Recreational Drugs

A few years ago I had a massive spaz when I found out 90% of my friends smoked weed. Maybe I did grow up in a stifling conservative environment, I don't know, but back then I thought recreational drugs were like... the materialization of sin itself. Now I've gotten to the point where I'm heavily surprised if a friend says they've never used drugs in their life. Honestly, I still find drug use heavily confronting (when it's from people I know), and I still feel kinda of disappointed when my friends do it....(why would you do that to yourself), but I think I've learnt to be slightly more mature about it.

Having the time to grow up at my own pace, I've seen more of the world, and I've come to understand why people become addicted (just a little better). It doesn't excuse the appalling habit, but sometimes I'm like, "yeah, I get it". When you look around, the people who take drugs are just people like you and I, and you'd never know unless they told you. Humans are more complex than their addictions, I've realised that everyone has a backstory- some of them are just a series of tragedies, but others find success in unlikely places. People are more than their addictions, and it's hard to see that when people behave erratically due to their substance use.

Anyway, I find it appalling that people would support the state-sanctioned murder of drug users. Like holy fuck just because someone's addicted doesn't mean they're useless to society. I know so many high-functioning alcoholics. You probably know some too. Alcohol is pretty fucking bad for you, and that's legal. The illegal substances are yeah, terrible for your health, but it doesn't mean you get the right to kill someone because they snort some cocaine.

Am I too naive to believe that people have inherent worth? It's not that I haven't seen the wreckage some people can bring, and truly, there are terrible people out there. Maybe they don't have much rehab potential. Perhaps I shouldn't be so quick to criticize if I can't offer an alternative solution, but I just... I just feel like it's so wrong. Deep down, a part of me likes to believe that life is sacred, that there is a reason for our existence, even if we have to find and define our reason for existence for ourselves. Reading the Bible, I find it dissatisfying enough that God should have the right of judgment, so now I find it incredulous that humans are able to shroud themselves in such moral superiority over another that they would take away another's life, because they deem it not-worth-living.

I need a while more to reconcile how I feel about this topic. Admist all the helplessness I feel, I can still hear the child in me scream, "I want to change this world".

Heartbreak

I watched the world championship finals for League of Legends last night... and I gotta say I've never hurt so bad watching someone else hurt. The team I supported (SKT) went down 0-3 in the most embarrassing fashion... and it's hard because it's literally what I'd predicted would happen. As the first game wrapped up (where the opponents almost had a perfect sweep of a game) I knew I was watching the beginning of the end.

The games were a rollercoaster of disappointment tbh- for a while I thought SKT would have a chance, and in the match-point game I thought they'd win... and maybe make another one of their miraculous reverse-sweep comebacks. Alas, they just fell 0-3 instead, and even though I'm not surprised, it still sucks. Then as the camera panned from the victors to the SKT members, I saw how the star player of SKT, Faker, buried his face in his hands and his whole body shook in the most heartbreaking way. He had to get up and shake hands with the opposing team, which would be the professional custom, so there was that moment of awkwardness where the other team waited as Faker was having a meltdown that's being broadcasted to millions across the world. Ergh

I hate seeing him like this because Faker has won 3 world titles and is commonly known as "the best player in the world". Everyone was bitching about how boring it was that SKT won everything, but I actually liked it... I liked the idea that there was someone SO GOOD that no one would be able to surpass him. To be real, in the end it wasn't like Faker was defeated by the other team, it was more like his own team betrayed him, and then they just shit the bed completely. People often refer to Faker as "God" of this game, and uh, I guess we all saw who Judas was on his team......................

Anyway, I hope Faker will rise again in biblical fashion, because watching him crushed actually hurts. It would be an amazing resurrection story (but he really needs his team mates to stop being dogshit).

November Update

Newflash: the conference was lame, my hopes were dashed. I did enjoy myself there, in the company of some friends, but the event was not what I thought it would be. Of course everything was fine in the end; I had an excellent weekend and now I'm on break before my final exam.

It doesn't feel right to have an exam to prepare for at this stage.. I've been on something akin to a month-long holiday, and the low-pressure environment has made me lazy. I need to get into the groove so that I can be better prepared for next year, but I wonder if, in the future, I will lament how I spent the last summer of my youthful university life with textbooks and lecture notes.

I don't have anything better to do though. There's TV there's games but none of it feels special any more. I realised I can continue to do these things while I'm working... I won't be able to binge an entire season in a night, but I can watch an episode every now and again, or while I'm writing notes. Life isn't an all-or-nothing game, after all.

I've caught up with some of my old friends... I'm glad to see them all, but I'm acutely aware of the fact that we're all leading vastly different lives now. It feels so strange... I have such difficulty relating to everyone's troubles, and I wonder when I started to change, and how I've changed. I can't say I like the feeling. I've carved a new path for myself, different to everyone else's that I've known... it's foreign, it's scary, and it's so easy to feel oh-so-alone. It should be fine though... every day I move an inch closer to exactly where I want to be in life... all that I've envisioned for myself, I will have. The good thing about career goals is that if you set them you can work towards it and you can feel the progress.

So I'll just keep marchin', I guess.

Better Times

My mood has improved substantially since daylight saving time started. I think dusk must be my favourite time of the day, when I can see the trailing blaze of crimson across the sky, as the warmth of the earth rises through my soles. The temperature is pleasantly warm- warm enough for shorts but not so excessive that need the aircon 24/7. Oh, and school is almost over. I've done exceedingly well to get where I am, and though happiness and contentment is a rare-find some days.

I've started reading The House of God again. It's this novel that's famous through the medical world for its unironic presentation of the brutalities doctors face in medicine. I understand more in-jokes now than I ever did before, and I do feel a little disturbed by the things I'm amused by. I think I'll go for something different when I finish The House of God, my friend has recommended Lord of the Flies. I've actually started that already, and from the first few chapters of that I had a sneaking suspicion that a certain character was going to die, then I was impatient enough to spoil the story for myself. Yeah, he dies.

Aaaanyway, I've gone broke recently having shelled out a large sum of money for a conference which I am no longer receiving a grant for. I don't think I would've signed up for it if I didn't expect my grant to go through. Oh well, now that I've paid for everything, I'll just treat it as a mega holiday. I was going to do something to celebrate my graduation anyway, and this can be part of it. I can spoil myself, a little, yeah?

I do fear I've become a bit too relaxed now, though. All I've done since passing my last exam is go see friends, play game and watch league. The international tournament for league is on at the moment, and the team I've supported for years just made it past the initial group stage of the tournament, which I'm pretty happy about. I had faith in them but the odds weren't that good. At least it worked out in the end.

I honestly haven't felt this relaxed since the end of year 12. Like, wow, I pulled through, the mountain of pressure is gone and I've got myself sorted, at least for a little while. Next year will be extra-stressful, but that's next year's trouble. I'm enjoying better times.

More Dates

You'd think it was unwise for me to start dating immediately after dumping someone- but I can't fucking stand my loneliness. I should have been finishing my last assignment of the year, studying for my last exam, or simply reading another book to improve myself. Instead I decided to see someone and get myself tangled once more.

It was a nice day we spent at the gallery. Good company, I'd say. Definitely had fun. Not what I wanted though. I sensed their anxiety from the get-go. Cute, someone's anxious about seeing me. They're again, worried about what I might think of them. I enjoy that. I enjoy having my opinion matter so much... but I'm attracted to arrogance. Not even confidence, arrogance. Didn't feel a shred of that with this person.

I looked at some expensive artwork, and I boldly proclaimed that "I could do better". Actually I probably could, but I'm not sure anyone would buy it for several thousands of dollars. It was intended as a bit of a joke though- my date didn't laugh. They just nodded and said, "I'm terrible at art". I found the same pattern of humility repeated over multiple conversations. Then bam, it hits me, my overwhelming sense of superiority once again. I heard the voice in my head saying, "you think you're better. You feel like you're better. You can do better, and you deserve better".

And that voice was all I heard for the rest of the day.

I felt hollow and empty once again, on my train ride home. What was it that I was looking for? WHO am I looking for? Why the fuck do I keep telling myself I can do "better"??? What the fuck is "better"? Money? Looks? A brilliant mind? And why would someone with all those things want to be with someone like me? I must be reaching delusional levels of self-worth, if I am finding all these people unsatisfactory.

How do you search for something, when you don't even know what you're searching for? All I'm doing is rejecting every option I've been presented, and I'm at the point where I can't even give valid reasons any more. This time I won't complain about their hair, their face, the way they dress, the way they talk, or whatever it was I complained about last time. I just felt, "no, you're not what I'm looking for either, though you are an improvement over the last guy".

I should just go work on my assignment. Maybe it's "better" for me to be alone.

Reshuffle

I've really turned my life around in the past week. Good news, I didn't die, I actually did kill my exam and emerged victorious. I went down south to see my long-time friend, and he's not doing so well but I missed him dearly and I still enjoyed his company. The plan is that I will move closer to him for work next year, and hopefully I can help him out a little, because so far he's been living off pizza and he's stashed a sizeable tower of empty pizza boxes (which is really concerning). I suppose the good news is that he isn't fat, but idk how long that will last.

