A thing called Hope

"Hope. It is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness." (The Architect, Matrix Reloaded)

While I was living through the aftermath of a breakup, which was needless to say an emotionally scarring experience, I had a couple of people recommend that I read Eat, Pray, Love - possibly a good avenue to take my mind off things and also perhaps pick up a thing or two from Elizabeth Gilbert. The book's popularity spiked with the release of the movie late last year and after hearing countless mentions of it, including one from Koothrappali (The Big Bang Theory reference), I thought I'd give the book a go - why not.

Despite the many positive reviews and testaments of how the book changed people's lives, I must say I didn't care much for it. Don't get me wrong - I think it's great for Gilbert to have had gone through what she went through in the beginning and by the end of her journey, managed to "find herself" again. However, others (like me) don't have the same luxury of going through eat, pray, love periods in Italy, India, and Bali. I couldn't have packed up my bags, leave everything behind, and go anywhere let alone go on "a journey of self discovery". I had no choice - I was smacked right in the middle of 2nd semester. I had to live through what I did exactly where I was.

In the month that followed, I've never been more acutely aware how cruel hope can be when it's the only thing I had to hold onto (directly relating to the relationship/breakup), the only thing I had left at my lowest point. What do you do when your last beacon of hope is hope?

"In reality, hope is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs man's torments." (Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human)

On hindsight (or to anyone looking in) that may seem like a stretch and could be construed as blowing it "over the top" but I certainly did not think so then, I couldn't have thought so then. After it happened, I hoped that it wasn't permanent, that he would want to make it work and that he would have cared enough about me to not let it all slipped away. It was hope that tied me to him for as long as my mind would refuse to simply let it go. It was literally the only thing that was left - hope. I felt like a drowning man clutching on a straw. Although I knew it was fruitless, although I knew that it wouldn't make a difference of me trying to reason things out, I still hoped. It was then I faced hope with a bitter resentment because I knew that while it was the only thing that I had left to cling to, all the hope in the world couldn't change what's happened.

"Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity." (Robert G. Ingersoll)

Sometime later, I chanced on another book, "Annexed" (Sharon Dogar) - a historical fiction based on Anne Frank's diary. It wasn't until 2 months later that I finally got my hands on "The Diary of a Young Girl" (Anne Frank).

These 2 books I would call a life-changing. "Annexed" and "The Diary of a Young Girl" delved me into a another world, into a different time. It made me see and realise how much we take for granted, even the simplest and littlest things like running around under the sun and the ability to step outside for a breath of fresh air.

"An empty day, though clear and bright,
Is just as dark as any night." (Anne Frank)

"Hope is putting faith to work when doubting would be easier." (Author Unknown)

It would have been easy to have let thoughts of doubts and an unhappy ending consume the lives of those living in the secret annex but Anne (and everyone around her) was very hopeful until the very end. They had no control of what was happening and all they could do was get on with their lives as normally as they could while in hiding, hope that the war would come to an end and that they'll be free again. Right until the end, the residents of the secret annex were hopeful and they clung on that hope of freedom. They didn't survive to see the end of the war (except for Otto Frank) but hope (on top of everything else) kept them alive for the duration that they remain hidden.

"Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark." (George Iles)

When I read these 2 books, I saw life in a different perspective and I realised that there were things far larger than us, how simple we have it now. It was then the monstrous weight of the heartbreak slowly begin to fade - such a thing felt somewhat insignificant while I was reading about the 8 lives of the secret annex.

"Hope, deceitful as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route." (Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld)

HOPE

We cling to it in our lowest moments and when we have nothing left.
We turn to it when we want things to go well, whether it's something in our control (outcome of an exam - depending how well prepared you are) or not (a war).
It gives rise to a dispirited nation. When the world says, "Give up," hope whispers, "Try one more time."

"Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wit and watch and work; You don't give up." (Anne Lamott)

"What if..."

24th December - Christmas Eve. Funny how I couldn't have been further away from where I was a year ago today and yet still be in the same place. Yet another mention of how much things change in a year. Nevertheless, I'm here now.

If there was one thing I'd want for Christmas (not necessarily Christmas - anytime would be good seeing that this is something I've been thinking about for a long time) is a device that shows the different outcomes to questions of "what if" (like the What-If Machine from Futurama). 

Wouldn't it be interesting if we could see how different our lives would be had we chose a different path or what would the world be like if we did/didn't...or what if the world was different from how we know it to be like today? Telly (among other things) tells me that I'm not the first one to have thought such a thought (quite obviously).

The following list of shows all explore the different scenarios of "what if": Anthology of Interest I and Anthology of Interest II (Futurama) - "What if Fry hadn't fallen into the freezer-doodle and come to the future-jiggy?", "What if Bender (the robot) was human?"; Road to the Multiverse (Family Guy) - "What if Christianity never existed?"; Turn Left (Doctor Who) - "What if Donna never met the Doctor?"; The One That Could Have Been (Friends) - "What if Rachel had married Barry?"; It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (The Muppets) - "What if Kermit (the frog) had not existed?"

