For Auld Lang Syne

Such is life that the crowd that adorns the halls of our present may yet not have decked the halls of our yesteryear, nor may stay for the halls of tomorrow. Be this as it may, I will not bemuse myself to say that this is transient and fleeting. While I have explained this as such before, and in many ways it still is, there is a deeper force at work.

We spend our lives defining ourselves by who is around us right now or those that have shaped our lives provided that they left in a non-egregious manner. What about those that challenge us to our core and leave our lives with a bitter taste in our mouth. Don't they deserve the same affection? For it is them that inspire and motivate us to strive to better ourselves. Each and every person spends their lives dancing to an often melancholy tune through the interplay of strands that we weave to form the web of our lives. Yet, we so quickly dismiss these strands as our own or that they do not matter, and it let it pass out of tangible reality.

Today, though, I sing the Old Scottish folk tune "Should old acquaintances be forgot, and never brought to mind, should old acquaintances be forgot, and auld lang syne. For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne, we'll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne." Though time may pass, let us not forgot who has helped us to where we are, let us not forgot our place. Though each of us is but a mere shrub in the jungle of life, even every shrub acts as a beacon of life for thousands of creatures.

Conflicting Emotions

Anyone who is close to me should know that I spend much of my time daydreaming about my future. Seems like my mind dwells either in the past or future. I had my future so perfectly laid out with all my dreams, hopes, and aspirations. I knew what I wanted my life to look like. It's real life to say that these all changed, but it was more than just a tweak to my views, but an entire paradigmal shift.

I used to always dream and look forward to a married life, to my darling children that I would spoil, to a mansion that I could call my own. Yet now I find myself not sure if I want to get married. Not sure if I have what it takes since I think I would always be unfair to that person no matter who they are. I am way too intimate and in touch with my own self that I don't let others in. I think I just hoped and dreamed for a partner who could walk that same path with me. I realize just how lofty an aspiration that might be.

Even children. I wanted them to coddle and hold. I wanted them to look up to me with a pure innocence and love that could only be bestowed upon a Father's eyes. I owe much more to my children than just love and affection though. I owe it to them as my obligation and duty toward them and toward society and have that intermixed with a interplay of love and harmony. How can I ever even phantom bringing children into this world when I am not able to ever fully control my own inner self.

I know these are all musings to all of you, but they have been very real to me. For the first time I imagine the rest of my life as a bachelor. Maybe its my quarter-life crisis speaking, or it could be just becoming more in tune with myself. Not everyone is so lucky to create a the typical nuclear family...

Fleeting Compendium

I know I have been away for a while. I have learned a lot about myself during this time as well as the stage of life that I currently am in. I have also come to a closer understanding of how I view life: A continuous compendium of fleeting smiles and laughs. For what more is there to life? Yes I know a lot more, but for some reason we cling on to certain people and experiences in our life for a semblance of permanence. Rather than simply moving forward with our lives, we guise our path with a shroud of our present hopes and wishes in hopes that they instead will become our path.

This compendium eventually deluminates the clarity and cognitive capacity with which we take our decisions. Relationships are important, but when I will never believe that a relationship should define, characterize, or be the strength that guides you forth. Relationships should help you grow, they should give you tools to help you forward in your path, they should offer you love, compassion, and help, but they should never be a bastion of stability in my opinion. The only lasting relationship is that with one’s self or with one’s God. What other need is there? Using anything as support is just a form of cowardice whether or not the intent is pure or not.

For the first time in my life, I am proud of where I am with how I am handling things. Things are nowhere near perfect, or how I would “like”. It seems like my frame of mind has shifted from trying to form a steady foundation of people around me to focusing on my inner drive, inner strengths. Enough people have come and gone from my life whether I let go or they go, and I truly believe from all of this that while relationships offer clarity, they are an object of brevity in a preponderance nature.

66

This is my 66th blog post. Its symbolism provides a perfect framework for its purpose. I want to begin by apologizing if I have offended you or made any of you feel inadequate, hurt, confused, or alienated. Especially with my last few blogs. I have been a bit cruel to many people.

I have decided to end my blog. I want to put this demon to rest as it has only served the purpose of inciting others to anger . Maybe one day I will start this up again, but until then it, along with many other things, need to be put to rest. So long, as I delve deeper and deeper.