Then on the more personal front, I dumped the person I was seeing and found someone new. I think I concluded too early that "this person isn't entirely socially retarded", and tbh he kind of was and I just got caught up in the fact that I managed to stop being single for a while. Like I've been trying to not-be-lonely for what, a good 5 years, and I finally found someone I thought I could be with. Nope, I just got lost in the feeling of being liked, and for better or for worse, I realised very fast the incongruence of my own sentiments. I think I always knew it was going to be problematic, from day one. If I read what I wrote on my blog then, I'm like "huh even then I knew I'd get sick of this really fast". Still, I indulged in the fleeting happiness it brought... and I wouldn't say I regret anything, despite the mess it's caused.

Now I'm living the good life, on a semi-holiday. I'm still working but the work isn't as intense, and I just bought Nier Automata, so I'll tell you how that goes when I get around to playing it.

Hello, Stress, my old friend

My anxiety has returned with a vengence. Every time I think about my upcoming exam I feel the need to vomit everything I've eaten, ever. Everyone has been saying, "don't worry, you'll be fine" and reassuring me about how clever I am. Not clever enough, evidently, otherwise I wouldn't have fucked up the first one.

"Good luck, not that you'll need it! You're gonna kill it". Yeah man if I don't kill this exam I'm going to kill myself, one of us is going to die because of this.

Ahhhhhhhh fuck this. Why is life so hard.

Same Sex Marriage Postal Survey

Got a letter in the mail today, asking "should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?" It felt dystopian. I remember sitting in history class, thinking it was so foolish that there was a time where black people were not seen as human, that women were seen as naturally inferior to men, that Aboriginal people were taken from their own land--- no matter which period of time we chose, there was some group being discriminated against. "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". It's my favourite quote from Orwell's Animal Farm. Humans are animals after all. We like to distinguish ourselves from others- not through any brilliance of our own, but through dragging others through the mud and laughing at their predicament.

To me, the question asked here isn't really "should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples of marry". It's really asking, "should same-sex couples be afforded the same rights as heterosexual couples"... or you know, "should same-sex couples be considered human?" Call me a Leftist if you will, but I think the LGBTIQ community are rightly upset... I mean, they might not even want to get married, but it's one thing to decide that you don't want to marry, and another for other people to deny you what everyone else has.

Still, I reply back to this insult of a survey, because I, as an individual, wish to contribute to the statistics which make up the "yes" vote. I just feel terribly sad that this is what 2017 looks like. I thought the horrors of the past were firmly in the past- but it's a new fight every day.

So on we fight.

Search Harder

I wonder if I'm just really ungrateful, as a person. In general. I've been told as much by my parents, but since our relationship is in ruins I haven't really paid much thought to it, though it clearly bothered me at times. Now I'm concerned about something else entirely but the thought creeps back into my mind.

It's about the strange relationship I've gotten into. I'm totally enjoying being treated so goddamn well, but at the same time I'm acutely aware of the discomfort I feel. I've tried to break it down to WHY I feel this way- and I found so many reasons. Many of them entirely superficial. Like, the colour of his hair, the hairstyle in general, the collar of his shirt, the shape of his glasses, the frustratingly terrible grammar he uses when he tries to be cute. All of these things are fluid and can be so easily changed... but ofc you can't tell someone that you want them to look a completely different way without being entirely offensive, which is why I haven't said anything. I always thought to myself that "if I like someone enough, I wouldn't care that their face had rotted away or if they were bed-bound with illness". I still believe that about myself.

Which leads me to think I'm just finding reasons to dislike this person.

Why would I do that? Because I want something else. In front of me is someone who is nice enough to me, isn't a total wreck, and seems to care a lot about what I think of him. Which is really problematic for him, of course, but that's not my fault. My problem is that I'm looking for someone else. Someone entirely different. When I list all the things I don't like, it makes me realise- ah, I'm not comfortable around this person. If I could change everything I disliked about him, it wouldn't even be the same person in the end.

So essentially I'm just here for the feeling of not-being-alone. Which I feel pathetic about.

Every person is flawed in this world. I know that. My expectations are bodering on "unrealistically high" when it comes to a partner. I don't think I'll settle for less, because I won't be happy that way. I've decided to chase for "happiness" in my life, whatever the fuck that means. That fleeting feeling of contentment- I want it.

I need to search harder.

Anxiety

I was bragging just a month ago, about how I don't feel anxious any more. As my next exam approaches, I've found that feeling of being sick to the soul once again. I'm fine when I'm busy- my mind's too occupied with too many things and I don't think too hard. When I'm left alone to my own devices, I start to imagine catastrophic endings to every loose thread of my life.

Then I'm like, why do I bother worrying? What if I get run over by a truck on my way to school tomorrow? If I knew I was going to die tomorrow, would I waste my final hours worrying about failing an exam? Fuck no. So given life's unpredictabilities, why should I worry about anything at all?

The fact that I'm listening to a song called "It was a good day to die" probably doesn't help my pessimism. If I had a good day to die, I'd prefer to die before exams. I can't actually cope with a second round of failure.

Though in comparison to my friends, I'm faring so well. I complain of my anxieties but I don't suffer any physical manifestations. Apart from the general unpleasant feeling and the doom-and-gloom that happens to be part of my baseline, I am quite alright. My friend couldn't sleep and called off our study session together tonight. I just think- wow, I'm so glad I'm not you.

I think it's rather easy to lose sight of what you already have, when you spend forever chasing something you can't quite grasp. I do like to set my eyes on the goal, but when I lose something, it really helps to stop for a moment and count up all the things I already have. And I have so, so much. Part of my human greed means that I want more, so much more. And more will never be enough, either. At the same time, I'm learning to be a bit more appreciative of the life I already have, of all the privileges I have been afforded, and come to appreciate myself, for how hard I'm working, trying to maintain all my privileges in life.

So in the end, a bit of anxeity is fine. Let's crash through and see what's on the other side.

Spring Time

This year has passed so quickly. I hardly remember winter- though I suppose I wasn't cold for very long. I feel like I haven't done anything worthwhile in the past 6 months, except for that whole Christian church thing which I tried and realised I didn't like. I guess that was self-discovery and growth, but other than that, nope.

I still want to do something exciting, something that gets my heart racing out of rhythm, and makes me treasure every second. I always envision myself travelling to some country field, where the grass is tall and yellow, and the Sun is bright enough for me to see into the distance but not warm enough to discourage me from racing across the fields, until I'm out of breath. I always thought that I hated nature but maybe I just hate uncomfortable temperatures, humidity, and insects that won't leave me alone.

I REALLY wish I hadn't failed my exams now. I could be planning so many things, finishing work at my own leisure, visiting my friends and practise my musical instruments and illustration skills. Then there's that annual flower festival I go to on a yearly basis. I don't actually care about the flowers, I just enjoyed the company I had. I still remember one year where I bought the stupidest hat, because all my friends did. I never wore it out much but it was still so fun, that night.

Spring's a lovely season.

Was it fun?

I'm home early for once, and it's nice to be back when the Sun's still out. We're moving into Spring but it was rather cold today, surprisingly.

My date went alright, I felt heart palpitations when we were sitting together and I tried to figure out whether that was a physiological response to stress, to anxiety, or whether it was because I actually liked him. Maybe it's a mixture of everything, but I'm glad at least I could feel the beating of my heart- shows that I'm still alive. I like the feeling of not being alone, but my friend was like "WTF DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING" and was trying super hard to make me break up with my date.

I get it. My intentions are questionable, idk what "true love" feels like and I'm 100% exploiting this guy's vulnerabilities. He may or may not have figured out that I'm an absolute twat yet, but I think I should tell him. I don't wanna like, lie and pretend to be a nice person or a good person when I'm really not. We may not be looking for the same things but I did enjoy his company.

Except wtf am I going to say? "Hey did you know I can be petty, cruel and display a range of sociopathic tendencies? I also have troubling insecurities which means I would rather break everyone around me before I let myself get hurt" Mmmmm idk, I'm just not in the mood for jeopardizing my own relationship atm. I'd rather let him figure it out one day and decide then, because I'm pretty happy at the moment with the way things are.

Selfish Vane always wins.

This isn't an excuse, but I enjoy the fact that someone likes me more than I like them. For once. There's no worry about "what if they don't like me back" or that feeling of loss when your feelings aren't reciprocated.

Was it fun? Yes. Will it stay fun? Probably not. Am I making a huge mistake right now? Potentially. Will I look back and regret this moment? Nah.

I'm happy, after all.

Is it okay to be lonely

I don't understand how it works, how it's possible to feel lonely whilst surrounded by people. I went out to dinner last night with a good friend, we watched our school musical together afterwards. It felt like a date, and I enjoyed it so much. But she wasn't my girlfriend, and I felt strange because I saw some colleagues from work there (with their partners)- our glances met and they nodded at us with a smile, and I knew then that we'd been mistaken for a couple. I felt like I had lied, without lying, and I felt so empty inside.

My work is still going, I'm still trying to study for that exam I failed, admist mounting pressures to complete assignments and whatnot. I procrastinated again by going to lunch with a friend again; she introduced me to her new bf and his friend. They were nice people, but I didn't know what to talk to them about... often I just find myself stunted for conversation.

