Why

It's 0627 hours in the morning.
And I'm staring at my computer.
With a horrible nausea lurking at the pits of my stomach.
And a overwhelming urge to just collapse on my inviting bed.

But I cannot.
For I need to stay focussed and finish this essay.

Why, oh why, do I always INSIST on inflicting such torture on myself...!

I have no answer to that.

Have you ever....

The flurry of activity never ceases... so many things happen, yet the same things always happen.

Have you ever had that horrible feeling of wanting something so badly, yet full knowing rationality demands that you should not and cannot give in... which renders you partially incapable of doing either fully, immobilized in a nebulous time and space that seems to draw itself out in physical time and in your mind...

Have you ever wondered why you do some things you do, knowing it partly makes you miserable, but also makes you who you are...

Have you ever doubted why you try to achieve so much, complicate and fill your life with a set of driven motivations... only to subject yourself to either bitter, futile disappointment or glorious euphoria... at the expense of a happiness that is possibly staring right at you in the face...

Have you ever questioned why we do what we do... when sometimes everything just seems so trivial and pointless in comparison to the atrocities of the world; of which has caused someone to say There is for human beings no greater hell to fear than the one on earth...

Have you ever relentlessly contemplated the contradiction that is life which is so ugly and so beautiful all at once...

Have you ever tried to put things in perspective, considering the long-term and the short-term, seeking an equilibrium between the turmoil that is within yourself... but not finding an answer, uncertain you even believe there is an answer in the first place...

Have you ever been so convinced once of the answer to everything... which now seems too easy and simplistic a way out of all difficult questions...

I take comfort in knowing at least I tried.

...........

Have you ever, by the way, done an essay about female circumcision?
Well, I'm doing one now, burning in essay hell till monday, and burning in the horrible knowledge, and burning in fucking stress of an awaiting writing test - totally self-imposed and unecessary, yet totally determining the course of my life.


The screaming token torturers are silencing not only the victim, but their own victimized Selves. Their screams are the ‘sounds of silence’ imposed upon women in sado-ritual.

I'm a Stranger Here Myself When Does The Next Swan Leave

Have you ever risen in the night
bursting with knowledge and the world
dissolves toward any listening ear
into which you can pour
whatever it was you knew
before waking
Only to find all ears asleep
or drugged perhaps by a dream of words
because as you scream into them over and over
nothing stirs
and the mind you have reached is not a working mind
please hang up and die again? The mind
you have reached is not a working mind
Please hang up
And die again.

-Audre Lorde

My first post of the New Year...

... and I feel like I ought to say something profound about what has happened in the past year and what might happen in the year to come.

But I don't want to say something just for the sake of saying it. A year's worth of memories cannot be summarised into one post so I'm not even going to bother.

I found myself, on the airplane on the way to England again, utterly sleep deprived after a night out on New Year's Eve drinking, dancing, and stuffing myself silly with local food at Newton. I had two hours of sleep between 6am and 8am, before getting up to do last minute packing, get to the airport and on the plane.

Between fighting bouts of nauseousness and concentrating on existential issues in I heart Huckabees , I found time to write in my book, the significant events of 2004... - in point form.
Was that the best I could manage? The weirdest, most unpredictable, eventful year of my life to date was mapped out in bullets. When I concluded December, the words stared back at me out of the page. And when I closed that chapter of my book, literally and figuratively, I don't know if it was relief or anticipation that greeted me. I could hardly believe 2004 was over and another year ushered in, amidst all that relentless activity.

....

The only New Year's Resolution I set for myself this year is: No more last minute essays.
I didn't even bother to make any others - those resolutions never work out.
But with my essays, I do need to do something about them; and it's not only my essays, really. I figure if I can get past leaving my essays to the last minute, that philosophy can be extended to the other aspects of my life too.
Living it largely by last-minute dirt attempts to manage everything is enough to suffice, but either my luck will run out someday, or I will realise that there's a certain injustice you do to yourself when you don't give your efforts its due.
So I think I've realised the latter. And I'm gonna try.

I bought an organiser yesterday, on it now writes:
I used to be disorganized .
I am rather proud of it.

Busy start to a new year, but I could not ask for otherwise.

I read this quote in my organiser today and it made me think:

Going to church no more makes you a Christian than sleeping in your garage makes you a car.

Garrison Keillor, American Broadcaster.