Throne of Pestilence

Coming from a sheltered background,I did not get a conceptual grip of the reality of life till the beginning of College. My parents would have given me the world if they could, but things were different back then, yet still so much the same now.

As time drew forward into College, I became more and more exposed to what a journey is life is supposed to be like. I started having feelings and emotions. I just remember being emotionally hollow before all this. It was almost as if now a insurgence of life breathed new flame into my bodily abode. Just as Pandora opened her box and out-poured all the cruel vices and evils of life poured out, I felt this inner rage explode tumultuously through every fiber of my being. I experienced things I have never felt before: jealousy, greed, neediness, wrath. I had become a living embodiment of all that is reviled in this world. People claimed they saw something special in me, but what they saw was an old me. One that I had smothered into submission in favor of the nuances of evil of the world.

What am I left with now? I have created my own self-imposed ethereal prison with my own pride and arrogance which serve as the shackles to my untimely fate. I sit on my throne of pestilence idly thinking over constantly every move, action, and though that courses through my mind and life. Those that I care for, my lips have been soldered together in fear of losing them or making them worry over me. Those that once were have slipped away just as water through one's palms. They remain trophes devoid of the effervescence that once used to give me strength...now on new trodden paths as I remain frozen in time.

I want to cast off this skin I have put on. I want to become apathetic again. I want to be devoid of emotional attachment. Maybe attachments are great for other people, but my expectations and stubbornness make it a curse for me. A curse that can only be repaid with a life sentence of solitude.

Close Encounters of a Moral Kind

People’s moral lassitude continues to astound me. Despite being in medical school they succumb to base temptations. It sickens me that so many people just let their own desires, passions, and bruised egos let slip away any dignity that they may have still possessed. I am tired of people being duplicitous, tired of them being hypocrites, and tired of them thrusting upon others their own insecurities that they themselves were drowning in.

People here see me as a calm, collected person. They do not see my inner demons of rage and anger. I have made mistakes in the past, but I never compromise my morals. I struggle all the time to keep my second, more sinister alter-ego from surfacing since I do not think most people could handle it. It is a scary individual, and it is a main reason why I do not let others see my thoughts or true inner mind workings. It is almost evil at times.

Well I got a bit tangential there, but I guess what I am trying to allude to eventually is that we all have our menacing inner self. Even if some people’s inner selves are more than others or that they are able to control them more, we are all obliged to societal dictations of how we should carry ourselves and people should stop being sacrilegious to not only to their own selves but to all of us around them. It’s weird, whether I am here or at home, people always think I am very different and not normal. Always making me feel like there is something wrong with me, yet in my head I have always thought deep down that I was the normal one. Maybe in many ways that is true…maybe rather in many ways I am surrounded by idiosyncrasies that let their inner demon lash out at destructive intervals rather than embracing one’s inner demon and learning to tame it into submission.

Into the Rabbit Hole...Again

The oscillations of life's tantrums never cease to amaze me. The doldrums that continue to envelope time after time has become a regular occurrence. I get constant strife no matter who I am trying to be. One minute I am detached, aloof, introverted, and trying to act like a martyr. The next minute I am gossipy, whiny, and cannot be trusted.

I cannot seem to find a balance, and then I think to myself, why? Why do I consistently alter my being for the sake of others. This is not selflessness but rather an ever growing desire for acceptance, appreciation, and attention. Whether it is for family, my friends, or even my best friends, I seem to keep changing myself to cushion their own expectations or wants.

I know who I am, and what I am, and what I am to do, and I should focus on that. I shouldn't focus on harmonizing my world around me. Wasting away the gifts that I have been given, I sit here trying to please others or reach out to others. I am yearning for a dark, secluded place. One where I can hibernate my ego while still preparing myself to tackle the real hurdles in life. I could not be bothered with people's own insecurities and could not be bothered with my own insecurities. And so I go now.

Adjective vs. Noun: Labels of a Modern Age

Since the Medieval Age, and even before, society has dictated who you are and what you will be. They have assigned you titles and roles that you are compelled to play in every aspect of your life. A simple noun such as knight, serf, blacksmith would serve as your prison from birth till death. We try to profane in this society that we have out-stepped these “barbaric” habits and have taken on a much more aesthetic view of living life.