The biggest "what if" I ponder on (like Kermit did in It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie) is, "What if I didn't exist?" 
I wonder how different would the world be. On the grand scheme of things - (dare I say) perhaps not much different. Perhaps. Did I, even if a little bit, make a difference to the world? I can imagine that the lives around me would be somewhat altered. For one thing, my sister wouldn't be living with me now (seeing that I don't exist). Would she be in Perth at all? If not Perth, then where and doing what? The same thing she's doing now? My uni mates would have gotten a different group member for their project. Would they have done worse/better on the assignment? The lives that I've touched and the people I've met, even if for the briefest of moment, I was a presence in their timeline. How much of a difference did I make?

Questions of "what if" based on choices or events that could have gone differently (chronologically ordered from my earliest memories to now):
1. What if dad had chosen to do his Masters in UK instead of US? - Would I be speaking in a British accent and be saying words/terms like "blimey" and "absolute tosh" more often? (not that I say them much/at all now)
2. What if I didn't skip a grade? (having gone straight to grade 5 from grade 3) - Would I still have gotten the opportunity to study Engineering in Australia after high school on my scholarship? Would I be studying something completely different? Would I be somewhere else entirely now?
3. What if I chose not to be a prefect in high school? - How different would my high school life have been? Would that choice have changed the person I am today?
4. What if I had gone to University of Melbourne instead of University of Western Australia? (like I wanted to) - I would have met different people, done different things, lived a different life. How different would that life have been like?
5. What if I chose to not have gone to event A/B/C and I've never met you, you, or you? 

Other questions of "what if's":
1. What if I had 2 siblings instead of just 1? What if I had an elder brother or a younger sister? What if I had both? What if I was a boy?
2. What if they've discovered electricity 100 years earlier?
3. What if the internet never existed? - Well, this blog wouldn't be around for one thing.
4. What if Steve Jobs never came up with the idea of Apple?
5. What if apes ruled the world?

It's an infinite list of what if's and such is life, many of the questions will go unanswered. Because such a device does not exist (yet - that I know of anyway), we can only wonder (until such a device comes along) of what would have been and could be and that's all we're left with - wonderment. 

The reason

My sister had her last ever lecture as an undergraduate pharmacist today (will be graduating early next year). After dinner, she told me a story about how she was asked a question of wonderment by a customer at her pharmacy when she was in first year at uni. It wasn't until 3 years later, in her final year did she stumble across the answer. 

Sister: Don't you think that's interesting?

Me: What is?

Sister: That sometimes the answers don't immediately come to you but then eventually it does.

Me: Mmmmm...you should write about it on you blog!

Sister: But I don't have a blog.

Me: I'll write it in mine then :D

Indeed. Sometimes the answers don't immediately come to us when we want/need them most. It's the same with reasons.

Y'know how people say,

When the hardest hits, it's hard to think about the possible "reason(s)", the "good" that might come out of it at the end of the day, in the long run.

Most of the time, things do work out for the best or we hope so that it does but at that moment in time when tragedy hits you, when something terrible, the unspeakable happens, we don't see it. We don't, we can't see what that reason may be. You start to wonder if there's a grander plan out there for you, "pre-destined" in your future. You wonder if you'll survive through the day, the week, the month, the year. Your mind then comes up with a long list of all the possible reasons of "why", not making any sense at all - no rhyme and no reason behind it that you could possibly see.

But then again, you never know. Maybe just like "the answer", you''ll stumble across "the reason" 3 years later.

.....

"It was you who put the clouds around me.

It was you who made the tears fall down.

It was you who broke my heart in pieces.

It was you, it was you who made my blue eyes blue."

- Blue Eyes Blue (Eric Clapton)

I found a reason for me to change who I used to be, a reason to start over new and the reason is you.

Behind the veil

"When my world was crashing all around me

All my hope was gone 

I was drowning in darkness

Barely hanging on

Out of the shadows you appeared

And helped me breathe again

So, when it all goes to black

I won't start to fall coz I can find you in the shadows."

- Shadows (Atomic Beats)

Do you know how it feels like when the world around you crumbles and everything you've known and will ever know disappears before your eyes? Do you know the feeling when you lose all hope and darkness engulfs your very being, the feeling of losing your will to live and you wish for everything to end eats you from the inside but you can't make it go away? Have you ever been unlucky enough to experience the pain of total helplessness and the feeling that you're stuck in your own skin, having to live your life, having to live through another day with nowhere to go?

