no rest in leavenworth.

Every day I keep getting reminded of all my niggling insecurities. Every day those little insecurities take something completely normal and twist them into huge monsters at, without fail, drive me into a depressed, pathetic mood. I feel so horribly insecure and vulnerable I could fucking puke.

I have got to stop thinking like this. I have to. For my sake, and for everyone else’s sake as well. No-one likes an unhappy camper, and I’m sure all my emoness has had a negative effect on some people as well. It’s a selfish feeling, really, but something which I can’t seem to escape.

Of course, in a typically “me” fashion, the root cause of the problem isn’t exactly a depressing thing. No. But it always reminds me of my insecurities, my paranoid fears, my tendency to over-analyze and put too much meaning in simple, simple gestures. But mainly it’s just my insecurity. Those irritating questions that go “am I…” or “why would…” and bullshit like that.

Maybe it’s time I just came clean.

Maybe that’ll help, whatever the outcome is.

so here i go again

Today was just, simply put, horrible. Aside from some small highlights in the morning and during the evening (Persona 3 gave me goosebumps, to be frank), it was all just a mass of horribly grey depression. For God’s sake, I spent most of the day, yeah, crying. God knows why. Perhaps listening to Envy at respectably loud volumes “helped.”

God, it felt good, though. Curled up in the foetal position, sobbing, waves of sound travelling across the room and into my ears.

Oh God.

I couldn’t (and still can’t) think of concrete reasons why today turned out so crappy, but it did. It really was just my penchant for negativity and my oftentimes paranoid self-doubt getting the best of me. I mean, shit, it’s not like I can do much about the shit that I’ve been depressed and rambling to myself about.

I can take a good situation and find something bad about it. It’s a skill. It’s a talent.

It’s fucking irritating, that’s what it is. It’s not that I want to, but I just do. Somehow.

You can tell today’s been crap when I can’t even enjoy laughing at stupid quotes from football managers, pundits and players. Sure, I laughed and smiled, but I was still =/ the whole time, on the inside.

Now this is just bollocks.

I wrote a whole entire blog entry today that’ll probably just rot on my harddrive. Don’t think I’ll ever put it up here. Just because I don’t want the things I said there to be up on the Internet for the whole world (or, yeah, my readers) to see. Sorry.

last night was a bad night.

There are things in life I know too little about, things I wish I knew more about. There are things that scare me just because I know far too little about them. I’m afraid that there are things I should know, but I don’t. Yes, I’m afraid. And worried.

I kept waking up last night due to nightmares related to these things. Or, even, “this thing”. I’m not sure. While I’m perfectly content with not knowing how to calculate an object’s acceleration over a certain period of time (I do, actually), but these things that I’m vaguely talking about, well, I’m not. I wish I did. In part, at least. More than I do now.

It’s not really in my hands, though. Not entirely, at least.

Which is a good reason for me to just chill the fuck out and try and enjoy things. Put this all at the back of my mind.

But you know me. That just not me.

Oh well. I’ll try.

an untitled poem.

This is probably the closest I’ve ever come to expressing my emotions in a form that has some sort of literary worth. I didn’t want to put it up here initially, since I thought it was crap, but the opinions of some (important, again) people swayed me.

I wrote it in one shot during a bout of mixed rage and depression, so it is kind of raw. I only bothered to try and make things rhyme when I came to the end. I decided I didn’t want to go back and make everything rhyme, so here it is in all its unrefined, unpolished g(l)ory.

Something very interesting happened to me yesterday, although I’ll hold off on writing about it. I’m writing something in free verse (aka I decided to write prose in the form of poetry) about yesterday, so stay tuned!

Hahaha.

//

begone, you foul beast
that threatens me night and day,
whether during the brightest afternoons
or during the darkest nights.

begone, you foul beast
that I cannot put a name to,
that I cannot put a face to,
yet haunts me all the same.

I know not why you exist
except, perhaps, to haunt and vex me,
to make me cry in anguish,
to make me grimace in pain.

my days give birth to you,
but it is I who nurture you,
with my deepest thoughts,
my hate and anger and grief.

there are days when I can ignore you,
belittle you and humiliate you,
but there are days when I simply cannot,
and during those days much pain you have brought.

if I could but identify you,
trap you under the cold light of day,
perhaps then I would finally know you,
and learn how I could get away.

but that seems an impossibility,
a reminder of my ever-present frailty,
how I find it so difficult to be happy,
but readily open my arms towards dear misery.

thoughts about photography.

Simply put, I love photography. I do. I love that thrill I feel when I snap a nice photo as well as that great feeling of satisfaction I get when I sit down in front of the computer, look through the day’s photos and find one that I really like.

It’s just… fun, really, to be able to capture what my eyes see. To be able to capture how I see things, via the wonderful contraption known as a “camera.”

What’s even better, really, is finding beauty and attractiveness in everyday surroundings. Urban fragments, abstract lines, patterns, stuff like that. While I, like most, do enjoy taking photos of already-beautiful subjects, it’s really not my thing: I don’t really do landscapes and flowers and things that are already beautiful. With the exception of portraits, of course. I do love photographing beautiful faces.

Essentially, I try and find beauty in the small, simple things. And that’s really quite fun.

Thank God for photography.