From all my experiences in life, we have not shifted at all in the last thousand years, but in fact fell deeper and deeper into a sense of denial. We all try to purport that we are our own individual person that is dynamic and special in our own regards. Yet today the things that should attach to our personas, are still nouns not adjectives.

An adjective is a characteristic and helps explain a noun or a person. It serves as a color, a tone when painting the vast picture of one’s self. A noun, however, is a definition. It provides a framework for the picture and in essence traps one into a stereotype, into a role that they might not be ready or capable to play in its full performance.

I feel constantly weighed down by labels in that they put an expectation in the air that every person is likely to fail to meet at some point. They also trap you into a rigid structure that you will most likely never break free from. I would rather be in an amorphous setting where I can truly showcase all the different dynamic aspects of my personality rather than constantly feeling weighed down and burdened by the ever pressing obligations that come with people’s expectations.

I am not saying I wish to shirk any responsibility, but what I am saying is that I want to showcase my personality as adjectives, not nouns or labels. I want to be known as intellectual, compassionate, selfless, dutiful, and moral. Creating a label takes the light and luster out of a being and actually lessens the qualities of that individual that the label was trying to classify. As long as society’s self-imposed prison is thrust upon us, we cannot hope to propagate a society that focuses on the creation of a higher sense of self.

An Iridescent Horizon

*Second Post

As the walls began to crumble on all sides of her, Lady Macbeth was presented with a biting truth. The duty and sacrifices that she was making for her husband were all a farce. She had lived her life striving to create a foundation for her and her own, not selfishly thinking of herself, or so she thought. In the end though, it was her own selfish ambition that led to her and all of her kin’s destruction.
I used to be a staunch supporter of Lady Macbeth, because I could commiserate with her. She was an idol to me, because I wanted to be like her. I thought that my purpose on this Earth aligned with her courage, selflessness, duty, and determination.

Like her though, I too have been stripped down. A shattered ego; a clean, crisp decree has been issued. I have lived my life a certain way, and I still believe in my duty. Where my mistake is that I let emotion creep into my rationale just as Lady Macbeth’s ambition did to hers. Yes, she sought to support her husband, but her emotions guided her on her path rather than her true resolve. In my quest for fulfillment, I have created many bonds and connections along the way. I let my emotions attach myself, and from there I subconsciously earn for some sort of retribution; albeit in the form of appreciation and care.

I once took pride in my personality, in my compassion, empathy, selflessness. But I realize now, that the cloak that surrounded my strengths was a deceptive one. It was one that coveted reciprocity. This inner truth has been exposed, and I have but two choices now: Lay down my arms and concede defeat, or fashion out of the rubble a new sense of self and continue on my path.

My emotions have clouded my vision; they have destroyed the environment around me. I have surrounded myself with a thorny foliage of which I must now cross. I feel like there is something bright upon the horizon. Something that I have been searching for, yearning for. Lady Macbeth took her own life because she could not handle what her subconscious destruction did to those around her. I have the ability to go beyond this. I have the strength to gather myself and fight for a higher path, fight against a menagerie of emotions trying to hold me back, fight against an ill-fated past of which I must learn to suppress. My iridescent future lies waiting; waiting for me to reach.

Adventures in the Clouds

The day started off amuck. My mind was contorted in a vast array of emotions, and I struggled to maintain a non-contorted composure. I gathered my things trying to repress anything I was feeling. “I will think about it later”, I thought to myself. My friend Eddie picked me up, and we went and picked up our other friends Laura and Rajni as we made our way to Golden Rock Plantation, the starting point for our trek to the Mountain Source.

The looming peak looked so serene. Serene, but hiding something. Its elusiveness was exhilarating me. I knew that something was awaiting me up there, but like all realizations it would only come after passing through fire. As we began our trek up, Rajni soon realized after about 20 minutes that she could not take it anymore. Eddie and I told the others to go ahead as we took Rajni back down the mountain so that she was not alone. The initial portion of the trek was filled small shanty town and villages with villagers that looked at us with hungry eyes. You could sense that they were living in an era far away from the ones that we are from.

Eddie and I continued our climb back up; the path was filled with curves, greenery, foliage, and spectacular views amidst its twists and turns. As we continued to beast the initial ½ of the way, we soon realized that we were simply in the calm before the storm. The trail narrowed to two feet or so. The mountain on our left, and an impending death on our right. The path became turbulent with rocks and mud, and one false step could be your last. There was no room to stop and take a break, so our only choice was to continue forward.

