wildseven

I promised epic and i'm planning on delivering! This is the start of THE blog. At the minute i'm 100% certain that this is my plan! My final, definite course of action. This is the blog explaining everything i've been trying to find for the past while. I think this may even be my life. My existence. What i've been searching for my whole life. The type of life changing decision that i've heard about but never understood. A defining point in my life. It hit me today during my first exam. For the past while i've done no work for college. The mere thought of doing college work has sapped me of all my energy. Cast a large shadow over my entire life. Caused a lot of the visits to the terrible places i've been recently. I've finally figured why that is and exactly how it's made me feel. So i've made a giant leap. Today was my last day of education. I will never sit another exam. I will never sit through anything i don't like. Never again.

Today was my first exam of the first semester of third year, in my new Math-Physics degree. For the past few weeks i've been falling behind in every aspect of college work. I've had no strength to muster up for the necessary work. Earlier today i attended my sister's graduation. Her reception of her MA in Anglo-Irish Literature. She was top of her class and i couldn't be prouder of her. She stood up in front of all of her peers, and her Masters Degree was conferred on her. She's the first person in my family's history to complete a Masters. This was at 2pm earlier today (Monday, seeing as this blog will take a while to complete) and my exam was scheduled for 6pm the same day. The whole ceremony i had something on my mind. I kept thinking about this ceremony and the fact that if i graduated, i would have to go through this same thing. I couldn't picture it. I couldn't picture myself among all these people. The pomp, the procession of the grand intelligencia of the university, the dignified robes and Latin speeches. It all seemed alien to me. I knew, deep down, that this wasn't me. I couldn't picture any of this applying to me. I'm not taking anything away from my sister, or anyone else who has, or has had, the drive and steadfast determination to complete a degree. Anyone who has completed this feat, or has every intention of doing it has my utmost respect. But this is not for me. I know that now. This was never me. Never was and never will be.

This leads into my major revelation. The whole lead up to my exam i didn't have any qualms or any doubts about the exam. Before it i bought a bottle of Diet Coke, two fresh pens, and i notebook i thought looked cool. That's all i did. I wasn't even sure which exam i had. I had done no work for it. Hadn't handed up any in-class worksheets. But i waltzed into the hall without a care in the world. I received the paper, and, understandably, i hadn't a clue how to answer any one of the five questions, let alone three. And still, i wasn't fazed. I still had a numb, serene glaze. No panic. Every other exam i've had, it's been a tough race to finish. Writing as fast as i can til all my time ran out. The last exam i took was in April, the last exam of second year. That time, i was pushed til the very end. And i was relieved they were all over.

My last exam was a few months before i joined SG, and there have been several drastic changes since then. Personal, social and everything in between. I've lost a few people i know very well. I lost a close friend i've known since i was 7. We both have the same condition, except he wasn't as fortunate. As well as him, another few people i know have died. Who have been younger than me, around my younger brother's age, and this just really got to me. The past few months my life has been in constant flux. I've strived to break free of the mould i've been in for the past five years. The mould of isolation, loneliness, and unflinching focus on either my studies or computer games. I neglected all my relationships. Forgot how to have fun. Forgot how to interact with people. Tried to forget about my life and every possibility i had. It's taken me a long time to reach the point i'm at now, and it just spontaneously clicked during my exam earlier.

I've decided to throw in the towel. I'm giving up on college. I'm thinking of this as my retirement. My retirement from my old life. I'm not going back to education ever again. I've realised now what the most important thing in my life is. Or what it will be. From here on i'm doing what i want to do. What i think will make me feel the way i want. Before now i've felt a pressure to work hard, buckle down and achieve. Most of this pressure has come from me personally, i'm not casting any blame here. My parents have been nothing but supportive of me my entire life. They've pushed me when i needed pushing, but i think the time has come for me to step out and do it myself. Decide where i want to be pushed, and how hard.

I know this probably sounds like the craziest idea in the world, but i don't want any more stress, anxiety, personal pressure. I'm throwing away the past two years i've spent in college. But i'm willing to do that. I'm willing to throw it all away, just to give myself a break. That's how big a deal this is to me. I really think i've made a fundamental breakthrough here. I've accepted the hand i've been dealt and i'm willing to forsake academia. My family are going to think i've lost the plot. I imagine there are going to be a lot of harsh, but well meaning, discussions about it. I'm willing to shoulder all that, to live the way i want.

In my exam yesterday (Monday), i received my paper. 5 questions. Pick 3. I read through them quietly, calmly and opened my answer booklet. I checked the questions again, and just stopped. Wrote the number 1 in the top corner and stopped. I couldn't answer the questions. I drew a blank. The only thoughts running through my head were:

Fairies wear boots and you've got to believe me. I saw it, i saw it, with my own two eyes.

