Remember...

When I use to get comments?
... Good times.

Question

I was asked one day, over pancakes in the randomest cafe on the convenient side of town.

"How'd you hold up for so long?"

I just stared at my fork, maple syrup pancake and all. I've never thought that I've been "holding up". Never thought I was resisting temptation or that I've been struggling with self-restraint. And for that god I am truly thankful.

The question meant how have I resisted not being pulled down by the masses, how have I not been partying/drinking and jumping every guy I happen to like. I was asked how I was holding on to my beliefs.

When you truly believe in something, its easy to hold on to it. Because nothing else seems plausible or even worth your while.

Head VS Heart

Sometimes we find ourselves so confused to the point that we can no longer recognize even our own emotions. Those broad lines that separate love from hate, anger and fear just seem intertwined and overrun or even non-existent.

Emotions, they get in the way, who needs them?!

Emotions non the less remain the universal language of communication between people of different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds, we can recognize happiness with a smile and read fear from the eyes and face. These emotions, fear, joy, distress, anger, disgust and surprise were regarded as “basic” emotions, understood universally and hardwired within use by evolution.

These basic emotions were necessary for the survival of our ancestors. The functions of fear, and anger in aiding the survival of our ancestors are very clear. For without fear we wouldn’t take care of ourselves, and we would not defend ourselves, readying our bodies for a battle.

The wisdom behind emotion such as disgust and surprise are also easily deciphered; surprise allows us to study our surroundings before preceding any further and disgust is a necessity in a prehistoric world filled with rotting food, feces and poisonous plants. It is less clear however why we feel joy, one theory has stated that joy helps induce the reward centre in our brain, aiding perhaps in the act of reproduction and the joys of progeny, yet another way to insures the survival of our species.

Emotion seem to take over our bodies machinery and will it to do its own bedding. Everything reacts within us to protect us from the sometimes overwhelming environment that surrounds us. The main course of events takes place by a stimuli in our environment, we sense this stimulus and the information of what we have sensed will be sent to the brain, the brain then breaks down, examines, assesses and replies to the stimulus. In addition, we hold a record of the stimulus as a memory so that we know how to deal with it again.

The limbic system, consisting of the amygdala, hippocampus, anterior thalamic nuclei and limbic cortex; these structures are the main directors of emotions, behavior and memory.

It exerts its effects through the endocrine system and the autonomic nervous system. These two systems cause adrenaline to pierce through our veins optimizing blood supply through increasing our heart rate and increasing energy by increasing our metabolic rate aiding us when we are angry, our pupils to dilate when we are aroused to allow light to enter. All these forms of emotions coming to life, conducting our bodies machinery. However, not all forms of emotions are fully understood, for one laughter seems to be highly useless, and tears, what is the power in tears? More over, why is do we feel relief after crying? Scientist have suggested that tears of distress remove stress hormones from the body, also one can not deny that tears are one of the most sincere forms of distress for it is hard to fake tears.

Although emotions were very useful tools for the prehistoric man, post historic man, it seems is held back by emotions. More often than not our emotions just run away from us, and reek havoc, for who can deny the loss of reason when we are overpowered by love or rage black outs. The world today despises emotions, and encourages detachment.

Emotions is perhaps the “north” that guides our moral compass, we lose our moral compass when we become irresponsive to emotions such as guilt, but then is it really advisable in this day an age to even have a moral compass? As they say, every man to himself.

Aristotle believed virtue to be the middle ground between two emotional extremes, courage for instance is the ground between too much and too little fear. Aristotles concept bares similarities to todays “emotional intelligence” in which a person maintain the balance between emotions and reasoning and in reading the emotions which others hide.

Emotions guide us, morally and has aided in the survival of pre-historic man. But post-historic man will have to learn to keep his emotions in check, and learn to manipulate his own and others emotions for his own benefit to survive in this “post historic” world shall we call it.

Dear Readers,

Whats it gonna take to get an active audience? Shall I write about my sexual endeavour, or lack there of? Or my arrogant narcissistic boyfriend, or lack there of?

Sex sells, and your no different.

Something or nothing- Part 2

Cardboard. That’s how it felt like, do they ever mention that you start forgetting simple words as your life wastes away and your cells refuse to renew properly, nope. No one mentioned you’d forget simple words, guess that is the way of the universe.
The cardboard was actually in his hands, he was holding it up, the elegantly handmade sign- anything handmade makes it automatically elegant, that too is the way of the universe… or marketing executives? Anyway, the sign read “F you.”
Cash stood there with the cardboard sign, elegantly handmade, smiling in what he hoped was a welcoming “I’m a poor old man” smile. He swallowed some pills, his white gems, they helped with the headaches and the world.

A girl with a pierced face walked by, read the sign and laughed then continued on her way, perhaps to get more holes. Cash loved sitting there for the entire afternoon observing the reactions of people, their faces twisted either in disgust or in a smile, a psychology experiment if you will. He would know, he preached the subject to both students and patients alike, the students appreciate it, the patience however didn’t see the sense in it, they didn’t see much sense in anything though. As the years passed by him, and his body degenerated he didn’t see the sense in it either, yes, maybe along with his body his brain had decided to degenerated as well, maybe.
He continued to linger on the side of the pavement, “F you, f you.. f f f f f f F yoooouuuu…” He sang under his breath, swinging from one foot to the other slightly losing his balance.
“F you” meant nothing, he wasn’t swearing, passers by were to interpret it in anyway their narrow minds wished. He could see that most saw it as an offensive statement, it’s a letter next to a word, and it meant nothing. People take things that mean essentially nothing and somehow manage to twist the nothingness around into some sort of insult and play victim. And more than anything people just love playing victim.