Eddie and I really bonded as we talked about our goals, our dreams, our past. These deep conversations provided a perfect framework for my own self-realization. I felt like I had become one with nature. My OCDness was thrown out of the picture, and for one of the first times in my life, I felt pure. My body ached, my head was racing, but not with thoughts. It was racing with the majesty of what was going on around me.

As we continued on our path, we noticed ahead two donkeys were blocking our way. They were continually slipping off the path, yet catching themselves in the final moment. The path was far too narrow to pass by them, and we were dumbfounded on how to get by these two confounded beasts. Eddie and I managed to get behind a tree trunk, and I with my walking stick tried to draw the donkeys closer. They looked at me confused, but finally in a very quick moment, they turned charged down the path in the direction from which we had come. The path was now clear to continue onward.
We soon came upon giant rock edifices of which we had to essentially climb our way up. My body strength was giving, and my world began to spin. Eventually we worked out way up to the top and met up with our group.

It was time now to head back. I had a feeling that the second half of the journey would be even more arduous. This proved to be true. Slipping, stumbles, collapsing plagued my journey, but I knew that this was my test. This was my test to myself that I am stronger than people give me credit for. I can handle the things life throws at me with my own internal strength and do not need external support on a constant basis to overcome my trials and tribulations.

Minutes turned to hours and the path continued into a convolution of seemingly endless bends and slopes. My legs were shaking to the point that at times they would just give in. We the path began to calm into a more rocky, but less steep terrain, I was able to regain myself. Despite feeling weak and fatigued, I felt anew. I feel a new energy inside of myself. Something that I have never felt before. Something that had laid dormant for years; a white light so to speak.

I am unsure of the future, and I am unsure of the effects that the past will continue to have, but I do know that right now I have the arms to combat against the present. No single person has the ability to bring me down. I have recognized a truer visage of myself that I hope to bring out exoterically.

As we drove away, I could sense that I had left something behind on the mountain. The skin of a former self. The mirage of a personality that I had showcased to the world. As the mountain grew smaller in the distance, I closed my eyes just as a smile crept over my face.

Purest Intentions Gone Wrong

As I sat on the steps waiting for the doors of school to open, I began my usual bouts of daydreaming and zoning out. As I began my usual routine, soft motions from my peripheral caught my eye. A little caterpillar was meandering around a leaf slowly gnawing the leaf thin. I instantly remembered these caterpillars since last semester when I was doing research on plants of cancer therapy interest, we learned about these caterpillars and how destructive they were to the plants. The professors would always take them off and even kill them often.

I watched this creature as it hungrily devoured the leaves, and I felt pity for it. Even it deserves to live, even it deserves to fight for its survival. Though many view it as a rudimentary creature, to me it was synonymous to humans as well. The caterpillar has no knowledge of how it is affecting the plant or other creatures; it is fighting to survive in this world just like every person.

In life, we often judge and clash with people because we believe that they are bad people because they do not have the same path and focus that we do. Though I do believe there should be some cohesiveness in society, everyone has their own path and way of going about it. Rather than supporting others in their endeavors, we only look to see how it affects or harm our own path.

All of this reminded me of a friend of mine. Last year, it seemed like everything in life was working against him trying to bring his bright future down. He has such a pure soul, but everyone forgot about him. It seems like in this day and age, no matter how pure a person’s intentions are, if they do not coincide with everyone else’s, if they are deemed a menace, then they must be exterminated. How often in life when someone does something that upsets you or confuses you, have you stepped back and looked at the situation. I know putting oneself in another’s shoes is such a trite statement, but I believe the strongest social strength a person can possess is empathy.

It seems as if my empathy is waning myself. I still am able to read people and analyze people very well, but I am losing my drive to empathize. I want someone to empathize with me for once, and that is so selfish. I should not live a life hoping someone tries to understand me. Like the caterpillar I believe that I can follow my own path despite what others may perceive of it, but unlike him I believe it is important to keep a low profile. In my quest for self-actualization, I hope to achieve that even more. Slowly fall deeper into myself in terms of my own path and duty. This world is not ready to cope without ignorance which seems to drive this society of misconceived notions. Until this is undone, I shall continue to follow my purpose, even it is in the shadows.

