeys with cold water. After a while, every time a monkey goes up a ladder, the others beat up the one that climbed the ladder. After sometime, no monkey went up regardless of temptation. The scientists then replaced one of the monkeys. The new monkeys first instinct was to climb the ladder, and instantly he got beat up. After a while the new member knew never to climb the ladder, but he never knew why. Soon one by one the monkeys were replaced and the same happened to every new member; they tried to climb and they got beaten up. Soon all the monkeys were replaced, and every time a new monkey tired climbing the ladder, he got beat up even though no cold showers were being given. If the monkeys could be asked why they beat the new monkey up, the response would've been, 'we have no idea, this is how things are done around here'.  

If we can see closely, we're literally become these monkeys. We go to school everyday, but we have no idea why. Lets not fool ourselves with the excuse of education, that can be done at home too. Before schools ever came up, the world lived on home education and it was fine. And lets ask ourselves, what skill do we have that we've learnt in school? How to give tests? Or how to stay up all night to shove some information into your brain that you'll eventually come to hate and completely forget in a couple of weeks? The biggest of people such as Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Agatha Christie, Florence Nightingale and thousands more famous people were home-schooled, yet they reached amazing heights. 

As if that was not enough, there are many celebrities who'd rather home-school their children, and I think they'll agree with my factory analogy of the situation. Jimmy Wales in fact, the creator of Wikipedia, himself was stated saying that he is "disappointed by the 'factory nature' of...education." Wales is happy letting his daughter be taught at home. He's happy in following tradition, a tradition that was changed to a perpendicular track in the past 200 years or so. 

Maybe factory products is what the world leaders want. People with bulls*hit drilled into their brains so bad that they will literally be attracted to and absorbed by anything as long as its given to them on a silver platter. And lets again fool ourselves that education shapes futures. Look at Bill Gates, look at Steve Jobs, look at Mark Zuckerberg. Although they were college dropouts, they still are some of the richest people in the world. Infact, the college dropout billionaires amass a grand total standing at $246 billion dollars. If you want to argue that they attended college, then take a look a at business mogul Richard Branson, take a look at the richest man in Spain Amancio Ortega (valued at $31 billion). Research infact states that 20% of all American millionaires never attended college, and that college drop outs have a higher average than those that completed their degrees. 

Day in day out I started to believe what John Taylor Gatto said about education (he inspired this piece: http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm) and how its more to do with mass consumerism than education, and how we're just puppets in a much larger game. Maybe we're not all cutout to be world leader and billionaires, and maybe just maybe we need to be controlled like puppets to get somewhere in life, but people, wake up and take the reins of your life into your own hands for once, the person who's holding the reins now will let go at some point, and it would just be foolish if you never learnt how to ride the horse and fell right off... 

Reaching heights

I've always wondered what it would be like to be in the army at the age of 15, or what it would be like to be trading money well before you reached the 'golden age' of 18. The thing is, it will always remain a thought and it will more or less never happen. One of the reasons being I'm 18 (duuhhh), but the real reason this will never happen is because society thinks kids can't do it, or they're too stupid to pull off big things at a young age.

Lets go back in history and re-read the books about how 15 year olds lead armies, or how they accomplished more than "smoking weed and partying". The thing is, we were never pushed to do anything great as young kids, if we clapped our hands, it was like "OH MY GOD HE CLAPPED!!" and tears of joy started rolling down everyone's cheeks like the 6 month old had conquered the world. A few years later, when the time really came for us to try and conquer the world, people scoffed in our faces. Words weren't needed to express what they were thinking: "look at this young fool, he thinks he can do something." 

Slowly, day by day, our enthusiasm was sucked out of us, and day by day we were fed dreams, dreams that we weren't allowed to pursue. Even after 18, people don't get what they should by the time they're 25-30. The thing is, if a tree takes 10 years to grow, don't expect it to grow in 3 years if you plant it 7 years later. It doesn't matter if you start today, 10 years from now, or you started 5 years ago, the tree is bound to take the same amount of time to grow. It took 150 years before another president younger than 50 took office. 

I don't know if it's because older people are scared that we might accomplish more than they ever did, or its just because they think we're too stupid to do anything. If that's the case, then lets look at Muhammed Bin Qassim, an Ummyad general than conquered part of Pakistan, or Joan of Arc, the French military Supreme commander. Both of these two generals took power at the young age of 17. My biggest accomplishment of the day as an 18 year old is waking up on time. 