Then, in first-world-problem style, I'm going on a date with someone who I'm convinced likes me more than I like him. I don't think the problem lies with me, however (I may have a problem with narcissism), I just feel like this guy gets way too attached way too quickly. Like we're just casually flirting and he went from 1 to neckbeard real quick. My friends are concerned that I haven't dumped him yet, but to me it's like... well, it's the first time in ages I haven't been linked up with someone who's actually insufferable or retarded, and this guy makes me laugh. Not because he's funny, but because he says things that are wildly inappropriate and cringe-worthy in the context of the conversation, I just. Yeah. It's like those memes you see on Facebook about random men approaching women like "hey bb u want sum fuk". Will I find it less amusing and annoying as time goes on? Definitely. For now, I'm happy enough to see where things go. I just feel like he's has a mould in his mind of what the future should be, and he's already envisioning me fitting that mould, and I'm like "WTFFFFFF DUDE DO YOU EVEN KNOW ME". I say I can't meet his expectations, and I don't mean that in a self-deprecating sort of way, but I'm fully expecting a full display of the jarring effects of unmatched expectations vs reality. Ahhh, that's going to suck. Oh well.

Now you're reading this and you're like "wait wtf, this guy sounds terrible! What are you doing Vane?" Welp, all I can say is, certain attributes about a person can make me extremely tolerant of all their shortcomings. I don't think I'll expand on that, because I feel pathetic even as I type this (like holy shit I despise myself for my lack of integrity and shallowness).

So that takes us back to the title. Is it okay to feel lonely? Probably. But I've had a lonely year, losing all my friends to various things, and now BOTH my best friends are overseas, it's killing me on the inside. I don't think a relationship with an overly attached man will fill the void that has resulted from a disconnection from friends and family, but still I'm pathetically using this guy who likes me way too much, because I like being liked. You shouldn't base your inherent sense of self worth on someone else, but due to social conditioning I don't want to feel unwanted or undesirable. Never have I been so certain that I could break someone if I decided to reject them, and that makes me feel... powerful.

Yeah okay we've arrived at the point where I'm thoroughly disappointed and disgusted at myself. Wonderful.
I hope my date goes well.
I hope I like him.

People are so cruel

I really need to stop reading the news, it depresses me so much. It's all about the US, anyway. I feel like Trump never left the media spotlight since he ran for president, and every day there's another article of him saying something retarded. Like the recent Charlottesville incident- I get that removing statues or whatever could be a sensitive topic, but this Nazi literally plowed through the crowd and killed someone with his car. Like, if you have a problem condeming a Nazi, you really should have been born when Hitler was still around. Of all the tough decisions and difficult political stances that might be expected of a US president, condemation of a Nazi should not be one of them. Actually, forget that this guy was a Nazi, the fact that he fucking MURDERED someone by running them over should be enough for you to say, "yeah that was bad". WTF is "blame on both sides"??? There are times in politics where you try to be vague and ambiguous but that was just a terrible time.

Then I go read the Facebook comments and it just fills me with grief. My responses range from "I can't believe someone actually WROTE that" to "is that what he REALLY THINKS?" Social media is bloody depressing. Also my Facebook is overflowing with messages encouraging people to enrol to vote. I'm in Australia, you see, and our government decided it would be appropriate to hold a non-binding postal vote on whether couples of the sex should be able to get married. Like, fucked as America is, the nation that is supposedly "united under God" is more progressive than we are. What.

I'm really avoidant and non-confrontational, even on my best days. I've rarely had the courage to speak up about the things I care about, or to take an adamant stance on ANYTHING, even when it affects me directly. This same-sex marriage thing is really, REALLY grating on my nerves though. I've actually had a terrible time coming to terms with myself, and seeing our government humiliate and deny people their basic dignity gives me the greatest grief. Some people just cannot be reasoned with, but I wish they would pause to think about what they were actually saying.

"If we allow the gays (note, we are "the gays", detached from our humanity and represented by nothing more than our sexuality) to marry, then will we marry dogs and goats later? When does it end?" Well I'd say we can end it at the "2 consenting adults" bit, really. One could argue your spouse has already married an absolute dodo, and they should be extinct, but here you are yapping away.

"What about the children? Every child deserves a mother and a father" The thing is, if you stop being such a prick to children with 2 same-sex parents, they'll be fine. There's no evidence to show that children are disadvantaged in any way, except for the discrimination they face for having 2 fathers or 2 mothers. And that's not their problem, that's what we need to fix as a society. Also, come on, we have sooooo many kids in the foster care system right now, and yeah they could benefit from a stable family. I've known so many shitty cases of people fostering children just so they could get that sweet centrelink money, and that kills me a little on the inside- and nobody cares if these fuckers are married or not. Marriage isn't about children, and not every marriage will produce children- some people don't even want children. God may want you to populate this Earth, but your God is not the same as everyone else's God.

"We are too politically correct these days, you can't disagree without being called a homophobe". And you are absolutely too sensitive, getting too offended when I call you a homophobe. If I was being "too politcally correct" I'd call you a "dissenter of marriage equality", but instead I called you a homophobe. "what's wrong with calling a spade a spade, after all?"

Sometimes I'm like, "I get it, I can sympathise". But then I'm like, "no, no I fucking can't, what the fuck is your problem".
-Don't like gay people? Don't fucking marry one.
-Don't want your kids raised by gay people? Fuck, raise them yourself then.
-Religious, don't want to marry gay people? Enjoy your religious exemption (yes, you have one)

At the end of the day, you are well within your rights to vote no. You just can't expect me to respect you for it, or take you seriously as a person. Yeah, it's okay to vote no, you homophobe.

Just kidding, July sucks

Somewhere between now and my last post, I've managed to fail my exit exam, gained unwanted weight and slept somewhere between 4-6 hours every day. It's not the life I wanted, that's for sure.

I think the failed exam serves me right for being so self-assured and confident, I hadn't been confident in like, 4 years (basically since uni started) and I guess this degree just doesn't like me having any semblance of self-respect. On most days I flip back and forth between "I can do this" and "someone must have dropped me on my head when I was young", and right now I can't explain my level of retardation without a history of traumatic brain injury to back it up.

I don't really want to admit that I was too cocky to study for this exam- I just didn't expect to actually fail despite not studying. Wait, that sounds really bad, doesn't it? What I'm saying is, I just didn't study as vigorously as I did for previous exams, because I was assured that I knew what I was going to be tested on. I was fairly confident I could handle it... and welp, I couldn't.

Was it anxiety? Was it just bad luck? I guess I'll never know. I didn't feel too bad on the day, I didn't even feel too terrible afterwards. I'd been complaining to my friend that I felt emotionally blunted these days. I used to laugh loudly but now my lips just twitch in a way that vaguely resembles a smile, and I used to cry uncontrollably but now I just feel a little lost with no great grief. Maybe I've just gotten over the things that used to play on my emotions- like how when you fall over as a toddler you cry, but when you get older and you fall you just get up and keep going.

Anyway the only solution is to NOT fail my second exam, and if I want to lose weight I probably need to stop eating again. It's hard because I've grown accustomed to food lately; I get hungry way too easily now. I mostly got shamed into eating lunch because everyone at work sat down and ate together, and it'd be a real social thing to look at what other people were eating. Everyone got super-concerned when I didn't have anything, and nobody believed me when I said I just didn't eat lunch. So I brought like some fruit to try and be social, but then people were like "wtf how poor are you" and it's like, no, I just didn't want to eat. Anyway that's all in the past because I started packing lunch and now it's just sad if I don't eat because I feel the worst hunger.

Welp, my life is currently a bit of a mess, I kind of know what I need to do but I kind of don't. I just want to hang out with my friends and have a bit of fun, but it's hard with all that's going on right now. I just want to binge anime and games, and go out to parks and stuff with my friends. I wish life was easier.

Happy July

I'm graduating in a couple of months, and my trepidation grows every single day. I feel like the first day I am thrown out into the working world, I will be exposed as the world's biggest fraud, and every single exam I had passed was just a continuous fluke. People just seem to have so much faith in me, but everyday I'm there and I'm like "idk wtf I'm doing, let's just wing this".

This kind of confession is totally uninspiring, isn't it?

My friend tells me I'm suffering from imposter syndrome; I don't really agree with him but I won't admit to anyone else that I think I'm bad at what I do. My rationale is, even if objectively I'm shit at my job, I'm still the only person available to do this job at this moment, therefore I'm relevant.

Anyway, I found out I passed another round of exams 2 days ago. I didn't even celebrate or feel happy like I usually do... I think for once I expected to pass, and I had so much work I just forgot about it. This is also the first year that I've forgotten about my own birthday. I don't know if it's part of growing up; maybe it's time I found someone who remembers my birthdays for me.

Welp, happy July.

Should I be concerned

Recently I've developed the habit of reading the news, I don't know why. I used to consider it "boring" and "something old people did", but at one point I had to read the news so I could make small-talk with people I struggle to form a connection with (so like, the majority of the population). It started that way, but now I'm reading because I've gotten in the habit of it. Except everyday it's like, "TERRORISM", "POLITICAL LEADERSHIP MELTDOWN", "DONALD TRUMP". I can't believe Trump is in his own cateogry, in addition to political leadership meltdown.