Power of No

For those of you that know me well enough, know that I cannot say no. No matter the circumstance, no matter the person, I struggle every time to say no. I love being there for people, but the reason that I am writing is that it is lately been kind of heavy on me. I wanted to come to the island and start anew, but it seems like a pattern has begun to reproduce itself. I am a very-giving person, and also at times have no backbone. In order to maintain the harmony, in order to maintain the peace, in order to ease other people’s discomfort at the cost of my own, I will always say yes to them.

I know people do not mean to take advantage, but given the environment here, I know people struggle to really see beyond their own frame of reference. I, like everyone, have my own limits, my own boundaries that when I cross I begin to crash. It is at this time that it seems when things like this bother me since people are not able to read me. I feel like down here though, when I hit a threshold like this, I crash and become empty. Still people try and push my buttons or ask of me things that will just further tether me to my hollow state of being.

I am not going to share my personal life every time I get into one of these states because that is for me to deal with, but because of me not being able to say no, because of my always trying not to displease someone else, I lose myself. This is something that I have been trying to change, and I have been trying to rectify it here by maintaining a low profile and keeping to myself during these times. It seems like some people, however, have not reached that level of emotional and mental understanding to be vigilant enough to see beyond their own self and see that others function and view things in a different matter and thus their demeanor toward these people should modify accordingly.

When I assert myself, I am the bad guy or I am the cranky one. I just sometimes want to be left alone. I do not need support in terms of someone to lean on or someone to listen to me for the most part. The only thing I have ever wanted was to feel special to those that I care about, but it seems like I am yet again constantly being pulled in multiple directions, yet for some reason it has not broken me; it just keeps stretching me over and over again to a point where my mind and self are becoming jumbled and unrecognizable.

Jihad: A Struggle

Life is a journey. Life is a process. Life is discovery. These are incantations concerning the theoretical adjectives that life should be like. Though many of the people that are surround me subscribe to such idioms, I find them to be flawed for me. A process describes a cyclical venture that does just that, keeps someone in a cycle. It is often very difficult for upward mobility in terms of spiritual, emotional, and mental intelligence, or if one does go through the cycles, they take a much longer time to come to the same realizations, and often by that point it is futile or too little too late.

A journey describes a path of which one often gets caught up in the surroundings. Yes, it is an open-minded focus, but often times people get too focused on the surroundings, too focused on the actual journey and the enjoyments of life, that they forget the end path, the end result. I am not a follower of such journeys as I believe life is a struggle not a journey. The word ‘jihad’ has been butchered by Americans, but in reality, it means “a struggle”. I struggle each day to overcome these illusions in order to keep working toward my purpose, keep working on my inner growth. I am not professing the life of a yogi by giving up all happiness, giving up all mechanisms of self-enjoyment and pleasure, but I do not believe that these things should define a person. I do not believe that these things should be an aim, but rather ways to keep a person on their path and journey. They should serve as a means to bolster a person’s resolve in his path in life, rather than distract him or cause him to go in a round-about either backwards or lead him in circles.

A discovery is that ‘Ah-Ha’ moment in which one stumbles upon a higher realization which propels them forward in life. While this is a beautiful way to look at things, when this idiom is dissected most people think of it to mean that with the flow of things, that with fate, that by simply drudging forward, they will attain the fruit of their labors. But that is exactly where the fallacy lies in my opinion. Where is the labor in the discovery? We often believe that things should be given to us, that we deserve enlightenment and success and happiness, that we are ENTITLED to it even. Sure there are discoveries in life that come from labors, but these labors, in my opinion, should be done through the acts of jihad, they should be found through a push to attain the final end results. A struggle to find the inner peace and inner enlightenment will push a person beyond any comfort zone, and it is this struggle that shall ultimately let them reap its benefits.

It is very weird to see how much I have transitioned as the years have gone by. I believe that I have successfully transitioned myself out of adolescence and the pettiness that comes with high school or undergrad environments. From this though, I have become introverted and use myself as my own support even if I let others believe that they help act as pillars of support for me. This is not to say that I do not care about people, but I have just learned that my parents, my God, and my soul are the only three things that have never betrayed me, the only pillars that have never let me fall as I began to collapse. They are the pillars that support me through my own jihad.

