” … and make ‘Screaming Infidelity’ the fucking soundtrack of my life.”
That line is an excerption of something I wrote in 2004. Now, 6 years later, that sentence sounds annoyingly like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I know this might sound like some sort of shitty justification attempt, but there’s something psychologically very wrong with me.
Well either that or I’m simply a GDMFSOB.
So here’s how it all started.
I came across this particular girl’s profile on Facebook, this 22-year-old, who is one of my friend’s best friends. I wasn’t trolling and I’m not a troll in general, mind you, but I do admit that I was somehow intrigued to take a peek further into this girl’s info, photos, and such. So I did. I went through so many pictures I practically knew what her life was like by the time I finished. There she was in all the same square stills, posing. In clubs, at parties, at some dinner, close-up, from afar, looking cute, looking god-awfully drunk, totally sober, and in-between. Funnily enough, in all those pictures, I saw one thing in common. Oh yes, I recognized that familiar look.
It was naivety.
It was there, all over her face. So young, so beautiful, so naïve. Then it got me thinking.. I remember being 22 – which actually wasn’t that long ago ( … fact!), yet it does feel like another lifetime. I remember being so naïve. It sucked. Well, to be fair, it didn’t suck while I was living it, because I didn’t know any better. I only got to realize it when I reached a point in life where I have collected enough experience that enabled me to come to a conclusion that I was, downright naïve. I’m not saying that the older you get the less naïve you become like it’s a sure thing, but the more experience you have does give that part of your brain -you know, where things like ‘world peace’ exist- a hard kick in the ass. Thus, having experienced something once, your thoughts and reaction to that thing would differ the second time around. Having said that, I should also mention that: first, I don’t think I’m naïve-free. That naivety root is still there, I just don’t give the little bastard sunshine, water, or fertilizer. Why should I? So that it can grow strong and kill me in my sleep? Secondly, being less naïve doesn’t stop me from doing stupid things. The difference is, now I do them knowingly. Knowing what lies ahead; the risks and consequences, the whole shebang. Stupid things are great and exciting and so much fun once you start doing them with eyes wide open.
And how do I feel being in my mid-heading-towards-late 20’s?
In all honesty, I feel.. fucking stellar. I’m far less confused, like I finally know my way around this sin city I’m living in. I feel hot, sexy, confident, powerful, exciting, free. It feels like the passion of life oozes out of me; it’s lethal and contagious. I would rock your world so hard it would jump off of the solar system bandwagon.
And now, when I say I don’t give a shit what other people think.. I really don’t give a shit.
Everything is I am so fucked up.
Yeah, if I had a dime for every time I said that I’d be a fucking billionaire by now.
It is the most terrific thing, is it not, to die in the sky?
All her life, she has never seen anything so perfect. In the midst of white and blue, literally thousands of feet from the ground, she is floating above the mountains, higher than the thick waves of clouds. The golden glow from the setting sun sounds like Chopin Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 hanging in the air without a thread. Everything is so breathtaking up here, it makes her forget about all of earth’s miseries. She is high enough in the sky that she can not see even the slightest of those small chaotic squares and lines down there. All that trouble, all that ugliness the world reveals. Ah, how easy it is to trick oneself to believe something does not exist when it is not visible.
And of course, something this perfect can only last so long. Somewhat expected, the beauty suddenly stops. Bless you who say ‘All good things must come to an end’. The sound, the light, the revolving world have gone faster than she can blink her eyes. Soon enough, she can feel a strong force pulling her downwards. The mighty gravity. And right before everything goes blank, the most amazing thing happened. The secret of all secrets, the most ancient ever lived: The Great Secret of the Universe, was revealed before her. After all the endless ’searching for the Truth’ routine she has been filling her life with, she is now finally able to comprehend what it all means. The only thought in her head is how she wishes she could live another day to tell the world about it. Then it occurs to her, that the only reason the secret was revealed is because she is not going to live to see another day. And at the end of it all, she cannot help but wonder, which is better: to learn about the secret of the Universe and die, or to live and spend her whole life searching for answers.
Before she can decide which one is the lesser of two evils,
everything goes pitch black.
And when the curtain drops,
the stage empty,
the air still..
the theater is left with nothing,
but remnant of its glory.
And the rest.. well, the rest is just eternal silence.
You're catnip to a girl like me: handsome, dazed, and to die for. -Catwoman in Batman Returns
P.S. I always think Batman should be with Catwoman in this instalment. They are so deviously perfect for each other.
I had a dream.