Standing behind waiting to be pushed forward by the oncoming crowd isn't going to make you the leader of the pack. Instead, you'll have to raise your feet and walk ahead strong. The earlier you start, the earlier you'll be at the top. What's the point of becoming a billionaire at the age of 60-70? What's the point if you cannot enjoy your youth like you're supposed? Simply put, Nothing.

Mothers love

When a someone in the world knows that they’re about having a child, they usually turn their lives a whole 180 degrees, specially if they’re heading down the wrong path. I wouldn’t really know exactly, mainly because I’ve never experienced it, but so I hear. There was something I always wanted to say on this topic, but its hard to put into a few words that comprise a poem, but a blog post is perfect.

A lot of us live with our mothers (for those that don’t, I’m sorry), but we don’t get how much they do for us. Maybe our little minds begin to slightly comprehend as we grow up, but they do give up a lot. Some give up their education, their career or their entire life just to raise us. They know what they’re giving up and they do understand, but they still go ahead and do it. They fight to protect us, they keep us safe, they stay awake at night when we’re sick, because that’s who they are.

Now take us. We’re care-free, and most of us take our maternal love for granted. We use it to get what we want, but we rarely care about they think. We’ve been so used to receiving that we think that’s what mothers are; portals leading to stuff we want for example money, going out, a new device or gadget we want. A father can more or less handle us. They’re more firm with their decisions. They put their foot down, and there’s little you can do to change their mind. Mothers on the other hand, put on a puppy face and a few tears, and you’ve gotten what you wanted.

We don’t listen to our mothers much, because of their maternal instincts, they let go, till we think we have power. So we don’t listen and do more or less what pleases us. They think about our lives, our future and us as a whole even when they make the slightest decision about us. And we, we just care about the present. What thrill will going out with our friends tonight bring us, or what will it be like to go to a trip to Dubai with our friends, and then we use that puppy face and tears to convince them to go against their will, even though all along they know they’re right, but they cannot help to displease us.

And that’s what concerns me. They gave up their life, their potentially everything, just to raise you up, and you, you being the ignorant fool that you are just let that love slide by and only reciprocate when we want something from our mothers. I know I do take my mother for granted sometimes, but I also know all the sacrifices she made for me. She helps me during the day, and at night she cries for me as she prays to god. Mothers. They’re a gift we should cherish. Ask those who haven’t really had their mothers around, or those who never had mothers. Ask those who had to raise themselves without that maternal love, ask those who wished they had just a hint of what you did ,and you’ll know what you have is special. What you have cannot be bought or sold, what you have is literally priceless. Shame on those who raise their voice above their mothers, shame on those who disrespect their mothers and shame on those who take them for granted.

The cliche of happy birthday

So today was my birthday. Actually it still it. But there was nothing very much happy about it, and got me wondering, "happy birthday". What if you were dying and this was going to be your last birthday, how exactly was that happy? Or what if you were having the most terrible day of your life, how exactly was that happy?

Here's the background on my terrible 18th. I woke up terrified, I had an exam I had barely prepared for and I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be a walk in the park. It was going to be more like being dragged on a rusty lead infused tarmac while being chained to a pick up truck bursting at 100 miles an hour in a cris-cross motion. And I wasn't far from prediction; it was a terrible nightmare. I mean while studying for the exam, I didn't get a word, instead my brain was imaging potatoes. Literally. Potaotes.

And as if that wasn't enough, I hadn't slept for 3 days in a row properly, courtesy of my high schools examination boards messed up schedule, and I was in for another aweful afternoon; preparing for chemistry. I got bored mid-way studying, so I decided to take a break and started talking to a couple of people I know from my childhood. We laughed, we joked, we had a fun time. I even met my friend who had just come back from abroad after 6 months. Happy birthdays floated around, but there was honestly NOTHING remotely happy about it.  The day went by, and more wishes piled up on my phone, calls, messages, Facebook, Twitter, DM, inbox, all that stuff. They didn't make me feel better the least bit.

But you know why they call it happy birthday? Because its only a happy birthday if you have that one person in your life that can make your day just by saying it. The rest of the world said it because it was social protocol. Few meant it, but still, just the words happy birthday mean so much when they come out a person that means so much to you. And that's all I needed. That one message, that one phone call, that one text. And it came. Albeit a little bit late, but it did. And it made my night. For a moment I sat there smiling like a foolish idiot, and it made me forget about my horrible day for a second. I didn't need the worlds wishes when I had the person that makes my other half beside me. I didn't need the empathy or the sympathy of the people that were going through the same hell as I was. All I needed were two words from the right person. That was my happy birthday.

