dazed/depressed

restlessness is the revulsion that runs through my body after i drink from the well of inaction. the water from that well spring from many sources: boredom, guilt and depression. i've gotten to know the taste of that water well during my electives. but it is the same restlessness that makes me think and mull over the old issues; the same nausea that sometimes threatens to overwhelm me, at milder doses, forces me to find outlet through words. and it is words that will make me immortal. dare i dream so much? i, who play the cynic so well? who pretends to yearn for death to come already? what business have i dreaming of immortality? yet there is power through words. there is power through music, film, theatre and arts. power over other people - the only thing worth measuring, the sweetness which drives men beyond themselves.

but people, individuals, me - so transient and insignificant. and yet there are so many of us, each of us so complex, full of emotions and desires and memories. i cannot even begin to understand the people i know well, let alone the ones i have only spent an hour with. and all these people that come and go in my life, leaving behind only shards of their stories and personality, such tantalising yet inadequate glimpses into their being, then disappearing forever; and in the mean time i brood over these pretty little shards in my lap, trying to piece together the world, while the world revolves around me ever changing, yet somehow staying the same, like a mighty river; and suddenly i would be startled by the passage of time, the only thing that we can truly call our own yet the only shackles that we cannot break free from - it is the rattling of the shackles of time that startles me.

for soon it will be time for me to lay down and sleep, and soon it will be morning and time to live another day. soon the week will be over, and soon i will sitting lost in the music of rossini and rachmaninov at hamer hall. almost as soon this block will be over then the semester and then the year and then quick as a flash i will be middle aged then old. when will the rattling of time startle me next? for life will roll on like the waves at the seaside, washing over me and me sinking down to the bottom, until it is the end and i shall be alone once more. the pages turn in my journal like the pages in the calendar. tomorrow becomes today becomes yesterday becomes half pages of scribbled lines. day after day i wake and wonder and wander and find myself lost. night and night again i sleep and wake and find myself crying for no reason or simply feeling the restless in every cell of my body. it crawls under my skin and all over my consciousness and makes me pace around the confinement of my room, my life, the walls closing in and suffocating me. i open the door and step out but the fresh air chokes me and i feel ill i feel ill i need to throw up. when will it end? please let it end now somebody save me some angel with the eyes as deep as Understanding please look into my soul and love me. watch me while i sleep. let me feel content and not desire any more because nothing makes me happy i want only to be free from it all the wanting the searching the loneliness to stop thinking...

all i want is to sit in the sun once in a while, to feel it on my skin; to feel a slight breeze on my face. and to not care, just a few moments of contentment. but it never stops - i'm either too dazed to know or too depressed to care. my life is flowing out of my broken mind into the earth seeping through the cracks and leaving me empty and dry and bitter. my blood flows like the sand in the hourglass like the leaves rustling on the tree and me listening and the cars and people flashing by and the traffic lights turning red turning green turning red and the sun going down.

and then. one fine morning we wake up to the sound of birds chirping outside our window. aren't we glad life is but a dream? isn't it bittersweet that all the heroes and heroines are left behind, victorious yet fading from our memories? there are no lasting triumphs or insurmountable obastacles or neverchanging truths. there are only me, and you and the stories we make up to amuse ourselves, the masks we put on when we leave the house in the morning, and the people we meet and leave behind.

偶 然 (徐志摩)

我是天空里的一片雲，
偶爾投影在你的波心──
你不必訝異，
更無須歡喜──
在轉瞬間消滅了蹤影。

你我相逢在黑夜的海上，
你有你的，我有我的，方向；
你記得也好，
最好你忘掉
在這交會時互放的光亮！

(An inadequate translation by me:)

i'm a piece of cloud in the sky,
by chance reflected in your mind –
there’s no need to be astonished,
especially no need to feel thrilled –
for i'll disappear in the blink of an eye.

you and i meet amongst the waves in the dark night,
you have yours, I have mine, direction;
you may want to remember,
but it’s best you forget
the brilliant exchange of this moment!