It took place in some mega mall which was attached to a hotel. The kind of place they have in Genting, Malaysia. My friends and I were there for days and went all around. The plot of the dream, naturally, is kind of hazy. There are only flashes of images I remember. K had an entourage including D and T. I kept ruining stuff. I practically torn some newly built auditorium. I couldn’t turn off a stove, which somehow led a to a TV combustion. My Blackberry was in front of the TV right before it exploded. This girl, AC, saved my phone, then all of us there watched the explosion. I was so close to accidentally burn down a club with a lighter. I was running downstairs and saw a video played on TV of AK making out. The video was controlled by a remote in my hand. Giant TVs everywhere. Holographic people coming out of a screen and blending with real ones, singing and dancing in a parade. At the end they went back into the land of nowhere, saying ‘goodbye’ with this whole ceremonial ordeal. I remember thinking, ‘how cool was that’.
Then there was me making out with H. SC and I kissed. SC was drunk. We stumbled to where his friends were. SC’s friends were mad seeing him drunk. SC went berserk and suddenly threw up all over the place. Then, after this scene, everything happened so fast. 3 of SC’s friends manically carried him forcefully to take him home. 1 of them didn’t have enough strength and fell hard on the floor.. splitting SC’s body into 2, from the right shoulder to the half part of his ribs. We were shocked over the horror. We could see his bones and the insides of his body. Strangely, there were no bloods running out from his open torso. It just laid there, all red and raw. We froze. I cried out in terror. SC’s friend who fell started to cry and blame himself repeatedly. Suddenly I snapped, then screamed ‘I’ll get help!’, somehow thought something could still be done, that we could still fix him. As I was heading towards the reception I realized it was all just wishful thinking, but still I kept running. The second I got there I yelled at the receptionist behind the table, ‘I need a doctor! It’s an emergency!’. The guy seemed perplexed. I kept on screaming. He went into a door behind him, while I carried on shouting, ‘It’s an emergency!’. He then came out with a doctor in his white coat. Without saying a word, the doctor hastily came up to me and started throwing the liquid out of a Jack Daniel’s bottle at me. Apparently the doctor thought I was hallucinating. I yelled at him and dragged him to the scene. When we arrived, everyone else has stopped crying. The doctor saw the body, finally realizing my tantrum was of reason. He was taken aback. Then, out of extreme shock, he pulled out a big knife, stabbed one of SC’s friend in the heart and left him to die. Bleeding and all. All of us were shell-shocked. Right then and there, all I could think of was calling M and telling her about those tragic misfortunes.
Then a knock on the door woke me up. I opened my eyes, forcing my brain to function properly, desperately groping for reality. Seconds later, tears were running down my cheeks, relieved that none of it was real. All in all, the dream was extremely gruesome, but I found it astonishing.
I’m amazed at how a dream works. You are able to live in this whole other life, which differs from one night to another, without having to commit to it. All it takes is just a simple knock on the door or sound of an alarm for you to abruptly vanish from that particular life.. unlike this one we are living in.
She shuts her eyes and he reappears. ‘How fucked up’, she thinks. That when one ends, another begins.
He sits there. A table away from me. With a burning cigarette on one hand and a book on the other. Something by something Fitzgerald, I can not see the title or the author’s first name clearly. Both his ears are covered with earphones. The world may not know what he is listening to, I may not know. But in my head, I imagine some mellow French song is blasting through those earphones and drown him in it. I can not quite describe what he physically looks like, not that it matters anyway. He just looks kind of grey to me. This perfect shade of grey.
Moments have passed. I find myself transfixed by his existence. Now I see him laughing quietly, over something he reads in the book I presume, and the whole room suddenly seems to beam and fired with livelihood. Around him, people are dining, laughing, and chatting away. The room is filled with glasses and silverwares clinking. But this boy, he looks so far away from it all. So exclusive, so untouchable, as if there was an invisible wall surrounding him. His image is so sharp, it blurs everything else.
Moments have passed. I still find myself staring at him. Suddenly, he looks up. Right at my direction.
His eyes meet mine.
Then the world suddenly pauses.
I examine his gaze. He has such sad eyes, beautiful nonetheless. I am in awe at how clear those eyes are. So clear that I can see right through him. Beyond the calmness, beyond that mask he seems to constantly wear. He is troubled, yet acting out as if he was not. He is vulnerable, yet keeps trying to convince the world he is strong. He longs for someone but acts like he does not need anyone. He is burning with fiery passion inside but chooses to look perfectly collected, because he thinks the world would crumble the second he does not hold himself together. He is the absolute contrary of what he shows of himself to the world. And yet, I have a feeling that he, in this exact moment, here in all his loneliness, is being himself. Because that is when people are likely to be themselves, is it not, when they are alone? Suddenly I hear this song, so perfectly clear in the background, “you and me are floating in a tidal wave, together..”.
