The winter of our discontent.
written: 1:04 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 11, 2009

11 September 2009
12.32 a.m.

In Quills, the Marquis de Sade, played by Geoffrey Rush, said this of human existence: "We eat, we shit, we kill, we fuck, and we die."

Crude, but apt. And succinctly sums up the time we individually have on this earth.

*

The thing about boredom is that it gives you too much time to think. In the first place you were bored because you were too tired from being out in the oppressive humidity in jeans and a top made of bad material the entire day, and when you came home all you wanted to do was absolutely nothing. But doing nothing takes its toll after a while; doing nothing took its toll on you, and when online games started to piss you off because they did nothing to dispell your boredom, your mind started to wander, started to think. And sometimes, thinking does you absolutely no favours - that is, if you're interested in maintaining a healthy state of mind in relation to the fact of your existence, and a generally happy, light, carefree mood.

Too late. The damage has been done. I am significantly depressed at the time of writing this entry because I was bored, and I couldn't help but think about how ultimately pointless everything is. Life, our achievements, our wealth, our relationships, our interests, our loves and hatreds, likes and dislikes. Typing this entry instead of writing it like I used to - an advance in technology, open to further advancements. That is great, but so what? In the end everything dies. Everyone dies. It's a bonus if future generations remember your contributions to the world, but for all of the people that came before us not named William Shakespeare, et. al., they are forgotten. Not even a tombstone remains.

In the event that homo sapiens became extinct one day, everything that has happened to us thus far would be erased, as if nothing ever happened. As if human beings never existed. The truth is, we're insignificant and inconsequential - every last one of us. In the grander scheme of things this has to be the case, and of course I've always known this as an objective fact. But when you stop to think about it, when boredom drives you to such desperate measures, you can't help but wonder, once again, what the point is.

In Quills, the idealistic Abbe de Coulmier, played by Joaquin Phoenix, rebutted the Marquis' fatalistic world view thus: "But we also fall in love, we build cities, we compose symphonies, and we endure." All well and good - but what about the rest of us that don't? What happens if extinction took place and everything we've achieved is wiped out?

In the grand scheme of things, the short 70-odd years you have in this world is utter shit. Life is short. Life is also deceptive - lulling you into a false sense of importance, showering you with earthly distractions, giving you silly things like Goals, Achievements, Love, People, Money, Material Things, Entertainment - inducing you to believe in its worth, in its point.

What is the point then? What is the point of seizing opportunities, of living life at all, if at the end of it you're buried six feet under, or scattered all over an ocean, reduced to fertiliser and ash? The people close to you who remember you will also die, and when the memory of you dies with them, it'd be like you were never here at all.

*

In all honesty, I'm not afraid of death the way I'm afraid of dying in insignificance. I don't think about this much for obvious reasons; but tonight, it was almost inevitable. It was almost a long time coming.

In all honesty, for the first time since I started to enjoy law school, I genuinely feel like my life is heading nowhere. Or if it's heading somewhere, it's on a one-way ticket straight to Dullsville. I feel directionless, unmotivated, unexcited about anything at all. I feel like I have nothing to look forward to, that the next two years of my life have already been tried and tested, and the last time I checked, I wasn't too hot on them. Not too hot on constantly giving up chances and opportunities to live life the way I'd ideally live it in favour of pragmatism, doing that which I ought to do for a host of reasons, and nothing - not much - that I want to do.

Granted, the things I want to do are frivolous and expensive. I want to travel, to see the world - but that's not gonna make me any money. It's not gonna advance anything in terms of career, of future opportunities, and if I were to analyse it in an economics sense, in pure numbers and figures, the opportunity cost of giving up what I have now for what I want (or think I want) is too great.

But staying put further begs two questions: So what? and What then?

So what: So nothing, really.

What then: Huh? Nothing lor.

Julian Barnes probably had no idea how right he was when he described everything I've just typed in six simple words: a discontent with the thinness of life.

The thinness of life. Indeed. The corporate world - making all this money and having no time to spend it. The hedonistic life - having all this time to spend money and no money to spend.

I mean, really. What is wrong with us? What is wrong with me?

At times like these, I truly wish I could be a fundamentally happier person.

But I am what I am. And I deal with it the best I can.

*

Wrote the above last night. Went to sleep early thinking - actually, hoping - I'd feel better when I woke up.

Ummm not really.

This has been a long time coming. I just haven't had the opportunity to be bored enough to pursue the train of thought that vaguely appeared in my mind sometime ago. Maybe this is the real issue:

The starting point being - I hate PLC. I find it utterly pointless and mind-numbing. I enjoy the free time, but as for the actual substantive (er, procedural is more accurate) content of the course, it's even worse than my first two years of law school - and that is saying a hell lot. I hate the plodding pallid assignments, the anal retentive deadlines, having to know things that I have no interest in.

The corollary to that being - I'm a person who operates on passion, on interest. If I can't be bothered, I really can't be bothered, and I'm sorry if this sounds cavalier but I can't be bothered right now because it's how I really feel - if I can't be bothered, not even that vastly overvalued thing called money can save me. I'm aware of the fortuitous nature of my circumstances that allows me to say this, but as it stands, this is how I feel.

And the root of the matter is this: I feel trapped. I feel unexcited. I feel bogged down and tied down to a life that is objectively my own, one which I can vaguely recognise; but when it's under closer examination, all its short-comings, its failures, its flaws are so glaring that it's almost like staring at the sun.

My life isn't at all what I thought it'd turn out to be. I am utterly depressed by how deeply disappointing it's become.

Revert, then, once more, to this entry.

*

Damn tired.

before sunrise // before sunset


Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010