There's very little in this world which is fair

We, as humans, are funny animals.

So many of us tend to be so quick to play the role of the persecuted victim, and play the role of someone who by all rights, is hard done by, and deserves sympathy, pity, and attention. It's so easy to play this part, seeking the approval of others, looking for a pat on the back, a shoulder to cry on, a willing ear to bend.

And some people play it as frequently as they breathe. I accept that things are tough, but why do some people fucking insist on having others drag them the fuck up every single time they feel down?

You may wonder what sparked this, and it's simple. Someone I work with, who, chances are, will never stumble across this blog, was ranting on about men being "all the fucking same.", and so on and so forth. Sure, fine, I wouldn't like to be female, and have to attempt to date my gender, but when I catch you cheating on your fucking husband, you stupid wench, you're a fine fucking one to talk. If you ever read this, I expect you'll know who you are, but I doubt you're sharp enough to ever stumble across something like this.

I've come to realise that in the past couple of years, for me, ideas worthy of blogging come far less frequently. The reason for this is likely the fact that I used to be fueled by cynicism, sarcasm, disillusionment, frustration, and a whole host of other rather unpleasant emotions.

Here's wondering if my blog posts, as they currently exist, were merely the product of teenage angst gone awry. When I browse through the archived posts, I actually battle to wrap my mind around just how I've changed, since then. If my present self met my old self, a rather thorough lecture would ensue.

People have odd ways of perceiving things, and something that made me realise just how vastly our perceptions differ from reality, was how my cousin is perceived relative to me, by the environment we share.

Typically, to put it out in the open, there are a few personality facets which people seem to attribute to us.

Firstly, people perceive him as the angelic type whom they can confide in, who will give them logical advice, as well as emotional support. When they need someone to talk to in that sense, he's the right person. He's a calm, well-centered guy who wouldn't take risks, who isn't a party animal, who isn't the sort to go absolutely wild, a man who isn't blunt or tactless.

What they perceive me to be, is the person who takes the risks, the person who is blunt, the person who is rebellious, the loose cannon of the family. I'm the guy who had his eyebrow pierced, the boy who had an ear piercing, the person whose friends catch him on camera when he makes out with a female at a party, or whose friends ask his help to help them hit on females.

The best example of people perceiving this as the truth would be our family. What I find funny though, is the person they perceive me to be, is the person he is, and the person they perceive him to be, is to a large extent, the person I am.

I'm the person that steals the mampoer bottle from him and feeds him apple sours when he's finished, as well as the mate that makes sure he doesn't do stupid things. He is largely what people understand my persona to be, and to a significant extent, I think I'm the person people perceive him to be, underneath all the external personality mask jazz.

And how, you ask, do these discrepancies between truth and perception come about? My guess would be not because both he and I can pull off the acting required to make a person perceive us as the type of person they'd want to be associated with, but rather, because I don't find myself all that bothered to play that role, whereas he feels more at ease doing so.

This became evident to me in another circumstance too. At high school, I had a friend who shared my views and opinions on things. The difference in behaviour on our part came in him playing up to what he wanted the teachers to perceive him as, versus me being outwardly blatant and honest about how much I cared about school. End result, he was made head boy, I was absolved of responsibilities.

I wonder if this whole thing is just a case of me being happier to display the real me, flaws and all, or if I'm deluding myself into thinking that my apathetic behaviour when it comes to pleasing people is actually acceptable. Should I go for tact lessons?

I know I'm typically the sort to rant about the state of human affairs, and how much faith I have in us. Stupidity tends to get to me a teensy bit more than it does to the average guy, hence I tend to express my frustration quite quickly.

Still, last night's incident leaves me viewing the things that typically tended to upset me as far more trivial. Bumping into someone who is married bonking someone else who is planning to propose to their other half next month on a fire escape stairwell leaves me more calm, funnily enough. Most other things that get under my skin seem to be dull little annoyances in comparison, yet I can't find myself getting upset about what I saw either.

I'm not surprised, I'm not shocked, I'm not taken aback. I'm just rather blazé about the whole thing. We, as a species, are imperfect, and as such, are prone to making mistakes.

In summary, I guess in the past couple of years, I've learnt to look at things as if they're more trivial. Time erases the past, and change is pretty much the only constant in this world, and allowing myself to get upset by things like this is really rather stupid. The only other things that are sure in this world, are taxes, death, and the fact that given a long enough time period, we all make mistakes.

In retrospect, it's interesting to think about how minor decisions a couple of years back would have affected things as they are now.

Hypothetically speaking, if I'd been the sort to take charge of things ever so slightly more four years ago, chances are good I would have landed up in a relationship back then. I also figure I'm the sort that back then would've been labelled brave for being afraid to change things, so I reason that relationship would've stretched on way longer than would've been fair or appropriate. Would it have lasted until now? Heaven knows. All I know for sure is we are two people who were way too vastly different back then, and chances are good we're even worse suited now.

