When a pessimist meets a greater pessimist

I've long been criticized for my cynicism and pessimistic outlook towards this world, it was refreshing to find someone who thought I was passionate and idealistic. I soon realized it was merely the contrast I provided- when you're surrounded by darkness the light of a candle might as well be the light of a solar flare.

For a moment I understood why some people hated my attitude- goddamn it was depressing to be around someone who found life bleak all the time. All I was trying to do was to get through my day with as little injury as possible, and here was this guy forecasting the suffering I will go through. Among his many wise words was the phrase "we were born to die", which I found most depressing, not only because of the nature of the phrase but because I had thought that multiple times myself. I didn't want to tell him, "hey man, you don't need to tell me these things, because I already know and I already think it on a regular basis". Instead I tried to explain to him the ideology I was trying to live by; the thought I clung to which prevented me from suicide.

If you look at it from a literal point of view, yes, we were all born to die. To this day, death remains inevitable and there is ample reason for why we could not live forever. It would be depressing to watch the ones you love age and die, one by one, even if you could remain healthy and youthful for all of eternity. Even in some fantasy scenario (if you had read Twilight, for example), where you and your beautiful vampire boyfriend lived forever, I still believe it would be non-sustainable (as you need to derive joys from more than one person in life).

Why do we bother living then? Why not kill yourself now versus dying of heart failure 70 years later? The meaning of life is not a question I am prepared to answer for anyone else other than myself, but for me it's a matter of happiness. Happiness is transient, and we need to experience a great deal of grief before we can realize happiness by contrast--- yet in the end, that is one experience I choose to undergo. Right now I am young and healthy--- I want to enjoy the energies of my youth, I want to walk the streets of foreign lands with my stable feet, and want to see the bright colors of the Earth with my 20/20 vision. I still want to know what it feels like to love and be loved in return, and I want to struggle through my med degree til the day I'm weathered and pretentious like 90% of the surgeons I've ever known- then I want to brag about how I'm the best at what I do, how my patients love me and how interns these days are just too fucking weak since they can't even handle a 72hr shift with no sleep and no food.

Actually now that I've made my sarcastic point: what the fuck is wrong with these people expecting doctors to run 72hr shifts? Like, just because you've suffered through it doesn't mean you have to be a vindictive asshole and hope everyone else goes through it. I hate how people say how unfair it is---- THERE IS NOTHING DESIRABLE ABOUT EQUALITY WHEN IT COMES TO 72HR NO-BREAK SHIFTS. Holy fuck I suffered severe stress, mild depression and spontaneous insomnia during my college years, where all I did was wish the world ended one day or wish I had died the next. Just because I went through that shit doesn't mean I wish that amount of mental stress upon anyone. If someone got a high mark than me in college, going through less trauma--- THEN GOOD FOR THEM. I don't need other people to be in distress to validate my personal existence. I can take care of myself and other people can sort their own shit out.

Back to my original topic about this pessimist I met: I can actually name many factors that make up his personality. His background, his occupation, his social situation are all HUGE risk factors for a "really sad person to be around" but I think I actually adore him. All he does is tell me depressing things, but I actually like him. I have not liked anyone else in the world in such a way, since my maths teacher in college (who I think saved me from hell). I wonder if it's because I went through that "my father is dead to me" phase that I start looking for male role-models in my life to look up to, and I like them because they're the surrogate to parental-love which I crave. I've said many times that I like being liked, and I think that applies universally. Even if I don't like someone I wish they liked me anyway. I'm selfish that way.

Why do I like this pessimist so much? Because I actually agree with his views and enjoy being depressed in harmony? No, that is not the correct answer. I like him because he thinks I'm the happier, cheerier one out of us, and I like deflecting every shitty thing he says about life in general. It's one of those "pointless arguments" that aren't actual arguments, I'm talking back because I know he doesn't actually believe what he's saying, and I think he's only saying these things because I'm trying to look on the bright side. For me, it was like... he wanted someone to tell him that he was wrong, for someone to say "hey life isn't as shit as you think it is"--- and I wanted to be wanted. I'm not very good at explaining this right now- and I'm sure I could be more eloquent if I tried, but basically the net outcome was that we were both very psychologically satisfied.

