The Thoughts Of Those Left Behind

My recently started "list of things so difficult to decide about that I'd rather blow my head up" has gotten another post. The previous entries included items such as abortion, religious freedom, freedom of speech and capital punishment. The new item reads: euthanasia.

This isn't a woe-me post and I want no comments of the sort. Instead, it's a post about the enormous difficulties with euthanasia, from a strictly non-political, emotional standing.

Gramps and grandmother came to our place for Christmas dinner. Sometimes she's like a little kid, you can say; "Wouldn't you like more food?" and she'll agree, but if you'd said "You don't want more food, do you?" she'd agree with that too, and she's the kind of person who could do that on purpose, but you can't be sure that she's aware of doing it. The one thing she says that I really think comes from her heart, is that she's tired. She's tired of being a liability to others and herself, she's tired of not being able to think. Father spent most of Christmas helping her getting dressed, eating, walking from one chair to the other, talking to her, holding her hand. That's all you can do, and it's not enough, because whether she'll remember it tomorrow or not, she finds no real happiness in it anymore. And being so utterly powerless... It breaks my heart, but then what does it do to my father? It's his mother. I don't want to go all to personal, because I'm starting to scratch on other people's privacy here, but summing it up my father is the most loving person I ever met, but perhaps also the one it shows least on until you get to know him. He's seen things most people refrain from even trying to imagine, and it hardens him, but it also makes him more fragile, I think. Like hardened steel, y'know?

What would it do to my father if the option to end her suffering was in his head too?

And that, simply, is why I cannot, ever, wholeheartedly speak for euthanasia, even as my logical self believes in that it should be every man's right.

Secret Conviction

I was going to write about leaving for christmas, but then I had the strongest Déjà Vu and will take that as a hint to not. Instead I will write about things people don't tell just anyone and why that may be important.

As may be seen from this blog, I have always been one to openly discuss anything, embarrassing or not. But since I came to this school, i have begun to wonder wheather that is the right thing. Maybe some things are to be kept, only told to the ones you trust. But this is a double edged sword. As follows:

It seemed Jonas (my teacher) liked my christmas compendium, since I was asked to read aloud from it several pieces. In my greedy, selfish folly, though, I was still disappointed with that no one seemed to pay Trosbekännelsen any attention at all, while at the same time I would not be able to explain it if anyone did.

In a similar fashion I disappointed myself in our religion-class. We were supposed to bring something that symbolized "the religion of ourselves", something that meant much to us and stood for our lives in some way. I thought I'd show them my Iceye-symbol (seen as the signature on my banner). But while listening to the others I realized I was doing crime against my own conviction: the most important symbol of my life would easily be Cloud. More than anything else, to me. But this would be close to inexplicable to anyone else unless I write an essay (as proven here, and that only covered the actual facts, not the spiritual, emotional and psychological stuff and what practice it means in real life). Also, I worried that as people don't understand, they condemn, and the picture of me would change in their heads in a direction that would be directly faulty. Thus I proceeded with my Iceye-symbol, while I felt like , I suppose, a Catholic would feel denying God. I know it's silly, it was such a small thing, and I was talking to people I might never see again after next term, and what would it matter what they think of me or what they know? But some things are that way. So important to yourself that the actual, practical effects are meaningless; it is the principle, the gut feeling.

We have secrets that are kept more for our own sake than the effects on the surroundings, and when we one day tell someone special, the secrets will be the measuring stick after which to judge them: how do they treat our most special things, how do they handle that our biggest secret is small and meaningless, how do they carry the trust we put in them? And that is why I have concluded that some things are to kept secret and private, where I previously thought it was pointless.

I cried, but only a little.

I'm row row rowing my boat gently down the stream of impending depression, like every winter the last four years. This time it's arriving a little later than usual, probably because school is merciful on me, but I can feel its hand hovering in the air as it hesitates before knocking on my counsciousness. I wonder if life will be such a battle for survival every January for the rest of my life?

I always feel like I'm contageous. Like I can show that I'm down, but I have to keep at least a reasonable sanity, because you can't help me, and we all know that, and letting that show with it's full sadness will only make it worse. Compassion and mercy and pity and hugs and smiles and cheerings, it just makes me more and more and more angry until I just want to scream, but I can't: I've forgotten how to do it. So calm, I'm blind to my own ripples on the surface. I can't be angry because I don't know how to anymore. I can't be angry because what if I tear something apart that I can't fix later? I couldn't survive knowing I did that. So I scream inside my head instead, and wish someone could shut me up. Whine whine whine. Whatever I do, it's boring, it's old, words and actions said and done a hundred times that doesn't give me anything and God, can't you give me something new? Something mine?

Be strong. Cheer up. Pretend you're happy because that will make you happy. Do something even if it kills you, because it won't. Smile. Play. Hide.

