When I Look Into Your Eyes, You’re Not Even There

[Just A Feeling – Maroon 5]

Having a glance over my most popular searches and blog views, it turns out that the post I made years back about Jack’s tutoring in Springvale still seems to get the most traffic. I went to his classes in Yr 12, and I remember in the first year of Uni I was actually emailing people his contact number, but then I changed my phone and lost his number, so I mostly ignored the messages asking me for his number after that.

Is that all I will be remembered for, after all the people who knew me properly are gone? Will the only thing linked to my name (of sorts) end up being my post about how a smart middle-aged man who taught me Maths made a kinda-pretty-sexist joke?

When I told my parents I wanted to be a writer, they said, “Are you going to write the next Harry Potter?”  No, this isn’t a post about the pressures my parents put on me (that’s for another, longer night), but more about why I don’t try! Why not try to write the next Harry Potter? It may sound really idealistic, but if I just went ahead and not did it, I would miss out on the chance that I may actually be able to do it! There are thousands of writers who write constantly (and incredibly well), only to fall flat and end up at a job that they never wanted, and I could well be one of them, but who is to say I’m also not one of the writers who get published and noticed?

And, if all else fails, I should probably write a fan-fiction of a hugely popular series, change things around, then BOOM a movie will be made within the year!

I just want myself to matter, to make some sort of remark in this world. Yes, in a hundred years, everyone who ever knew me would be dead, so who the hell cares? And even if I do go down in history the way household names such as Shakespeare, Einstein, or even Rowling did, the world is just a temporary tangible mound of atoms, and it’s still not going to matter once those atoms disperse. But still, it feels good to matter. It feels good now, whenever I watch or read something that a friend wrote, and it mentions my name or something I did, because it means that my actions had some impact on someone else, and that they were thinking of me at a point in time. So it would feel even better if something I did is attributed to an entire field of conversation, such as that I changed the way someone or someones think about an issue, or that I was the inspiration for future sources of inspirations. Then, it would feel infinitely better (even if I’m dead), when a hundred years from now, students complain about having to study me at school.

For now, I think I’ll strive for being an inspiration and turning point in someone’s life. I think if I can influence just one person, my time wouldn’t have been wasted.

Tomorrow I should be going out to eat a chicken wing buffet, so at least I can have something to talk about. I PROMISE I won’t write about myself tomorrow, at least.

Alex.

I tried to be perfect, it just wasn’t worth it

[Pieces – Sum 41]

Day 13: Write about what you believe in, be it God, yourself, etc.

When I was in primary school, my parents told me to attend R.E. lessons for to learn about other religions.

We have a portrait of the Buddha in our living room, and sometimes, as a sort of joke, my parents would put the money they’ll buy a lotto ticket with in front of it, and ask it to bless us with luck.

When we were in Thailand, right before we left for Australia, we went to the small temple in Bangkok which a few years ago got burnt down, and there is a picture of my mother and me praying in front of it, so it would bless us with good fortune and health in the new country.

In Yr 12, I went to a friend’s baptism (which I wrote about in here but I can’t be bothered finding the link to. It was in April 2009 some time), and I mouthed along to unknown hymns and listened to all the testimonies. I watched them overflow in emotions as they took the next step to get closer to their God.

Many of my friends are either Christian or Catholic, and while I skirt around it, sometimes I find myself toeing the agreed upon veil of avoidance, and questioning their faith.

And that is the extent of my ties with religion.

That is not to say I am an atheist. Call me a coward if that’s show you see it, but I don’t think that there is one particular deity – one particular man-made deity, existing only through the documentation of man-made words – nor do I think there is none. Sometimes when I am in moments of great stress or dread, I find myself wishing – praying, dare I say – that I find some inspiration to help me out of the moment. I don’t know who I am wishing towards –  a star? The light dancing around me, caught by flecks of dead skin? Yes, how poetic – but I do it anyway, and sometimes I am stunned to find that I am suddenly in possession of patience I didn’t know I could have, or an epiphany that seemed like the obvious choice.

So, ‘belief’. What do I believe in? I believe that you have to make your own luck – it sounds cliche, but it’s a cliche with a reason. You can be given epiphanies through forces you cannot begin to fathom, but what are epiphanies but electrons firing brighter in your brain if you don’t act upon it? I can feel overwhelmed by the amount of work I have, realize that if I take 1 hour out of my day to just read I will have it under control, but if I don’t take that 1 hour out, I’d still be stressing.

I suppose I can create a metaphor. I can say that the Me is the vessel through which events happen, and quite a lot of the time that vessel is perilously close to sinking via its own accord – it thinks it should go left, then right, and then tips over unbalanced – but with a bit of guidance from the winds (that’s my unknown power in this metaphor), and as long as the vessel doesn’t fight the winds, it will be steered back onto course.

I can smell the pollen outside, but there are a few more posts I need to get through.

Alex.