I knew for a fact that I was liked, and I knew for a fact that he enjoyed my company despite not wanting to admit it to me. My friend, who is still recovering from a heartbreak from years ago, told me this, "she told me she needed me and that fucked with me". Now I fully understand the power of feeling like you're needed in this world. Even if in my case it was non-romantic, I think it's definitely one of those things that make you want to keep on living. Many times you hear stuff like, "I'm not doing this for myself, I'm doing it for someone I love", and I sorta get that now, the thought behind it. Being needed gives us value, it gives us identity....


and I believe the happiness it gives becomes my raison d'etre. 

Got Results

So I found out I passed last semester a while ago, but recently I got actual feedback on how my test went (in terms of marks). And OH MY FUCKING GOD it was disgusting. I had 3 fields which I did alright in, everything else was just a total disaster. 30%. I answered 30% of questions correctly in one section. Fuuuuck.

I can't believe I didn't get a borderline warning letter after performing so poorly. Did I just do nothing the entire semester? Is that what happened? How the fuck did I even pass with shitty marks like those?

It's Thursday afternoon right now though, and I really can't be bothered stressing out about results now. I mean, it's in the past, I can't change it, and every semester it's a fresh page so it's not like I can even rectify my mistakes, since we're doing something new anyway. Great, isn't it.

TBH I just want to watch a movie and play some games. I watched a Korean movie called Twenty the other day. It was actually, like, really, REALLY good. I don't think I've seen such a good movie in ages. I think it speaks true about our generation, and one of the characters reminded me soooo much of my friend who got cancer. Actually thinking about that makes me sad again. Goddamn this is depressing.

I guess I'll just take it easy for the rest of this week. Next week I'll be back at school, and I'll work hard to catch up on everything, I swear. Failing is the last thing I want to do.

Conditioned

Even if you've almost forgotten now, if you've loved someone in the past, hearing that they've been hurt will stir a familiar pain in your heart.

And I despise that.

The Rare Weekend

I have work to do. I have a lot of work to do. At the same time I'm once again stuck in a small country town with no mode of transport. I seriously don't know how to get from A to B other than by foot. I have no real food apart from what I can buy at Coles, but idk if I wanna buy like buy all this shit to cook; I'm only here for a couple of days and I won't be able to finish all the ingredients and I won't be able to take anything back with me.

So yeah I've been feeding myself baked pastries and roast chickens- I bought some apples so I'd have some decent fibre in my diet but yeah I know I'm eating like crap. I'm kinda craving cabbage and broccoli and I almost never crave vegetables, so I figure my body is trying to tell me to find some decent food. I'll probably just go out to eat one night when I get back to the city so I can eat some vegetables again.

I've pretty much wasted all of today doing absolutely nothing. I DID however watch another episode of Hannibal and my heart kinda broke when Will said "I won't look for you", and Hannibal ended up turning himself in. Actually the show's kinda fucked up- but idk why it's my kind of thing. I'm not really into morbid stuff but I guess I do like psychological thrillers. If you don't watch Hannibal, I think you should because it's an excellent show. I hear it's getting cancelled though, which is really, really sad because a fourth season would be amazing.

My days are pretty uneventful. I haven't really made any friends but I like the people around here. The only problem I have with my accommodation is how it runs out of hot water every night, so I have to shower before 7pm or risk showering cold. I think Thursday night the water was cold again and I just gave up but felt absolutely disgusting the next morning. Ofc I didn't wake early enough for a morning shower since I needed to get out of the house by 7.40am. Turns out getting your shit together is only easy in theory but not actually realistic.

On a side note, I realized I have this terrible habit of trying to find out something about someone, but I'd never ask the person themselves. Like, I'd be wondering what someone's favorite color is, and instead of asking "hey what's your fav color" I'd kind of take note of the color of all their accessories and figure they probably like green. Or if I wanted to know their birthday I'd stalk them online as opposed to asking them... Maybe I'm just too shy, but I think it's because I don't want to commit to forming a relationship with anyone despite being curious. I think when people think you know them, they expect shit from you, and I find that kind of awkward. Then again I am kind of awkward so maybe that's why.

Geez I'm a mess. Alright bed time. Night.

Oversensitive nose

My vision is declining as I play more games, my hearing has always been selective, but my compensation with oversensitive smell is not really desirable. Every time this guy walked passed me today I can smell this scent- idk wtf it is---- cologne? Deodorant? Shower gel? Whatever the fuck the smell is, it reminds me of sex and I felt so gross because my mind is like "this person is not sexually attractive" but my nose sends some part of my brain into overdrive and it's just "pin him down" and like NO WTF DON'T DO THAT BRAIN.

