Enjoy Responsibly

Enjoy responsibly. A simple yet loaded message to drinkers across the world. What is responsible drinking? First that crosses one’s mind is to not drink and drive, to appoint a designated driver. Two very responsible things to do. But it is beyond not operating heavy machinery, is it not? Drink responsibly could also mean to not drink to a point beyond which one loses control over one’s actions, emotions, and ability to reason, not only with people around but with oneself… as well as being in control as to not hurt any beings around deliberate or not, physically, or otherwise. It is all fun and games until it is not. But that is drinking. What about enjoying the other things the world has to offer. Like art, entertainment, music. I am not speaking of pirating copyrighted works of art. The law has that covered. I am speaking of the sense of responsibility between the entertainers and the entertained. It has been mostly a commercial relationship. The entertained pay some sum to the agents of the entertainers, and the entertainers entertain. Fair and simple, everybody walks home happy… But does that arrangement create a sense of mutual responsibility between the two that goes beyond monetary gains and temporary spike in dopamine? Because some four years ago, we all saw an example, whether realising it, of an extremely lopsided relationship between an entertainer and the entertained at a scale of a global proportion where both sides ended up on the losing end. Chester Bennington. His passing means there will no longer be more melodic screams, no more poetic renditions of a man’s suffering and no more songs edgy middle-class teens in the suburbia could (try hard and miserably fail to) relate to… and this void he had left saddens me more than I had expected. The sudden implosion of his stardom had created a supermassive blackhole that even after nearly four years, it yet gravitates all light of joy towards it. We have not been enjoying his work responsibly. From Linkin Park’s first album Xero in 1997, Hybrid Theory in 2000, to Meteora in 2003, all the way to One More Light in 2017, two months and a day before his passing, our beloved Chester had been not secretly crying for help. Over 20 years of being at the forefront of the global pop-culture, he had been literally touring the globe crying for help. It was all in his songs. It was in all of his songs. Their albums are sold across the globe, pirated by everyone, bought through iTunes store by all gen Ys, added to Spotify playlists of the millennials. We paid hundreds of moneys to see him begging to be heard. What did we do? We sang along and thought “this song is so me, OMG I can sooooo relate to this song, and that song”. 20 years of entertaining us, and none of us got to him in time. And now he is gone. The person, who had been suffering for so long that he made a career out of it, he even gave interviews about the darkness in his mind, how it was a dangerous place to be alone in (there’s another story form another conversation here, but next time), one, merely days before the fateful day of his passing and no one amongst the millions of fans and family and friends got to him in time (yet another conversation that threw my assertions here out the logics train. Aren’t you the wise one)... If the millions of us can overlook/ignore the reality behind the renditions of a dark mind of man we claim to be so dear to us, what of the silent screams of all the nobodys amongst us? Look around. Notice. Care. When you meet someone you know, even only barely, ask “how have you been?”. Say “hello” with a genuine smile. You will be surprised how much someone will open up to you. You would probably be the very stranger that that someone needs to release some of the troubles in their dark and dangerous minds. Notice the slightest of change in another’s behaviour, outlook, choice of words, choice of clothes, the shape of their smile, the sorrow in their eyes, even the strange way they cross their T’s and the dot their I’s. They could be oddly wearing their wristwatch upside-down or on the wrong hand one day. Notice and ask. They could be walking to the store when they usually would drive. Notice and ask. They could have hugged you for that extra second that morning, or have taken that one extra turn towards you just to see your face again, just for that one last time, before driving off. Notice and ask. They could just call you on the telephone at a random hour of the day like never before. Notice and ask. Most of the time, it is probably nothing. But what if… just what if, after all the “nothings” that followed your every noticing and asking, what if the day you decided, “nah, he’s fine, he’s just weird like that”, is the day he swallows that bottle of pills, or the day he pulls that trigger, or the day he leans forward out that opened-window sill of the 13th floor flat farther just by that extra decisive degree, or the day he presses that razor blade harder into his wrist only ever so slightly,? What if? Notice and ask. After all, if we are not here for others, then what the fuck are we doing here?

A Clean Square One

Microsoft’s Windows operating system allows one to restore one’s computer system to an earlier restore point in case part of the hard drive gets corrupted. But one must first identify such a point. It is a good practice as one will never know what could happen to the computer down the line. Of course, now there are countless ways the ensure all - important files, work stuff, digitalised personal documents, precious memories, those precious photos, and clips, own and shared - remain secure no matter how bad one’s computer has been plagued by viruses for their user’s indiscrete online activities. Many of these cannot be reproduced and once gone, are forever gone. Sure, there are cloud storage options one could pay some money for to keep those safe. But what is more convenient, and almost sentimental, than saving them in your own hard drives? So, system restore point it is. This is my first attempt at penning a raw, unadulterated, and unfettered piece in nearly 10 years. What I had written in the past had been truly raw , unadulterated, and unfettered version of all that were in this troubled mind of mine. Some were readable, some were outright cringy. Recently I found myself re-reading them, post after post, paragraph by paragraph, line by line, word by word, and on repeat. The prose was generally flawed, the trains of thought were patchy at best, and the grammar was simply appalling. But they were my very own raw, unadulterated, and unfettered version of all that were in this troubled mind of mine. And as I read and read, it dawned on me that I may have lost it… the ability to write a raw, unadulterated, and unfettered piece. One may think that with the overwhelming darkness reigning upon oneself, one may be inspired to start creatively writing. But there are simply too many of what seemingly the key theme of the subject matter; simply too many timelines, some overlapping; too many roller coasters of emotions, partly due to the pseudo-honest life that one may be living. Or perhaps, it has simply been too long that no one theme seems to be the overriding story. Whatever it is, it sure does not feel like riding a bicycle. Not two days ago, I had a conversation with a lovely soul, dearest to me, with a special place in my heart… or what’s left of it. About starting to pen things down again. We agreed on one thing; that the best and most effective method of bringing out the raw, unadulterated, and unfettered version of our current or past thoughts and emotions, fears and joy, and achievements and disappointments… unfiltered, uncensored, unhampered by familiar, social, or religious boundaries, the no-holds-barred version of all of them… is the good ol’ pen and paper. And not two days ago I was gifted by that very beautiful soul, the very instrument I needed to get me started. You have to see it. It is brilliant. If you think a retractable spoiler on a Ferrari is impressive, you have seen nothing. The instrument is a million times better than those sold in a 7-Elevens that I was going to get that morning…. but I digress. Now, I need an empty journal, a blank canvas if I may, that is worthy of this brilliant new instrument, to really get going. So, until I find a worthy blank journal, this will do. So here is my first attempt to identify an earlier restore point within the system of this troubled mind of mine, my first attempt to pen yet another raw, unadulterated, and unfettered version of all that is going, my first attempt of coming out if this Plato’s cave and back out there and say, “This is me. This may not be the me that all ones that mattered once knew nor this is the changed me. This is simply… me.” What I am attempting here is to articulate a journey through this long-abandoned mind palace. A place where I must find a system restore point that meets most, if not all, criteria to draw me a clean square-one. The mind has been taking in things without due process. Pieces of causes and effects have not been labelled and paired accordingly since early 2012 due to a sudden (forced) change in personality; the way of life as I knew it vanished into the horizon in the rear-view mirror and I did not see it coming (or going). Actions and reactions have not been rightly matched since 2013 for the continuous, and largely unnecessary, impromptu firefighting had rendered the process of giving a reciprocal reaction to an action, any action, dysfunctional. A pile of consequences in the far corner of the court jester’s quarters has not been reviewed and addressed since 1999 for not a single page had been turned without having fully closed the previous chapters. This place is a complete quagmire, a hoard of unaddressed feelings, unattended emotions, ignored warning signs, all guarded by an egotistical monster of a swiss guard. So, where do I begin??? Fuck…. To be continued…