“Mister. Hey! Mister!” a little girl smiled, it looked fake and plastered.
“Hello child,” He smiled back at her fake-ness.
“Why?” she asked, fake plastic sing song voice.
“Because.” He answered in a mimicking fake plastic sing song tone.
“Because the world is self-destructing?” there were three of her now,
“No because we’re pushing the “blow it all to fucking pieces” button child,” He laughed,

The world swung into focus now, like an HD TV.
“What? Because? I mean why are you holding up this sign… What does it mean? Do you want money? Are you homeless mister?” The child looked confused,
“Well, why not kid?” He smiled down at her. An angry mother grabbed the child and took her away, perhaps to dose her up with dreams and fairytales. Perhaps.

Cash put the cardboard on the floor kneeled down and wrote, “Make of it what you will.” In what he hoped was wise-all-knowing type of handwriting. He then taped to a display window, laughing at his own madness, a 47 year and 5 months old man dressed in a suit and tie hanging up a piece of wisdom on a cardboard.
If you drove past the river island on Central Street you would read “F YOU. Make of it what you will.” Wasted wisdom on humanity really, Cash shrugged, most things were wasted on humanity.

Cash proceeded to cross the street while the little green man flashed at him, he then stood at the middle of the cross roads and bowed to the cars facing him, thank you for providing me with such entertainment. He smiled at the little boy clapping in the car in front of him, and walked, blending into the crowed of mayhem. A respectable businessman, just another normal old guy in a crowed of normal boring people.

Something or nothing- Part 1

Steady now, your footsteps are falling heavy on the aching ground and I can hear your strained breaths under a breaking spirit. She smiles at his indifference, ironic after all the times he tried to convince her otherwise.

Flash back:
An old haunted road, one Victorian house. They were seated in an old ford, the blue washed away to grey, the seating cracked and broken.
“this is it?” his voice was as haunting as their surroundings
“yes” she looked into his dull eyes, they bored her.
“So, what now?”
Simple as a question might come but in this situation she couldn’t… Wouldn’t answer. Answering would mean taking responsibility for the actions that came. And everyone hated responsibility.

She heard the car door gently close behind him, she did not follow, she sat there trying to steady herself; She sat there trying to remind herself of herself. The string of events that brought them to this moment, although surprising were somehow expected, like something she’d seen before in a dream. With aching movements she got out of the car and stood next to him, then she was in his arms.
“Hello house on a haunted hill.” An insane smile played on her lips. Who cared about taking responsibility for your actions? Lets just be reckless, we’ll laugh at the wreck after we’ve created it.

Real time:
His emotions were running away from him, getting ahead of him and wreaking havoc. He blamed the pills, he could blame them for everything really. They make his worthless life feel responsibility-free.
He looked at the little orange bottle and smirked, shaking it, watching the little white gems moving left and right… left and right..
The world decided to spin on him that moment, Lucy, where was Lucy?
“luccceee… Luceee…” the words came out broken
static was filling up his head now, pain, pain, pain… Hello intolerable pain, he laughed manically and it seemed like a distant voice, not his own.
A white angel with red flaming hair guided him to something soft, he smiled in gratitude, the angel with flaming red hair placed something small in his sweaty palm. Her blurry white shadow came closer, heated words blew up in his consciousness
“Take your damn pills, old man.”
Feisty red headed angel, or devil, can’t really tell anymore. Is there much of a difference anyway?

I want LSD.

LSD, you know Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds AKA Lysergic Acid Diethylamide. Has any one ever wanted a hallucinogenic purely because everything around them was boring to the point that you need drugs to stimulate your limbic system and over excite your dopaminergic neurons just so you can feel something slightly different and exciting.

And then a question presented itself in my mind: Is this how people get into drugs? Because they got really impossibly bored with their own lives? I wonder.
Sad times for humanity.

I was bored not because I had nothing to do, I had plenty to do, but nothing stimulated my interest any more. I had drawn a blank. Everything just seems so blah and tiresome- Anyway back to the point, so drugees of the world? Were you all just bored?

Hmmmm, maybe someday they will find a gene that says you predispositioned to be a drugee. What? There is a god gene or have you not heard? Keep up with your science.

Ahhh! To be young and stupidly, ridiculously, helplessly in love, or confused, whichever,

Has anyone noticed that all the Disney princess find their princes when they were 16, honestly they were all 16.

I guess our ship has sailed, ey?

I guess its that “we believe in everything pure” age, isn’t it? Kind of? Its that age where your in the inbetween, when your halfway grown up but not quite, when you still see the best in everything without having to try. It’s the age when your holding on to the last scraps of truth you think you have, you believe in love most importantly you believe that love can in fact conquer all, and with that believe you conquer all. All it really takes is this unwavering resilient belief in the devine and then everything else follows, or you will force it to follow with pure belief.

Those 16 year olds don’t really think about the future, they don’t think love will fail them, their not really afraid of getting hurt cause they’ve never really experienced heart break. Whats money, financial security, family issues? Its a lot to us but not much to them, they’ve never been poor or close to poor.

Stupid 16 year-olds and their stupid strong spirited uncrushed nature. Having lasting love lives, well most of you anyway…

I swear I have like 3 friends that I can remember off the top of my head that met their better half around the age of 16, and guess what, were all 20 now and they are still together MASHALLAH.

Maybe we should start thinking like foolish 16 year olds? Just a thought.

Oh yes, and a very happy new year to everyone.