Then I blink, and the world starts to revolve again.
I never knew his name, who he was, or saw him again ever since. Even if I could, I would not want to. It would have just spoiled everything. Sometimes, absolute anonymity is all that a perfection needs. For me, he will always be the boy with a burning cigarette on one hand and a book on the other.
Have you ever get the feeling that the world is just too noisy? It’s too crowded with people minding your business or them minding their own business loudly. It is loaded with too many damn people with too much unnecessary noise. I got quite annoyed somehow with my accounts on the popular social media platforms. I’m not sure why, though. It feels too damn noisy. I can’t even be alone in my own mind anymore, it’s so loud everywhere I can’t hear myself think. This blog, and another blog of mine consisting of my even stranger thoughts, are like the two places left that I can still consider my sanctuary. Here, I don’t overthink it. I don’t have to appear fucking stoical all the time. It is the best depiction of myself the world can get. It’s silent and serene. Outside of these gates is just noise I desperately need to drown.
I feel so tired all of a sudden. Maybe I am overwhelmed with unbearable situations happening all at once. Things are falling apart around me. Maybe that’s where all the noise are coming from. Maybe the noise are just happening in my head. Maybe I’m on the verge of freaking out. Maybe I just need a break from everything. I don’t know. I’m too tired to hold up a ‘me vs the world’ attitude, let alone fuck around with the world right now.
While talking about an event with a fantasy theme in the office yesterday, it got me thinking about the concept of fantasy and how it works. I must warn you, though. There’s nothing new in this writing. It is neither rocket science nor porn-related stuff (Unfortunately. Maybe some other time). I’m just writing what most people are thinking.
Wordnetweb.princeton.edu defines ‘fantasy’ as ‘imagination unrestricted by reality’. Since reality is only what you let the world see of you, while a fantasy is kept deep within yourself, therefore fantasy is a perfect projection of who you really are: your best and ugliest, truest colour.
There are two types of fantasies: ones you share with others and ones you don’t. The kind of fantasy you most likely would share with others is the sensible one, for example, being woken up from a long sleep by a true lover’s kiss, or living the life of a feared mob in New York, or becoming the CEO of Apple, Inc. However, the truly interesting ones are those you choose not to share: your deepest, darkest, most wicked fantasies. The world we live in is a terribly judgemental one, ruled with social norms people must follow. So, in most cases, revealing those dark fantasies are frowned upon and may trigger less favourable social reactions. But whatever, I’m going to tell you what my ultimate fantasy is at the end of this post.
I think the discreet component of a fantasy is one of the main reasons why it is exciting. You can fantasize about someone and play that fantasy in your head like a record whenever you like. You could be in the middle of a meeting with this someone (a guy or a girl – whatever, for the sake of this writing let’s assume it’s a guy), you look at him, and at that moment there are endless thoughts that could be running through your mind. You could fantasize about choking him to death because he annoys you out of your fucking mind, or you could be thinking of how much you like that striped shirt he’s wearing, or you could even make mental images of you ripping that shirt off of him. The point is, it doesn’t matter. They wouldn’t have the faintest idea either way. That goes both ways, so who knows, they might be thinking the same thing you’re thinking.
I also don’t think what people are like from the outside guarantees what they could be thinking on the inside. You could look like a boy scout talk like a boy scout and walk like a boy scout, and it still doesn’t mean you can’t like S&M or never think of wrecking your ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend’s car out of jealousy. Does that mean thinking about (generally considered) bad stuff make you a bad person? Some say as long as you’re only thinking it and not acting on it, it’s fine. If that’s the case, what if your partner confessed that he/she fantasized about being with another person? Would you react to that fantasy as if it were action?
In general, here’s my two cents. Fantasy only happens in your mind, and your mind has an infinite component to it. It has no boundaries whatsoever – like universe as we know it. In that universe, you are God, because you create absolutely everything in it. It’s the only place that has no rules. Even if there was one, you’re the one who made it. You can do whatever you like in it. But, outside -in the real world- it’s your action, instead of your thought, that counts.
So there, my ultimate fantasy: being God of the universe.
…
Tsk. You do know I’m kidding, right? Because 1). It is more a notion than a fantasy. And 2). I have my real ultimate fantasy, which is …
Ah fuckery, I’m not risking being frowned upon.