Floating Realizations

As the weeks have droned by, it seems like my inner self has been lulled into some sort of hibernation, some semblance of dormancy. My search for inner peace seems to have come to a standstill as the minutia of life continue to blind me to my true path and goals. It has been through my diligence that I keep striving to see beyond this and regain myself to keep going.

I thought my birthday would come and go, but I hit rock bottom then. The usual feelings of loneliness, unappreciated, worthlessness, and unnecessary self-pity all came as usual. I tried my best to conceal or swallow my own self-inflicted poisons, but this time a much more sinister feeling just would not subside. Guilt. The skeletons in my closet again came out, and it was too much to handle. I felt like I had nowhere to go. Caught alone with these feelings, I felt like I was cornered; forced to subject to its every whim and fancy.

Where am I now? Swallowing and internalizing everything around me again. I have been doing it for years, and though I have my weak moments, I have not yet fallen. It is who I am. I am know what my duty is and what my goals and my path in life are (Previous post). These glimpses from the past, however, are more than just glimpses. They are stumbles in my past where I strayed from the beaten trail; they are scars on my body that will never heal and remind me of a grim reality that will never fade away.

These floating realizations come and go, and I have struggled to make these thoughts tangible. They are thoughts and ideas that come to my mind that I realize about myself, but can't seem to find a reality to them. I know that sounds so confusing, but it just seems like I have been living in someone else's shoes these past few weeks. But I finally realize I think what has been bothering me, something too personal to write here, but something I know I must rectify, something that will take a long time to do, but something that hopefully I can begin to get atonement for. A realization that hopefully that will become reality and float no more.

Going through the Motions

Delving deeper into myself. I am fully aware of my actions, and how they are affecting who I am and my surroundings. It comes with my intuitiveness and my ability to see reality for what it is. Things have been going well for the most part aside from a bump here or there. Keeping up with all the material, got a Histology TA position, got a car, and live in a pretty nice house.

Despite all of this, I feel like I am constantly just going through the motions. Days go by where I am no concept of time…I keep becoming oblivious to the extrinsic factors of my life that normally I would pay painstakingly close attention to. I feel a lot better from what I did at home, but I feel like my mind is so whimsical here. Those of you that know me well, know that this is not me. Yes, my mind is always going and always thinking of something, but there has always been some order to it. I feel like a child down here with my thoughts. It has its pluses in that I am thinking less and analyzing less which has always been an aim of mine, but at the same time I feel so…under-developed. I feel like I have changed myself, but cannot find a happy medium just yet to my old self and my new self. Something that I shall continue to look into and try and discern as the weeks go on.

Digging Deeper

Everyone keeps asking me when I am posting my next blog. They were wanting to see into my thoughts I presume since I put up such a brick wall to my exterior. I recently got back to the island from being home. It was a pretty big shock being home. I did not realize how quickly I had changed, yet how much had either remained complacent at home or changed as well. The demons of my past were still waiting for me at home, and my escapes from reality seemed to have drawn inward.

Since being on the island, I am surprised at just how introverted I have become. I have become quiet, collected, and very reserved. I have yet to really open up about myself, yet I do not feel a strong urge to. When I went home, I noticed a similar change in many people. I used to be someone they depended on, but now that I have moved on to the next adventure in my life, I guess life has to move on. Wow I sound so pompous lol, but I do not mean it in that way at all. I think I have reached a point where the singularity of life really comes to the forefront. I miss the group dynamics, and I miss being that distinctive resource and support. That was my purpose at home; the purpose that had taken me years to develop.

I still have it in me, but the person that I was cannot survive here. I am not being someone, but certain aspects of my personality have gone into hibernation. I am kind of confused as to what to do, should I find a new foundation for my purpose? Should I stick it out and just get through my time here before going home and back to my old characteristics? The biggest thing that I have realized here is what really and truly matters in my life. I have largely let go of things that do not matter, or deal with them swiftly if they do try and come back. I am alone and have largely let go of my supports. I have continually pushed off dealing with anything going on in my mind. I am not sure if I am ready to go in yet, because I am afraid of what I am to find. In the past 4 months, something has been stirring in there, and I am not ready to confront it because I know it would mean the onset of a much colder, apathetic, isolated version of myself. It is only a matter of time.