What it all boils down to now, is if I look at my experience with females, I guess I'm quite happy I came out where I have. I grew to look at them as human, rather than as mini-goddesses who all typically tend to deserve reveration.

I closed a chapter of my life on Friday night. Louise and I are no longer. I've never really blogged about her to my memory, either.

Monday would have been two years. In all honesty, I feel so alone as a result of it. I feel like I did the right thing, in that I believe it's for the best that she move on, and that I have a chance to go out and experience life. We're on good terms at least, for which I'm so grateful.

There was so much wrong with our relationship, I guess, yet so much good came out of it. I went into it in a sociopathic fashion, pretty much expecting I'd never feel quite as hurt as I have, as I do, expecting it to fail, but instead it grew into one of the most cherished memories of my life. I really do love her, and I would never want to lose the bond we have. I never imagined I would feel like I do about her, ever. She is without a doubt one of the most special people to ever grace my life, to ever touch my world. I would never trade these memories for all the money in the world.

Right now, I guess there's nothing in the world I want more than for her to be blissfully happy. I'd probably feel a good deal less melancholic if I knew that was the case. As it is, I feel so stupid and immature in retrospect, but I feel I would be unfairly bitter if I wasn't to take these steps away from her. As much as I would love to be everything she needs, right now I know I can't be completely giving of myself in spite of how much I love her.

I truly love you Lou, unconditionally, with everything in me. To try describe it would feel like I was to make light of it. Nobody has ever touched my life like you did. You taught me to feel again, you taught me to be completely honest, and though it pushed you away at times, I hope you understand that it was as difficult for me as it always was for you.

These vessels are all-too-uncomfortably fragile. Made of wood, and reinforced over time with whatever is at hand, be it more wood or metal of some sort, the waves still crash up hard against that self-same surface. Given a long enough timeline, water erodes. And slowly, it seeps through.

The ships start taking on water and sinking, while the crew frantically work to bail it. Like a sponge, you could say the boat has a saturation point where it just can't take on any more water. And nobody can tell when Neptune, son of Saturn, should see fit to exercise his control, either. One little storm, and the vessels I speak of could be run aground or driven into the reef, ending their journey, although perhaps only temporarily.

The concrete walls looming in front of me house a multitude of lecture halls, desks, chairs, and projectors, all there for the sake of teaching. Boasting gloomy architecture, the maze of stairs makes for a scene that M.C. Escher would not feel at all out-of-place in. The gloom is all too fitting, given that this is the type of place where dreams, while you can potential recognize them, can also be so quickly shattered.

As you walk calmly through those halls, you can't even begin to comprehend just what dreams each and every person you pass holds dear. They function, they live their lives, they make their daily commute, in order to come to these hallowed halls of knowledge, seeking to achieve self-actualization.

These halls give birth to ways of life, creeds, love, hope, desire.... They foster potential.

These halls serve as a meeting ground for the purpose of imparting knowledge. They serve to allow us to achieve our potential.

But most importantly, they serve beer in the student center for when you've had a really bad day.

I took a nap this afternoon, but in truth, I was deceived. It wasn't a nap.

What I'm guessing, is ol' Nap got a bit tired of me using and abusing him for my own purposes, and decided to call in his big brother, Mr. Deep Sleep. And to put it into perspective, Mr. Deep Sleep is a bad-ass. Think along the lines of Mr. Deep-in-a-shark-infested-lagoon Sleep, and you're starting to get an idea.

So what ensued, was a vigorous struggle, punches flying, various insults made with various mothers' targetted, and so on. And it subsequently ended with ol' Nap smacking me over the back of the head with a sack full of pennies. Boom. Lights out. And to add humiliation to defeat, they tied me up, drugged me, and kidnapped me, using Mr. Deep Sleep's GMC van to drive me around.

It's 2am. I've been awake for a grand total of an hour. If I have one piece of advice to give to anyone right now, it's that sustained sleep deprivation will fuck you up. Guaranteed.

Thank goodness for that sleep.

Reading through one's blog archives is actually quite an eye-opening experience in that it gives you a close-on-complete picture of where you were and what your emotional state was at any given point during which you were blogging. It brings back memories you forgot, reminds you of experiences that were upsetting, but in retrospect, were incredibly humourous in a somewhat ironic fashion.

For me, I get to see how I've gone from being sarcastic, cynical, and somewhat tongue-in-cheek in my blog posts, to a somewhat less bitter manner of summing up my emotions and thoughts. What I find hilarious though, is that I wrote about relationships in a rather bitter fashion, yet almost two years down the line, find myself examining those viewpoints in an objective fashion, and agreeing with some of the more mild ideas I had in mind.

The fact of the matter is, we all have so many ways in which we can still push ourselves to mature. If someone claims to be completely mature, they're blinded by arrogance. Anyone who truly examines themselves in an objective fashion will understand that they have ways in which they can better themselves as people. I expect to feel that exact way when I'm lying on my death bed one day.

Nobody is devoid of character flaws. They're what make us unique, and our individual flavours of personality are what make life interesting.

