The Impossible State of Now

There are things I desperately wish I could forget and erase from memory, but unfortunately can't without some kind of mini targeted EMP to scramble my brain. And there are memories I desperately wish to make happen for the future, but I know it will be a long time before those things will happen. Apparently this ability to plan ahead and take into account past events is one of the defining aspects of humanity. (Although, this attribute is contested by a tribe of people living in the Amazon who have no regard for cause and effect and yet to this day manage to survive.) If this was THE defining aspect of humanity, I think I would be, in fact, super-human.

In short, I worry too much.

The Truth About Forever

There are people who appear in my life, who I will love with all my soul for one shining moment. They don't tend to know it, because it is usually something that remains unsaid. It never makes any sense at the time, it never listens to any reason. With every person who means something to me there is one moment where I feel absolute and uncompromisable love. It's at that moment that their presence will forever be seared into my memory; it's at that moment they become immortal to me.

For any of you who are reading this, I may have once loved you in this way. I may not have said it, because it would have not made sense. Or I didn't need to. People think that all such happiness is ephemeral; that it does not deserve dwelling upon. I think it lasts a lot longer than that.

As long as that moment is committed to memory, its existence will be truth, and that truth will last forever.

Fox and the Hound

I get these massive scenarios in my head sometimes. They stem from a flaw which I can immediately see propagating into catastrophe, if not now, then sure enough later on. I spot the causes and apocalyptise the effects. I have a theory that if I ignore you now, one day I'll meet you in more unfortunate circumstances. As if we were meant to live very different lives with totally opposite goals, but the moment our lives would cross would be meaningful, and innately profound. A bit like the Fox and the Hound. My imagination could just be ridiculous, but I think I'll try describe it now, in the hope that it will never come true (not that you read this anyway).

I imagine a house. A battlescarred house. Whatever is left of it is sheltering people who don't live there, for they are long flown, but have fled from another area. There is a war. There are planes circling overhead. Bombs are being showered on the horizon. I should not have any part in this war. But I am there nonetheless. I can't yet imagine how our encounter will be, but you and I will both be there; you dropping bombs on people, and I trying to save them. If I knew that it was you behind it, could I live with myself then? I suppose I would have to, and I would hate the war even more.

Sounds like a story.

Might never happen.

Inside Out

So, I'm sitting at work, feeling a bit fat. Before you throw confectionery at me to shut me up, let me assure you that this is not a post looking to fish for self-assurance.

It is strange that some days I feel like the hottest thing since...I can't affiliate with the current Hollywood ideal so I'm just gonna say, Hepburn, and other days I feel ugly and misshapen and bleurgh. And yet, nothing much will have changed on the outside, except for maybe my frown not being upside down. It also feels as if the whole world has cottoned on that you feel ugly today, and they seem to agree. Do you give off some sort of ugly vibe when you feel that way?

Maybe you do. Because, similarly, when you feel happy or good you automatically seem ten times more pleasant-looking than you did when you felt ugly. And when people take notice it makes you even happier.

Why does it also make you feel miserable? (I'm not feeling particulary miserable today don't worry.) There's a difference between being ugly and feeling ugly. What makes us feel ugly? What it is about one's level of attractiveness that makes one comfortable or uncomfortable about oneself? No matter what vessel God decided to put you in, you're still the same person underneath it all aren't you?

Or are you? Everyone couldn't have been born grumpy and uncomfortable with the way they are. Everyone didn't have an instinct for when things were ugly or beautiful, what looked right, what looked wrong. You could never tell if you were cute kid until someone told you that you were. It never occurred to you that the fat kid shouldn't be fat until an adult made a comment on it. The only thing to guide you as to whether you were remotely pleasant to look at would be people's perception of you.