The thing about feeling exactly this is when it's not you in said position, it's very hard for someone looking in to truly sympathize with what you're feeling. Though they offer words of comfort and encouragement, it takes more than that to bring you out to the light (if anything ever will). They can only say so much and after a while, they tell you to snap out of it, thinking you're being a child and that you're being difficult. It's hard for them to understand the magnitude and seriousness of what you're going through that's killing you.     

When you hit rock bottom, your best friend should know to stick by your side and not leave you to drown in your tears even when you don't ask. 

Though I see your silhouette in the shadows, feel your presence near the light, hear your words through the veil, I feel your grip slipping away.

The boy that cried wolf

The problem with crying wolf when you think you see a wolf even when the wolf is not there but you still made the villagers come running is after a while they won't come anymore and when the wolf finally shows, you're left to fend it off by yourself.

So, next time one finds oneself in a position to cry out wolf, do make sure the wolf is in sight and ready to pounce. Otherwise, perhaps we should dial down the crazy.*

*My version of "The Boy That Cried Wolf" does somewhat deviates from the infamous Aesop's Fables that teaches us nobody believes a liar even when he is telling the truth. What I'm putting across is not at all about lying. Underlying meaning to be interpreted to each his own.

Do you fear death?

Have you ever felt yourself slipping away? When you feel like you're hanging on to a string that's slowly unraveling and there's nothing you can do to stop it from breaking. All you can do is hang on to the little glimmer of hope that's left and watch the thinning string slowly but surely coming apart. Nothing to grab on to, nothing to live for.

Having never studied psychology or any of the likes before, I can't pretend to say I understand what goes on in the mind of someone that's about to kill himself. In the moments of your life when you feel  nothing but hopelessness and you can't think of a good enough reason of being or everything is going wrong when all you want is for one thing to go right, that's when you wish that everything would just stop and for it all to end. You curse the world and all in it for letting you live on when all you want is to disappear from the face of the Earth forever. 

Do you fear death? Are you afraid to die? Ever met someone sure enough of himself to answer "no"? In another given situation if I ask him to calmly walk in front of a firing squad, would his answer still be the same knowing then his breaths, his heartbeats, his thoughts are numbered? What will he think then? Will he think of all the things he's never got to do in his short life? Will he think of all the things he still wants to do? Will he think of all his fondest memories with his family, with his wife, with his lover? Will he then wish he wasn't where he is now and that he wants to live for just another day, do all the things he wish he'd done, see the world one last time? 

You might not fear death (hey, when I'm least expecting it, shoot me with a sniper right in my head) but I believe in everyone (or most at least) there is the fear of dying (hey, in a heist let me not be the one you're pointing the gun to my head at). See the difference? Is that perhaps why when someone wants to kill himself, he doesn't just takes a gun and shoots or why we don't see people walking right off the edge of the cliff? Before they pull the trigger, before they make the leap, there's that moment of hesitation. Hesitation of? Not wanting to die after all when coming face to face with death?

Dying I believe, is no simple thing. That's why when someone ever think of ending their life, they always try to think of the simplest, quickest, least painful way of doing it. At that moment in time, no doubt they just want it ended but when faced with it, we still hear stories of how someone managed to coax a man from jumping off a bridge or from a 69 stories building. That 'someone' probably said something along the line of "everything is going to be alright, it can't be all that bad, and you really don't want to do this." How does that 'someone' know? You're a stranger. You don't know the man that's about to jump. How do you know that everything's going to be alright? How do you know that it can't be all that bad? Do you know what his problem even is? How do you know the man really don't want to this? You don't. But then again, these people listen. While they're contemplating of jumping, all the thoughts of life goes through their head and it only takes an encouraging pep talk from someone who isn't their subconscious mind to convince them to do otherwise. And so they don't kill them self. Was it worth it though in the end?  

If you're someone who never had a 'worst than a terrible day(s)' in your life, you might not have an inkling of an idea what I'm rambling on about but then again, you might just after all know what I'm trying to say.

A young man is talked out of jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge
by a California Highway Patrol officer

Have you ever felt yourself slipping away? When you feel like you're hanging on to a string that's slowly unraveling and there's nothing you can do to stop it from breaking. All you can do is hang on to the little glimmer of hope that's left and watch the thinning string slowly but surely coming apart. Nothing to grab on to, nothing to live for.

What goes on in a sucidal's mind

Taken from:

http://www.suicide.org/golden-gate-bridge-suicides.html

It was in September of 2000 when Kevin was in high school and he started to hallucinate and hear voices because of his disorder. After a while, he couldn’t cope any longer, and one day when the hallucinations and voices were particularly intense, he decided to kill himself.

So he took a bus to the Golden Gate Bridge. He cried the entire trip, knowing that his life would soon be over, but also believing that he had to kill himself to end his torment.

