THE MIND PALACE

i woke up this morning, longing for the comfort of days past - the financial security, the romantic partnership and just the single mindedness of being in school, you know? there's no room for existential terror when you know that you've got to meet deadlines. so i guess I woke up angry, turned on my old teen angst rock jams and it felt like coming back to a house that you said you'd never come back to but had to swallow pride and ask for your old room, just to feel like you belong somewhere in this madness. i got ready for church at a glacial pace, slowed down by the gravity of my failures. i died to my pride countless times for my relationship to fall apart, while i tried to put it together.  but who's fault is it that it ended?  me. i cried in the stillness of my room, paralysed by regret - like rewinding a tape that will have that one glitch, thinking this time it won't.  but it does. then, i felt nothing. i didn't feel peace or r...

before i make another of these, i feel like let me tell you what "lessons from my dad" means. i'm a living, breathing hero origin story - torn between innocence and brokenness. i lost my real dad when i was 11, had a mentor who became a dad to me almost a decade later - lost him when i was 21. both left before i could say what i have to say. but they taught me to tap into... whatever this mind can do to some extent and it's unplugged me.  the brevity of the posts i create do little justice to the wisdom they left behind for me. honestly, i don't know that i 100% understand even a fraction. me, "given one of the best minds of my generation". i'm either a genius or the wrong guy. there's a line i've been walking betwixt ordinary and extraordinary. before my dad died, my biggest problem ever in life was telling the girl i had a crush on that i liked her before she left for some other country, i... forget. it was so surreal, losing him ...

see, i like blogging. there are certain thoughts i can't express in public without looking clinical. forget social media because yOu nEEd tO bE sEnSitiVe to OtHeR pEoPLe aNd tHeiR FeELiNgS. like, look straight ahead - you and I both dead. do you think there's time to be polite and technical? i'm not saying be rude; just be you. but yeh, i get to show my more reclusive side. it's not always clever quips and boyish smiles with me.  you know, it's funny - in my wanting to disappear into the background, i often am a topic. you'd think wearing black hides you. no. people start asking you why you're walking around like the dark knight. i'd blush if i placed any value on commentary on my external world. it's quite weird because i often have those moments where my conversational manner is so fluid and i feel the warmth pulsating in my chest. that's very much the "friendly neighbourhood" part of my personality.  most days, though, th...

in case it isn't already apparent, i'm a spectacularly devoted fan of comic book fiction - my three dimensional experience as a spiritual perennial in this temporary meat reality is intensely intensified by some of these superpowered characters. i woke up today, seeing more and more of my own character in the god of thunder.  imagine being told you're worthy to rule the nine realms and spend your life going and growing into that role, allowing your pride to swell in your birthright. it's only a matter of time before your elevation puts you so high up that the fall becomes a steep one, right?  in time, you realise where and how you went wrong - you try to do better, to be better. like any driven protagonist, you do exactly that even through the hard times, and it shows. instinctively, you hurl yourself face first into your growth, your change; maybe a bit too fast because your character flaw shows itself again to remind you of your greatest fear - being unworthy....

i hope this doesn't disappoint any of you but i need a distraction from the merciless swell of suicidal guilt so please pardon my need for reprieve.  but one thing that's been on my mind a lot lately is how selfless people can, and often are, manipulated by selfish people. this isn't a new concept and it's something people deal with on a day to day, maybe even one of you - i've certainly had my fair share "totally let stuff slide because i want this person in my life" stories that pretty much always ended one way. what's that one way? the ubiquitous apology; i'm sorry for doing this thing that you've said time and again that i shouldn't do because it's damaging your ability to trust me and i really don't want that happen so this marks a new change.  but do they change?  hmm? do they?  look hard! now, don't get me wrong - i'm all about growth, change and contrition as any determined mammal out there with superior ...

black isn't a colour, it's the absence of light  pretty strong sentiment, isn't it? i mean, if you shed light on a pitch black room it could look anyway, anyhow. what if black is just a really toned down pigment of what you think is a colour?  if you turn up the brightness, black could be yellow or bright green. that friend of yours that really likes black could be the most colourful personality in your life.

Kept all these things in eventually they fell apart maybe my best wasn't good enough only made my worst more real,  I see it for what it was mostly for what it could've been in all honesty  sincere  sensible  years hence only your voice in my pulse  under all the truth is an aching hope.

i believe that the tenacious spirit has a responsibility to live up to its own reputation. we all have it but it's our job to give it a fight chance.  for me, it's letting the light in - seeing the sun peep through the windows gives me moments of clarity, even in their brevity. it's in those seconds that i think out of my higher mind like yeah, i got this. closed curtains bum me out; you can see that the sun is shining but you can't see it brighten the room. it's a different thing than when it's cloudy because you'll have no choice but to miss it. keeping the curtain closed while the sun's out is like saying "yeah, the world's turning but not for me". doesn't that scare you? it scares me. but i like the sun, man. he'll rise, shine and set whether or not you know it or are even conscious of it. i especially love the way he dances with his bride, the moon. one rules day and the other, night. it's one of my favourite tale...

so, here's my thing - depression is not easy to beat but when you beat it, you beat the daylights out of it. the major problem isn't winning the war but staying victorious. i remember conquering the mindless chatter of my lower self years before and the struggle to even let my feet touch the floor. it didn't take long but i was right back in it. you can feel the emptiness of a dark time in your life and finally be okay with it but the question is: what are you filling that emptiness with?  i only had more emptiness; pay attention to the tense - "had". things are different now. i'm different now. 

this is an account of Kasper, a close friend of mine that i’ve come to know personally through time. i have a hard time maintain a sense of continuity with who he is and what he’s been through so i'll do what i can to stay true to the source material.  this is all being recounted as the thoughts emerge; no form at all to it. this is also difficult to keep track of. anyway, i remember one time Kasper told me a story about the first time he visited a certain mall since the break up – had the affection of an adoring quirk of a girl long enough to last the duration of a bachelor’s degree but lost it slowly over time, and suddenly, all at once.  whenever we talk about it, he sounds every bit as grateful as he does full of regret. the hardest thing about love, he said, is actually the simplest – don’t mess up. i mean, how hard could it be, right? you like this person a lot and, spoiler alert, they like you back a lot so it should be virtually impossible to do anything that m...

blogging got... complicated, a lot of stuff did. remember what i said about being an exiting graduate? yeah, now i'm a job hunting graduate. don't get me wrong; it's a sign of favour to complete your tertiary studies in the time given, just wish i knew that i'd have to toughen up spiritually ahead of time in preparation for the uncertainty i'm facing today. but i'll tell you all aboot it. man, it's great to be back...