Is that what it is, people's perception of you? Well, of course it is. It's the only reason why you bother to dress nicely, bother to brush your hair in the morning. Equally, the same reason why you'll purposely wear a controversial outfit, dye your hair unnatural colours, make yourself look different from the crowd. Speaking of which, I never realised until now, that everyone in London tries so hard to look different, that they all end up looking exactly the same. Don't say it's not for other people. Other people's reactions, or even non-reactions, are exactly why we do those things. For some strange reason being happy with how we look validates and liberates us.

Your outward personality and appearance are the only things you have for showing the world what you're made of. Your exterior suggests how you want people to perceive you. How then, do you show the world that you feel beautiful, if you can't meet the standard of today's physical beauty? Most people try to match up with a thorough beauty regimen, others simply have their own way of showing how beautiful and powerful they are inside, but I am sure even the most comfortable of souls aren't completely appeased by their appearance all the time. What are they to do then?

Everyone feels that pang now and again. The world is just nicer to beautiful people.

Then you wish you were a little more thinner, a little more curvier, a little more built, a little more fair, a little more tanned, a little more flaw-free. All these 'flaws', and all these solutions available to fix them. Why do people need fixing? Poor soul who's got so many 'flaws' that he/she can't fix them all. How must they feel.


There's such a big ugly western pressure to strive for physical perfection. People telling you you've gained a pound, lost a pound, you know I've heard of a really good product to solve that problem of yours right away. It is thoroughly depressing. Personally, I never start up a conversation about the way someone looks or changed their looks. It never even occurs to me to tell someone I like what they're wearing that day. Maybe I'm just stingy with compliments. Or maybe I don't think it matters. But I do find that every now and again someone will have changed something, something so small like even plucking their eyebrows, and if someone notices they just seem the world happier that it's been said. Or if nobody says anything, they'll bring it up themselves to get a reaction of 'oh yes it really suits you', 'really makes a difference','it's lovely'. Let's not get started on the reverse. Exam time or some other stressful time comes along, and you stop preening yourself. So what, you look a little bit paler without some makeup, okay the stress has gotten you to accumulate some blemishes/ weight/ no thought as to dress sense - 'oh gosh did you see so-and-so, looks so awful, really letting herself go'. Argh.

Being in Tanzania, it's so much more easier to appreciate how beautiful people really are. There's no pressure to look perfect all of the time. You can look better than you usually do, but people just accept the default you, without any of the extra paraphernalia we choose to pile on top to make ourselves flawless. That lack of pressure just makes you so much more at ease with yourself. With no make-up, an oily face, and the stupidest combination of dusty clothes, one or two people still managed to find me attractive. I even got a couple of dowry offers, more than I get here, thank you very much. How's that for an ego-boost.

But again, someone needed to react to me for me to realise that I'm fine the way I am. People need to be told they look lovely. I have to admit, however, that my quavering about how I look has reached a minimum. There was a time where that wasn't the case. I am lucky, in that I have someone to tell me I am perfect. I never believed him at first but later on down the line, I realised that no matter where you stand on that ranking of 1 to 10 (be thoroughly depressed girls if you haven't heard how brutal the ranking system is already), all you really need to know is that one person thinks you are perfect. Absolutely and completely perfect, exactly as you are. Is that not validation enough? You may be picky about who this person is, you may not think certain opinions are valid. Which makes perfect sense of course, I mean a person who just said you looked nice today can't possibly say you are perfect, they haven't seen all your horrible bits, what do they know. So what. I don't care. Because today I am going to tell you that you are perfect.

You are perfect. You don't look like your idol of perfection, you don't even come close. But you know what, you look pretty amazing. Have you looked at yourself lately? You have a million little things that make you different from everyone else, there are parts of your anatomy that you have never dared to show the world, but I can guarantee there will be a hidden bit of you that someone is going to love. Gosh I'm falling in love with you already just thinking about it.

But seriously. I may not know who you are, I may not know all those hidden parts of you that you are too afraid to show, I may not know all those flaws you hate so much. It doesn't make it any less true. I think you are perfect. You. I really do.

