Bye bye birdy

Dear All,

This blogger has offcially moved on to another blog. This blog will not be updated henceforth. This blog will only be maintained as an archive for the existing posts.
If you're still interested in the ramblings of this impulsive blogger, please visit the new blog :

http://www.the-furnace.blogspot.com/

Your continued readership will be highly valued even if the blogger in question is often reluctant to admit it.

Thank you all for taking an interest in this blog these past 2 years! It's been great!

Goodbye and See you on the otherside

A.S.

Note to old Mr V

This post is dedicated to a person who once wrote me an amazing story about a girl named Andromeda. Let's call this person Mr. V.
V is the one who pretty much pestered me into returning to the blogging world. Since, he is the one who persuaded me to write again, I thought I might as well take my inspiration from him as well.
The story of V and me is a strange one. We met for a very short while and the chances are great that we will never meet again. Now, V and I aren't quite the best of friends. He's just one of those people you randomly come across one ordinary day. But if I were to divide everything into my life into a set of symbols, V would stand for the following thought:
Sometimes, a stranger can mean a hell of a lot to you for no apparent reason. And similarly, without really trying, you can mean a hell of a lot to someone you barely know. It makes you wonder, what you've done to deserve somebody liking you so much. You might not have been very nice to them. You might have been unable to like them in the way they want you to. But somehow they can't help but feel a connection with you which is why they are unwilling to give up on liking you.
What can say to such people? How can you possibly understand them? How can you be anything but grateful that no matter what you did, they found you worthy of their friendship.
You even feel ashamed because you know that you have done nothing to deserve their kindness. And yet, they seem so willing to always shower you with it.
So, Mr V, now that I must have thoroughly embarassed you with this uber-soppy post, I hope you will not stop pestering me to keep writing :D
Go ahead and contradict what you can...smartypants!

Yeah I know, I like to make life complicated...

Image from www.simpsonstrivia.com

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, I saw a BBC documentary on the human brain (not quite how that sentence usually goes, is it?) According to this documentary, all of us live our lives half a second in the past.

It is the result of a chain reaction. We face a stimulus of some sort. The message is relayed to the brain. The brain decides what to do and the body carries out the decision. Our conscious realization of that action happens only half a second afterwards. As a result, everything that we see and sense around is has actually happened half a second earlier. We see a car zoom past us on the road but in reality, the zooming past happened half a second earlier. What is this half a second? A glitch in the system? Or rather, the time the brain requires to process and deal with the massive amounts of data it receives every micro-second.

This half second hardly has any appreciable effect on our lives. If it did, I'm sure we would have noticed by now and the BBC wouldn't have to reveal it in a documentary. However, I found the implications of such a thing to be astounding. Does this mean that we have never and never will live in the actual present? No wonder we humans cling to the past so much. It's how we've been programmed. Our brains function in the present but we live in the past. So, the harsh reality in this sutuation is that the present is only an illusion because we never quite get to experience it, do we?

Another thing that just wouldn't stop bothering me is that technically, all human beings loose half a second of their lives. The vicious cycle of continously delayed perception of the present starts right from the time we are born. So, at the exact moment of death, we are still busy processing the previous half second. Hence, when the time comes to actually be in that moment of death, well, it's too late. Brain processes cannot take place because we died half a second earlier! You know what this means? No human being can ever experience exactly what it is to die. Quite a startling revelation isn't it?

Well, new researches crop up all the time and it seems as though most of them just enjoy contradicting one another. I have no idea what the next one will say but hey, does it really matter? What's one half second compared to the length of a lifetime? Answer that, darlings.

Requiem for a dream

So it's finally over. After all this time, it's over.
It was probably over a long time ago but I had to fight, didn't I? I had to fight for what I wanted.
I was testing destiny even though I don't believe in it. I kept saying, "One more chance... just one more. Nothing comes easy." Destiny, my dear, you won.
Even the most determined of people have a last straw and today I reached mine. I don't want to believe that the world is cruel. I don't want to believe that all the world conspires to take away from you that which you want more than anything else. I will not let go of my hope and I refuse to believe that we are all doomed but it is also true that today it's all over... It might have ended a long time ago but today, it ended for me.
I'm not angry, I'm not broken. I'm fine. I'm going to mourn that which died today and move on to greater things.
Today I declare for all the world to know: I give up. I'm disarmed. I give up. You can stop now.

Death smiles at you and all you can do is smile back

From this weary immortality

We seek release

Life after life we fight for honour

In our wars we try to find peace

Too heavily do we pay

For crimes that were trivial

Too much do we weep

For the sorrow that was never ours

Too much are we judged

Our words cause too much woe

But the day must always end

Back to the same earth, brother, we must go

Yes, I'm back to serious stuff again...but come on! When thoughts such as these pop into your mind, how can you not write them down? These few lines have been inspired by one named Maximus -I just finished watching 'The Gladiator'. It's not the first time but it is such a movie that it gets to me every time.
This is song of the soldier. It is also the song of everyone else.

Cuckoo cuckoo

So yeah...I'm finally tiring of my own whiny outpourings clumsily disguised as profound and soul-stirring philosophies...Oh I'm still going to whine, mind you. But about stuff that does not convince people to kill themselves. Cease and desist. Halt. Enough. Hmmph!

Have I ever spoken of my utter disgust for all formal systems of education? Probably have. But since it is my blog, I'll do so again. Ha! Yeah so what is the big idea forcing kids into dingy warehouses and stuffing unnecessary and just plain ridiculous amounts of information down their throats? They should be outside skipping and prancing about, breaking windows and falling off roofs or whatever the heck it is they do outside. Or playing video games whatever. Sometimes I am almost compelled to believe that those folks at Codename:Kids Next Door are absolutely right. This is some kind of freaky Matrix-like conspiracy, isn't it? They're after our miiiiiinnnnddsssssssss!!

So twice a year, I become this way. This blubbering psychotic mess of a human being. Oh, don't get me wrong. I hate all formal systems of education all the year round. It's only twice a year when the exams arrive that I loose my head completely. I have a whole series of all-nighters ahead. They loom across my path like so many Frankensteins with acne disorders. The future does not look pretty. Must salvage what is left of my lost senses and get back to work.

I would like to round off this clever piece of prose with a quote by the good and great Ozzy Osbourne:

"Of all the things that I have lost,

It's my mind that I miss the most."

Sigh...

The Man in the whirpool

His head aches. It is full of thoughts that have been left in there for so long that they have decayed. There are too many wishes that are unfulfilled. Everything he desires is impossible because the people have made it so and his angels have forsaken him. Too many strings, too many consequences.
He was sparked to life. Like a toy, he was wound and he marches about as the key turns. One day he will be all unwound. What can he do sometimes but to fall to his knees, look up at the skies and scream the words, "what do you want from me?" Why was he sent? What was he meant to do? How often has he hoped for a message in the lightening or a gesture in the thunder. No signs have been left for him to find.
He must bide his time, he knows. All good things come to those who wait they say. How long will the wait be? His time is running out. The key is turning. It could be on its final round but he is being taught a painful lesson. Do not quarrel with the lessons of life. He hears nothing in the voice of the sunrises and sunsets but they are asking him to be patient. To one day achieve his dream, he must pay the price for it. With these passing years, with this seemingly wasted time, he is actually paying the price for his dreams, for his desires. A very high price it seems like and yet not really so...life is a fair trader, because his dreams are priceless.
He reads in a book that when God wants to drive a person insane, he grants him all his wishes. He begs God for madness. One true blinding moment of such intense happiness that even if he looses his mind at its contact, he may die in peace. He pleads for insanity but God in his wisdom, teaches him patience.