So yeah couldn't focus all day due to this, since we were in the same room pretty much. Maybe I should sleep more than 6hrs... I think when you don't get enough sleep my conscious mind stops working and my subconscious mind is pretty much an asshole that wants to wreck my life.

Apologies

I hate saying sorry. I hate telling people I'm wrong and that I regret what I may or may not have done. As a consequence I don't say sorry a lot. Sometimes I'll know I'm wrong and I'll just let it go by, still refusing to apologize.

Then sometimes I pride myself on my ability to recognize I'm wrong, and say sorry for that. I'm proud that I'm a better person than a lot of people, simply because I can say sorry and that I can own up to shit.

Today I realized whether I say sorry or not has nothing to do with any of those things. Pride or responsibility or whatever. I'm certainly proud and I have a strong sense of responsibility, but that apparently has very little relevance on whether I apologize.

I say "sorry" when I want to end an argument. Because I don't want this conversation to continue, not because I'm owning up to anything.

I say "sorry" because I care about someone and I want them to feel better, not because I'm regretting anything I have or haven't done.

I refuse to say "sorry", knowing that I'm wrong, because I WANTED to hurt someone and I WANTED them to feel bad.

And in the end I realize I've still got a long way to go before I can be  a better person.

Oh Dear

Results got released last night for the semester just gone by. I wasn't too keen on finding out because I had a sneaking suspicion that I didn't do very well, and I wasn't prepared to deal with the potential failure and having to repeat 6 months of torture. Good news is I actually passed, so that's 6 months of pure shit I'll never have to revisit again. There was just so much stress involved then, and very little fun.

On the not-so-bright side of things, my friend told me they'd failed when I causally mentioned that results were out. I wasn't paying much attention because I had just played games for like 4 hours and I was being extremely lazy because we finished another rotation of weekly tutorials. I played up til midnight because I was sort of in the "I can check results at midnight" mentality but then I thought if I failed I'd buffer my sadness by playing games. I wasn't quite prepared for "what if my friend had failed".

Not that this is the first time I've had a friend fail some aspect of this stupid course. I'd like to say "it's not that hard" but people fuck up various things along the way and I mean, I almost failed this thing as well. That was a bit of a scare but the motivation afterwards didn't do me much good, as I still had tragically low marks for the semesters following, up until now where if I don't fail a class then it's good enough.

Anyway I was up at 3am with this friend of mine, and they're crying and being clingy and I was really fucking tired but I was still trying to be empathetic and failing miserably. I couldn't really find the right words to say- I mean failing an exam isn't the worst thing in life but I guess in my friend's life it's probably the worst thing since there's not much other shit around to care about when all you do is go to uni. Anyway I spent some time trying to refute their illogical and irrational arguments such as "I am now worthless" and "I would rather get cancer" and the 2nd part actually made me waaaay too uncomfortable because hey my friend with cancer is not having a fun time and I'm certain he'd rather fail than keep his stupid cancer. But hey failing this exam is probably the worst thing to have happened in their life so I guess on a personal level it's probably traumatic enough. There really is no way of comparing one person's tragedy to another, though we like to judge and weigh in with our personal subjectivity.

I think I'm a bit guilty that I don't feel as sad as I could be. I feel bad for my friend but I'm not exactly in mourning. Among other things I think about how I'd like eggplant for dinner and how I'd like to waste time on the weekend. There's all this stuff I wanna buy and more games I'd like to play, books I'd like to read but actually I'm feeling quite well now. It's a rarity, really, for me to have a good day. Right now though my workload is small, there's not much for me to worry about and I can just chill for a bit, before I have to write notes frantically and get into revision or whatever.

Last night wasn't the funnest night of my life, but I'm actually feeling... fine. I hope my friend pulls it back together soon. There are better things in life than uni, after all.

Life Actually Got Worse

I haven't blogged in a bit, and I come back to find my last post ironically titled "Life COULD be worse". And hey, guess what, it actually got worse.

After that massive falling out with my room mate we've actually been trying to make amends- at least I've been doing that thing where I invite her to stuff even though I don't particularly care whether she is there or not. She's doing well not to mention the argument we had, and I think at this stage we're just pretending nothing bad happened and carrying on. Her mother is still a sore spot for the both of us but I think I better cut her some slack because she's gonna leave in a couple of days and it's someone else's mother so what should I care.