Transformer Dresses!

I was reading Shazberri's blog yesterday, and she went to see Hussein Chalayan's exhibition. I'm not usually one for stealing content, but when I saw the video on her blog of his SS07 collection (I'm really slow, I know)...I was bowled over backwards. This is epic on a new scale!

Sexy as hell dresses, that are ROBOTIC! I had never dreamed sexy and awesomeness could be innovated into such a combination.

What made me laugh the most though was when I Googled this further and found someone had posted it on some geeks'r'us website, titled" Transformer Dress Turns Into Naked Lady!, and the guy who posted, who was obviously very impressed by it, finishes it off by confirming his incompetence at winning over the opposite sex. Classic.

Noobtard commenting ensues, which I am ashamed to say, I actually found funny/agreed with. Damn you nerd in me.

But looking at the rest of his work.. I mean wow. His pieces are really beautiful. Some are quite ethereal and different. And so feminine. None of this androgynous business that I keep seeing everywhere else. Yes, androgyny has become very fashionable a la Agyness Deyn, but I do feel it is refreshing to see the beauty of a woman being celebrated by designing clothes that she actually looks beautiful in.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having strong qualities of a man and a woman. Physically, emotionally, or otherwise. But having a woman dress up in very manly clothes.. The concept almost feels like she needs to outwardly conform to androgyny in hopes to draw out a stronger, manlier personality that she is incapable of summoning whilst in very feminine clothes. It's all a facade. It's unflattering to think we need to fill the shoes of men. I think it's a more powerful image when a woman can project the strength of a man, just by being a woman.

One man

One should never underestimate the power of one man. All it would take is one man. One man could make the universe crumble.




But it would take the whole world to restore it.

Dreams, dreams.

They are things steeped in mystery, with hidden meanings, windows to our psyche, tell the future and are a necessary process for the brain to learn new things and make decisions about ongoing problems. They are the focus of much debate and speculation, cause us to toss and turn, and even stir us in the deepest sleep.

But if you remain asleep, they are our reality for one night, a complete simulation of waking life running entirely on memory, but as real as your brain can comprehend it. We create parallel universes in which everything is the same but somehow different, travel across stars, meet forgotten faces, face our biggest fears, indulge in our deepest emotions, and swim, run, fly away from all the troubles of the day. Flight across new lands, new experiences, hidden desires, fun and adventures, lost memories, better places, better times... until you wake up.

And what was solid breaks apart like cobwebs and wisply diffuses into the darkness.

How such intangible things can be so quickly snatched away.

Tolerance

There is rarely a person I will meet who I will end up disagreeing with so much that I won't be able to stand them. In fact, even with my critical nature (and my tendency to stay mad at someone for long periods of time) I do end up seeing more good than bad in people, and in my history of coming to know a great many idiots and losers, I have only permanently refused to see eye to eye with only one.

This post isn't really about him, but I do find it strange that he is the only person who I had to resort to not speaking to in order for there to be peace. I still don't speak to him to this day. It's a lot better everyone that we don't lol. For me not to speak to someone is a rarity. I used to have a 3 day rule, where if I was still thinking about how mad I was on the third day, I'd consider to calling them/speaking to them just to break off any bad feelings. It usually worked so that I never stopped purposely speaking to someone for longer than three days, and I'd get over it faster (usually because I realised I was being lame for getting worked up over it).

I've been brought up in the UK, and while to be British requires you to be quite open to other people's ideas and cultures, since I've come to Imperial I've had to break down all my barriers in order to get to know people. It's not that I'm racist, or uninformed, it's just that everyone who had been around me before I started uni had imprinted all their ideas of the world onto me, attached certain stigmas, if you will, to things in the world I had no idea about yet.

