a block of text. or two.

you know what. i seriously do not know why i'm doing this. why am i putting my hopes on something as far away as an ivy league university? why am i hoping for what's impossible? why am i aiming for something i don't think i want in the first place? and while i'm at it, why am i bothering to hope for what is a hopeless cause? why do i do the stuff i do? why? i keep telling myself that i'm giving myself more of a chance to be a better person than i am, but i can't help but think that i will be a better person if i actually follow what i really want to do. which leads me to the question of what is it that i want to do? i don't know. i just know that i have this crazy longing to throw all of this off my back and just walk off. just walk off. sometimes i get scared. i wonder why am i following the crowd. i wonder why am i listening to people i barely know telling me what is good for me. i wonder. and i never get the answer. it's weird. the people i really admire, the people who i really want to become, they never did all this. they didn't need to. that they never did was probably what made them who they are. who i really want to become. i don't know. i just can't find any reason to continue doing this. it's all so pointless. so easy to follow. so easy to do. so easy to hunker down, forget all this and study electrons. so easy. to follow unquestioningly, to do what i 'have' to do. to do what other people 'want' me to do. to make myself 'enjoy' doing all this because it is easier than contemplating other paths to carve in my life. so easy to just accept. i don't know. the more i 'succeed', the more i feel like i'm 'failing'. i want to pack my bags and walk out of this life. be a writer. travel. float aimlessly amidst humanity. but i don't. why? because i'm afraid. because i don't know if i can survive. because i am a coward. because it is all so uncertain and hazy and no one's done it before. and that is what i hate about myself. i abhor control. i seek freedom. and yet i shackle myself to this, too scared to seek the freedom i profess to crave. lying to myself about myself. gosh. how sad can that get? i just hope this great big block of text stopped some people from reading this. but in a way, when you get too personal, it becomes impersonal. because people stop caring. i know nobody would care about this because they know that no matter how much i complain, i would still continue doing what i do. hence, my willingness to write about this. this burden i carry, yet i know not why i take it. it's a bit like the story of Sisyphus, except he pretty much has his task outlined for him by a god. well, lucky him. i don't know who outlined my task, nor what my task is. and i don't even know if i'm doing my task right, nor if i'm doing the right task. i do not know why i'm doing what i do. i enjoy it, but i can't help but think i can enjoy doing other things too. i just don't understand why i'm doing all this when it is so easy to change and do something else. oh yes it's easy to change. getting a scholarship might seem tough to some, but losing one is so darn temptingly easy. and possibly fun. i just want a reason to do what i do. maybe i'll find it. maybe i won't. but i am just going to revert back to human android mode tomorrow and stop throwing questions with no answers into the air like they're helium balloons. and that is sad. i hope i won't delete this post. this is the most lucid i felt in months. possibly years. but lucidity is subjective. just like everything that really matters in our sad little lives. i guess we made it subjective so that we can lie to ourselves that we are who we are not. how exceedingly clever. bah. damn all this to hell. it all ends in death anyway. everything else is just the details. how quaint. okay. back to unquestioning, numb, happy android mode. come, let us have fun with physics. because i have to do it, might as well have fun doing it. amazing what i can make myself do. amazing that i can protest and do it at the same time. i might make a good politician. who knows. i don't.

***

i'm part of a coincidental occurrence where five people accidentally travel at the same time at the same speed to the same place where they happen to do the same thing. and one of them happens to be paying enough for all of them. i think they call it a holiday. i'm going to that island they named Pangkor, which i think is a sucky name for an island because it just doesn't roll off your tongue and it sounds like a name i would assign a cooking utensil. so. a holiday. tomorrow. i mean, today. in a few hour's time the few humans i will travel with will rise. and i too shall rise and pretend i had a fantastic night dreaming about rainbows and unicorns. i am amazingly good at doing this. the only attraction that island holds for me is this - i was happy here. i was pure and innocent and in love with life. and in love with a whole lot of other things. sandcastles. buckets. the sea. the sky. clouds. the pony. beach balls. jet skis. crabs. seashells, kites. coconut leaves. i want to find the place where i was happy. i want to go back there. i want to return to where i remember being in absolute bliss. but i know what will happen if i do. i will stare at the miserable beach that looked so much like paradise when i was a kid. i will look at it and see a sad little patch of insignificant sand filled with utterly ugly calcium formations. i will look at what was the magnificent blue sea and see waves full of jellyfish and trash. i might even find the pipe whereby the hotel dumps the waste into the water. and i will smirk at the people in the sea. but there will be no humour in that smirk. it just means another part of my childhood has been corrupted. and i smirk in acceptance. i was seven then. i am seventeen now. there you go. ten years, and i come back. i come back to ruin your memory. there you go. this is how i ruin a holiday.