In Continuum.

A Self-Destructive Pattern

Parole Board Member,"Mr Ocean, what we're trying to find out is was there a reason you chose to commit this crime, or was there a reason you simply got caught this time."
Danny Ocean,"My wife left me. I was upset. I fell into a self-destructive pattern."


I find myself blasting music into my ears way after lights-off timing nowadays.It's not a case of insomnia again,that is for sure.The act of self-inflicted destruction of my eardrums was totally voluntary.I find myself picturing a scene,with myself and Ahmad on the stage,with the lights dimmed.Behind us,Christmas lights dangled from the top like a curtain,and the room was lid by the soft light emitting from the little yellow bulbs.The audience watched,and i adjusted myself in the high chair,all nervous and anxious.I cleared my throat,and introduced ourselves.It was a small crowd,and the atmosphere was tensed,somehow.You were in a corner,watching.Just watching.And i dedicated a song to you,unknowingly.You smiled,and right before the song ended,you left quietly and silently...

I find an act,such as blasting music into my ears a subtle form of suicide.Instead of choosing the quick way of blasting my brains out of my head with a rifle,or the long fall to the cold hard pavement down below,i guess i chose the cowardly,and perhaps the most painless way of self-destruction of all.

I find myself strumming my guitars so much harder now.A few days ago while doing so i sliced the skin at the end of my right index against the strings.It was painful,but i kept on going till my fingers were purple from all the pressing.I couldnt help it,it felt liberating.Perhaps it was a form of escapism?

I find myself running harder than before trainings.The feeling of suffocation,the desperate need for air pouring into my lungs instead of air,and the swirl in my head when i stop all of a sudden and take a breather.When my legs carry me on without the control on my mind,when everything seems floaty and light.Is it avoidance of some sort?

I've been listening to Frou Frou's songs nowadays.A little too often,perhaps.Ive heard them before of course.But you know how some forgotten music,or the ones left somewhere in your computer,tends to appeal to one somewhere down the course of life.Things that never mattered,or the lyrics you never related to,suddenly made sense.Like an equation in your homework,that feeling of a bulb popping out at the top of your head.Perhaps you feel a little stupid when that happens,wondering why you never thought of that before.But at the same time,you feel a little relieved,a rock off your chest.You finally realised,enlightened by the fact that what you just read,what you just worked out,rang a bell so soundly.

"Let Go" to me,in my opinion,is their best song ever."Here Me Out" comes close,but i guess the melody to "Let Go" appeals just a tad bit more.Imogen Heap's piano solo performance for that song is by the way,amazing.Sometimes you find,that things are just so hard to let go,so hard to be left behind.Like now,like me,like everything that happened.They are like chained to this mini-me inside my mind,and i am this prisoner in my own memories.

Then,you have to think.You have to understand that,like the song says,these things are not going to be left behind,even if you succeed in doing that.They are all going off without you.You'd like to think,that the other party is living in this self-destructive pattern as you,killing yourself softly over regrets,over memories,the nicer ones,like you.But they are not,in fact.They are perhaps enjoying their lives,her life,living them without your existence.

I found that i dont like you anymore.Like liking somebody,you cant explain why.It's not like a movie you just saw at the theatres.This is when Martin's answer to my question "Why do you prefer Episode IV?" seems justified.It's just that feeling you get when you like somebody,you dont necessarily need a reason for it,nor do you need to give,or do you owe anybody that reason.You just know it,and like not liking somebody,there's always the day when you wake up in your bed,look yourself in the mirror with toothpaste still dripping from the side of your mouth,do you realise that fact.That something has changed within you,something amiss,and that thing has just made you let go,to move on,to finally be released.

First,i have to thank you for your absence.The absence from my MSN has been a great help to me,really.I mean,to think about it,i never was really fascinated with whatever you blogged,or the pictures you took,or whatever else you did in your life.I was just thinking about what i liked so much about you,the reasons why i went head over heels over our first conversation and our last.It never was what i read in your blog entries,which involved your daily routines,your fears of exams,what you did in church and stuff.They are very skin deep,but doesnt necessarily mean it's shallow in any way.It's just very trivial i guess,and never occured to me as being intriguing or in any way,fascinating.

It was you,the person whom i talked to back in the days.Back in the old days,when everything was still alright.Remember?When you messaged me because of the rain,because it was so cloudy,because you walked through the rain without an umbrella and you feeling so refreshed,because it reminded you of me in some strange and unexplained way.It was you,just you,whom i liked.Whom ive grown to love,and unlove.To live,and to live without.To die,and to die without.

Not talking to you,the act of doing so,robbed me of you.Not talking to you,being out of contact,makes me feel distant.And that helped,to a great degree,in letting go of you.I feel empty somehow,something is amiss.I feel adrift,and perhaps lost in a way.But like starvation,like the aimlessness of an anonymous bus ride,there are always the positive things you get out of them.Out of the emptiness,you get the silence.Out of the void,you get peace.

So now,right now.I've let you go.You are just a piece of my history.Historied,in a way.There is a kind of sadness to it all,to letting go of things.Like a beautiful palace breaking down in the wrath of an earthquake.But even so,even in the tragedy of it all,one can find peace in it.A renewal,to be reborn.

Because there's beauty even in the breakdown.

Clementine,"I wish you had stayed."
Joel,"I wish I had stayed to. I swear to god I wish I had stayed. I wish I had done a lot of things. I wish... I wish I had stayed."
Clementine,"Joely? What if you stayed this time?"
Joel,"I walked out the door. There's no memory left."
Clementine,"Come back and make up a good-bye at least. Pretend we had one."

I've walked out of this door,and the house is tumbling down into ruins.We've never had our goodbye,but we can never pretend.There is not Montauk,where we can meet once more.No train ride where we can re-introduce ourselves like it never happened.We can never act,we can never pretend.Because things are,things were,and things never came to pass.I've walked out my door,alone but never lonely.Never.