Untitled.

We all have stories. This is one of mine.

I recall waking up one June morning, already hearing the rain outside. How I missed the summer! Somehow it seems that all the negative thoughts – all the self-doubt, loneliness, and depression – have such ease in gaining power over the mind during the seemingly endless stretch of grey, cold, bitter-wet winter.

It is the last winter, however, that brought and still brings me the most worry. I remember the first mention of that awful diagnosis in my household.
Depression.
In those long, long months as the days lost more colour and all things turned to shades of grey, the darker and more deepening hollowness of my sister grew. It scared me so. It scares me so. Wind, rain, and hail can leave a person drenched, freezing, numb. But my sister was numb without any of these. She would spend her days in bed; my mother spent hers in tears. But what was I, the ‘baby sister’ supposed to do? I remember wishing I could fix it. Praying I could fix it. But the rain kept on falling.

As the days stretched into weeks and into months, I summoned every fibre of strength within me. This was my family, the stitches that held us together were straining and tearing, and all I could do was hold on. I don’t know whether I can say I formed a resolve, or if it was always in me, but somewhere in my childhood I appointed myself as protector. No-one would see me cry. No-one would see my sister if she was. Nothing would hurt my mother. Not while I was there. Not while I am here.

As a fifteen-year-old, this was a hard pretence to keep up. I hid my tears in the dark of my bed at night, longing for a break in the storm. Longing for spring, or summer, where all the joys of life – warmth, holidays, freedom, sunshine – seemed protected, safe and unchangeable. All unpleasantness remained forgotten in those months.

It was naïve to believe in my self-appointed role. Looking back at it now, I still feel the defence, but then I didn’t know my limits. I did not understand. Maybe I still don’t. I analyse and analyse, thinking of what I could have done, what I could do to make my sister better. But that power is not in me. It is in her. And though weather and seasons may parallel the distresses in our minds, it is not in them. For my sister, the illness is as a season of winter. It comes around, and it may feel as if it will never pass. My role is to be strong, but to remind her, as much as myself, spring will come around and again. And eventually, so will summer – days of warmth and joy. Winter can not last forever. Though it affects us deeply and heavily, shocking and surprisingly, horribly and devastatingly; it will pass.

Consumption.

A year ago I did a voluntary training course to help raise awareness for child and slave labor. It left a large impact on my life, although I didn’t know it then and I didn’t play the role of the passionate activist too well, it did help me uncover some of my morals and awakened a humanitarian spark from its slumber deep within my heart. After this course I remember the vivid feeling of wanting to leave some sort of mark, an impact, a difference in my world. I knew I didn’t have to be a revolutionary like Guevara or claim a country without violence like Gandhi. I just wanted to set an example. From then onward I dropped my dollars into rattling tins supporting various causes, bought burgers for the homeless, and also purchased wristbands and necklaces which were made by people from underdeveloped towns and villages.

I walk down Bourke St and see the collection of nine-to-fiver’s garbed in their Versace shirts and watch their D&G bags dance by their hips. I have no shame in expressing my hypocritical views, sure I’ve bought designer clothing, I have overlooked $60 jeans and bought the $90 pair because they are right shade of blue. But trivial things such as the importance of stitching and label of a garment is something I cannot understand. Why pay significantly more just to have some alloted ink aligned to make a picture that means something fashionable? Because a celebrity is wearing a jacket with a certain brand, we, as the consumers, consume that brand and believe it is worth wearing because someone who means nothing (and everything) to us is wearing it.

Why do we think things look good anyway? It is as if we are pressured to validate our appearance or else we are left behind. How much of it is influence, from everyone around us doing and purchasing the same thing, and how much of it truly comes from ourselves? We are so beyond survival all we can do is elevate and relegate the hierarchy of our social status in a place where vanity is not for ourselves but for the approval of other people. I read once that ‘vanity gives us the delusion that somebody is paying attention’, in other words, we dress with the aim of NOT being comfortable, but for making ourselves known to the world. Our labels send a certain message that shouts out how we like to spend, how proud we are to rub it in and how we like to maintain ourselves.

There is nothing we need and so much that we want, and I wouldn’t have a problem with there brands and labels if perhaps they directed a small sum of their money to something as effective as a good cause. As I said, I buy designer clothing, but after realizing I bought these items for the sake of owning an extra pair of shoes or jeans I know that I wanted to change this.

Losing myself in these crowds.