And a lot of other things in my life.

things i did today.

I went to Bukit Bintang for the first time in ages today. Wanted to buy myself a new pair of shoes, and I got what I wanted quickly enough. The shoes troubled me for most of the day, but once I got back home I re-did the laces and, yeah, they’re now pretty comfortable. Needless to say, they’re cheap knockoffs, since I do not have the cash to spring for RM200+ pairs of shoes (I really only wear skate shoes, just because I find ’em comfortable, and, yeah, sizes for me are easy-ish to find). Someday, though, someday.

Got my eye on a pair of Fallen Bandits in oxblood and black. The (overpriced?) RM300 pricetag is a huge bummer, though. Really, really huge.

Bought a set of Ernie Ball normal top heavy bottom strings as well. I like ’em. I did one of my signature crap stringing jobs, but hey, it stays in tune so who cares how ugly the string posts look? Methinks I should buy a stringwinder. Hmm.

It was great that there weren’t actually that many people at Sg. Wang today. I guess it was a combination of it being a Thursday and the day right after a public holiday. Haha. Of course, someone I know went there yesterday, and, well, haha. =p

(No offence, my friend.)

The worst thing, though, was the signature KL afternoon heat. Bloody hell, it was hot. When I stepped out of the monorail it was like a wall of hot air just hit me straight in the face. Not very comfortable, as you would imagine. But, hey, that’s KL for you.

Maybe I’ll write one of my introspective, thinking-man blog entries about KL sometime soon. Maybe.

the old man

There was once a man, a very old man,
Who would smoke his pipe all day long,
And who would always sit, and never stand,
While humming to himself some long-forgotten song.

No-one knew his name, but all knew his face,
And like him or not, he was a part of the place,
With his bloodshot eyes and crooked teeth,
And his bony arms and dirty feet.

And all the other kids, they thought he was weird,
And all the adults, they thought he was strange,
But I, on the other hand, wanted to have his beard,
And always wished that I was his age.

“Oh,” I thought to myself, “How wonderful it would be to be old,
To be free from all the parental trappings,
No more ‘come in, or you’ll catch a cold!’,
Oh, how wonderful it would be to be old.”

And I would sit there and dream,
Of all the things I’d do.
I would sit there and dream,
And forget to go to the loo.

One day in school the teacher asked
“Who are your heroes, my dear sons?”
One said “the president,” another said “the pope,”
And as my turn neared I felt like hanging myself from a rope.
So I raised my hand and went
“Teacher, can I go to the toilet?”

So I spent two entire periods
Locked in the bathroom;
My teacher must’ve thought it was serious.

And everytime I walked back from school
He’d be there,
And I thought he looked so cool.
Oh, he always looked so cool.

But one day he stopped coming out of the house,
And behind the windows nothing roused.
No-one cared, they didn’t bother,
They probably thought it was a good thing, one way or the other.

And soon an odour of death
Began emanating from the house,
And everyone had to hold their breath
When they were walking about.

As it turns out, the old man had died and left a corpse.
And since it had been a while
It began to stink, of course.
You could smell it for a mile.

That was when things changed, you see,
And I realized that “old” was one thing I didn’t want to be.
At least, not in any sort of hurry.
At least, not in such a flurry.

And I said to myself:
“Maybe I’ll just grow old gracefully,
accept everything that life throws at me gratefully,
And stop wishing I was already seventy-three.”

last night, or a couple of hours ago.

Whatever floats your fucking boat.

Last night I couldn’t sleep, and, no, it wasn’t just because a friend called me up at 2.30 in the bloody morning to ask me for his photos from a couple of days ago. No no no. I’m used to sms-es and calls at some ungodly hours. It’s a part of being me.

But you know what I felt last night?

Last night I felt that incredibly giddy, almost sick-to-the-stomach feeling that usually accompanies a very, very significant attraction towards someone. It was more intense, more pronounced, more noticeable than on most other nights (or days). It was, strangely, fun. No angst this time, not at all.

A welcome breath of fresh air.

words and photos.

I really have no concrete reasons to be unhappy with life. I’m having a wonderful time taking photos — more than I thought I would — and I’m finding that, yes, it really does make me happy. Particularly that incredibly good feeling I get when the photo is a good one. Feels just… awesome.

I also apparently can write poetry, as well, if the opinions of a couple of (very important) people are anything to go by. Heh. I might just learn to like it, you know. It’s fun, kinda. Sure, it may be a bit technical, but, hey, bollocks to that! I’ll just go about my poetry-writing however I want to. Hahaha.

Seems that I can recite poetry particularly well, too. Heh.

Yes, I use Photoshop a lot. Maybe far too much.

Apparently, I can write well, take good photos, have above-average guitar skills and can bang out some mean tunes. That’s four very creative things. I guess some people wish they could do even one of those (not an assumption, I know for a fact), and that they’d be happy with it. Me, I can do all of them and still couldn’t (and wouldn’t) be happy.

It’s time for a change.

I am not useless. I am not incapable.

I can do things!

On a slightly lighter note, I’m thinking of trying to combine my photography and writing together: write stories/poems based on photos, or take photos to accompany already-written stories/poems. We’ll see. It’d be nice, wouldn’t it?

today.

was a good day. =]