When I wrote my last depressing post, that was shortly after the London terrorist attacks. That was frightening, I'm glad I wasn't in London then. There were the Manchester attacks as well- oh and there's just like, straight up war going on in the middle east- but we don't talk about that because we're trying to not deal with refugees. Media portrayal of wartime atrocities might remind us that refugees are human, after all.

Then I read shit like "Trump refuses to visit UK" and I'm like, "can we stop talking about Trump already". Of course we can't, he's the president of the US and USA is a pretty influential country. It's just that I have trouble distinguishing whether news about him is legit news or if it's because Trump is a walking meme. I mean he says things that aren't very nice but I think he says a lot of things that a lot of people are too scared to voice. Trump is like a giant mirror, reflecting the fear and hatred deep-seated in his people's hearts. Most of us like to work through our fears and give up the hate, and work towards a harmonious society- idk what Trump is trying to achieve, but I can see why people chose Trump to represent them.

On an unrelated note, I read this morning that a Christian group were trying to deny the mentally-ill access to their church, saying it was disruptive of their service. I'm not even Christian and I know that's not very Christ-like. I thought Christ associated with those from the lowest echelons of society, and I don't remember John 13:34 saying, "love one another as I have loved you, but stuff the mentally-ill they nasty". I don't even know why I feel offended when I have rejected Christianity. Like I think it's a tad delusional, so why am I upset that those with mental illness are denied access to churches? I feel like I need to advocate for the mentally ill though; that being mentally ill does not mean you are dangerous or disruptive. Indeed, many people at church have outright told me that they are alive because they believe in Christ, that they would have killed themselves otherwise. I don't really care if it's antipsychotic medication or psychotherapy or religion that does the trick; if I can prevent unnecessary losses such as people taking their own lives, I would like to.

For all my disillusionment with religion, I think if Christ was before me in this day and age, and attempted to spread his teaching, I would not have a problem with that. Even if I did not understand his God or had the necessary faith, I do not think I disagree with the teachings of Christ himself. For all the times I have frowned at Christianity, it was because his followers are fucking insane and they are unlike him in so many ways.

Still, those hardest to love need it most. Even through their cruel bigotry, I should learn to love, not because I feel inspired by Christian teaching, but because I want to believe in humanity.

Half a break

I'm half-way through my holidays and I can honestly say that I've accomplished very, very little. I did a little bit of studying and revision yesterday- it felt good but I feel as if I've forgotten all I've looked at already. I know I'm not supposed to be binging games mindlessly, but honestly it's the only thing that gives me joy in my life at the moment.

It honestly scares me that the only thing I want right now is for school to start again. I remember how last year I felt tired and overworked, that all I wanted was a break, and how much I cherished that. I wanted to see my friends and I wanted to do this and that in between. Currently... I feel like I don't have any of that. There's no game I'm dying to finish, no giant art project that will take 2-3 days to fill out, I don't have any books I'm looking forward to reading, and there isn't even any pressing urgency to complete my work. The things I usually do just don't seem as fun any more.

I feel guilty that I've left the piano mostly untouched. I don't have the patience to learn a new song, and I'm sick of playing the songs I've already learnt. I never thought I'd get to the stage, because when I was learning to play my first song I thought, "this music is so beautiful, if this is the only thing I ever learn to play I'll be satisfied". I wasn't satisfied, I learnt many more tunes and though they were all songs I listened to obsessively at one stage, right now they've sort of lost their charm.

Back in the early 2000s I would play the same song on repeat. If I had a new album from my favourite artist, Jay Chou, I would play the first song on repeat, until I got sick of it. Then I'd move onto the next song. I felt that if I did that, the album would "last longer", whatever that actually meant. Then I found many more artists I liked, and I started listening to entire albums at a time. Now I have Spotify and I stream whatever the fuck I want- but I don't even know what I want any more.

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I watched a musical in Sydney with a friend of mine a couple of days ago- before any of you suggest that I might be depressed and in dire need of friendly company. I DO socialize. We watched "Only Heaven Knows", a show about gay love set in the 1940s. I had no expectations for the show; we were only there because we wanted to see a musical but that was the only one that played in the time we were in Sydney. Anyway, it was surprisingly good, but the recent history of homosexuality is downright depressing. There was a scene where "aversion therapy" was portrayed- basically a person was shocked with electrical current after displaying an image of a man, and it was supposed to cure homosexuality. I think in theory it works for house pets, you might teach the cat to stop knocking glasses off the table, but I wouldn't shock my cat even if she broke all my drinking glasses, so it's disturbing for me to think that you would choose to shock a human being.

The show reminds me of The Handmaid's Tale, they're both about how fast things can change over time, but in a bad way. The liberties we enjoy are taken for granted, and if we don't fight for them they are too easily taken away. As I write in the comfort of a warm room, sitting in front of my own laptop and looking forward to returning to my final term of higher education, I wonder if tomorrow the world would be ripped out from under my feet, and if I could lost everything in a heartbeat. That's what refugees from war-torn countries must feel like, I think. We often think that they don't need our help if they are well-dressed, if they have a smartphone in their hands; we need them to look like malnourished beggars before they are deserving of our sympathy. If this country broke out in war, however, I think I would still like to maintain some semblance of human dignity.

I've gone off on a tangent again. I must sound so very left-leaning, but I won't apologise for considering "human welfare" something that's important to me. Our world is facing troubled times, and our futures are rife with uncertainty. What I SHOULD be doing is enjoying the remainder of my break, while I have it.

Thought

Those who say "money can't buy happiness" has never been poor enough to experience the unhappiness lack of money can bring.

A Giant Holiday

I'm pretty sure I passed my exams a few days ago, so now I'm on holidays. I didn't have a massive celebration, but I did go out and watch "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword" with a friend of mine as celebration. We weren't that close, but we hung out together and we had a good time, so I'm quite satisfied.

The movie! What an excellent movie. Soooo many action scenes, flashy yet it had the bones of a narrative- I was pelased. Jude Law is an amazing actor- I knew that but this movie proved it again. The action scenes weren't even the best part- it was the music. There hasn't been many films which made me want to listen to the soundtrack, but I highly recommend this one. Oh, I haven't even mentioned costume design yet- for a medieval film, they certainly used the most modernistic style they could get away with. It was high fashion with medieval flair- I wished I had that kind of talent for costume design. I wouldn't even make money from it, I'd just make clothes myself and wear it every day.


I loved this scene- his body language just screamed confidence

I later watched the final? installment of Pirates of the Carribean. It was a decent film, but I've forgotten most of the story from the previous movies. The film was rather humorous and had a good mix of action scenes as well. I didn't mind the CGI- I feel like we've come a long way, and CGI these days actually looks decent enough.

So yeah, that's what marked the beginning of my holidays. I'm currently addicted to a mobile game called "Onmyouji" where you play as Abe no Seimei and fight spirits/demons. I'm self-aware of how bad my addiction is, given I haven't left the house in 3 days, but I'm quite content to waste some time on this game because it just feels... really, really good. Maybe I'll move onto something more productive later- but really, it's been a loooong, looong while since I've had this much free time on my hands. I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

13 Reasons Why

13 Reasons Why is a popular Netflix drama, because "mental health" is the hot topic these days, and the show's about the aftermath of a suicide. I have finished the show- it's kind of hard to watch. Not as in, "suicides are emotionally difficult to deal with"- which they are, btw, but the show feels so cringey. Like every little thing is magnified for the sake of drama- it's not that I want to take a shit on teenagers, but I cringe because I felt the exact same way when I was that age.

People have said positive and negative things about the show. In terms of entertainment value, I would rate this a 7/10. Not the most exciting thing I've ever seen, but it didn't bore me at any stage. When we want to talk about themes and characterisation, I feel like it's a bit complicated. I believe the main idea behind the show was to demonstrate how small actions may have major consequences, and sometimes we might not realise that the one careless thing we said to a vulnerable girl was what drove her to kill herself. There's a haunting thought. In my lifetime I have certainly done something similar to those kids in the show- and if I find out that the girl who I was less-than-friendly to in highschool killed herself, I would probably have problems living that down.

There's this pathetic vulnerability to Hannah Baker that made it difficult for me to sympathize with her. I feel like if I was in her position, I would have reacted differently to almost every single situation and encounter. There's this Chinese proverb that translates to something like, "those who are pitiful must have some despicable qualities", and I think that is so true in Hannah Baker's case. It's unsightly for me to blame the victim, but so many of her actions are soooo questionable. Can you call it "stupidity of youth"?

Most of the characters in the show are not very likeable. The only character who I thought was alright got hit by a car and died. You can side with Clay (the main character) and say "he did nothing wrong", but he's seriously a self-righteous little shit and way too edgy. Like that time he takes a picture of Tyler naked and releases to the whole school. WTF was that. It's a teenager's version of "justice", but to an adult it's like "that is so immature and such a terrible thing to do". Then there's all that shit he puts his parents through. You'd think I'd understand why a kid wouldn't speak to his parents; but the difference is, his parents care about him and they're such nice people. They trust him, they stand up for him, and they try so hard to understand his life. Real talk if someone told my parents I trashed their son's car, my parents would turn on me in like 2 seconds without even confirming whether I trashed the car, or why I did it. My deeply troubled relationship with my own parents make me irrationally envious of other people's parent-child relationships. When I see anyone having a normal conversation with their mother or father, even if it's about the most mundane thing, I become so, soooo agitated. Do you realise how good you have it, if your mother doesn't wail away past midnight whilst clutching to you, crying and crying about what an abomination you are? Ohhhh what about her turning all the lights on in your room at 4am, and you wake up and find her sitting by your bed staring at you. I treated her as if I were treating a psychiatric patient- de-escalate, stay calm, and call for help. Except for the last part, the calling for help part. I had no help. Help wasn't coming. I was stuck there and there was no escape.

