breathe
Nearing midnight, I was still fretting over the morale crushing 2hr past year paper; after having worked on it for the past 3.5 hrs. I managed to draw the some sadistic humor from the ironic happenstance that though I usually prided myself on my work efficiency, I am hapless when it comes to solving the Optimization problems. The mammoth effort required for the matrix manipulation is like making my mind perform contortionist acts and doing mental gymnastics while at it.
Needed a breather.
I took a peek outside my window looking at nothing in particular. The world outside's black and a cold wind sent a chill down my spine. I was suddenly swept by pangs of loneliness. We are physically together, but everyone is leading their own life. This reminded of how my social circle have slowly devolved from the "you get my back and i get yours"to the "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours." How long more before I outlive my usefulness?I guess cynicism has caught up with age.
Bubbles of our own devising
ReplyDeleteAs we go through life, we experience things that make us laugh, cry, sing, dance, brood and turn cold. While the fun experiences are the ones we enjoy, it is the sad ones that we normally remember... Humans are such melodramatic and retrospective creatures. Thus it is when we have in mind those times of pain where we create a bubble around ourselves to shield us from all that would hurt us. However, in our quest to keep ourselves safe, we have walled ourselves in too well.
Think of children, they with their bright eyes curious minds are fearless in their quests of exploration. We were once like them, till we shed our naivevity and learnt to "play safe". When we first made friends we let down our guard and expand the walls that we constructed to hide ourselves in. Amongst friends, the walls of bubbles are no longer impervious, that is why we hurt the most when the pain is dealt by a friend. Cause they are the ones that breached that wall.
As we age, there are times when we have to be alone. It is then that we find ourselves frightened and our natural urge to shore up our defences overcomes us. We build higher walls, thicker walls, walls so thick that the bubble that was once our shield becomes our prison. We cry out but our pleas are stifled, and echo endlessly within the very walls we built with our own hands, tormenting us so.
As we being to feel distanced from others, we long for the feeling when our walls allow more than just a cold breeze in. The times when friendly faces and warm embraces passed through our walls, reaching our cold interior. But trapped in our own devices we must be the ones to reach out for others are repelled by our defences and at the same time, engaged in the communion which defines our society, that which we crave for.
As we take apart our walls, stone by stone, we are constantly plagued by doubts and fears, but our yearning is both stronger and more urgent. Finally, light begins to fill the cold space, the bubble that we created. Once our eyes adjust to the glaring brightness that we have so long been absent from, we realise that there are faces beyond the light. Friends.