That was it. And i felt like drawing. So i wrote out those lyrics. Wrote out the first verse of The Raven, by Poe.

Once upon a midnight dreary, as i pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious, volume of forgotten lore
When i nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
'Tis a visitor', i muttered, 'Rapping at my chamber door'
'Only this and nothing more'

Drew a picture of a skull. Drew how the music in my head made me feel. Converted my thoughts into something i liked. Something i was happy with. And i just smiled.that was all i did. The rules said that i had to wait an hour before i could leave. So i waited. Once an hour was up i just said i wanted to leave. And that i wasn't handing anything up. That was it. Scribbled out what i'd written while the examiner went to check with the coordinator about what to do in situations like this. I just looked around the room i was in. Candlemass lyrics popped into my head, so i wrote them down.

Sitting here alone in darkness, waiting to be free-ee-hee.
Lonely and forlon, i am crying.
Waiting for my time to die, death brings new li-hi-hife
Please let me die in solitude...

Intermission 1:



Did i mention that this was a Computational Science exam. The examiner came back and asked me to come outside. For the past two years it's been pretty much the same 4 or 5 examiners, and two of them asked to talk to me. So i obliged. They asked what was wrong. But i was just grinning. I'm sure i looked like a right crackpot, but i don't care. I just explained that i couldn't do it. No particular reason. I just didn't feel like it. They had seen me working frantically for every other exam. Never finishing early. Kept writing til the last minute. They said it was completely out of character and i agreed. But i think that's changed. I think my character is different to what it was last April. I think all the things i've been through, and all the things i've done have really changed who i am. I'm not the same person i was back then. In all the chasms that i've visited during the past few months, i've been collecting dirt along the way. I've accumulated more and more dirt as i've gone. Throughout all my depressive periods i've been digging deeper. Going further down. Taking back more dirt than the last time. My personality's clothes were caked in it. Every time i dug deeper i brought back more dirt that affected my everyday life. I've realised now, that during all that excavation, that i've found the jewel i've been looking for. Ok, i thought of a better way of explaining it. The change in personality, the change in character. My old personality is lead. My new personality is gold. I've found my Philosopher's Stone. The magical object needed to get rid of my old, unsatisfying, lead life, and transmute it into the gold one i've been looking for.

So that's the gist of it. I'm giving up. Throwing in the towel. From now on i'm only going to do what makes me happy. I'm retiring.

I'm giving up on academia. I'm friends with some lecturers in college, so i might head in to tell them what i'm doing. The lack of a social life in college should make the change easier than it could have been. I don't believe in fate, destiny or divine prophecy, but something about this decision seems right. Just something, deep down, feels fundamentally right. Like the Rose. The choir of a thousand voices, ringing out as one. This is how it feels. This is the only way i know of expressing my feelings. I haven't read any deep texts. I haven't studied life, or philosophy or anything other than physics. The books i've read have been commercial, sci-fi, japanese love stories about quirky events or graphic novels. I don't have a wide range of literary quotes to emphasise and express my feelings. I'm expressing things the way i can. It may be quoting Stephen King's Dark Tower, but it means a lot to me. If i hadn't read it i wouldn't be able to properly verbalise how i'm feeling right now. I don't really care anymore. I don't care if my sister says that her philosophy books are more important. I'm focusing on myself from now on. I'm focusing on reading and experiencing the things i want, the way i want. I don't care if people see the things i'm doing as trivial, because it means something TO ME.

Intermission 2:


And that's the main point. I want to find out more about myself. By doing what i want. By not striving for a degree that i don't really want. I don't have the energy anymore. My reserves have run dry. The energy is still there, just in a different form. It's been changed from hydroelectric power to nuclear power. I don't know if that makes sense. The steady energy flow i've been channeling into my studies has changed. I now have an explosive need to express myself. To feel what my physical body can't. To express what my mind can't express. To create. To draw. To write. To compose letters to people i might not ever meet. To write Black Sabbath lyrics out. To write non-sensical stories about two people. To close my eyes while i listen to music and feel. Put my pen to paper and just move my hand the way the music tells me to. Ignore conscious thought and just DO. That's the only word that can properly describe it. Do what i feel. Feel what i sense. Expand my mind.