Where did life actually get worse? Mmm probs started on the weekend, when I decided to procrastinate instead of doing work. That made life really hard when work was due on Monday. For some reason I just lapsed in concentration and decided to play games all night. Then for the first time in my life I decided not to finish work that was due and go to sleep instead- but by then it was 4am anyway and I had 9am compulsory class. Net effect is I got 4hrs of sleep, but at least I handed in my assignment by the 5pm submission frame. Terrible, I know.

Sleep deprivation is easily fixed though- what isn't is news of your friend getting cancer. Yeah, holy shit there you go, this is life getting worse. My friend's in his early 20s and they got cancer. CANCER. Good news is that people with his type of cancer tend to do quite well, but it does mean he gets his dose of surgery, chemo and a lifetime dependency on drugs. Good fun, yeah? I tried to look at the bright side- he's young, they found the cancer early, he's asymptomatic--- but then I remember back to the fact that he has cancer and I'm so not-ok all of a sudden.

This isn't even my closest friend or anything- but I just feel generically bad. Maybe it's because I know the kind of treatment he's gonna have to go through... but yeah I tried talking to ask him how he's feeling but he's chosen not to talk instead. I guess his closer friends would be badgering him about his health status and I probs don't need to join that cohort. There's not much I can do other than offer moral support- but to some people "talk is cheap and anyone can talk" (I don't agree with that opinion, btw, but w/e). I'd say I hope he feels better but I'm not sure there's such a thing as "feeling better" when you find out you have cancer.

Actually overall this year's been a pretty traumatic year. For some reason it still feels like it's March despite it being July. I'm not quite sure where my time went but I do distinctly remember starting school in January this year and complaining quite a lot about it. Either way life sucks right now--- and this is the part where I say "I want to fast forward into the future" but I kind of don't want to do that given my friend just got a cancer diagnosis.

Yeeeah holy shit. Cancer is tragic when you're young.

Life COULD be worse

I've come back to uni already- it hasn't been the greatest. Holidays were way too short for my liking. On the bright side I no longer have to hang out with that sister-in-law I don't like. Since my last post I have traveled the Great Ocean Road near Melbourne, and wow what a drive. The scenery was stunning, everything was beautiful- and my sister-in-law got her fill of selfies. Then she bitched for a while in the car while I drove and was like "why isn't there anything to eat out here"--- but we were stuck in some small fishing port and yeah there was nothing there. Like... we all hated being there but there's no need to whine THAT much since there's not much we can do about it.

On our way to Melbourne city all she wanted was Hungry Jacks or McDonalds. Well the Hungry Jacks we drove past was closed and so they went to maccas. For the first time in many, many years my brother yelled at me because he missed like 3 turns in a shopping mall and he didn't seem to understand me when I said "hey, turn right". Then he got really frustrated after he missed the turn and turned 3 streets down, and I said "it's ok just loop back, no big deal". He rage-parked the car and was like "SWAP SEATS YOU DRIVE THEN" so I swapped and drove and it was fine from there. I felt so fucking bad when he did that- he has no temper usually but his wife had been nagging near forever and I thought that's what provoked him. He looked awfully guilty towards me later and I forgave him for it- but yeah it just makes me feel worse about his wife. It's not like my brother and I were SUPER DUPER close but after she came along I've just been second place in everything and now he gets angry at me but he never did before.... but he puts up with her shit? And I didn't even say anything worthy of rage? I swear I wasn't even nagging about directions, it was just like "yeah turn right-- oh you missed it, ok turn right at the next one---- ok the one after should be fine too--- oh ok we can just loop around no biggie". Aaagh it's the way it should be though, he SHOULD treat his wife better than he treats me--- but when it happens it feels bad and I don't like it.

So I ditched both of them and went out with my friends in Melb city. Was great. I got lost in CBD so many times, my legs ached from walking, I ate way too much food, gained a tonne of weight and I feel fat again. We ate out, played pool, visited a museum, went to the casino and I've just never had that much fun. I also tried spicy wings for the first time and it burnt my tongue pretty bad. I felt something similar to heartburn shortly after and then the ball in my flame traveled down to my abdomen and the only thing I can be glad for is the lack of subsequent diarrhoea.

Lack of literal shit does not mean lack of metaphorical shit. My room mate's mother is visiting her and I think there's a trend that's coming quite apparent, about me disliking other people's mothers. I used to complain that there was this girl who my parents kept on comparing me to whose mom was a total bitch- anyway, my current room mate's mother is like... unbearable. Something dreadful happened last night which landed my friend of mine in hospital, and basically my room mate's mom gave me shit for not going to the hospital in the ambulance with my friend. It sounds weird mentioning it now- and I feel kind of guilty that I didn't go to hospital with them at the time, but there were a list of reasons of why I didn't go- I guess I'll save my excuses for now. That's the truth, and that's all I'm guilty and ashamed of. However my roommate's mother just went on and on about it for the whole night, making me sound like the scum of the Earth (in truth it was a bad thing) but I don't feel like I deserved the badgering I got. I will own up to what is true but everything else is just wild accusation and imaginary extrapolation.