From Wednesday onwards, life is just going to get absolutely hectic. That's when university starts, and given that I've got to juggle work and varsity simultaneously, it should be somewhat tough, in a good sort of way.

I spent eight hours at RAU yesterday trying to register. They chased me around like a fool, regarding course modules I dropped. So ultimately, what ended up happening was by the time I got one piece of yellow paper with a certain person's signature on, it was too late to register me, because my faculty dean had left. I'd say yesterday taught me to make the most of a ridiculous situation, but I'm not going to comment on that here.

One good sign though, was that I was fairly calm about it. As calm as any man that only woke up at six in the morning, having gotten only fours hours of sleep, could have been. Fact is, they wasted my entire day yesterday, and today I need to go back for more of the same, but I'm not really too fussed. Just as long as I do actually get registered. And while this may not seem an amazing feat in itself, given that I know how I would've reacted at the start of this year, it's a definite improvement for me.

As it stands, over the past month, I've kicked sleeping pills, headache pills, and caffeine. I'm feeling quite chuffed with myself.

Since my last post, I've had more than my fair share of women issues, but I can't honestly be fussed to discuss them. Ironically, I've gone from being shafted because women perceived me as gay, to being shafted because women perceive me as a player. Life sucks like that.

Then you get women that claim to have no physical attraction to you, yet don't trust themselves around you. Women are like waves in that they're totally unpredictable.

At the start of the month, I was in a really ridiculous state. Never before had I been so irritable, so angry, and never before had I felt so physically unwell. It was a combination of the drugs I was on. The sleeping pills meant I wasn't getting any natural sleep, and as such, they caused headaches. That led to me taking an excess of headache pills. As for caffeine, it was what gave me the boost I needed to function without natural sleep. That wonderful pill concoction I'd become so dependant on drove me to total irritability, such that I even threatened to castrate various friends of mine if they interrupted the two week break I planned to take.

And now, after that break, I'm feeling way better. I've discovered a new level of self-control. Over and above that, I feel infinitely healthier. Over the course of the past two weeks, I've had a chance to view everything in my life, and make changes accordingly.

Life is better. Much better.

There's something odd about this period between Christmas and New Year's eve for me. It has always been a period of reflection, one of introspection, total self-evaluation. What basically ends up happening, irrespective of whether I mentally prompt it or not, is that I undergo an introspective epiphany of sorts.

I summarise my actions, be they good or bad, and attempt to gauge just how much I've grown. Moreover, I evaluate just how much of what I went through led to regrets on my part. Quite frankly, even though I felt 2004 to be somewhat of a crappy year, I can honestly only think of two things which I truly regret and had control over. Not a bad track record, in my opinion.

There are a few minor things in my life that I want resolved. I need to come off some of the medication I'm on. I'm having recurring headaches, and I'm wondering if it's not because I've perhaps reached a point where my system needs an infusion of paracetemol. Whatever the case, though, I'm cutting those out, cold turkey, as I write this. Next step: sleeping pills.

And thereafter, maybe caffeine... although I'll probably end up turning back to that come my next set of exams.

If you were expecting words of wisdom in this blog post, prepare to be disappointed: It's 4:30am on a Wednesday morning. To elaborate, I've just gotten back from a heavy clubbing session, where I proceeded to order a fuckton of drinks since they were two for the price of one. No true Afrikaaner could resist, really. The jury is still out on if I should've driven home or not, but considering the reasonably coherent thought I'm putting together here, I could've obviously been in a far worse state.

"What's happened in the past month?", you might ask? Well, far be it from me to withhold details about my life. I'm an open book for any potential psychologist to happily use as a case study, should they feel so inclined.

Throughout the past month, I've been working, I've had my heart ripped to shreds by a female, I've gotten my ear pierced, and I've been out partying hard. Nothing that isn't commonplace, really. The working, well, I've been setting up a small enterprise with a friend of mine, which isn't too interesting.

As for the heart being ripped out to shreds: Well, it isn't something that we don't all go through at some time or another. Granted, the woman left me for a fling with some fucktard that owns an, I'll quote, "Mercedes C270 Coupé class Kompressor, with black metallic paintwork, and a leather interior finish.". Beautiful, really. It all really turns into a growth experience for me, to be quite frank. It doesn't matter how mature you perceive a woman to be, she could potentially be totally materialistic. And yes, ladies, the same applies to how men perceive womens' physical attributes. Far be it from me to generalise on purely gender: Men are materialistic(superficial, if you'd prefer), and women are materialistic(perhaps also superficial if you so feel inclined). Such is life. Deal with it.

The ear piercing: Well, it's something I've been meaning to do for ages. When I go through what I'd term emotional pain, I tend to look to change various aspects of my life. Further than that, I can't explain the ear piercing better. I'd wanted to do it for ages, and my getting ditched for a car resulted in me going out and doing it for the hell of it.

As I currently write this, I've just completed installing Vampire: Bloodlines. So, as such, I'm gonig to let the completion of the install process mark the end of this blog. Until next time, hope you're keeping well.

Ciao.
Karlos