I've been struggling to write even the most simple blogs lately and I kept giving up once I start. Let's write about love, I say, my relationship, let's write about the poor guy on the street, maybe someone will learn something if I write about the economy. All of those topics are very insightful but they are not the real issues revolving around in my head at the moment. Perhaps I distracted myself with thoughts of other things to avoid deeper issues, or maybe I have a hard time being honest, not to other people, but to myself. So instead of feeding people (who for some reason appreciate the things I write, I don't know how you guys stay interested), I feel like this blog is for me. This is for reference and a constant reminder not to lead a life of false pretenses, socioeconomic expectations and proxy ambitions.

Some things are known to have a 'way' in life. The 'way' things are. And because these things are expected to be that way, I'm expected to be a certain way too. I'm sorry to disappoint the social expectations of the world but I take pride in not following a lot of these trends: having sex with someone I didn't care about, never taking a drug, embracing monogamy, wearing the clothes that I felt comfortable in, appreciating underrated music and probably others that I can't think of right now.

I'm tired of people telling me how to act, or even asking me why I act unlike my stereotypes. After repeatedly being hammered by these shallow observations it makes me wonder why I'm not a louder personality, who wears less clothes, listens to more commercial music, smokes a deck a day and fornicates in toilet cubicles. I've received the worst reactions when people ask me about my sex-life. I'm guilty of waiting for someone, I didn't throw myself at the thousand opportunities I had (and believe me they are in the thousands) to bed someone and throw my experiences away.

I thoroughly believe in living for the moment, forgetting about the consequences of tomorrow and to treat each day like it's my last. But I also have morals. Just because I have the chance to have sex simultaneously with two other people (no matter how great it feels), just because people now say that it's ok to use sex as a pass time activity, doesn't mean I do it. I have morals and it's sickening that these kind of experiences are expected of me and worse, at such a young age.

I'm not going to lie, I've had the bitter taste after sexual contact with the flooding thoughts of: 'was it worth it', 'why do I feel empty' and 'this person means nothing to me'. I feed temptation to find that I'm not actually fulfilling a need for myself but rather having my innocence sapped and leaving me hollow inside. I don't have a superman complex, I'm not perfect and I'm okay with that. I have desires and lust for certain things, but I know I can help what I do by advocating altruism. We do have the ability to think and to act, but we don't always do things in that order. But at least I can say I try.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world", a quote by Ghandi, a quote I live by. I used to be so proud to endorse this quote but over the course of the year the words slowly bent and warped to bring a different meaning, something like: "Dont change, be like the world". After being drilled over and over with the same opinions, standards and expectations by a group of people, their words have a way of falling out of your own mouth eventually. I start to think like them, I have the desire to be desired, to dress in an impressing fashion, to have certain opinions on certain things. This is a common form of influence and probably the strongest. It's true when people say that being around better people makes you a better person. That doesn't mean avoid homeless people or don't choose to be friends with someone who might take a recreational drug here and there. It means that if you suffocate yourself long enough with other peoples thoughts, there is a high chance that their thoughts will be your thoughts after a while.

Finally, I'm tired of people telling me I'm just 19. I know what I am. People can say I'm young but no one ever explains themselves. I honestly believe that there are people younger than me (who are much more knowledgeable and mature) who can outwit people a decade older than them. Age has proven to be nothing significant. I know with age comes experience, but so to comes ignorance. People use their age to disregard the thoughts and experiences of other people just because of their age. It's hypocritical and it is a refusal on poor bases. Don't let anyone disregard you because of your age. You know, it's good to feel young no matter how old you are. We might be perceived as a lazy generation but there are people as young as twelve who invent things that the world is using today. It is so important to never stop learning, not in the text book sense, but in the worldly sense. Eat foreign foods, with foreign utensils, watch a black and white film, listen to a new genre of music, write a story, learn some new words and build your vocabulary, go somewhere you've never been, all of these things help us learn and understand our world better. The biggest tragedy I see are older people who feel old enough to know enough and grow older being ignorant and using their age as a valid excuse for being wise. Wisdom is all around, it is shared. No one knows everything. Who can honestly say "you'll know when you're older" or "you don't know" when quite possibly they don't know themselves.

I'm sorry that all of this is so disjointed, but I've finally got some things off my chest. If you read this please comment your thoughts, a quote, your own piece on how you see yourself or ANYTHING! I'd love more than anything to read what you have to say, anything at all.

"Nobody wants to end up like Eleanor Rigby"

Don't you know that I never fell
Into a love that I was pushed
Confused a snatch for a catch
Confused a sheep for a wolf

Oh, your knowing eyes
They’d never tell a lie
That’s why you don’t talk
That's why I make you try

Let’s say for instance
There is nine years indifference
In a world that lacks persistence
To make things come around
Let’s say for instance
There were nine years of distance
Where other people touched you
Long before I was found

I got into something, now I can’t get out
I got into something, now I can’t get out
With your lips pressed against mine
It’s getting hard to shout

I thought I could run around the world
I made it to the door
I thought I could run around the world
I made it to the door
Was this what we hoped for?

