eat me henger

i put up with more bullshit than ought to be doing. with enough time, anyone will reveal how appalling they actually are. no soul is truly a ray of sunshine. that's just the basic premise of life. more power to those with larger capacity for bullshit, they're best suited to live in the real world. people like me that are more sensitive and intolerant to it should stay sheltered in the solitude of our safe spaces. the two choices are to (1) play along and become a fool or (2) call them out and become alone. but society must operate on human connections. unfortunately, the social fabric is largely woven on communication threads that are spun disingenuously. i'm one of the few brave enough to cut ties because i find that peace is preferable to perks. perhaps it's because i never found anything anyone can give worthwhile. perhaps i'm slowly succeeding towards my haphazard goal of nirvana. regardless of the reason, be it nihilistic or enlightened, all forms of shit must ...

when adulthood comes along, our worth starts to get measured monetarily. we seem to have an innate desire to measure ourselves. it starts out with grades, but as soon as you get a job you're measured by income. it's a good proxy metric for our value. with good grades, it makes it easier for employers to filter job applicants. with good salary, it makes it easier for us to live comfortably, it's numbers. it's practical. it's economics. and if anything, i'm a man of economics. unfortunately, i don't find the allure of such value appraisal framework. i've had enough money to know that there's more to life than material wealth. there is no significant difference between my life when i was barely scraping by and now that i live in abundance. i just have fancier things and plentiful meals. and since i have more of them, i've taken them for granted. i still have the same 24 hours a day, and with more money, the only difference is the variety of options....

modern life is so rich that what i can do in an hour today would've taken me half a day to do back then. i've gotten used to the convenience of most things being a click or tap away, that i've taken for granted their accessibility. i'm quite forgetful and the deluge of content has only highlighted my limitation to keep information. i must've forgotten more than i've seen or heard through my many screens. and it's been mostly like that, even before we're forced to be locked in our homes. majority of what has happened in my life has been virtual. and thanks to technology, we are given the opportunity to immortalize real moments by uploading them somewhere over the cloud. but that just adds to the activities we'll do virtually. the abundance granted to us by technology diminished the significance of each memory. our desire for more and more have lessened the impact of individual moments. in as much as we want to consider every single thing important, we...

i haven't got my soul recently. three whole months of no writing here. i was still writing though - for work, for school - in other places where my authenticity wasn't as valued as the approval of an authority. having responsibilities in the real world means being fake for the sake of a paycheck. and really, what does a paycheck get us? shiny new things, filling food, fun pastimes. life revolves around the next unnecessary purchase or upcoming leisurely activity. the things we spend money are just as artificial as effort required to earn money. the human soul will search for meaning. no matter how superficial or profound, purpose is our destination and fulfillment is our fuel. as idealized as we'd like to think of the story of our life is, we're just as imperfect. sometimes we're running full speed ahead, sometimes we're simply cruising along on an empty tank with the momentum we've built up. whatever happens, life always moves forward. but every now and the...

at the end of the path i see myself either abandoned by friends and family or in the warm company of strangers. i notice that i don't do well with people i deal with regularly. i'm not consistently and sustainably amiable. all i'm really good for is the occasional profound encounter. i'll deeply understand people, sometimes more so than they understand themselves, but i'm not really their best friend. i'm just sharing my talent of having a good sense of whatever someone is thinking of or going through. it would have been nice if their best friends had that skill, that would've made their relationships invaluable. but 9 times out of 10, i don't share their values. i'm a functional outsider. i don't believe in the same things the same way. i will have vastly different perspectives that nobody wholly understands. i'm never the ally because i always consider the validity of the enemy. it's really best to keep my distance with people. that way...

very rarely do i see people come up with ideas of their own. i find that people for the most part have only been parroting ideas or anecdotes. their words have value because they repeat the words of smarter, funnier, or outspoken figures. anyone can immediately upgrade themselves as long as the requisite memory and eloquence to co-opt words of wisdom. which works, again for the most part, cause it ensures harmonious relationships among people with similar values. people will gravitate toward resonant sentiments. it creates a social support system, and that's good. but it doesn't sit well with me that majority of people will settle with just being mere mirrors of other concepts. perhaps it's because i have poor recall so i can't accurately regurgitate the various knowledge i've been consuming. i start with describing the right name of the person, place or thing, but midway through my narrative, i fumble my facts and just spin the story to make sense in the end. but a...

i'm afraid of dental appointments. i had a near miss with root canal operation. i feared it so much that it put my openness to death in perspective. i had thought i was not afraid of dying. but i really worry. how much would it hurt to have a heart attack? how much would it hurt to have cancer? how much would it hurt to be in a vehicular accident? then again, i realized i was really only afraid of pain. i don't want to get hurt. not anymore. it's unfair for me to welcome the benefits of death when i want to avoid the negatives that come with it. i guess what i really do want is an escape. i just want to be relieved with the burdens of life. but as with anything good, there's a cost to it. it's a choice between the wonders of life and the bullshit that people and circumstances bring, or the release of dying and the immense pain of having your corporeal form terminated. it's not a no-brainer.