Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little inside

~Gore Vidal

who have i been fooling?

We were never meant to be together. At times I tried so hard, but this end was inevitable. The story goes,

When I was younger and greener, I was so enthusiastic about this relationship. I had a place I belonged. Part of something meaningful. It was fresh, mainly because I had never been part of anything before.

Then trouble started. Me, with my attention span so short, began to drift away. It wasn't long before we never saw. I went on a year-long hiatus. It was happy times, without needing to be concerned with anything. Due to unforseen circumstances, we were back together again. However, this reunion was a grudging one. I garnered some other merit out of it though, but beyond that no pleasure was gained. As soon as possible, I severed all connection with it again.

Recently, it came back to me, on it's knees. I turned it away.

Goodbye, and good riddance. Hockey is just not for me.
Here I am back again, not part of anything.
How coincidental, the nature of the game I so abhor, that makes me so.

It wasn't going well for him that day. Bad news was still whirling in his mind. He had lost countless rounds of poker, and how had a splitting headache. He goes to the counter and orders a drink. He downs several more before leaving the filthy place.

He shambles off to the train station, and squeezes to the seat vacated by an old indian man. He folds his arms like every one else around him and promptly falls asleep.

Worst mistake of his life.

As he dozes, several people enter and exit the carriage. Several people who potentially could have caused a marked change to his entire life.

A long lost friend enters. This friend is down on his luck too, probably even worse than our protagonist here. Friend sulks in one corner and shuffles out after two stops. Had our hero been awake, they would have noticed each others presence. They would have hugged and would have become business partners. Success would await them.

A charming and attractive lady walks in but takes no notice of him. Had he been awake their eyes would have met across the car, they would have gone out and spent many happy hours together, they would have realised that they were perfect with each other, and lived blissfully ever after together.

He then goes home, collapses on the couch with a beer in hand, and watches some Arsenal vs Liverpool before passing out. His half-finished beer spills over his couch which will leave a sticky mark until he throws it out several years later.

Every moment, a thousand thousand opportunities arise. Most of them flit by because one is at the wrong place at the wrong time. The rest are lost due to circumstances beyond one's control. The pitiful few left are not seen or taken advantage of and go on to become vestiges in the deepest reaches of one's mind where they will cause squirmingly-painful hindsight for years.

Old play-doh

I am not the same person I was a year ago, and I wasn't the person I had been, the year before that, and so on.

Every year, I'd mold myself to becoming a different person. Different in deportment and work ethic. Now it'd be somewhat due to propinquity. Being the impressionable and somewhat insecure young child I am. These transformations were sometimes for the better; but more often than not for the worse. This year, I have been fortunate.

It is a vicious cycle though. I'd never hold on to a character for long enough to be good at it, and I'd never achieve the acceptence I craved so. By the time I settled down, I'd be in a different environment, and have to evolve, or devolve, again.

But do what? How to alleviate this problem? Should I even try? This absurd fickleness obviously stems from an even more absurd need to be assimilated. In the years ahead will I turn into something else? what will I turn into? I am quite satisfied with my current state after all.

One hears the phrase 'be yourself' so often. Easier said than done.

running to stand still

Though we are only ordinary men,
And cocks and pigs and dogs,
We have some royalty in us;
We are crimson queens as well.

Constants

Selfishness, stupidity, horniness.

The reasons we exist as we are today.

First is all-pervasive. It is obvious. It needs no explanation.
The third is irrelevant to me at this point of time.

But stupidity, it's very nature implies that it does not know of it's own existence. Most saddening is the fact that because of it's obliviousness to itself one continues to commit the same follies again and again.

For hope springs eternal.

It's the concept behind things like the lottery. Or dating. Or dare I say religion.

But the lottery, dating, or religion, they are by no means the point of this post. They are mere arbitrary examples.

Stupidity is way too powerful to be focused on those three. It's everywhere. In others. In ourselves.

keepin' the clean sheet

I am a coward.

What could have been though, if not for the juvenile reengineering?

I'll be fine, As long as there's a bed beneath the stars tonight

Walked out this morning
Don't believe what I saw
A hundred billion other bottles
Washed up on the shore

I'll be fine if you give me a minute
A man's got a limit
I can't get a life if my heart's not in it

bowed, on his knees, almost down and out

Like diving and holding your breath, but when you break water, there's no air up there.

Also like doing so much work and realising that the thing that you kept thinking of to keep yourself going throughout the day is missing.