Living and Story-Telling

Yes I'm still here.

Due to a sudden avalanche of work-related activity (notice how I didn't say 'work' per se) my return to blogging suffered a slight break from the internet. It's a shame, especially since there were many times when I felt the stirrings of a post but didn't have a laptop nearby.

Either way, it's been an eventful 3 weeks, and I feel I have made it out relatively unscathed. As I type that sentence out, I once again realise how 'survivalist' I sound. Honestly, I think I need a break from all this 'fighting' and 'surviving'. I just want to live for a while, no matter how teenage-angstish that may sound.

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Recently we went out for dinner with some family friends. My father had schooled with him, and he regaled us with stories of all the mad things they did while in school to their lecturers and classmates, ranging from theft to forgery to faking suicide. It was all done in 'good humour' though, where the students often owned up to their pranks, unlike nowadays when students seem to commit pranks for a more sinister agenda. Many times I wanted to interject with some story of mine from school or college, but every time I had to stop myself because it just didn't fit. I wanted to tell the story of how some guys got caught smoking weed in the chapel at night while drinking arrack from the chapel chalices, or that time some kids broke into a lecturer's chambers to change their marks, only to be expelled a week later (the lecturer had a backup and just checked which grades were changed). But none of them seemed to be appropriate for the kind of humour that existed among students 'back in the day'.

As I sat there laughing by guts off at their stories, I wondered what kind of stories I'd tell when I was in my 60's, and whether I'd be able to tell them at all.

Rise

~The Rise of a Planet II by 'taenaron~

It's been a while, hasn't it?


I haven't written a post in a long time, and I find myself struggling to start this one. I missed writing. When you write, you have time to read and review what you say, before putting it out for your audience to see. It is an advantage that I would dearly like to have with the spoken word, for I have lost count of the number of times I have spoken without intending to, or said something that ended up being taken in a way I had not intended.

There were two reasons why I stopped blogging:

1) I didn't enjoy it anymore.

My posts had turned so - gloomy - and no one likes a whiner. It was not just the content, it was also the quality. Whenever my mouse hovered over the 'publish' button, I could hear my older posts mocking my new one already. It just wasn't the same, and it somehow lacked that zing. I didn't want my blog to suddenly turn into a party-of-one-pity-party, the type I had often mocked 'back in the day'. It had to end.

2) It reminded me of how much had changed.

Perhaps the biggest reason was that I realised I was not the same person I was back when I started blogging. My blog constantly reminded me that there was a time when I was happier, and a lot less - poisonous. Had I changed so much? Had I let life's challenges rob me of my laughter, or had I been the one that decided to focus my efforts solely on survival rather than actually living?


Another reason, I suppose, was that I was increasingly distressed with what I felt was the general opinion of the blogosphere of me. This is not something I easily confess to, but honestly, due to several poor choices and bad judgement, I had perhaps built up a false persona of myself. One that was, maybe, much too close to the truth than I liked to admit.


Truth. What is the truth anyway? Is it what we say it is? Is it the general consensus, the acceptable norm? Is it a variable factor that is dependant on time, situation, place, person? If the truth is not constant, then what is?


I've learned that when people doubt you, question you or misjudge you, you only have one option, and that is to be honest. From now on, this blog will represent me as I am, whether you like what you see or not. Whether I like what I see or not.


Perhaps, the truth will set me free.