Suddenly, I don't want to think.

Don’t you sometimes just want to let time go by without a sense of guilt or resentment? It is real guilty pleasure.

Get cozy on your couch (I would not suggest going to your bed because then you are just bound to fall asleep), wrap yourself in a blanket, put some soft music on, and drink a cup of... whatever you like.
Read, write, do whatever you like in the meanwhile, or not do anything. Comme tu veux. The Italians have a term for this, they call it “dolce far niente”: the art of doing nothing. Nothingness is often regarded as empty, miserable, and lonely. Somehow though, at this moment, it’s very comforting to me.
Sometimes you got to lose sight of what you’ve been fixing your focus on, just to breathe and reboot. We, humans, have this mad tendency of making something out of nothing—to make a meaning out of everything just for the sake of having something that gives us a sense of ground—putting so much effort into making things count while knowing that at the end, nothing really counts. We come to the world naked and we will leave with nothing with us. That being said, the nothingness is in a very physical sense. Contribution to the world or to one’s soul is obviously important, such as learning and experiencing, then giving back to the society, to the world. We spend lots of time doing things, but not enough on thinking why we do things. No, we indeed think a lot of why we do things. Perhaps the truth is then, we do not spend enough time to figure out solid answers as to why.
“I actually really like this photo, it’s really relaxing for some reason. Not like I want to smoke and relax like him, but when you look at the photo, it just makes you think, ‘why do you have to worry about that?’ you know?” said my German friend, talking about a poster on his wall. It is of an album cover of the band Arctic Monkeys’, whose lyrics give an impression of as if the band members simply sit down and observe what goes on around them. Berlin here is my friend’s home, a city full of life. Him being a mathematics major once told me his biggest fear of becoming literally insane because all he does is maths. “I’m actually afraid that I will go crazy one day” said he. While he was pausing for a second from his studies and staring out the window, his back profile reminded me of our conversation of his fear of going crazy. It also projected to me a perspective of the “another way of thinking” that he mentioned about what requires one to do maths. Merely the picture of his back profile seems to have brought me to another world for a blink of an eye. How nice it is to be swept off the ground like that and be taken to another level of consciousness, another stage of knowledge where I get inspired through grasping an observation of others, while they have no specific intention in their action. What do I know after all? At moments like these, it feels as if making observations as such then being thrown into another dimension of thoughts, and as if nothingness—doing, chasing after, and worrying about nothing for just mere moments—are sufficient for my knowledge.
Why not pause, if affordable, a day or such to turn off your thoughts and take a break from running after whatever you are running after. You need it. Plus, you will appreciate it. Afterwards you might find that after all you do not give two shits about it, or you might see why it means so much to you.

Confession of a Cynic

Last night, I was so sad because I realized how much of a cynic I have become.

Why do I want to vomit when I hear my friend struggling through poor reception to talk on the phone with her boyfriend, saying “Honey? Can you hear me, honey” repeatedly?
Why is it so striking that she would tell me (someone other than her boyfriend himself) how much she misses him when he is only gone for a few weeks?
Why do I say things like “that is such bullshit” when he tells her that it doesn’t matter what she wears out tonight because she looks beautiful anyway? (By the way, she gets offended and I have to tell her, “don’t listen to anything that I say when you know I’m the one who doesn’t believe in anything.”)
When I see her parents, a pair obviously still very much (and probably forever will be) in love, why does it raise so many doubtful thoughts in my head, put me in so much awe and surprise? Not to mention how difficult it is for me to imagine being their children, who have the privilege of witnessing them being so close after many years of being with each other, everyday. My friend once told me: “I have never seen my parents, for once, not show respect or not pay attention to each other.”

I was lying in bed next to my friend. We were going to sleep.
“You know you still have your glasses on, right?” she says to me.
“Yeah, I know.”

And, why can’t I stand love songs anymore?

“No... it’s okay, just go have fun.” she calls her boyfriend again, “I’m going to sleep, baby. Just wanted to say good night.” Then, I further realized, I don’t have the urge or desire of a girlfriend’s to either do or receive the gesture of “just called to say ‘I love you’ or ‘good night’”, nor do I need to “just hear your voice”.
I felt like I physically lost something. Something that I’m not sure how, if ever, I will gain back.

I was lying there, shocked from this realization, as if I was looking into the mirror and seeing myself in the reflection for the first time in ten years; as if a medical professional came over and told me that I had cancer.
I continued to lie there, with my glasses on, looking into the darkness before me for a while longer—thinking, reflecting.

Is this normal? How long does it usually take cynics to realize how severe they have fallen to be, if at all?
How do I live otherwise, when I find the acts of reliance and affection so appalling and dangerous?
Is it curable? Can I die alone from this?

Men, Fools, and Hedonistic Fools

Trying so hard to be vain.. it’s ridiculous.

I admire Charlotte Brontë’s ability to express the loneliness, hardships (especially for women at her time), episodes of love failures, and the utmost sense of darkness—which she must have endured throughout her lifetime as a woman in the Victorian period, who resided with her Dad for most of her life, spending a lot of time in a house having nothing to do but be alone with her thoughts—all inclusively and in an excellent manner in her books, particularly the two most autobiographical novels, Jane Eyre and Villette. Both are dark and heavy to read through. I believe it to be important for one to not “scan” through her books and helplessly create a vivid image throughout the Brontë experience.

For people who live an almost hedonistic lifestyle, Brontë's books seem to act as a recap—bringing one back to the dark side of emotions: the sadder, more honest, realer, more naked self.
Though it may not be necessarily the healthiest or a moral thing to do so, I am glad to be born in an age of extended liberty and feminine rights, when, as a girl in her early twenties, is fully acceptable to choose her own lifestyle, even one that would be considered slightly hedonistic. When I say “acceptable,” meaning whatever choice I please is not to be attacked or criticized upon by any (personal) opinions.

Being hedonistic is a form of game, like a chase. One with a clear sense of conscientiousness who chooses to do so, suffers episodes of internal struggle that I am perhaps not skillful enough to put in words, however I will attempt. It is almost as if one has his own character under control—how he portrays himself, what he chooses, and how he deals with the consequences of such lifestyle. There is fun, there is artificiality, which are also integrated with emotions and feelings made complicated, due to the presence of conscientiousness. It is an experiment of earthly and hopeless pleasure-consuming while pertaining a bright mind with understood morals; it is a test that follows with battles between the devil and the angel on the shoulders. A hedonistic lifestyle is like a chase in the physical sense of addictive pleasure-seeking, in the psychological sense of continuously battling between thoughts and actions. Those without a sense of explicit conscientiousness who pursue a hedonistic lifestyle are fools, because they will only lose for there is no game. They fully believe in such lifestyle’s privileges and the physical satisfaction of being a hedonistic individual, and thus will never have to fight with any moral thoughts and merely go downhill.

All men are fools at times—fooled by emotions, confused with feelings, and wasted with self-brought agony. However, hedonistic fools are men without having to go through these struggles and are hence the epitome of “fool:” without grounds, without senses—completely silly and wasteful as a human being.