| journal entry on the weekend of retreat.
This is my journal entry. I could not stop myself from writing this. I need a better blog than this lame xanga thing. And yes, my grammar has gotten even worse than the last time you checked.
It takes a
while for anyone to appreciate coffee. You just don’t see what it’s supposed t
o taste like until you try it without sugar. When life hits you hard and gets
you down, that’s when you swallow it bitter and raw. You savor it and
appreciate its basis.
So, I don’t know if this is a
matter of having my priority straight. But it’s embarrassingly confusing what I
need to focus in life.
This is a problem I have had for
a long time. For the life I lead, (or more like the life I follow) I’m usually
pretty busy. Very busy. If I’m not busy, the chance is that I’m slacking off
and not doing something I should be doing.
But again, on those weekends
when all my roommates and friends happen to be away, and I am by myself, I get
to think. I get to be lonely. When I’m lonely, I think about my life—mostly
because I want to figure out why I am lonely. You can say that it is a
self-defense mechanism or a survival instinct. By the formula, I should be
working and studying. But I don’t. A bad
case of chronic procrastination.
However, I cannot ignore this
phenomenon because it manifests the fact that I am uncomfortable with solitude.
I simply cannot handle being by myself. It’s not like I get necessarily sad or
depressed. It never brings me to tears or anything whereas other unrelated
aspects of my life actually do. It is still a significant issue nevertheless. I
try to console myself with internet blogs, movie trailers, game trailers, maybe
porn if the time is right (the time is right most of the time, because I don’t
fall in this state when there are people around). internet messengers, and all
passive things one can think of doing by himself—trying to believe that these things are right things
to do at the moment when they are clear attempts to escape reality. To be
honest, I am always in this state. It is just that when there are people around
me, their presence damp out this serious concern of mine—my instinct as a
social being to be interactive and not reclusive. But the older I get, the more
time I spend in this seemingly incorrect state of mind, the more it
demonstrates itself even in the presence of others.
I lack passion. The
truth is that it hasn’t actually been too hard getting by in life. I can copy
labs and projects. I can squeak by a class with a B, or seldom slip and get a C—you
realize that C’s don’t shock you anymore after you get your third one. I have
made the right moves for my career and my future is unfolding fine at least on
my resume. So what need is there to try hard? Why do I have to be on top of my
classes and be on time for everything? I’m slowly on my way out of college and
nothing seems to motivate me. Is that my fault? How do other kids do it? The
reality has been brutal and cruel so far, no answer being universal or
universally applicable. I really need a custom-tailored answer here because I
hate being in this state.
I have enough goodness in me,
and I believe that what I’m about to say is correct, to acknowledge this
problem and face it. As I said, everything seems “right” on paper, but it’s
not. Dragging my life along with such a huge problem cannot be a correct thing
to do. I hope I am not alone, but again, I sure hope that this is not something
universal because if that’s the case everyone else is just pretending and ignoring,
or even worse, unaware—a giant civilized society full of uncertainty and
problems. I want an answer to life. Preferably one that makes sense and applies
to my own.
I do not seem to want anything
much, and I shudder being alone. I am an anti-matter to myself. I need to fix
it and fix it soon. Until then, I’ll try to balance my pretense in the crowd
and my search for the answer. I think what I need is a longer period of
solitude and contemplation. If I can’t beat it, it’ll kill me.
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