philos
liberté
princeps
memoria

(Backdated entry)

Just imagine.
We wake under the same sky every morning. We breathe in the dusty dawn, and we do our chores, fix our hair, eat our breakfast, or skip meals to stay skinny.

whatever it is that makes our world go around.

and we are so different. we cannot even begin to comprehend how we can meet at this time, at this place. everything's all the same, it's up the carousel, and back down again.
it's like living in a cruel constancy, spun time from sleeping beauty's wheel, "by revolution lowering", as antony declares.

you know, after someone takes a bath, and the bathroom mirror gets fogged up, if you place your hand flat on the mirror, you can leave a handprint. you see your face through the imprint of your hand, but place it for too long, and the water slides down the mirror. and you reveal more.



do you see yourself clearer, or is it only a more convoluted, more unidentifiable you. is it that we see so much, but know so little..

you are afraid of things because you fear knowing who you really are. what if everything fell apart, and i was just left alone without any shield of ambition or far-reaching aspiration for me to hide behind. i cannot just be the sum of my emotion can i.

am i?

it's the cruel consistency some will face. sometimes you end up the winner of the game you don't even know how to play.

and then there's relationships and trust.

i always thought you could never fully trust the Other. I guess we are all scared. But what is infinitely more scary is if it's your own heart you can't trust. you don't know what you're getting yourself into. you don't know if you're unwittingly playing that game that everyone seems not to understand.

there are unspoken rules, and we all know them. it's like dancing without feet, like breathing without air, like looking without seeing.

and people ask for too much from me. far more than i'm willing to give. and i ask for too much from people. and we learn the boundaries to the game, little by little, slowly steadily surely.


i've always wanted a lava lamp. it always looks like ordered chaos, of stretching bubbles through viscous substance that changes forms all the time. there's a continuity in the movement, a pattern in the disorder.

i saw one in australia the last time i was there. it cost about A$200, so i couldn't get it.
but it was so pretty, i dreamt about it for quite a while.


yes. i don't even understand me now.

which is funny, because while i was drawing words on the foggy mirror, i suddenly realised something.

i've had it all wrong from the beginning. friends aren't those who still accept you despite your flaws. friends are those who still accept you, despite your perfections, your success, your happiness.


there are those people who you can't go to if you're feeling particularly beautiful or happy, because you know it will upset the balance of your friendship. because you know they may not feel as happy for you as you would hope they could, or because you don't want them to feel left out, or whatever.



and if you have to snuff out your candle, only so that others may shine brighter...
then take the light elsewhere, take it where it is really useful, where people may love the light, love you.

i'm not saying we all need to inflate our egos and set the place on fire.
i'm saying if you've got friends who are there for you no matter what.
then you've found your friends for a lifetime..


i think that's the thing with lava lamps. you can't expect anything from the forms they take, you can't deny anything that happens, just like you can't predict anything will.


lava lamps are our existence.

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