Inn. Footprints. Beach. Sand. Driftwood. Friends?

A guy I knew referred to himself as an inn. Where people come and go, sometimes leaving an impression, sometimes not. Sometimes leaving in a burst of anger, sometimes returning again for the hospitality of the host.

I don’t disagree.

But this description doesn’t apply to me.

See, in an inn, all of them who enter are guests. The host remembers, or at least, have records of who came and went. The host welcomes all these people and inadvertently expects more to come. He is their attentive host, and they are his important guests.

Me? I’m not as organized as an inn. I do not keep tabs of people in my life, and I certainly do not unconditionally welcome them with whatever hospitality I may possess.

No. People walking through my life are certainly not guests. Strangers. Visitors. Trespassers.

Imagine the fallen bark of a tree, lying in a sheltered, dry area of some secluded beach. As easily the wind blows bits of sand onto the piece of lumber, they fall off just as easily due to the lack of attachment.

As time goes by, the piece of wood is discovered by some birds as a suitable place to nest, and nest they do, periodically visiting during the nesting seasons. The first of friends to the wood due to their frequent visits. ^^

Then one day, development attacks the area, as how it has destroyed many others, and this block of wood, regarded as useless garbage in the face high-end construction materials such as metal and concrete, is cast into the sea.

This piece of driftwood is then at lost, thrown in a totally new environment against its will. Detesting the alien feel of the seawater lapping around it, it sinks and buries itself deep in the benthos, hoping that sand at the bottom of the sea will provide some relative familiarity if its old environment.

There were many gastropods there to meet as well, considering that benthos do not normally migrate very far. Perhaps the most notable is the hermit crab, who broadcasts his shift to a larger home every time his ego grows larger than his head.

It takes some time but finally the driftwood, used to the dampness of the ocean, resurfaces into the sun again. What it doesn’t realize that life in the pelagic zone is MUCH different than the benthic. For one, the community is more diverse. Each and every day the driftwood meets new plankton.

Sometimes they drift past, sometimes they attach themselves. These are known as barnacles. As more barnacles attract more of the same kind toward the driftwood, suddenly it realized that everything it does has an impact on the world around it. Yeah, so the impact may be small but subtly it affects everything around it, and also, itself.

The wood just drifts along as the waves usher it along and finally it was deposited in another beach during the tidal change. The migratory nesting birds from its first community finally find their long lost friend, and the driftwood discovers many other benthos similar to the ones it encountered while laying low in the benthic community.

Occasionally, it meets some of the fleeting plankton of its early driftwood days via ballast water discharge, but encounters of this kind are few, if any.

Now this piece of driftwood lies on the beach, covered in barnacles that couldn’t be removed even if it wanted to, but every now and then the rotting layers of wood gets chipped off, and with it, a barnacle. But it’s okay, because, every once in a blue moon, the high tide splashes onto it a compatible nekton larva, and it settles despite everything and grows into yet another barnacle.

Yeah. Life is good. ^^

...

There are times when I just wish for the financial stability I need to escape humanity. When you are in the mist of it, you can’t ignore the majority to just please the ones you care about.

Why?

‘Cause most of the time, those that you wanna care about, care about those that you don’t. Sure they’d have some similar interests, but as they are in the end, not YOU, they tend to have their own thinking, their own ideas about what they should and should not give a damn about.

So, it's just a question of to what extent do you want to compromise your patience to entertain those you have no interest in for the sake of those you are close with, or closer to?

Twisted Logic

Ever since the first time I could remember being exposed to humans, my way of thinking has ALWAYS been different from the norm. Of course there would be times when these thoughts would coincide but for most of the time, my rationality is almost always questioned.

I admit I do have a twisted mind, but if people would just stop rejecting my seemingly insane idea long enough to hear my reasons behind it, maybe they would see the logic of it. Granted, not many in their right minds would accept my rationality but I’m used to that.

But then again who’s to argue what’s right here? Why is the majority always right? If the majority decides that jumping of cliffs hurling towards their deaths – like lemmings, is right, does that mean the remaining who don’t jump off cliffs are insane? But then again, with the majority dead, the live ones would be the majority, would it not? And that would make the survivors revert to “sane” status.

Ah, the inconveniences of peer pressure. Just because I’m the only one who thinks like I do, I’m the one who’s twisted. In this world of straight thinkers, I’ve tried in recent years to iron out the twisted-ness of my thoughts to try to understand the minds of these people. And I do, to an extent. I somehow automatically see any situation in two or more angles from different perspectives. Note that these perspectives are made from straight minds. When I’m in the picture, the situation twists, I draw incorrect conclusions due to my incorrect predictions. This is not, in any way, to imply that I think creatively or critically; I just think differently, twisted-ly.