War

Inside my chest feels like a war.
My heart doesn’t pound against my ribs like it used to.
With excitement or joy, warmth or love.
I feel like I have a weight pushing down on me.
And even though my body becomes more and more uncomfortable to live in each week, it’s not the weight I keep stacking on that’s giving me this feeling of pressure.
I have a mix in my life, a balance of work and education. Something I’ve always hoped would bring me responsibility and stability in my life.
I have a social life with a few different small groups of friends. We smile. We laugh. We sing. We dance.
I’ve enjoyed the groups that I’ve been with. At times my heart is lifted, and the pressure seems to dissapear, just like it does when I’m unconsciously asleep.
But now, I can’t keep my brave façade visible, because the hurt that’s going on inside is pushing through. Hopefully trying to escape my body, to rid me of this horrible feeling.
I feel awful. I feel foul. My mood has become increasingly sombre yet ferocious.
I wonder at times, when I’m in my bath, when I’m driving my car, when I’m walking along a balcony of a 10 story building.
Should I drop in that hair dryer? Should I drive into that tree, oncoming traffic, off of that cliff? Should I just jump off?
These thoughts snap me into reality, and frighten me away from such things. But then the pain and pressure I feel comes back, as I realise I have to deal with these feelings before I act soo radically.
I’m afraid of how I feel and how it affects others. Or if those others can even notice it, let alone ask me what is wrong.
I’m becoming increasingly cynical and depressed, and I’m afraid of being swallowed whole.

"For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else."

University is a place for learning, for excelled learning. In the course of 12 weeks you are assumed to be smarter in an area you subscribed to. But somewhere along the way you have to wonder, am I here to learn about Aboriginal injustice, the study of language or the theory of existentialism or am I so sick of learning about everything I have no interest in that I'm just aching for my degree? I'm certainly not saying that whole-heartedly, there is so much I love to learn and I find myself extremely engaged at times, but for the most part, university is a set of tests on things not many of us have interest in.

Today I sat in the library, completely thrown off learning I decided to entice myself with a book I brought from home. It was 'Like The Flowing River' a book that has taken me so long to read but has proven to be such an unbelievable, inspiring collection of thoughts and reflections. I'm glad I didn't read this in one sitting, I treated it like a journey, I went at a slow pace- giving the pages worth and letting their contents and meanings grow. I thoroughly enjoy this book.

The toughest issue I've had to face is the 'rest of my life'. What am I doing for the rest of my life? I struggled with this question a lot. Whenever I ask this question, a thousand others will follow. Where is home? What do you want to be remembered for? Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? What is important to you? And so on.

This is what I narrowed the rest of my life down to. I want to give my all to all of the world. I want to teach. More specifically I want to teach English to people who want to learning English. Not in primary or secondary schools. In centres and universities, and places across the world to help build bridges between communities.

I want to see the world. There is so much to see for just one person and I want to see as much as I possibly can. This endeavor was difficult to conceive at first. To see the world, as a pilgrim, as a traveler, as an adventurer, it had to be done alone. But that's wrong. Self discovery, to my surprise is a journey that cannot be completed within ourselves without others to guide us. I believe the world is designed not live on islands alone, but to build bridges between each island to meet each other. And so, this is why I travel. Not only to see the deserts, villages, cities, forests and valleys, but to meet the people who live off the desert, cities, forests and valleys. That is the culture of the world, "there are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign."
Sure history is flooded in every towns' museum, but I'm there to experience the town, not learn how others experienced it.

The concept of home to me holds a strange meaning. I want to keep moving. I don't ever want to establish myself in one place. Home is a state of mind, home is the people I'm with, the feeling I get where I think 'this is sanctuary, this is where I feel safe'. I treat the idea of 'home' more as a destination, a place I want to be after everything, rather than where I sleep each night.

Finally, in the chance that I may ever fall in love, compromises must be made. Some things may even be revoked and undoubtedly justified. I accept that 'my' life will become 'our' lives, and of course: one and one make one. I have confidence in fulfilling each others dreams, aspirations, goals, aims and hopes; if we dont- then we will die trying to do that.

"Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going." - Paul Theroux

Amendment: A lot of people say I'm naive, so I retitled my blog to express how I feel about that opinion. Kudos to Sir Winston Churchill.

Apples

I have a bunch of apples in front of me.
gala, lady, delicious, smith.
They're all calling to me.
I want to sink my teeth into all of them.
They're so tempting to me.
And i can't stand it.
But i must be reserved.
Because these apples are out of reach.
And i'm already stuck with oranges!