Those memories haunt me still.

If I were Hannah Baker, all 13 of my tapes would be about my parents. I'd hope to see them in great pain and full of remorse, lamenting that they were always wrong about me and that they should have treated me better while I was alive. Then I'd hope to irrevocably ruin their lives by giving them the reputation that they were such terrible parents they made their son kill himself. Oh, the ultimate catharsis.

I'm being sarcastic, of course. This is part of the reason I criticise 13 Reasons Why. The girl kills herself and you get to see how it all played out- her white knight exacts revenge for her, she makes her bullies feel the pain and there's a great demonstration that wowww, she was loved. Pffft, reality doesn't work that way. Except for the bit where she totally fucked her parents up emotionally. I have a feeling that's not what she was aiming for.

Do I wish pain on my own parents? No, not really. I don't really want to see them suffer. In fact they're in pain now, but for all the wrong reasons. They're mostly ashamed of me, but at the same time trying to deny who I am because they find it all too offensive. Two years ago when I was feeling extremely suicidal, I came to the conclusion that if I killed myself then, my parents wouldn't even address me properly at my funeral, and it would be the most humiliating ordeal. Well I'd be dead, but it's like, even if I died I wouldn't get the acknowledgement I wanted. That was frustrating, but it was a good wake-up call to why killing myself wasn't the solution. I'm not some anime hero like Lelouch, who could kill himself to establish a new world order, I'm just an ordinary guy who wants to be happy in life, but there can be no happiness if there is no "life".

By now I've probably painted my parents as absolute demons and despicable human beings. They were to me, and that is my opinion of them. If we weren't related though, I'd tell you that they were alright. They say things and do things I would classify as "borderline retarded" a lot of the time, but other than that they're just your average Asian-immigrant parents. Conservative Asian values, including a healthy dose of sexism, racism, homophobia, and willful ignorance. It's not really their fault though, that's just part of our history and culture. They don't actually exist to make me miserable, though it's a consequence at times. People are deeply flawed, they are just flawed in ways different to me. I tried turning to Christianity to learn the art of forgiveness, but it escapes me for now.

Practise makes perfect, and perhaps I need to practise forgiveness as well. I won't get there most of the time, but it's important to me that I try, because there are so many things more important to me than my parents in my life. Family means a lot to me, but family cannot be my everything, as that would be incompatible with life, in my case. 13 Reasons Why reminded me of all the teenage angst I used to embody, but I am at the stage where I'd rather establish 13 reasons of why I'd like to live.

1. This medical school thing has been such an ordeal, I need to reap the joys of being a doctor.
2. I still need to meet again with my best friend, after all these years.
3. I wanted to have my own art exhibition one day. If I can't become an accomplished artist, I hope I'll be rich enough to buy out a portion of the gallery for my works.
4. Music was not something I had much talent for, but I got so far in teaching myself the piano. I wanted to be good enough at it to justify buying a grand piano one day.
5. Ah, romance. That sunset and sunrise I wanted to watch. Tinder dates just won't do it, after all.
6. Travel! So many places I wanted to go- Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, England (again), Italy, France--- if I have one holiday a year I have more than half a decade of holidays planned.
7. Kids- it sounds weird for me to say, because I've always complained about how kids are the greatest responsibility that I absolutely can't handle. I'd like to influence someone's life as a father, though. I'd teach my children to be strong, and I'd teach them to be kind. Then they would teach me what it takes to be a good father, and we'd all learn a little more each day.
8. The books I need to read! I'm not even talking about ASOIAF series- I haven't read stuff like, A Clockwork Orange, and I'd like to read all the "classics" to see what the hype is about.
9. After years of writing depressing shit on my blog, I'd like to be an author. I want to write something that is personal to me, and invite the world to experience my vulnerabilities through my book.
10. There's this fantasy I have where I'd be addressing a large crowd and they'd all applaud after my grand speech. I have no idea wtf I'd be saying, because public speaking scares the fuck out of me, but that's why it's a fantasy.
11. God I need to learn how to swim. I swear I learnt when I was young, but I have a feeling I'd drown if you threw me into a pool right now.
12. That 5km run thing I mentioned earlier- let's take that a step further. I want rock-hard abs at some stage before I die.
13.This blog. If I died where are you going to get your weekly dose of melancholy from???? Who else is going to write posts which sound like reviews of recent TV shows, then divulge into deeply personal details about their pathetic life????

Reality Catch Up

I'm due to graduate soon, and it seemed like only yesterday I was whining about how "my dad made me do med and I don't want to be here". I'd like to think I've come very far since then.

Firstly I've decided to take responsibilty for my own decisions (or indecisions), and stop blaming shit on my dad.

Secondly I no longer speak to my dad.

Most importantly, I've realised that my life is my own, and after a few close calls I'm learning that my life may end very abruptly. Given that is the case, I should stop concerning myself with what other people may think and live how I would want to live a short and limited life.

The thing that keeps pulling me back is thinking about all the things I would like to have, before I died. There are so many reasons why I don't want to die in this moment. There are people I need to meet, books I need to finish reading, things I want to have learnt and done- legacies I wish I could pass on. My dreams are not all about standing up on stage in front of a large crowd and impressing them in some way, shape, or form. I have other dreams like being able to run 5km without feeling like someone is stabbing me in the chest, or just watching a beautiful sunset with someone I dearly love. I don't have many people who I do love, but I cherish those I have and would like to be around them for as long as I can.

I think about the people I could meet, the lives I could change, and occasionally dream about meeting someone who I would love so passionately that I'd be willing to change for them.

So now I'm filling out job application forms, and realising I'm going to be working very hard for a very long time. It scares me. There's so much which I do not know, and it always bothers me that I will never know enough. At the end of the day I always come back to doubt myself- is it because I'm too stupid or is it because I didn't try hard enough? I don't like to think that I'm too stupid for the job- mostly because I see people who are waaaaaay worse than I am, and they seem to do alright. At least that way I can tell myself "I just need to try a bit harder next time".

What also scares me is how far I've planned out my life. I feel like I'm about to make some major decisions regarding where I want to live for the next 10 or so years, and those years will be the peak of my youth and vitality. It seems stupid to plan that far ahead when only moments ago I decided, "live life fully because you might die tomorrow". I guess I'm slightly conflicted, in that way.

I get ahead of myself way too easily. Maybe all the things that sound like an absolute struggle to me now will come easily and mindlessly one day. I think if my 18 year old self met me now, he would be so impressed. I can be proud of that.

Your Lie in April

I just finished watching this anime, about a prodigal pianist who quit after the death of his mother. He had a complicated relationship with music, but one day this amazing girl appeared in his life, and his world changed. I knew it was just anime, because it just doesn't happen in real life--- someone amazing like that doesn't just pop up and colour your monochrome world.

I wish they did.

As I watched I grew incredibly envious of the protagonist. He had his piano, he had his talent and friends and above all he had this girl who inspired him and motivated him and dragged him along when he was down. I felt like I spent so much of my life just waiting for someone to take my hand so that my life can begin. Then I realised I didn't want to be that kind of person, who just waits and waits for someone to pick him up. I wanted to sprint off like Miyazono Kaori in "Your Lie in April", that amazing girl who coloured the world around her. In this life I too, would rather be the short-lived shooting star that slashes across the night sky than a candle that glows dimly as it slowly burns.

It's a sad thing to realise, that a dying girl has more energy and motivation than you do. The possibilities of youth are supposed to be endless- I imagined something vibrant, full of spontaneity and vitality, but I'm left with this drawn out sense of numbness. Time just passes and I don't think, I don't feel, and I can't tell if I'm still moving. It was really painful before, when I was in absolute agony. I knew I was alive then because I wished I was dead. Now I don't feel much and I sometimes look around, and I wonder, "who am I, what am I doing here?" Maybe I have places I'm supposed to be and things I'm supposed to do, but I can't quite remember.

I think I'll travel a little after this semester's over. I'm supposed to be young, I have strong legs I can stand on. I think I'll go somewhere, find someone, and make my heart feel like it's beating again.

QAQ

Last night I spent a good hour or two getting traumatised by people who call themselves my parents. Sometimes I wonder, what the fuck did I do in my past life to deserve people like you??? It must have been some grave sin indeed, to incur this kind of karma. 

There was a lot of name-calling, I was a monster and a shame of the family. They reinforced that I was mentally ill, but they meant it as an insult. I sat there in the face of all this abuse, and I would have left but my mother was clinging onto me, crying, begging me to "be normal". It was a bit of a trainwreck scene. 