Enhance the life i'm leading, by being who i am. What is thought? Can thought be visualised? I know thoughts are the motion of neurons in the brain, but that's not what i'm saying. What does thought mean to me? Does thinking about thought change the nature of thought? Like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Velocity and position can never be known, simultaneously, for certain. There is always a fuzziness with quantum mechanics. Probabilities instead of certainties. Is it the same with thought? Can thought be pictured as a probability wave? Does thinking about thought change the fundamental notion of thought? This probably makes very little sense, but i'm writing what i'm thinking at this moment. The honest workings of my brain. And i'm not going to ignore it either.

Intermission 3:


I listened to what i felt last night. I felt, with all my existence that i had to make a decision. There and then. I made a decision to throw it all away. Instead of the exam questions, i wrote a mixed bundle of song lyrics, poetry and vaguely artistic scrawlings. Because i wanted to. I'm still the same person, but i'm not. My character has changed, but it hasn't. I've realised several things. I've accepted my mortality. If i don't make a decision now, will i ever have the fortitude to do it again? I don't think so. I think this is the only chance i have, so i'm doing it. Yes i worked hard for two years in college. And yes i worked hard for several years before that. But i'm willing to forsake it all, because this is what i want to do. I'm willing to quit working, because i feel i'm done with it. I want to enjoy the remaining time i have. Think of this as a mid-life crisis. A fundamental shift in my brain. The physical realisation of what i've been struggling with the past few years. The physical decision to drop it all and pursue my remaining ember of creativity. If possible rekindle the flame it once was.

The time i spent in hospital. The events that left me out of commision, psychologically, made me forget. Made me forget the creativity i have within. Made my creativity fade to a dull spark of what it once was. Maybe it's too late. Maybe i've come to my senses to late to reclaim myself. But i'm willing to do it now. I'm willing to drop everything and feel. Feel what i want. What i need. I think this is my final chance. If i hadn't written what i wanted last night, i'm positive my last creative ember would have been extinguished. I thought of a new analogy. Imagine my creative self as a candle, inside a sealed container. Over the years, the sealed container has been filling up with CO2, slowly but surely dimming the candle's flame. The flame fell lower and lower, dimmer and dimmer, until last night. Last night i tore the container away. The CO2 choking the flame has disappated, and oxygen has flooded in to take it's place. It's a slow process, but i think that my flame will eventually come back.

Intermission 4:


When i was younger i was praised for my creative writing. My primary school teacher loaned me her personal copy of Lord of the Rings, because she thought i should read it. That i'd like it. I remembered this last night. Ms Day had loaned her personal, hardback compendium of all three books to a 10 year old boy. Does that not mean something? Maybe she saw something in me that i've forgotten. Something i realised but can't remember? Maybe it's something i haven't found out how to tap in to. Hell, i don't know. Maybe it's a delusion i've put myself under because i'm really a lazy bastard. Doubts are running through my head, of course. This is a momentous step for me. I'm defying all logic, reason and common sense. On the off chance that i might find happiness. It's a big risk, but it's my risk to take. I reckon i have 10 good years left. At best. So i'm deciding now, to retire.

This is a step normally taken by people when they reach 65. For a lot of people it's forced on them. By the time they reach retirement age they still don't want to give up work. I'm taking the initiative. I'm making up my mind to do what i really, really feel is right. What i feel is necessary. I know this won't fix the problems i have. I know it's not going to get rid of the dark moments, the depression. It would be folly to think it would. But i think relying on how i feel is the way forward. I'd much rather spend my time listening to music and drawing a nonsense design than pore through a textbook. I'd much rather play computer games and read Stephen King than make myself learn Differential Geometry. Going to those classes, going to those exams has changed. They haven't changed, but i have. Not really changed, just... i'm not sure how to describe it.

Intermission 5:



The way i think, is different to the way it was. And i only realised this, concretely, when i tried to start my exam. One of the ways i think of it is this. The stick that was my thought method has snapped. But it hasn't broken. I don't know when this happened. Sometime in the past three months i reached rock bottom. I reached the bottom of my seemingly neverending well. And shattered into a million pieces. It's sort of like the ending of Terminator 2. The liquid metal that made up my personality, that made up the constantly changing facade i maintained, has almost reached a stable equilibrium. My psychological version of Arnie has frozen my T1000 of a personality, with a tanker of liquid nitrogen. And shattered it using a 9mm. The pieces fell to the ground, not picking themselves up. But this first exam has turned out to be my vat of molten lead. The shattered pieces are thawing. Returning to liquid and reforming. Reforming into an entirely new shape.