I have tried not to fall into that trap. To caution against others based on other people's perception of them. I often throw caution to the wind in that respect, and make up my own mind about them. This requires a fair degree of tolerance, and patience, where I find some of my friends would quickly jump the gun and refuse to pay much more attention due to some aspect of their personality that they find offensive and undesirable for some reason. Everybody has flaws. That doesn't mean they're not worth knowing.

As hard as I try to look into people hearts, nobody seems capable of doing the same. And all I see is people misunderstanding each other and not trying hard enough to look past what's in front of them instead of judging what's been fed to them.

Truth be told however, sometimes the verdict is to agree with the general consensus that somebody is a complete and utter weirdo that needs to be treated with some caution. Or that any prejudices that people hold against them are not completely unfounded. At least I can say I made an informed judgement. Some of my benefit of the doubt and goodwill has been stepped on quite a few times lately, it has to be said. To those people, shame on you.

That leaves the question of: Is it really worth it? Well, it's not a question of whether am I going to stop being the kind of person I am, but perhaps, people are right to have a shorter tolerance of others? When you spot a flaw, is it simply destined to propagate into something bigger? Something you instinctively don't want in someone you later might want to trust? Or someone who you may later find becomes your good friend? Surely everyone deserves a little credit for being somewhat of a decent human being? Are you going to judge everybody who just so happens to be born into a culture that disagrees with yours?

Or are those stigmas right after all? Should we always proceed with caution after what we hear? Should we just save ourselves the trouble and stick to what we know? Remain under the illusion that what is out there is not desirable at all anyway. You like the way you are, and you think it's fine if nothing changes, even if it is a miserable and lonely existence to live under your shell.

I have yet to reap all the fruits (the good and rotten ones) of having an extended tolerance. Having an open mind means you're open to change, which is good, depending on the kind of change. But at least if your mind is closed you know what you want for sure, even when it comes to people, unfair and prejudiced as that may seem. All I know for now is that taking a chance on something you're not sure about can certainly change the way you see things forever. If you never change then you will never know.

For all x, for all t

At this present time, I only believe one thing to be true.

Nothing yet has ever changed my mind about it, no matter how futile and childish and unrealistic it may seem. Not even the condescension of others, nor the reasoning that might lead it to be false. I know it is true because I feel it. I question it day after day, and I am given the same answer. I am so sure of it, so certain, that I don't know what would happen if I woke up one day and realised that it was no longer true.

There has been a time, when I was younger, when I thought something else was true. I believed in it so much that it really consumed me. Then somewhere along the line I forgot about it. I don't believe it is largely true any more, but I always look back on it without a regret, without thinking I was false. Which leads me to believe that for that time, what I believed was true, even if it is not true now.

Nothing is true for all x (space) and all t (time), there is just no such thing. We only have conditions for which we are certain something exists, and that is all we have to go by. Just because it is not true any more, it was true at the time, and that is why it should not be forgotten.

The Unhappy Truth

There are times when asking questions gets you nowhere. You end up with even more questions, and on occasion you get an answer that you don't want to hear.

Maybe I should just stop asking. There are people who accept everything as given, and don't bother to question why things are the way they are. They're content enough with that. The only people who have a problem with it are the people who ask questions.

Why do we ask questions? Is it because we're unhappy about the truth before us? Or just curious to make sense of everything around us? Or is it because we're all secretly looking for an absolute truth that we can accept and be happy with?

Nobody really wants to have to accept an unhappy truth. Having said that, when it comes to belief systems, I think the percentage of people who believe in the Unhappy Truth is increasing. The Unhappy Truth being that it all comes to nothing in the end.

Questions

What do you do when you feel you're so much more bigger than the world that's been put in front of you?

What would it feel like to have the whole universe running through your head?

What if you had forever at your fingertips, but still had to live life one day at a time?

Negative Capability

at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement...

...when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.

-Keats

If

Someone so beautiful should not be so angry,
Then
Someone so angry should not be so beautiful.
Else
Someone never angry holds no fire.
End