For the first time in my life I didn't cry. Initially I thought I felt tears welling up behind my eyes, and I feared I was going to have another one of my classic breakdowns where I cry and I yell in frustration, then I run away from everything. I hated myself for those times. So I sat there, and that brief moment of panic passed, and I endured. I think my non-response to the situation triggered my mother some more, and she wailed on, saying I was too cold, that I will end up all alone and that no one will love me. Apparently the friends I currently have are not real, that we are only friends because they have nothing else to do with their time, that we CAN only be friends because my existence does not negatively impact their lives. 

...I did not think my existence negatively impacted my mothers', but from what she told me last night, evidently I was wrong. 

When I distanced myself a little, I felt as if I were an outsider looking in on some shitty family drama. Here was my mother, crying as if I had died (perhaps she would be happier if I had, sometimes I do wonder), and I was sitting there, motionless, unable to stop her and unable to become a completely different person as she had wished. I will read in textbooks that the mentally ill lack insight, and to her that must be how I appear- unfazed, stoic and certain in my actions. Those are qualities I wished upon myself, and I was so proud that I did not act out last night, that I stood my ground and I was oh-so-polite, like I always wanted to be. 

Then I looked at this woman with pity as she clung to me. I could barely recognize her as my mother, the words she spoke were not very motherly by my books, and her actions far from loving. Though I suppose they were very culturally appropriate, I didn't expect (though I wished) that she would act any other way. Am I too "Westernized" for her? Of course I am, I grew up in Australia, but I love Australia much more than I love classic Chinese culture. I don't mind the conservatism, but I DO mind the fear and hatred covertly endorsed, I mind the sexism, the racism, and the stubborn unwillingness to learn or consider alternate points of view. My parents displayed a myriad of such insufferable qualities last night, and I left feeling thoroughly disgusted. 

In a moment of awakening I knew that I despised them all the same, though I cannot bring myself not to care. I found assurance and peace, because in that moment I knew I would never be like them. It was one of my biggest fears, but when I realized the gulf between us, I knew my fears were unfounded. I was already a vastly different person. Not perfect like I aspire to be- still too cold, too bitter, unwilling to forgive and unsociably cynical, but I am learning to be warmer, kinder, patient and pleasant. One day I will be able to reflect on myself and decided that I had tried, and that trying mattered, and perhaps I will even be satisfied with the person I had become. I know that I am satisfied with my progress now.

I wonder what my parents will have left.

April...Fools

I plan on staying in my room all day so I don't see myself being pranked. It's nice a sunny outside, down south in the town where my parents live. Yeah, I'm visiting them. I had a long talk with my psychologist about why I keep on going back to what I classify as "an abusive relationship", and I came to understand that I needed to do this to feel good about myself, as a person. I decided at one point that I didn't want to be the kind of guy who abandons his family even though they treat him like dogshit, because I don't believe in "sweet vengence", and because I believe my deepest character flaws comes from my unwillingness to forgive, my penchant for petty manipulation and outright malice (because I can). I don't know what "love" is but I don't think this is love I feel. In my quest for self-improvement, this is perhaps one of my greatest obstacles.

There's nothing like a Saturday morning when you wake up to your parents yelling at each other at the top of their lungs, and that sound is mixed with the wailing cries of my young sister. I don't know why they torment each other so, and I don't know why they have so much discontent in their lives. I am often repulsed by the actions of my sister whenever I come back South to visit, thinking "this is such a rude kid", and it baffles me when my parents don't reprimand her. Then you get this morning, and I realised it's more like, ineffective and inconsistent parenting, where they'll let her off free once and then yell their heads off at her the next time, for the same fault on her part. How dare they act surprised when she yells at them to express her discontent or when her childish whims aren't satisfied- they have taught her one an only one way to communicate when unhappy, and she's using what she's learnt.

It's easy to criticise others when you are not in their shoes, I know. I was never a parent, but I felt that I was saddled with the responsibilities of one when my parents left my sister in my care when I was younger. I was apparently a replacement babysitter- saved us money, for sure, but there was a lot of bitterness on my end, because I didn't get to decide to have a child. It all felt wildly unfair to me, anyway.

Ahhhh being in my parents' house is exhausting. They make so many demands on my time, take everything I do for granted, and I know I'll never meet their expectations. It's a futile struggle, for sure, and to surround myself around these people is to surround myself with unpleasantries. When I leave, however, I'll know that I did what I had to do to feel okay about myself, that I was someone who visited parents he didn't like, because he believed that made him a good person.

I'm going to have my own family some day, I swear. Then I'll have someone to love.

Mystic Messenger Post 3: Han Jumin Edition

Alright so I've finished my third run of Mystic Messenger. I realized I described all the characters before but never bothered to upload a single picture. So here goes:

L to R: Zen, Jaehee, Jumin, 707, Yoosung

When I first saw the advert for this game, I've decided that I liked Han Jumin's character (for design). His personality is super-cute as well, what we call "gap moe", I guess? "Gap Moe is when a character does something completely contradictory to what their usual habits/personality/character/appearance dictates."- posting from urban dictionary. Jumin looks like he's cold and calculating, the "out of my league" kind of guy, but he's got this obsession over his cat and he types "meow" in the chatroom and I'm like ????? my weak little heart is fluttering.

Anyway playing his route, yup the attraction is that this guy, who's cold-hearted and looks like he doesn't care about girls, totally falls for my character, and is all "you taught me how to open up and how to love, you changed me for the better". And WHEWWWWW isn't that the ultimate fantasy, you're so attractive that you made someone who's not interested in girls interested in you.

I was indulging in this strange little game, because I'm soooo goddamn deprived of affection I'd settle for hearing a virtual character say, "I love you". Then the story took a weeeeird turn and I thought "what the fuck is going on".

See they basically ripped off the storyline of 50 Shades of Grey, and then I realized Han Jumin is Christian Grey. If you haven't read 50 Shades, you probably know it as the infamous female-erotica. To give you the basic background, it's about this rich CEO kind of guy who is kind of fucked up, but obsessed over the female lead, and wants to do kinky things with her... but in a really weird, sociopathic kind of way. Anyway the Mystic Messenger story kind of mirrored that, and like, I GET why it's written into the story like that, since 50 Shades sold so well there has to be a lot of people into that kind of shit, but for me it's just ??????? Like this is so unhealthy.

I don't know why there is this stereotype that "men can't be trusted" or that "all men want from you is sex". Repeatedly the characters in this game like to remind my character, "hey, I'm a guy too, you know", or "you can't trust him, guys are beasts". Sometimes the line is spoken a lot for comical effect, and everyone just sort of goes along with it like, "well what can you do, it's in their nature".

Except it's not??? Like personally I can't deny that I think about sex alllll the fucking time, but that doesn't make me dangerous? Maybe I'd like to have sex with you, but that doesn't mean I'd rape you or coerce you or do ANYTHING. Maybe you'd come up in my fantasy, and if you knew that'd gross you out, but it's not like I'd ever tell you, so no harm done, right?

I hate being compared to beasts. Even beasts can be trained. To say that no men would be able to resist taking advantage of a girl is just ridiculous. There's this portion of the game where the main character (my character Alice) stays over at Jumin's house, and every other character in the game freaks the fuck out. The implication is that my character is going to get raped, an that implication pisses me off, even if it's in a game.

This shit is why we need feminism in this world- I used to misinterpret that line. Now I know, it stands for so much more. Being a feminist is the same as striving for a world where there isn't an expectation that women will be raped if they are over at a man's house. When I want to argue that "men are not sexist pigs who let their primal urges rule", I should also really argue that "women are not dainty delights that are as free as condoms in an STD clinic" (I can't believe that's the first simile that came to mind). When you refuse to see women as human, and treat them as some evil seductress who were created to tempt men, you propagate the idea that men, fallible as we are, could not possibly resist and could not possibly shoulder any blame. And that's fucking disgusting (i.e. don't do that).

At the end of this rant, what we should really examine is how my love-life is a field of poverty and even indulging in a female-oriented dating-sim makes me irate. What has been a fun little mobile game for many people becomes a field trip in the exploration of sexism and homophobia in popular culture for me. I didn't want to go full social-justice-warrior but maybe deep down I AM a filthy SJW and I'm not even ashamed of that.

Also Mystic Messenger sucks and I needed a walkthrough to reach the "good end". Fuck me I can't even get a dating sim right.

Civil Unions

In Australia we like to offer a commited couple, who are determined to be the same sex, a thing called "civil unions". It's like marriage but you can't call it marriage because you're gay, so when you propose to your partner you ask "hey would you like to civilly unite with me winky face winky face".

It really grinds the gears of some Christians, and I'm being unfair in singling out Christians but I go to a Christian church so that's the view I'm exposed to. "God created man and woman to unite in one flesh, through marriage and through sex, they complement each other". What follows then is that a man and a man or a woman and a woman cannot complement each other, therefore they can't really marry.

And I can't argue against that in the biblical sense, because the Bible literally says that and I can't be all "well if you squint your eyes really hard the text stops making sense". It becomes problematic, however, when we use marriage to mean MORE than the union between man and woman. You see in modern society, we use marital status to determine things like:
-who gets your money if you die
-who looks after your children if you die
-who makes medical decisions for you when you're about to die
-and probably a few other things not related to dying or imminently dying, I just can't think of any other examples right now.