So yeah it's not everyday that your room mate's mother throws a hissy fit at you. It's funny how I have all these problems with the family of people I'm close-ish to. My roommate's been giving me a hard time as well- I went and confronted her about it because she's been acting sooo strange since her mother's arrival, and I didn't want to take any of that shit. She threatened to move out and end our friendship or w/e, and I'm just like... well I guess if she wants to move out I'm not going to beg for her to stay- in fact at this stage I think I would prefer that she moved out. If she doesn't I certainly would find an excuse to. I complained about all this to a friend I ACTUALLY care about, and he said that maybe I should examine my own actions and think about it from other people's perspective. I don't know if I've followed through on his advice objectively enough, but right now, at this moment, I don't really feel much--- in fact I'm not sure how I'm MEANT to feel. One can take all this as a sign of me not caring... and I don't know if apathy or indifference is the right way to describe it- it's like I do care because I don't want to get tangled in this mess any further.

This is going to sound sooo bad but I'll say it anyway- I think I actually have a problem where people like me more than I like them. I've mentioned in the past that I try very hard to get people to like me- I'm sure most of us do. We live to impress, after all, and I like being liked. Problems is, being liked comes at a price, and in front of some people I don't really behave like myself in order to maintain appearances. This sounds like a highschool drama, doesn't it? But my version of "faking" is the kind of faking you'd expect for social upkeep- basically I'm polite and I never speak ill of anyone- and if someone asks me to comment on something negative I pretend not to have an opinion or say "I don't know enough about that". On the inside--- I'm actually not THAT polite. With my friends I prefer swearing, and I prefer friends that don't mind me calling them a "fucking retard" because they understand I don't actually mean to insult them. As for not speaking ill of anyone- it's like, this entire BLOG is me talking shit about various people. From past to present I've always had a problem with SOMEONE and this blog is my release. I keep their names out of it or use pseudonyms for obvious reasons, but yeah talking shit about others is like second nature to me. If I don't talk shit about someone in front of you, it's literally because I don't trust you enough. Also I have an opinion on a lot of things, and sometimes things bother the hell out of me, but I act all passive because I DON'T want to know this person better and I DON'T want to get involved at all.

And that's the story of how I met my room mate and we became "friends". She just thought I was this sweet kid who was an angel-reincarnate (nah I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea) but on the inside I'm actually a little jaded, very sarcastic and I'm working very hard on understanding myself as I grow. I told you the "forgiveness" thing has been quite a developmental journey for me- I'm not quite there yet. The only thing I'm proud of is that my cognitive empathy is intact, at the very least. I KNOW if someone is feeling sad, I just don't feel sad along with them. I think that's what really bothered this roommate of mine, who expected me to be more... idk, down-to-earth? Passionate about stuff? Actually I have no idea what she wanted out of me, because I suspect all she liked about me was my mask of social etiquette anyway. Then when you live long enough with someone, that kind of deteriorates and your roommate feels so fucking cheated that you don't like her as much as she likes you--- but for me it's like... I don't even want to work at this relationship? I don't even want to put in effort to maintain this relationship--- or "friendship" (see I don't even see it as a friendship, I thought we were housemates, she thought we were actual friends, got the wrong idea and threw it at me like--- hey you act like we're just housemates and not actual friends!) So the awkward thing is, that is almost EXACTLY what I thought and I was so confused, in my mind going, "hey since when were we even friends???"

Naturally saying that when your roommate was angry at you would not have been socially appropriate. Rude to say that to someone who likes you.

Yeah here we are- shit day for all, nothing achieved, I'm super tired and should probably sleep. I think I've got something on tomorrow... not sure what. I should really start on my assignment which is due Monday and requires a shit-tonne of research. It won't be fun. See I thought the deal with being at school was that I didn't have to worry about real life nuisances and just focus on studying- but now I just have to study, not get paid and deal with periodic shit thrown at me by everyone. Like FUUUCK I wish I could ditch my entire network of people here, pretend not to know them, and then just like... if I could meet them again, like new, I'd just stay the fuck away.