Once Upon A Dead Friday Afternoon

It is really bad when you always want to express what you think and there is no talking yourself into thinking of something and moving on. Yourself forces you to muse over whatever thoughts that occur to you till you have to write them down just to get them off your mind. A far worse self to be stuck with is a self that would want to share these writings! As if what she had thought hadn't occurred to anyone else before! As if there aren't already at least twenty dozens of books on every thought that occurs to her!

Things get absolutely worse when you can't disguise these thoughts at all. You always have to write them down straightforwardly just like you think them. And we have agreed before that they are repeated silly thoughts, so it is sort of obvious that they would definitely need some disguise! If you could write poetry, your ridiculous self would have been your key to everlasting happiness. Where else could silly thoughts hide except between beautifully written verses? At least you could have given yourself some credit for creating beauty from absolute nothingness. But no, you don't have that sort of talent at all. Not even able to write something much easier and shorter like songs? You know, songs give you the advantage of repeating the same words over and over within the same 3 minutes and throwing in some pretty tune and you're set to go. But even this sounds-so-easy-job is out of your miserable reach.

Then there is always writing a story! You can turn your thoughts into the highest form of complex symbolism as characters, events, lines that your characters say and everything you can possibly do with an imaginary world that you create from scratch under your own command and according to only your own views. Can you even dream of anything better than that? And you have read tons of stories! You surely have learnt something about that art, haven't you? But how can you confess that inspite of how much you've read, your mind is completely unable to tailor such complexity that doesn't really exist? How can you confess that all your previous attempts to peruse that line have been very harshly criticized by yourself, laughing at the shallowness of your characters, mocking every stupid silly story line or ending you wrote?

It's a lost cause. Your completely talentless self dooms you to absolute frankness. Blunt, crude, straightforward, undisguisably silly is the way it is, is the only way you'll ever get to express yourself.

But why do you have to do it at all? Isn't there a way to change? To think things and then get over yourself? Just consider how much time it would save you, the peace of mind it would bring you, and best part of all, consider how you would think yourself so much less silly than you currently do! But it would just mean abandoning something you like doing so much for the sake of not being silly, and in your silly way of evaluating things you would evaluate that as foolishness. Since abandoning "silly" for "foolish" doesn't sound very right either, then I guess on such a boring dead Friday afternoon, you'll just decide to stick to the old familiar highly esteemed silly anyway.

But You Could Have Dodged That Bullet

If only we could realize how our future can be better if we don't spend all that time in the present worrying about the future! All the bad things that could happen, all the good things that could fail to happen, all the ongoing things that could cease to be, we hunt these thoughts all the time... And to make it all worse, we particularly worry about things in the future that are completely out of our hands with nothing we can do about them, which distracts us from working on other things we can do lots of things about! And then when the anticipated future finally arrives, we would be experiencing another sort of pain which is far more worse than the pain of worrying about the future; that's the pain of regret. We would remember all sorts of things that we left undone or half done just because we were so busy hunting the unhuntable. At least the pain of worrying can be soothed by the hope that things might turn out in our favour after all, but the pain of regret, after the time for doing the right thing has escaped forever and there is no hope for its coming back to soothe you, that would be unbearable. If only we had seen this moment. If only we had seized the day.

Our priorities, whether we like that or not, are the things we wake up in the morning thinking about, are those we frequently dream of, are the things we spend most of our time planning or working on. They are not, contrary to what we sell ourselves, the things we name as our priorities all day to everyone. Some people can get the "thinking, doing, talking" triad straight, pull their lives together and move forward. Others think and do one thing, and convince themselves and others that they are focusing on something completely different. This way you are torn up between what you're doing and what you think you're doing, ending up arriving at nowhere at all. If only you hadn't lied to yourself at the very beginning, if only you had put first the things you really wanted to put first.

 If only we could get right the balance between the right amount of self preserving next to the right amount of self sacrificing. The prevailing rule of self preserving is only broken at certain correct times, for the sake of certain people or certain principles and beliefs. At times, we get just one chance to decide when to shoot and what target to hit. Shooting at the right target at the wrong time, or the wrong target at the right time is not tolerated. That mistake means a prevailing vital rule has been violated for nothing, a lifetime thrown away for nothing. If only we had the wisdom to recognize the right time. If only we had the wisdom to recognize the right target.

If only you hadn't listened to others when they told you that you can't, that you are not strong enough to take the path you've chosen for your life. If only your will hadn't weakened, if you hadn't given in. If you had had the courage to believe that you have enough sense in you, just like them, to judge for yourself and peruse your judgement, and have used their words as the force that pushes you forwards to prove your view of your own life right, instead of allowing them to make you turn your back on your dreams and then blame them for your failure. If only you had faith, if only you had persisted.

If we could understand that the consequences of what we do in the present may not show until very late in the future. If we hadn't looked around us at all those who have won because they have chosen the wrong easy way, and thought that we've lost because we have chosen to do things the right difficult way. What seems now like their winnings will turn out some time later to be just their ruin, and your losses will turn out to have placed you where you most properly fit. If we could lead our lives with full faith that God is all justness, that we can never be punished for doing the right thing and other can never be rewarded for their wrong. If we had stood steadily, if we had trusted Him.

But it is still the present and the future is yet to come with all its possibilities and strange turns. We still have time to set things right.