It doesn't make much sense to use a religious defintion of marriage to define union in our largely secular society. Keep the spiritual things spiritual and keep the practical things practical. I also get the feeling that the Christians would be placated as long as "marriage" wasn't labelled "marriage", and thus the "civil union" business.

But why does it matter, right? What's in a word, if "civil union" confers the same rights? Well my counterargument is that we should really be labelling it as "Christian union" vs "marriage", or maybe "spiritual unity between man and woman", SUBMAW for short.

"My dear Eliza, will you SUBMAW me?"

Why do Christians own the word "marriage", anyway? Just because it was so translated that way- maybe they can stick to the ancient Hebrew word and we can have "marriage" as it's made its way to common English.

People seem to get upset that we make such a huge commotion over "semantics", as "words are just words". Well you see, when you use words to communicate, words confer meaning, and when you use such things to mean "you are inherently below me/worth less than me", people get angry! If people could choose to be straight they probably would, but the choice is kind of made for them. And no, marrying the opposite sex doesn't make things all-good again, because you can't offer yourself to someone you're not attracted to, so you won't achieve that nice spiritual union thing you were aiming ofr in the first place.

Thus concludes my post-church rant. This "Christianity" thing is NOT going well for me ):

Church is terrible for picking up guys

I don't know why it took me so long to realize, but going to church to try and pick up guys is a TERRIBLE idea. Desperation must wire my mind in strange ways. Like I don't believe in God and it wasn't going to work out anyway, and it's not like I find the fact that someone is Christian terribly attractive. Unless we're talking about my fucked up fantasy where I'm nailing someone on an altar like "hey you're so lascivious right now, do you think your God is watching" and it'd feel like I'm desecrating God ---- yeah alright I should stop.

I don't know why, after sitting there being reminded that "homosexuality is a grave sin", it didn't immediately dawn on me that every guy there must either be straight or severely repressed. I mean I'd like to dream that I could fuck someone so hard that they went gay after, but that's really not how it works, despite popular belief that any violation of your butthole makes you homosexual. Like, what if your were really constipated and your asshole had to accommodate for a long, hard, shit. It might even tear you an anal fissure on its way out--- I studied like six weeks of colorectal surgery, anal fissures are real, man. Remember kids, high-fibre diet and drink lots of water.

This has derailed a little but I wasn't that serious anyway. Idk what the fuck I was thinking.

I went to church

I didn't realize so many of my friends were Christian- probably because they're not very similar to what I imagine when I think of "Christians". I'm not close-minded enough to think that all Christians behave like those people who form the Westboro Baptist Church, but I've honestly never had a good impression of most religions, in general. The more people talk about their faith or their practices, the more uncomfortable I become. It's strange because I never thought it was weird lighting incense to pray for rain from the dragon-lords, back when I went to China. It also didn't feel too bad to listen to preaching about how the world lives in natural order, and any disturbance of balance should be avoided (it's strange to think nobody wants to suffer through an illness and die from it the "natural" way, though). However, when I went to church with my Christian friends for the first time, it felt so strange. And not strange in a good way.

I don't know much about Christianity, and my friends are trying to teach me every day. I guess it's the way they teach that is bothering me, after all. To me, Genesis is just a story- a strange one, too. But when my friends tell me these stories, they speak as if it had factually happened, and THAT really irritates me. It shouldn't surprise me though, because OF COURSE they believe it happened, that's what their religion is about, right. The story was totally convoluted though, and the "moral of the story" is something that still makes me go ?????? The lengths people go to, to justify how it happened and why it happened, under the premise that everything is true, boggles my mind to this day. It's because they operate under this one premise, that "this really happened and God is real", that they can come up with logic and explanations that seem entirely convoluted and very bizarre. Then they brush it all aside and state, "God works in mysterious ways we cannot hope to comprehend", followed with, "however, if you wish to be closer to Him, you may reach to him through prayer and diligent study of the Bible". At this point, for me, it's like "why??? why do I want to go to such efforts to understand this mysterious entity through all this effort", and I swear that is every Christian's favorite question, because the answer is always, "because God is great and mighty and he loved us, and he gave his only son for us----"

See I've definitely heard the same spiel waaaaay too many times for comfort.

I can understand why my friends try so hard and are so enthusiastic to convert me, though. They honestly believe that I'm going to hell for my sins, and that they're trying to save me so that I repent. Like, if I saw my friend trying to walk into a pit of fire, and I truly believed they were going to die from said action, I would probably try to stop them with the same ferocity. It's just that... there is no evidence that their God is real. There is only faith, and I must say it is a faith I do not share, and do not wish to share, either. I understand that for some people, the idea of "God" is comforting. This gives them strength, and lets them live on. I've witnessed the power of religion in healing, many times. People might not physically get better, but they feel better, and that's important, too. It's just that I can't deal with the whole package that comes with Christianity, starting from whether God is actually real to whether Jesus existed. Is he one person, or is he a bunch of people whose actions merged into one Godly figure? Honestly the "virgin birth" thing sounds like what you'd say if you wanted to get away with premarital sex in a misogynistic society, and when you think about it, it'd be nice not getting stoned to death for sleeping with someone you later regretted.

Then the whole, "he died for our sins" bit. I could've sworn it was the issue that he got wrecked by Roman soldiers and nailed to a cross that caused him to die--- and if you want to be poetic, I guess he was crushed by the weight of our sins. The Christians claim he went through torture voluntarily, and he was the sacrificial lamb because God demanded retribution for the collective sins of humanity, but his death was painful enough to pay the price. I think he probably just got forced into a tough spot, had nowhere to go, was tortured because we are sick to people we have power over, and then his surviving followers had to make a story to cover up the public humiliation that his death was. The way they did it was ingenious, too. There is no dignity in being nailed to a cross, flogged naked and writhing in pain, in front of so many people. When you spin the story to say "he did it for us", all of a sudden you've tripped everyone with your guilt wire and there's a collective "oh shit" from everyone in the room.

As for "resurrection"... Failing to find a body afterwards isn't really the same thing as coming back to life. But you can't write a good story without blending believable historical moments with elements of fantasy, so let's say there were some eye-witness accounts and then he left our world, and BE GOOD NOW because he'll return on Judgment Day.

I'm so goddamn cynical right now, I don't think anything but the arrival of judgment day itself will allow me to believe any of this. But if there existed substantial evidence, it wouldn't be faith, would it? I would just be following a rational process. So when it comes to religion, the "trust without evidence" part bothers me, and the whole badly-written-fairy-tale part also bothers me.

Now that I've finished my rant about why Christianity bothers me, I must shamefully admit that I'm going back to church next week because people were really nice to me, and the pressure they put me through to go back to church is overwhelming. It wasn't like I wanted to say no and couldn't, it was that no one had been that enthusiastic about me attending something that I didn't even want to say no. These church people who I'd never met before, they were all " Vane you're really important to us and we want to see you again", and like it SHOULD be weird as fuck since they don't know me at all and they're being so nice but I know because of their "faith" (that I lack) that they totally mean it and they probs do actually, sincerely want me back, because they think they're doing God's work and spreading his message.

Like I don't mind hearing their perspective. I get really touchy about the issues regarding gay people, abortion, sex and basically politics and religion is a dirty mix. It's just that this church I went to speak their opinions (which I totally disagree with and feel totally grossed out by) in a very respectful and civil way that I don't feel like I should ignore them. When I attend church I just see a bunch of people who fundamentally disagree with a lot of my views but they try to change my mind in a way that isn't like, offensive, and it just feels too intellectual even though I think their beliefs are strange and nonsensical. Certainly the juxtaposition has left me confused, but I try to live my life simply, and I've decided that I DO like these Christians whose views I disagree with, and that yeah I think I'd like to go to church if they want me there so badly.

Just because we don't believe the same things, doesn't mean we can't be friends, ya know?

Mystic Messenger Post 2

Alright so I played another run of Mystic Messenger, the otome mobile dating sim. This time I made it through the whole way and I'm positive I've reached a good ending, mostly because I ended up using a walkthrough. I can't handle this shit otherwise.

I played through the route of "Zen", a character who is canonically good looking, but has like, nothing else going for him. He's the kind who'd I'd admire as eye-candy, but would despise if I ever knew his personality. His occupation? Actor. But he's not that famous yet and not that rich either. Really, he has one of the shittiest personalities in the game, on par with that little bitch Yoosung who dumped my ass on my first attempt to play the game.

Narcissism exists in every one of us, but it characterizes Zen. He won't shut up about how good-looking he is, and my character, Alice, has to keep affirming that "yes how can there be someone as handsome as you" and "it's not just your looks, you also work very hard". Like, even if someone was THAT good looking, there's no cause for me to say something like that when they're already so full of themselves. He's also so... STUPID. Like, how do you live with someone THAT dumb? You know how in movies and stuff you always get girls who look pretty but they're really stupid, and they'll probably end up as the trophy wife of some rich old dude? Welp, Zen is one of those "girls", but he ends up with my character Alice instead, and I'm like "wow Alice you shallow dumbass you guys deserve each other".

Seriously playing this game is killing me on the inside. I mean Zen calls me and says really sweet stuff like "I love you I just want to be next to you, you look so cute I can't control the beast in me" but that just made me go O______________O "wow fuck this kid I feel sexually harassed". It's weird because the game assumes you're in love with the character whose route you're on, but the whole premise of the game is like, "you only have 11 days", and I'm all "we haven't even had our first date and you're putting out. Damn son, you're cheaper than dinner".

