Middle name's Lost. Just like summer rain.

There was a kid I knew once - brightly idealistic chap, walked with a bounce in his step, saw the world through the hues of springtime warmth. Granted, he started pondering life at a rather young age - recesses were sometimes spent strolling the school driveway and discussing life with a friend - but really, life was... Well, life was a massive playground to him. Studies were effortless, friends were everywhere, ignorance of everything irrelevant was bliss.I state the obvious when I say that he grew up - in truth, Neverland exists as a bedtime myth and Father Time waits for no man. Like you, he faced all the pains of growing up: teenage acne, a constant and inexplicable desire to rebel against authority, the pubescent problems of sexuality, innumerable encounters with school disciplinary authorities... whatever have you, and whatever have you not.And through it all, he maintained that irrepressibly optimistic view on the ups and downs of life. He thought of himself as unbeatable, invincible... Blessed. Fantastically idealistic; superbly naive, but too far gone to care. He believed that given his potential and the right opportunities, he could change the world to suit his desires.Fast forward to a recent past, whereby he experienced love and knew great loss, one that embittered him drastically, and one that I see no need to reiterate once more. It will be sufficient to say this: reality pays back tenfold for attempts to escape its prison, and he'd buried himself under a lifetime of romanticised ideals in order to flee.So where do we stand now, and what do we have left?A pessimist or an optimist? But surely it's more complex than such a simple dichotomy.A hollow shell? Impossible, because ultimately everyone bears substance.Maturity? But what is mature to you may not be mature to me. If maturity is subjective, can anyone ever be considered mature?Weathered, then - wiser to the workings of the world, and a lot less innocent and idealistic than before...... But that's not right, because i'm still idealistic; I cannot escape it, because the choice I made then is irreversible now. And so I overcompensate by being disgustingly cynical - cynical of all things good in life, of all things involving ideals. Of luck and coincidence as farce. Of happiness as transient. Of religion as fiction. Of love as the ultimate game where the house always wins.Tell me please - what happened to that boy from oh so long ago? Where is the irrepressible bounce in his step now? Since when did the hues of spring and summer evolve into the dull haze of alcoholic inebriation? Because I tell you now, that there is no real pride to be derived from being labelled a cynic - I wanna believe in something, anything, anyone... Without having to beat myself down with second-guesses, third-guesses, doubt and skepticism.Why have I become the way I am? I don't know, really. It's stupid to pigeonhole it as arising from one failed relationship, and you'd be equally as stupid to even attempt thinking it. And that's the thing - I don't know why I am the way I am.What was the catalyst for my change? Who was responsible? Was it her? Is it you? Is it me?It gets kinda sad looking back and thinking, 'Why am I shooting down everything good that comes my way? Aren't all good things invisible to the eye? What happened to following my heart?'I really don't know what went wrong. Something got broken and I just can't fix it.Isn't it paradoxical that i'm searching for an explanation as to why I cannot stop attempting to explain my life?

A and V.

While the individual man is an insolvable puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical capacity.
You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to.

Signing out,
The sign of six.

Experiencing tunnel vision,

Just outta curiousity: How many times have you ever wished you could just be someone else?

I'm not saying that I do; it's just that it's something i've often thought about - being someone else. Well, not someone else per se, but just... a change of heart? a change of mind? a change of character? You get what I mean, don't you...?

One wonders if there's such a thing as an inner person. Cliched, yes (somehow I inevitably drift towards dissecting cliches, don't I?)... But stop to give it some thought. Could there really be some innate personality which defines the way you are and the way you behave? What philosophers have debated for ages over - the existence of the 'soul', or the 'form'.

Or are we the creations of our upbringings, the products of the mould of society around us? If that were the case, then we might arguably be able to change ourselves if we're determined enough, correct?

I haven't really met any personalities from the 2nd category; as such, i'm somewhat pressed to agree with the 1st logic - that there's something inside each of us which predetermines who we are. From personal experience too, I can't help but agree with it - there've been many points of time along the road whereby I wish I could swap the (general) nice-guy persona for one of... well, I wouldn't mind being my cousin. Heh.

I'm not saying anything, mind you.

Question: The one and only response i've ever gotten when telling people how I wish I could be somebody else (discounting silence, of course) goes something along the lines of "But you're great just the way you are!". The thing is... So? I thought about it for abit, and my frank conclusion is that people who tell me that i'm 'great just the way I am' either

1.) say it's so because it's the only socially-correct thing to say at that point of time.

2.) say it's so because they cannot comprehend the possibility of the person in front of them behaving in any alternate manner, which leads on to...

3.) say it's so because they subconsciously desire to reinforce the stability of their lives: no-one really wants friends who change like the weather.

You might say that i'm just being overly negative. Well... Once again, think it through carefully - what i'm saying is that people act out of self-interest, and therefore seldom do we find a truly selfless/altruistic action in life. For instance, if you were to quote the example of social volunteers/helpers as a counterargument - while that isn't materially rewarding, it's certainly intrinsically rewarding to the person who performs it, however that may be.

I'm off tangent. So basically, my point is that people inevitably do things with their own self-interests (perhaps unconsciously) at heart, and therefore I ought not to listen to people who tell me to stay the same, because thats just a load of bullshit.

I've given you a justification as to why this problem ought not to be tackled from the perspectives of others, but from one's own viewpoint. Can you change your entire system of being if you so chose to? That's the question from me. I haven't seen examples otherwise, and so I patiently await enlightenment upon my doorstep.


Bless my soul. Love me so.

For no apparent reason.

In all honesty, i miss it. The memories and all that jibes and jazz.
Well, here i am. Returning from ground zero after an indefinite period of seclusion.
You miss me, definitely. We'll have a good time. Great time.
On board ship, fellas.