another severely disorganized post. I promise it gets less depressing as it goes on. absolutely nothing to do today except homework, which I will continue to avoid like the plague until it's too late.

"To die would be an awfully big adventure."
-Peter Pan

"And I am not frightened of dying, any time will do, I don't mind.
Why should I be frightened of dying?
There's no reason for it, you've gotta go sometime."
"If you can hear this whispering you are dying."
"I never said I was frightened of dying."

Is life just a waste of time?

Hi, my name is Natalija and I suffered through an existential and self identity crisis from a young age that eventually led to a suicide attempt. Long story short, 2 years later I am back on track, ready to give life another try.
Growing up I had an intense fear of aging and eventually aversion to the thought that we're merely bacteria on a rock and that once the rock has traveled around a ball of fire approximately 70-80 times we die (that is, if you're lucky enough to live that many rotations).

Lately, someone close to me is being affected by death. I've been up for a couple of days; first I was grieving over the upcoming loss of a person that I can bet my life on is good at the core and then just mulling over thoughts in my mind.

I've been trying to define for myself the soul, and I feel I've reached a conclusion. I do not subscribe to any organized religion, and I reject their definition of the soul. The christian concept of the soul seems odd to me. To me it's like giving a freshman a piece of white paper on his first day, and telling him to keep it clean until graduation. If he doesn't, he doesn't graduate. I do not believe we are born with souls, but rather we earn them through thought, sacrifice, our choices and our actions.
But what if human thoughts and actions are merely created by electronic impulses. These impulses simply stop occurring when we die, as energy storage in our body stop being changed into electronic pulses. When we die, everything we were, stops and our body begins to turn back into dirt. Maybe you can understand why I can't sleep...

What I used to believe is that when you die, you become one with the cosmos, giving up your self in the process, becoming part of something bigger instead… completely without any moral or ethical judgments or repercussions on your individual soul, of course.
At the same time, my reason tells me this does not happen and your consciousness just disappears when you die, and your body rots into the earth it's buried in. I don't have a problem believing in both concepts at the same time, so I've never really understood the raging atheistfags and overtly-zealous religionfags debating the existence of god.

Now, I don't know about the soul anymore.

I still endure a lack of direction or clear purpose and some deeply ingrained self esteem issues and other mental… hangups, but through intense introspection (coupled with a lot of weed) I reasoned, over the past year or so, that life can be worth living.

Let me make it clear that I place little to no value on things like procreation, lineage, tradition, ritual, fame, wealth, religion, god, or souls and so many of the things other people seem to find a purpose in living for that hold no value to me. I don't even really like people in general. What I had was an epiphany where I realized (and this is where it gets corny and you'll start thinking I might be a nut) that there is only one ultimate truth, and that is the "oneness" of everything. The truth that everything, even what you perceive as your own individual soul, is part of the same body of existence and nothing is truly separate.

Later I tried to research these beliefs and found that I have much in common with Adi Shankara's nontheistic interpretation of many Hindu texts. The school of thought goes that everyone and everything is an expression or an extension of Brahman, the ultimate reality, and the belief that we are individuals and things are separate is caused by us being ignorant of the fact that we are living in an illusory, impermanent, almost dream-like world where nothing really exists (Maya). I wish I was better at explaining it. I tend to think of it in very scientific terms. For example, consider what makes a rock different from a tree. Certainly, we perceive their function and structure to be different and can determine empirically that they are made of different elements. But what are the elements made of? Atoms? And even if their atoms appear to be made of different amounts of protons, neutrons, and electrons, aren't they just made of sub-atomic particles like quarks? What are the flavors of quarks made of? Possibly strings, but the point is that it goes on and on until everything is made of the same thing or nothing.

"You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream."

Dostoyevski said we do what we do because we're bored. I think I feel the way I do because I have a rightful inclination that the world I live in is unreal or false because of its impermanence. Everything you love or work to accomplish will one day be erased in time and changed into something else. A lover's body decays and grows into the grass, an artist's masterwork will fade and the paint will become brittle and chip away until it's existence is entirely forgotten. This is why I no longer live for permanence or meaning (and I believe Albert Camus came to a similar conclusion in The Myth of Sisyphus). I could renounce the material world and focus on realizing myself as Brahman, but I don't want to. The universe is a playground and I want to play in it. Use your life to enjoy it like a movie— detached and entertained by both the good and the bad.

You'll only survive if you die.

Some people I can't sense any life in. They don't have a zest for life. They're only trying to survive. They're just scared. It's the last thought process of those at the end of their lines when contemplating their own mortality.

There's nothing wrong with having a healthy survival instinct, but the problem lies where this intent to exist comes from. That drive to survive comes from fear.

They desperately want to extend their lives because they don't want their existence to end. That's why many rush to do that which might allow them to live longer. They want to live. They want to keep going. They want to keep surviving. They can't restrain that impulse, because they want to maintain their existence.

Yes, that is the source of their motivation and self-improvement. They just want to exist. They profoundly and persistently want to cling to life. In the end, their life is driven by that basic fear. That is why they want to get as far away from it as they can.

They want to get away from that fear of death… from ruin. That fear won't disappear so easily. Once fear makes it's way into your heart, you can't break away from that weak conscience so easily.

It's times like this I am reminded of ice cream.

Now, ice cream, as you all know, is a delicious frozen confectionery treat. It tastes good and is best on hot summer days, but it melts fast. You eat it and eat it, but soon it is gone, you're out the few bucks you paid for it, and you just consumed several hundred calories with nothing to show at the end for it.

So what's the point? Why bother eating ice cream if it's just going to go away like that?