Can't someone just knock me unconscious so I don't have to be aware?

You don't have to say anything. I just wanted you to know. Because I would never say this face to face. And I think maybe, being who you are, meaning what you do to me, you should to know. Thay always say in interviews after someone kills themselves; "We should have known." But that's idiotic. No one can know another human for sure. Not in real life. But that scene in FF8 where they think Seifer is dead and they all start to talk well about him and Squall freaks out because he doesn't want anyone to talk about him that way when he's dead... it hit me. So hard it hurt. And this is like that. I want at least someone to know who I was when I'm gone. I don't want people standing around saying shit just because they miss me, because death scares them. I want truth. And truth is dark. But so releasingly uncomplicated. I'm the only one who knows who I am, and I'm the only one who knows the people you are inside my head. All this will be gone without me. And that's why I don't want to die. Because I'm a squirrel; and you're my nuts.

Is there nothing original left in the world? Is there nothing that can touch me at my very core?

And guys, don't think I don't know you're sucking up. 5 votes on We want more Cloud? You're all idiots. But I love you.

See Me

I do want to be seen. Of course I do. I blog because I want to keep contact with my friends, because I want a diary I keep somewhat true to, but also - to exist. I am on the internet, therefore I am. I don't like making noise when it's silent around me, so I only talk on the phone because there's no other good option. I can't handle compliments. I only look people in the eye when I decide I have to to come across as natural and confident. Thus this, writing, words, pictures, the distance between me and my work is crucial.

There is a difference between self-confidence and self-worth. I am fairly confident in that I draw okay, and I write well. I can go do embarrassing errands here and there, I can speak my opinion, I can play the game. But I don't ever expect anyone to have any interest in me, as such, only my work, my thoughts. I am the factory, my work is the product, and consumers are only interested in products, see?

But, is this something I have to change? I'm not sure. I was browsing through DeviantArt and Tomgeeks.com, and I was thinking, I should make a comic. Why? Because poems and pictures are nice, but novels and comics last in peoples' minds. That's why novels are my main aim; because you get to infect people for a longer time, feed off their interest and capture their hearts for hours and days rather than minutes and seconds. You get longer time to affect them, thus better chance to affect them more. But there is no way I have time to go to school, read, do homework, write, draw, do comics, hang out with friends, keep contact with old friends, play videogames, play computer games, stay updated on everything, keep my family happy, visist my grandparents, shop, eat and sleep. I would need three separate lifetimes for that to happen. So I have to make choices. I have to decide the course of my life. And I've been pushing it forward for weeks and months and years, because it's probably the most important choice of my life.

I refuse to be the geek girl in a corner reading and adoring other people's work, gossiping about the last X-Men movie. I want to be in that shit, I want to be a part of the process, I want to change the world. But to do that, I have to lose half of myself first. Which half?

Screw organized religion

Aside from writing like a smurf on speed and finally doing my Buddhism homework (should have been done two weeks ago =P) I have tried out MechQuest (.com) which was fun as a waste of time for a little while, and talked to Madde on msn until her computer had the heating experience of too much Jocke-bullshit and with a smashing goodbye entered the next gigaplane of existence.


A very good quote from the buddhism papers I have:
If you understand, things are as they are. If you do not understand, things are as they are.

While I think buddhism is okay, it's like this in the end: I do not believe organized religion is the right path. Sure, it sounds great that someone finds the true purpose of life and then passes it on to the rest of us. But doesn't this sound quite reasonable too: that we all discover small parts each, and if we puzzle them together we will get to the truth? The atom bomb would never have been discovered by one single person; it was a collaboration over dozens of years, discoveries built on each other. The ultimate truth would be something like that, I imagine.

I puzzle together my own belief through what feels right in the soul, and while traditions and stuff is nice and a way to bond with people, they are just that: traditions to honor because it gives peace of mind and shows respect towards our fellow humans. Religion, on the other hand, is personal. It shall be practiced alone and in seclusion. That's what I think, anyway.

We have too few traditions in Sweden, also. For a muslim to turn to Mekka, a Japanese to pray in front of the home altar, a catholic to say the evening prayer, it focuses the mind and gives a sense of familiarity in which we can always relax no matter where or what. I think I'm going to construct my own little tradition. I will return on that.

Flat on the Floor

As anyone who reads this blog or is in my life knows, I was to Uppsala during the break. The nice part is that I got to meet everyone, and my life took a big happy swing upward. The not-so-nice thing is how I completely fell down and crashed first thing after getting back, and now I'm completely, utterly flat on the floor, emotionally. So tired, y'know?

Look, honestly, I don't need more friends. I don't want to puke op my intestines trying to be nice and social and polite and correct and find more ones. Come on, please? Give me a nice black hole in the forest. Or through my head.