Have you seen this boy? (holds up photo)"

I know that any scholars who read that last paragraph will be quivering with rage right now! Comparing my perception of psychology to a cheesy (but amazing) sci-fi film. But that's what i'm doing. I'm thinking of things they way i want. Relating my feelings to things i enjoy and appreciate. Regardless of how it might be perceived. Without putting pressure on myself. I don't want that anymore. I don't want to feel like i have felt the past little while. I'm sick of it. I want it to end and i think this is the way to make it happen. I know very well that after i post this blog i'll tumble into a downslope again. And because of how big this revelation is for me, personally, i know it's going to be a bad one. Might not happen today, or tomorrow, but that's how my brain works. Or at least i think it is. For making these personal revelations there has to be an equal and opposite action. I know that, but i still think this is the way forward. I'm just letting the stress go.

I have no experience with this. I have no experience outside academia. It's the structure my life has been based around for as long as i can remember, and i think it's time i moved past it. It's time for a change. I still maintain all the same interests as before. I'm still the same person, same terrible sense of humour. Same nervous as fuck at the prospect of talking to people, but i'm seeing it from a different angle right now. I think i'm finally started using the other side of my brain. The artistic, self-expressive side. I don't know when this sudden change happened. Have you ever tried to consciously analyze the progress of your thoughts? Determine, retroactively, when you stopped thinking a certain way? Cos i sure as hell can't. And i don't expect to any time soon. It's not important though. I want to explore my newly opened brain.

Intermission 6:


I think i shut off different parts of my brain over the years. Like a newly partitioned hard drive, i started from scratch, but divided. The exact same shell, just with each part segregated from the other. Rebuilt myself after missing a chunk of my teens, but in a flawed way. The mould had a crack in it. A crack that i didn't realise had occured until it had been baked through. I hadn't realised it until i really analyzed my self and my life. Until the less of several people woke me up again. I really wish they were still here, but i know that's not going to happen. They're gone and there's no point in hoping and wishing for a better life. I have to make myself happy. I have to choose for myself. I have to consciously choose my path in life. And it's not in education. That's the wrong direction. I know that now.

The next question. What the hell am i going to do? I don't know. For the time being i just want to think. I want to do feelings. If you know what i mean. I want to do how i feel. Draw (even though i'm shite at drawing), listen to music, talk to friends, watch films, play computer games, read comics, read sci-fi, watch television, drink the odd time, appreciate things, and how things affect me. I know that that's important now. And, hell. I might even experiment beyond thought. The only mind altering substances i've ever taken have been anti-depressants, alcohol or caffeine. I haven't wanted to explore myself before. The recesses of my brain and the conclusions i can draw. About life, the universe, and everything in it.

Another thing (i'm almost done, honest ) i've discovered is regarding my sleeping habits. Last saturday i decided to pull an all-nighter again. I stayed up for 38 hours. And by the end of it, i was happy. I was feeling the twinges of creativity again. And i was afraid to fall asleep. I was genuinely afraid that the new places my brain had reached were going to vanish overnight. And to a certain extent they did. Monday morning, when i woke up, my brain was foggy. I had a vague recollection of feeling the urge to write, but it left me. I was starting to fall down again. Deeper.

But during my sister's graduation, i heard one of her Professors giving a speech. He was talking about the importance of education. He's a well-known Joycean scholar. Intelligent, articulate, funny. And something in his speech jogged my brain. I could remember some of my sleepless two days. Like a spotlight, the creative part of my brain was relit. He said:

Life, for some people, is about education. I myself am a product of a successful exam career, but life doesn't depend on formal education. The university is a place, not for learning, but for collaboration. Discussion, interaction.

It was along those lines anyway. I felt like a small weight had been lifted, but the exam was still ahead. And it all left me in the exams. That was the catalyst to start the reaction. I completely threw my first exam. And i couldn't stop smiling. I just want to be artistic from now on. Do what makes me feel relaxed, happy. I've noticed a decline in my competitive nature. I don't want to annoy anyone, i just want to have good times. Visit the people i've come to call friends. Further develop my existing relationships and make as many as i can. Spend the money i have saved. Do things i haven't done. And just forget about the bad stuff.

Already i can feel the cloud rearing it's ugly head. But it's ok. I'm going to write and draw and forget about the stress i've been through. Relax and retire from the stuff i don't like. Enjoy what i have. Trivial, enjoyable frivolity, i know, but what i like. And a lot of it will involve this site. I'm not gonna lie.

"I'm waiting for my real life to begin"

What i see as enjoyment, what allows me to discover myself. And fuck the rest. Love is the ideal consequence, but i'm ok with that not happening. Closeness of any kind would be a bonus, a huge bonus, but enjoyment is the name of the game. I don't know if this is the exact definition of hedonism, but i don't really care. Call it what you will, i'm calling it life.