The point is, you enjoy the ice cream while you're eating it. The same goes with life. No matter how long you try to preserve it, no matter how much time you take to eat it, no matter how cold or hot it is outside, sooner or later that ice cream is going to melt. Sooner or later, your time will be at hand. Sooner or later, everyone dies. You can either keep that ice cream in the freezer, never tasting upon it, in a vain attempt to preserve it indefinitely, or you can realize that no matter what you do the ice cream will go bad and decide to taste the stuff while it's still fresh before that happens.

I think Lovecraft said it best when he said:

"It is easy to remove the mind from harping on the lost illusion of immortality. The disciplined intellect fears nothing and craves no sugar-plum at the day's end, but is content to accept life and serve society as best it may. Personally I would not care for immortality in the least. There is nothing better than oblivion, since in oblivion there is no wish unfulfilled. We had it before we were born, yet did not complain. Shall we whine because we know it will return? It is Elysium enough for me, at any rate."

You should just die when your time comes. It doesn't matter if it's a freak occurrence, disaster, age, disease, or if your opponent is a lunatic.

As long as your time comes… just die.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some ice cream to attend to.

P.S. To be extremely cliche, since I started it with Floyd lyrics I'll end it, too :D
Breathe, breathe in the air.
Don't be afraid to care.
Leave but don't leave me.
Look around and choose your own ground.

Long you live and high you fly
And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be.


P.P.S. If you read *all* this, do you want to be my new best friend?

    I believe I’m becoming more in tune with myself and less with the immediate world around me; I feel like Ishmael – trying to get to the core of things. The center, the beginning. I have a natural wonder and appreciation for knowledge, but the abundance of information can overwhelm me and I end up unable to prioritize. I sound like a douche; this is why I don’t write anything. -_-

    On a side note, I’m still reading Moby-Dick although we’re done with it in class. My motivation is Bertenshaw’s claim that it’s the single greatest piece of American literature written. I can agree that it’s good when you read over the pages a few times, and suddenly the meaning sinks in. It’s just exhausting. I’m trying to find the part I cried to, I’ve never cried during a book! Also, I was listening to Opeth’s Damnation while writing my essay on it, and I was really pumped when I made the parallels between the album and the book – it’s almost the perfect soundtrack. As a bonus, I can also enjoy rather than merely tolerate Master’s Apprentice now. The double bass and boring, predictable riff annoyed me until it hit me: it’s monomaniacal, it’s Ahab. Or I might just be making excuses. :p I still don’t know if Opeth’s material for my own top 5, they have good stuff but unavoidable annoying fans (prog fans rate highest on the pretentious scale) and I don’t like musicians that think they’re the shit even when they are the shit (i.e. Mustaine) but that’s the vibe I get from Akerfeldt’s interviews, even though he is cool and funny. But the people behind the music don’t matter as much as how the music strikes me. The top 5 debate stems from my simple nature, or at least I believe I’m a simple person who gets frustrated when things get complicated in music or any area of life. When creating art, remember that it is not wisdom that allows us to, but inspiration. Music, as we know it today, started with the poor, illiterate peasants and not those that perform well in math. There’s no reason to be intimidated by the technical skill of prog metal, but it still intimidates me. Music should be from the heart, not the blackboard. I like Opeth because there’s an overlap of that in their work that they pull off sometimes. It’s just, I wish people spent less time listening to music than talking about it (I’m one to talk…). But fo srs, whenever someone asked have you listened to “Deliverance” or blah blah I just want to say “Deliverance into boredom and eventually put on something better?”, not as much because of an album itself but the stupid people who do that all the time. It’s fine if you like something and want to show it, but once I know about any band there’s no use pushing it on me. I can tolerate Opeth, but it's too complicated for it' own good. It forgets to be entertaining.  I'm supposed to be bewitched by the enchantedness of Opeth's genius, yet I find more genius in a simple Iron Maiden riff than Opeth’s whole discography. Opinions, of course. But yeah, they might be in my top 10.^-^

Moby-Dick quotes I like:
All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever present perils of life.

...because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.

Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.

Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them...

Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air.

Yet habit--strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?

Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.


I wish I had more time, I WANT TO READ. I could care less about trig homework and the ACT, yet the college brochures piling in and prep books piling up track my subconscious down and set it to worry-mode. I need to get them off my bedside table; I don’t need that dimness as soon as I wake up.

Who is he? When someone told me that he’s “cool with everyone”, I became more aware of occurrences I would usually be oblivious to. He can adjust to anyone’s needs, and loves making people feel at ease. He tries to be akin to those he admires, which is logical in itself. But all of this leaves me wondering who he really is, stripped of all the influences, all the commodities and material luxuries and enhancements. Then again, this can also apply to anyone. So: who are we? I think the people that have swept through my life have had a tremendous impact on my habits and way of thinking, even though I would like to believe I am influenced rather than defined by them. Who am I really, goddamn it?!

While I am off to ponder that, here’s what’s influencing me now: Herman Hesse’s Demian. It has tinges of Moby-Dick but it’s six times shorter, haha. I’m reading a Serbian copy I got from this cozy used bookstore we went to after our Old Town lessons. I’m trying to find an English copy.

"I wanted only to try to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?"

"The things we see are the same things that are within us. There is no reality except the one contained within...That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself."

"The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy state; for, like the flowers which are planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity. One cause of this barren blooming I attri- bute to a false system of education, gathered from the books written on this subject by men who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers; and the understanding of the sex has been so bubbled by this specious homage, that the civilised women of the present century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtues exact respect."
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman