Month: December 2007

What sustained you

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now makes you weary.

I’m disappointed to report that the group funding my Cambridge gig has decided to pull their support, leaving me a “freshly”-minted doctor without a job. (Is there any other kind?) It’s not so much the science I am going to miss, as I am the opportunities to travel and meet new people.

As I’d expected, even prior to the arrival of this news, my mom had noticed my generally mopey behaviour and talked to me about it; repeatedly. After arguing about it for a while, I eventually said something along the lines of “I’ll start moping less when happier things transpire around me.”

Thankfully, my cheerless demeanour has little to fear from this incident.

Mellow dramatics

Hobble into a room with a cast on your leg, and everyone will eagerly await your tales of drunken rock-climbing. Hobble into a room because your mind is just too disoriented to process your senses, and no one will feel comfortable talking to you about your misfiring brain.

Not even you.

I’m not sure why this is, but while most people deem it acceptable to talk about and seek help for physical issues bothering them, there’s a huge stigma against bringing up problems of the mind. Perhaps, it’s because unlike obvious physical abnormalities, much of our craziness can be hidden from life’s casual observers; and people don’t see the need to talk about things that can be swept under the rug.

But screw social norms, you know I’m going to.

Can you imagine how scary it is to have your mind and eyes wake up, but not the rest of your body? When you feel awake, but paralysed as you lie there in the harsh realisation that the rest of you often functions independent of your mind. What if you’re prone to sleeping on your tummy, and you occasionally find your mind waking up, only to realise it can’t turn your head to prevent you from choking on your pillow because your body is still asleep?

Do you then shut your eyes real tight and hope that it’s just a nightmare? Can you even tell the difference? What if your memory is just a blur and you can’t always clearly tell if something you’re recalling is an event you really experienced, a dream you had, or just something you were thinking about? When desperately devoid of feeling, you concoct something and convince yourself it’s real.

And if you can’t tell the difference, is there any?

It’s ironic that the authenticity of your experiences is really a moot concern, as failing memory is one of the first signs of a faulty brain, aside from spotty hallucinations and spooky convulsions, of course. If you can’t even remember clearly over a few weeks into the past, why would you care if what you’re recollecting is real?

Alas, another thing that’s easily affected is speech patterns. Slurred, incoherent ramblings soon replace any expressive flair you might have possessed—further evidencing your dulling senses and intellect to the world. And worse, reducing the likelihood you’re going to coherently talk about what you’re going through with anyone.

Enter, stage left

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I woke up today to a message on my phone.
From my mother.
Telling me she’s going to be turning up here on Thursday.
Yes, Thursday.

Since then, I’ve begun to freak out and have frantically been attempting to sort out my dwelling environment and my life. I don’t really know why though, I’m going to fall short of her unrealistic standards anyway.

This entry was pushed through outside the regular chronology because it contains breaking news. You probably don’t know this, but the way this journal works is that everything first begins with daily tidbits on scraps of paper forming a physical journal. Under normal circumstances, portions of these scribbles are transcribed, polished upon or expanded into the entries you see here.

As you’ve realised, I haven’t been transferring anything from paper of late, and working through the regular chronology wouldn’t have allowed for this entry to show up in a timely manner.

Never to fear, there is more life news that exists on paper which will make it up here, and I don’t intend on falling from my on-average ten posts per month frequency.

Deus ex machina

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Stepping out after a long, hot shower all wrinkley and pink, I hope I can finally pen some of the thoughts that have frequented my mind over this past week. The main thing I’ve been wrestling with is this: Is changing my life really just my own fight?

Let me explain.

Talk to anyone, and more often than not, they’ll be quick to suggest that you ought to take control of your own life, take responsibility for your actions and fight your own battles. They’ll probably use different words, but this will be the general sentiment they express. They’ll say that you shouldn’t sit there blaming the world for your misfortunes, and shouldn’t expect a magical fairy to come floating down from the clouds—or wherever it is fairies call home—and solve your problems for you.

OK, I admit waiting for a magical fairy is a pretty bogus way of dealing with your life’s situations, but is your life really just your own fight to fight? Quite certainly, other people must’ve played some part in your life’s path. Haven’t they?

Take, for example, the case of these parents who raised their already socially-awkward child in three very different parts of the world. Is it any surprise that the kid has difficulty grasping where he fits in? Why is it that others can be a part of the problem but when it comes to fixing it, you ought to single-handedly arrive at a solution?

One obvious answer to that question is more of the same drivel: “It’s your life; it’s your problem, not theirs.” And this is something that leaves me unconvinced.