And if I'm going to be an author and work a little by the side with some weird-ass technical shit, why do I have to write essays on Buddhism when all I really know I have to learn outside of lesson, and read idiotic modernistic ugly unorganized books with golden pages by some freak little partygirl with shiny shoes and blackboardscratching colormatching and a bottle of whiskey in her belly who thinks she knows how it feels?

And why does everything I write have to make sense? Goddammit. If you guys would just accept that things are as I say they are, hey, why not just read my mind right away and I could skip the work of writing it down? Okay. Now I'm being ironic and a little frustrated with how Semhazai absolutely refuses to cooperate with me in the next chapter though I love him so much,

but the rest is serious.

I think I just figured it out. Cloud, I mean. To make it make sense to those of you who wouldn't if I told it as it is (= the rest of the world) I'll make a nice, religiously incorrect analog. Cloud is simply the skin that my person angel took on to be able to reach me, since I would never have paid him attention if he'd said he's an angel.

When I told him I'd figured him out, he just smiled a little.

Loss

I discover new losses with my memory card every moment.

The levels and aeons of FFX. All the old Ratchet & Clank, that I need for the new games. The file with an almost completed Resident Evil 4. All the money and equipment earned in Soul Calibur 3. The file in Kingdom Hearts 2 where I was about to deafeat Sephiroth. The 100% in Final Fantasy X-2. The damned work I put down on Devil May Cry 2. //.Hack, that I'll never finish again. Okami. Shadow of the Colossus. ICO. Syberia... and so much more. Hundreds of hundreds of hours vanished with one stupid person's ignorance. The list goes on and on and... what should I do?

What. Should. I. Do?!?!

To All My Friends

Most important in my life: people who like me.

I am somewhat of a lone wolf who tends to not discuss my decision processes and sometimes grow quite controversial opinions that prohibit me from expressing my thoughts in public, but I am *completely dependent* on people who like me enough to express it, even if I'm slow to express my own appreciation, and who can give me compliments without me asking for them, since I seldom do.

Thus, thank you, all my friends, and especially those who know what I'm talking about now. I pretend to be many things, many many many things, and I'm doing quite a good job of it, to the point where I don't even want the people I love to know the truth about me, even when I feel bad about not being able to be who I am. The human mind is truly amazing. *sigh*

Another discovery about myself: the hunt is so much better than the catch. I am a hunter. Leave to others to enjoy the defeated prey. Translated: Once people want me, I've won, and I have no interest in being anything but friends. So sorry. Be careful, I'm evil.

Sara, I will care for your diary as if was it the love child of my cat. (And don't underestimate the seriousness of that, I still feel physically sick when I think about anything bad happening to that cat.)

Father

Never forget the moment
your father became a mortal
That fearfully simple moment
when the sun shone and the birds sung.
Never forget the thought
that his gun really was a gun,
Before your eyes in that thought
his badge became a target.
Never forget the day
when justice became personal,
And always remember this The Day
when you forget the fragility of his heart.

I was maybe 12, and I had read in the papers about the robbers who shot a cop to death, I think it was Malexander, or sometime after that. Dad told us this story about stopping a car, I can't remember exactly why but it wasn't for any big reason. They found loads of drugs. And they found several weapons in the back, among them a shotgun with the pipe cut off. He told it like a funny occurance at the job. I think, looking back, that he just needed to say it to get it off his chest.

And I thought, no, I understood for the first time: My father is a policeman. My father could be killed any day. By some random thug on the street whose life isn't worth crap compared to the man my father is.

And I was afraid for days.

Love you, dad.

The truth of Iceye

My english is still dwindling. I write and write and feel as if my insides slowly squeal like raisins at the same pace as my fingers slow down over the keyboard letters, and my head takes desperate tours in Swedish around little corners.
English was my safety and my own world, my exit out of myself and into Iceye. Now it's freezing, dying, like the roses of Salikon, and I am desperate... truly, I am desperate for something to save me. I watch movies without subtitles and mix in english with my swenglish even more often, but it is as if it doesn't matter anymore. I still stare at the black against white on my computer screen and feel like I'm producing mice when I could build an elephant.
Yes, my Swedish is getting a little better. But I don't want it anymore. Take it away! All of it! Erase my mind, but give me my little own world under the rosebush back, and warm my fingers into a tapdance! Take it away! Take me away! I don't want myself anymore, I want Iceye! I want the rush of sentences and delicate pronounciations, I want the flow of the heart of my characters!
I am not Iceye, you must understand this most underlying truth. I am me. Iceye is here, in these letters, in my texts, in my poems. It is outside of me, so it can be greater than me, and it doesn't need me like I need it. And now, caught in Swedish, this language of mortals and men, my poems are becoming me, are abandoning Iceye. Like an imaginary friend no longer of use it is fading, hiding. It mustn't. Because I have no desire to become an author. But Iceye already is, and I must follow it, into death if fate so wills. If I lose her, I am lost.