A light hearted example is that on the topic of wasting food, people would try to bring the sinners on a guilt trip by saying at each grain of rice is the hard work, sweat, and blood of farmers. I agree to this, but I feel that this example is irrelevant as these same farmers are already paid for their hard work before the harvest reaches our tables. And so, it is in my opinion that these farmers are out of the equation and should not be used to guilt innocent, but bratty idiots that waste their food. It would be better to just starve these brats into non-wastage instead of using guilt.

I understand if the world doesn’t accept my twisted logic. Twisted, yes I know, but logical nonetheless. (If only to me). But just as I do not force you to understand my way of thinking, please don’t force me to accept yours just because you think it is “the right way to think”.

To this sense I really envy Daria Morgendorffer, to be able to live in her own world her own way in that wacky world of jocks and cheerleaders she has to put up with each and every day. I suppose her landing a friend (Jane Lane) who shares the same mindset takes some edge off the isolation she’s otherwise bound to experience without. Sure, they are outcasts of an otherwise shallow society, but they are a PAIR of outcasts that can share their anti-social policies together. How’s THAT for irony, huh?

I suppose that would happen to me in the case I cease my part in my compromise to be straight. A more antisocial outcast than I am now. But the price to be paid for that breach of compromise would be dear, and, as I have slowly grown accustomed to what little social life I have, it would be lonely, I guess. *sigh*

And so, I continue to uncurl my way of thoughts for the benefit of my company at the moment and leave my twisted-ness to those who I know can handle it. If thinking straight brings me too much stress, I simply stop. Stop thinking. Shut down.

I can then unleash my twisted brain in all its glory here at some later date.

Rambles of an Insomniac

I don’t know why I only get the feel to write when I am at the most inconvenient of times. Times such as this, where its 3am in the morning and I should REALLY be sleeping but each time I close my eyes I think of this subject and suffer from insomnia.

That, and also there’s some other stuff in my mind I can’t put down.

Might as well put down and get over with the things I CAN put down, huh?

Recently I feel that I’ve been censoring too much, if at all, things from my posts. Serious censors include not even putting what I think into words and posting it. But should it be this way?

I know that blogs, for some, are supposed to be entertainment for others.

Some write to amuse others.

Some write to update others on their lives.

Some write to directly or indirectly tell others how they feel about them, whether positively or negatively, etc.

Note the keyword: OTHERS

Which bring me back to the purpose I write a blog.

While I do the abovementioned items, I DO NOT write for the sake of others.

I simply do not wish to have to express my thoughts while trying to predict what others are gonna think about it. About me.

But lately, I’ve been doing that. And that led me unable to post some of my thoughts publicly.

Sure, I would like it very much that people read what I write (It’s a writer’s thing). But sometimes what makes it good is the feeling I invest in my words, and when I think of others too much and censor everything, it becomes theirs. Not mine. Theirs. And when that happens, the feel has already been long dead.

I suppose posting your inner thoughts would be a form of vanity, but then again, which human being has none of that? One of the seven sins (PRIDE), it is simply a package that comes together with being a human.

Now up till here my thoughts have been distracted to ramble on to other topics at least trice, but I still need to get this blog thing off my chest.

Let’s just get ONE thing straight first. I write for ME, and no one else. How anyone else wants to interpret my writings are THEIR problem, not mine.

I’m no good with spoken words. Mainly because my mind can’t think as fast as I can speak, but it can at least keep up with the speed I write. Many times I keep quiet in an argument with whomever, it is not because I have seen the opponent’s point of view, but it is because I have run out of words to make whoever see and understand it from mine. So it is times like this that I give up trying to help them understand the situation through my eyes.

So I use this.

I do not write with the intent to let anyone read whatever I come up with. My words come with a flow, and they do not always flow straight with my initial objectives. And I know it is not infrequent for me to complain about things because, I will admit I am a complainer.

A complainer is not fun to have around, is it? While I have to hold myself back when I speak, I should not have to when I write. Because when I speak, people hear my voice no matter they want it or not. When I write, if they don’t like it, it is their choice to stop. If they keep reading, it’s hardly my fault anymore, is it? If I had the guts to force them to read I would have just directly told them what I wanted to instead.

Sure, some might mistake the subject as themselves. But if they do, they would have identified it with themselves, and even if they never did it to me, they would have done it to someone else at some point. Anyone truly innocent of the accusation would not admit, whether consciously or subconsciously, that the subject in question was themselves.

In short, I don’t care what anyone else thinks the function of a blog is. But this blog is MINE. I write it the way I like it. And if anyone doesn’t like what I’ve written, then just. STOP. Okay? Nobody’s forcing ya. This is also why my header has remained the same after all these time while others decorated it with fancy lettering as pictures.

I need the simplicity to drill the words into the minds of readers, be they old or new.

Don’t read this.

But go ahead.

You’ve been warned.