Another thing  I really hated was related to the character whose route I ACTUALLY want to play, Han Jumin. Apparently his character isn't interested in girls, since he's cold and robotic and whatever. That's fine, I'm sure the attractive part is when he falls for the player, because "she's not like the other girls, she's special". But while I'm on Zen's route, Han Jumin is still cold and detached, so other characters tease him about being gay. I guess it was meant to be humorous, like "hahah what are you gay or something" but it just rubbed me the wrong way.

Like a good friend of mine used to always make jokes like that, about being gay. He's actually a really nice person IRL, and would never want to insult someone for his sexuality, but he doesn't realize making those jokes is reaaaaaaally homophobic. Being homophobic doesn't mean you walk around thumping gay people with a Bible in your hand, it's based on the assumption that being gay is subnormal and something outrageous enough to be ridiculed. Asking things like, "oh what are you gay or something" speaks in a way that sounds ridiculously confrontational and threatening, and really not as funny as it is portrayed to be.

Or maybe I'm just ridiculously sensitive because I'm maladjusted, but I can rightly say that I'm mildly offended by comments made in a game, right???

I guess that's the way homosexuality is seen in Eastern cultures, right now. Nobody is overtly hostile, but they still talk and judge behind closed doors, and it's suffocating in a different kind of way. I thought it's really ironic, that something that is part of your identity, well, MY identity, would be called "sick" and "disgusting" and "unnatural", when it is literally who I am. But when I'm legit sick, rolling in bed from the pain in my body, or wanting to rip my own organs out as I'm filled with self-hatred and disgust, nobody really believes that I'm sick, since that is merely part of my "condition" and "personality".

Why are people fucked enough to believe, that being miserable is part of my "personality"? It's like, I'm an unhappy person, therefore I must WANT to be unhappy, because otherwise I'd CHOOSE to be happy instead. ????Best advice ever given to a depressed person? From "why don't you stop being depressed" to "have you tried being happier instead". Like if I snapped by femur in half I'd kill someone who asked "why don't you stop being crippled" or "have you tried not breaking your bones". I'd murder them with the half of my femur that I'd snapped.

Ahhh this has gone into a massive off-topic rant, inspired by a stupid female-oriented mobile dating sim, because I'm too lonely IRL and too pathetic to make time to meet real people. Or maybe I just like otome games??? I can't decide, this is the first one I've played, and I'm already being so harsh on it. Let me play Han Jumin's route though, I'll make at least one more post on Mystic Messenger, "conquering" the character I ACTUALLY wanted to play for in the first place. I'll tell you of my final opinions of the game then.

Killing Stalking

I was wasting life on Tumblr (wow please don't judge me for the websites I like to waste life on), when I saw the hashatg "Killing Stalking" (KS) pop up. I was pretty curious, because apparently a lot of people who liked Yuri On Ice, the nice anime I was talking about before, also liked KS.

So I went online and read all the current available chapters of KS. KS is a Korean manhwa, and it was all nicely colored and stuff. Except, it easily makes the list of one of the MOST FUCKED UP THINGS I HAVE EVER READ. I don't think it should be associated with YOI, since the similarity is roughly 2% and the 2% comes from both works being fictional. At least I hope KS is fictional, otherwise I'm a bit scared.

A summary of the chapters so far? Sure. The guy pictured above, Yoonbum, is an absolute crazy fucking stalker, and I believe there was a page that mentioned "borderline personality disorder". Yeah okay people with BPD really fuck up their social relationships, so I was like "aight this guy is gonna be fucked up". And he was.

He likes a boy from his uni, and so he stalks the boy to his house, and essentially breaks in by dusting the keypad and guessing the key combo. Then he goes over to his victim's bed and starts masturbating. That was... uncomfortable to read. Then it turns out his victim  Sangwoo is actually a psycho killer! Sangwoo the killer kills girls, uses his basement as a torture chamber, and he smashes Yoonbum's legs with a hammer and locks Yoonbum in his basement. That wasn't even the most disturbing thing about this work.

The disturbing part is where Yoonbum goes full Stockholm (and you never want to go full Stockholm) and starts "loving" Sangwoo. They have a weird relationship, where Sangwoo keeps Yoonbum as a house slave and they jack each other off in a couple of scenes. Except the eroticism is spliced with Sangwoo casually killing a few more people, and Yoonbum being too scared to escape because Sangwoo likes playing with his mind.

The latest chapter was probably the worst part, where Sangwoo thinks Yoonbum has escaped, and he has a full-on meltdown. He then vows to kill Yoonbum when he finds him, before returning to his house and finding that Yoonbum never escaped at all. There's a scene dedicated to Sangwoo quivering and saying "let's stay together forever". I mean, it's vaguely reminiscent of a love story. Except this is almost the most fucked up thing I've ever read, and not really a love story.

If I was younger I'd feel pity for a character like Sangwoo, because he's good looking and fucked up, and it feels like "he just needs to be loved". Right now I'm like "I don't think there's a healthy way of loving a psycho killer, and I wouldn't call what is depicted here love, either".

I hope the author ends this series by having a massive show-down, where everyone essentially dies. Like I believe in rehab but goddamn idk how many years of therapy these characters need before they are okay for society. If the author does intend to travel down a "I love you" and "I love you more" route, I think I'll be more disturbed than I am now. Either way, I'm curious as to how KS will end... it was enjoyable to read, as messed up as it was.

Mystic Messenger

Mystic Messenger is one of the newer otome games that hit the market, and I tried it out based on a friend's recommendation + personal curiosity.

An otome game is like a dating sim, but for girls. Every other character is a handsome male of a different "type". Mystic Messenger has several characters you can "conquer", one of whom is female, so I thought it was interesting (does that mean MC becomes non-hetero-exclusive, or can I play as a guy???)

So yeah the first thing I tried to do in this game was see if I could set up my character as male. Well, I couldn't. I guess this game isn't prepared for its queer audience, after all. Hahah. So I named my character "Alice" and I kept playing, because Alice sounds like a nice name, right?

The gameplay of Mystic Messenger is actually immensely annoying and time consuming. Your phone notifications will trigger on the clock, because an in-game character has messaged you. If you don't reply back in time, you can't progress your relationship with that character, so I became a bit of a phone slave towards the end. Except some of these conversations literally trigger at 1am and 3am, and I'm like "wow I'm awake cos I'm playing Pokemon Sun, but wtf is up with this game design? I'd be asleep if I wasn't on holiday".

So the way you reply in this game is via programmed responses, you choose A or B. It was frustrating at times, because I felt the dialogue options I got given were a little brain-dead. Like, as if I'd have reason to say that! The choices were very polarizing, too, it's like, "I hope your cat gets run over" to "I want to suck your dick". Well, those aren't actual choices, but you get the gist.

The characters were also massively unrealistic, but since it's catered towards a "typical" girls' fantasy, I guess that's the appeal. There's Han Jumin, the best looking guy there (imho), who is like a corporate CEO. Rich af, but incapable of human emotion. Then there's a hacker character nicknamed 707, who is a little eccentric (not in a way I found appealing, however). Kim Yoosung is a kid in uni who entered with a good score but is now addicted to a game called LOLOL. That one hit too close to home, I was like "wow I don't like the parallel". But does that mean people find kids addicted to games attractive? Because whew I'm still single and damn if you're into that shit, you don't have to go for a fictional kid, Vane's right here for you baby.

Oh, back to the characters. There's a movie star called "Zen" who is good looking but that's about it. No other attribute. Then the female character, I actually thought was a guy when I started playing, and I was like "oh the capable assistant, hard working kind, me likey". She's the secretary for Han Jumin, and she's overworked but doesn't know how to say no.

One cycle of the game goes for 11 days total, so it could take close to forever to finish this game. Probably actually "forever" for me, since I couldn't even run through one cycle. I reached "bad end" on day 7, which meant I didn't even finish the story. Apparently I didn't garner enough affection from the characters, so I obv fucked up my dialogue choices somewhere. God I suck at picking up guys IRL and I can't even get guys on a dating sim. How socially retarded am I???

The thing I'm mad about though, was that I was trying to get on Zen's route (I couldn't get Han Jumin because his route requires premium currency to unlock), but then I somehow ended up in Yoosung's route. That felt terrible, because like I said, Yoosung's just a shittier version of myself, and fuck I'm already the irresponsible game-addicted one, there doesn't need to be two of us like this. Anyway to avoid reaching a "bad end", I essentially changed all my responses to "yeeee I luv muh boi Yoosung", and apparently that still wasn't enough and he dumps my character on day 7.

Like what the actual fuck I got dumped by a fictional character I didn't even like. Goddamn. Like Yoosung you little bitch, I didn't say "I believe in you" or "It's fun talking to you" because I liked you, I was just saying it so the game can go on. How dare you dump me when I'm trying so hard to progress in this stupid fucking game. I'm sick of your shit, Yoosung. You'll never get a girl to like you when you're addicted to shitty video games and you act like you're 13.

Okay that's enough ranting for one night. Maybe I need a walkthrough for this game so that I don't bad-end again.

Still, fuck you Yoosung.