I know this is more personal, but we've had a rocky few months. A few ups and downs, a few weird things going on between us, but that message there is what keeps us going. It doesn't matter, because I know that we're still there for each other, and that's all that matters. And like I said, I needed two words from the right person, instead I for a whole freaking paragraph longer than a Harry Potter series. Needless to say, I run around thinking I'm independent, but to hell with that, I need my other half more than anything in the world, and she came through for me today, so as my birthday ends, I want to say thank you for everything. From the spec of the dust to the universe, you mean everything to me, I hope I have remotely made your day like you made mine with your words. <3

Finding yourself

Finding yourself

“I’m taking a year off to find myself.” That was a phrase that always annoyed me, partially because I never understood what it meant. What is finding yourself? I think even blind people know where they are, or have these people who are finding themselves suddenly become demented and assumed the identity of Waldo without knowing?

It wasn't until much long ago when I had to make my university choices that I understood what this phrase meant. It was more like “what was I born to do, and who am I” kind of question. And I’ve given myself quite a few good hard looks in the mirror, but I don’t know who I am. There’s nothing but a bare reflection looking back at me. And even though I know I’m whole, it was the very first time I felt empty. I didn't really know myself. Who was I exactly? I needed to find myself.

We go about our lives, doing what other people have dictated for us, and live by their set of rules. We've molded ourselves into becoming what others have wanted, perhaps for themselves, and I remembered the phrase from one of my favorite songs “Curtains are drawn but we’re still dressed.” There are a million ways to analyse this, but here’s one of my theories. We have been put on show for so long, that we’ve become used to it. It doesn't really matter who we really are, what our niche in life exactly is, because even when no ones watching, we’re still playing the characters we’ve been built into. We don’t try different roles to see which one suits us, because we’ve never gotten out of our original cast.

What happens if one day we get fed up of who we are? What if one day we want to find who we are, and just understand ourselves, but its too late? What if we’re so iron clad into this fixture that we never get out of it till it fully sets and drills us into itself? And I’ve heard people say “I know what I want to be. I want to be a doctor,” or “I want to be an engineer.” Honestly, I envy the people who say “I want to do arts,” or “I want to play music”. We stare down at these people like they’re inferior, when really, most of us are the lost souls who have no idea what we want to be.

For me, I heard the sounds of people saying “doctor, doctor doctor.” Sometimes at night I might’ve even heard whispers of people telling me that. And so I went for it. I went for what the world intended me to do, because it seemed like the logical step to take. Money, job security and a good name; it seemed like the perfect package. Except I was the unhappily wrapped gift inside it.

I feel it inside me. I feel that I’m made for a reason, but I wish I knew what it was. And when I say made for a reason, I don’t mean I feel like I’m chosen, or I’m meant to be famous, but really made for something, a purpose. Kingdoms have fallen because the menial slaves couldn’t get their jobs done properly. But I still don’t know my true happiness. I still don’t know my true calling if you like to call it that.

And throughout this passage I’ve said we, us, you and me, and so far its just been a figure of speech really. But are there others out there who’re looking at a reflection they don’t understand, or is it just me? Because I bet there are many people who get something.Maybe not a full picture, but even a hazy one is fine. Maybe pixelated, maybe shaky, but I just feel like I wish I knew who I was. I go into exams and I come out of them wanting to rip my own head off, because I don’t get what’s going on. I don’t understand the reality of the matter. I don’t know who I am. Maybe if I did, I’d do something I love rather than something that is conventional. I really want to know who I am, I really want to understand the reason for my existence, but I feel it would take time, and I’ve always been taught time is money. Granted that I most probably will do nothing useful in this time, but thats the illusion I live in, becuase lets face it, giving up on a dream ( in this case finding yourself) because of the time it will take to accomplish is foolish because time till pass by anyway, but for now, I will find the comfort in knowing that I’m not alone, that I have someone beside me in this ugly world of unknown.

I don’t usually do this, but to end off, here’s a little … thingy, I honestly don’t know what to label it,song, poem, whatever, called “lost soul”. I hope you like it :)

Im trying to find myself,

In this ugly world,

I’m looking in a mirror,

But there’s nothing to be seen,

I hear people saying,

They’ve known who they want to be,

Is it just me,

Or are there people,

Looking at a,

Reflection they dont understand,

I think I was made for greater things,

I wish I knew for once what they were,

There’s a hollow form looking back at me,

And sometimes I look back and think,

Is this really me?

I really wish I knew myself,

I really wish someone would hold my hand,

And take me to the light,

Sadly I’m living a fantasy,

Sadly this is reality,

I guess I’ll have to live with,

Just someone being there by my side,

Someone who's just as lost as me,

Maybe we’ll find ourselves together,

Maybe we’ll even become a you and me.