eat me henger

i get to live the life i want, and yet i still choose to want the life i will live.  today and tomorrow will be as tough as yesterday because someday it will get better. but every now and then i look into the mirror and see mediocrity embodied in a bag of sagging flesh. i put up with what felt like agonizing difficulty for what? there's enough years in me that i can look back with longing and regret. i wish i knew at the time that it was going to be as good as it could get. my inexperience muddled my expectations. i thought it was a predictably linear trajectory from inadequate anonymity to accomplished relevancy. but life is a roll of the dice. so many last moments passed by, so many peaks i was unaware.  all because i lacked the gratefulness in the present and humility in uncertainty.

i'm a mess.  i thank my job and my family for keeping me together. but without a pre-determined obligatory schedule, without other people keeping the home in order, i probably would end up in the streets. i'm naturally unmotivated. i give up easily. i don't derive a huge deal of delight from life's pleasures. the term for it is "depression", and that topic is a pummeled paste from what previously was a dead horse. in all likelihood, without the external pressures of a workday or the nurturing commitment of a household, my days would be spent aimlessly anticipating for the next sunset. i have a natural tendency for addiction. i have difficulty divesting from dependence. once i get started, i jump head first into becoming a junkie. i've seen myself build tolerance to psychoactive substances. i can always tell when the usual dose isn't doing it for me anymore. good thing i posses a combination of rudimentary medical knowledge and sufficient self-awareness

the older i get, the more i wish i could travel back in time with what i know now  i used to be a 5th grader wishing to be a 2nd grader, thinking i will ace all basic arithmetic after finally understanding algebra. then i became a college student wishing to be a high schooler, thinking i will re-invent myself after finally overcoming my social awkwardness. then i became a working adult wishing to be a student, thinking i will get into better schools after finally developing a solid work ethic. and now i'm in my 30s wishing to re-live life all over again, thinking i will avoid all of my life's regrets after finally learning from my mistakes. it's likely that this pattern will continue.

it's easier to tell the difference we go through annually when we were much younger.  from outside, our bodies change much rapidly - baby, toddler, child, teenager. by adulthood, it almost looks the same. the changes become smaller. skin start to sag, fine lines and wrinkles, thinning or greying hair. adults stop getting taller, they start getting heavier, their bones start to become brittle. eventually their bodies will fail them. from inside, younger people are more receptive to novelty. everything is new. they're unburdened with having seen it all before - coming from a preconceived disappointment or high expectations that could very well set up letdowns. life is beautifully fresh. but as you grow older, the heartbreaks pile up, responsibilities accumulate. eventually weighing us down to grind through survival mode. there's a point in life where the overall theme of growth is replaced by decline. but that's probably my cynicism speaking.

unconditional love is directionless.  if you want a sense of direction or structure in love, you need it to be "conditional". love in itself is contextual that a desired unconditionality seems like a safety net. love for family require being birthed or an acceptable procedure for adoption. love for a friend or romantic partner require a base likability and subsequent reciprocity. love can go in so many directions. it can be a superlative of like, it can be an enduring commitment. it can be a feeling, it can be an action. so i don't know if unconditionality is a universally desired in love. what are conditions anyway? perhaps there's a difference with "i love you if..." to "i love you despite..." to "i love you because..."

i struggle to write recently.  now i understand why some writing feels forced. that's what i'm going through right now. i'm forcing myself to put out something. i've since learned the shortcuts people use. templates help, rehashing the same sentences help, blatant copy pasting help. i still don't want an easy way out. i'd rather read than write. i've been trying to refill my knowledge base. i somehow lost my love for learning. i was getting by with facing different people and repeating the same nuggets of wisdom over and over again. and now i can see that i've been making the mistake of settling with an easy way out when presenting myself to the world.