Golden Gate Bridge

“I had heard that the Golden Gate Bridge was the easiest way to die. I heard that you hit the water and you're dead,” Kevin said. “And I remember picking the spot. This is the good spot. I'm not too close to the pillar. I won't hit the pillar. I'm not too close to the land. I won't hit the land. I'll hit the water and I'll die.”

Kevin was ready to kill himself.

But as he walked along, some indecisiveness crept in. He wanted someone to help him; he wanted someone to show him that he or she cared.

So he began crying as he walked, silently reaching out for help.

A female police officer rode by on a bicycle, but did not stop.

Two bridge workers also passed him without stopping.

The voices in Kevin’s head were now screaming at him in a cacophonic chorus: “You have to die!”

But something kept holding Kevin back.

“If someone just showed me that he or she cared,” he thought to himself, “I wouldn’t jump.”

And then an attractive young woman appeared, and Kevin knew that his prayers had been answered.

“She cares,” Kevin said to himself. And he knew that he didn’t have to jump. Everything was okay.

Kevin looked intently at the woman as she approached.

But the woman aloofly handed Kevin a camera and said, “Take my picture.”

Kevin couldn’t believe it. So he stood there crying, took the picture, and was completely convinced that no one cared about him – no one cared whether he lived or died.

He gave the camera back to the woman, took three running steps, and jumped.

But the second that he jumped, he knew that he had made a grave mistake.

“Oh, my God,” he thought to himself. “I don't want to die. What did I just do?”

He wanted to survive. Like a brutal slap in the face, the jump woke him up, but now he was falling head first to his death.

He quickly thought of three things that he needed to do to save himself. First, he asked God to save him. Second, he threw his head back. And third, he struggled to position his legs so that his feet would hit first.

BAM.

The brutal impact shattered Kevin’s body. But he did hit feet first, and at somewhat of an angle, so he was “lucky.”

Well, “lucky” to a degree. He survived, but he broke his back and will forever be deeply physically and emotionally scarred and handicapped by his horrific ordeal.

Curiosity killed the cat

Funnily enough, I can remember clear as crystal when I first heard this saying. It was one of those moments that'll stay with me for a long, long time or I might even go as far as saying forever. Maybe because it turn out to be a ROFLMAO moment for me.

About 2 years ago (must've been late July or early August of 2008), I was, lack of a better word 'stalking' a guy in my college (harmless really...mostly I just tend to notice him more than anyone else around, one of those 'silly crushes') and my poor roommates had to put up with my daily inputs of how great and wonderful he is (still is someone I highly respect and admire though I don't, you'll be happy to know 'stalk' him anymore).
And so, one day I must've been saying something about him (I can't remember what now) when my dear roommate said, "You know, curiosity killed the cat."
I think that must've been the FIRST time I heard that saying and for some reason I thought it was BEYOND hilarious and burst out laughing. Few minutes later I was still laughing! Months after that, it became one of those moments that me and my roommate look back on and say, "Remember that time when..." Ah, brings tears of laughter to my eyes even now. She'll probably be reading this laughing too!

Ever since I heard the saying I always, always wonder what exactly was the cat so curious about that got itself killed? It was something I debated constantly with my roommate about. 'Curiosity killed the rat' makes more sense to me. The rat was curious about the cheese, took a nibble, and got trapped shut. That makes perfect sense. The cat? That I don't know. Don't cats supposingly after all have 9 lives? But still, somehow the cat got itself immortalized in these words as being curious and then got itself killed. So, I Googled it (actually I 'Yahoo!-ed' it but for some odd reason we find that we tend to say we 'Google' everything even though we use different search engines) and found a story on how somewhere in America (New York? Can't remember now...it was some time ago that I read the article) there was a cat (true story!) that got 'curious' about the chimney, climbed up and got itself stuck. The owner called the fire department and after many fruitless attempts...they still couldn't reach the cat! So in the end the cat died in the chimney. Tragic...but wait! There is a 'happy twist'.

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure neither the owner, fire department, or for that matter the cat found anything 'happy' about it dying (lets have a few minutes of silence for the dead cat. May you rest in peace curious cat).

The twist for me is this: at least the cat died knowing. Doesn't that make the death of the cat not been in vain. The cat didn't die for nothing. It was curious what was up the chimney, climbed up to explore, probably found nothing but at least it's curiosity was answered.

Doesn't that make it worthwhile? Does it? Imagine being curious but never doing anything about it. You'll live your life always wondering what could have been and you'll never know.

But we should ask ourselves, is death too big a price to pay for being curious and having our curiosity answered? Is 'dying, knowing' worth it? Would you rather have lived a life always wondering?

Could we then, blame Pandora for opening the box? Though the box unleashed a terrible death to everyone else, at least Pandora died knowing what was in the box and that my friend, she alone knew.

So, ask yourself this: Had YOU been in Pandora's place, would you have opened the box?