Veni Vidi Vici

His eyelids sprung open, however this time he did not panic. Sand or snow, black or white, blurry or clear, he was ready for whatever would be thrown at him next. He began to access his senses and could not help but let a smirk run across his finally relaxed face. It was not a desert or an arctic pole that he was laying in, but the comforting warmth of his bed and blankets. What felt like an eternity, was only two hours, for it had only been that long since he got into bed. He is only human, one, like any another, controlled by the ever consequential mind. He, she, you, all of them, and all of us have experienced turmoil. We all have our worries, but that is not the root of the problem.
The root of the problem is the trajectory of this notorious mind. We worry about the past and the future, but never about the present. Why is that? Why do we not worry about the time we are wasting, worrying? The answer to that lies in the eyes through which u see the world; what you identify as important, and worth worrying about. What is interesting about that is no matter the perspective you have of your world, it is without a doubt a selfish one. Why do we worry about our financial problems and not our neighbors'? Do I "deserve" to live a better life, or do I just "want "to? We are greedy, and it is because of that we are sad. We mourn, our dead relative or close friend; do we not want them to move on to a better place? Are we really mourning the fact that the person has died or the fact that "we" will not be able to see said person anymore? We face devastating anguish when we do not get what we want, no matter what it is, money, power, happiness, love, etc… Even when a friend has a successful relationship, we might feel envious. Does our selfishness know no boundaries?
Your selfishness is measured by your ability to mold your minds. You control your mind, and through it your emotions. The trick is to compare how good is coming out of everything in our lives. It's the same concept as value for money. Enduring pain for something you may not have is never the right thing to do. All you have to do is make a positive gesture, and if you're supposed to have it, it will come to you minus all the unnecessary pain and hard work.
However that is not what we do is it? No, instead we escape into our minds, falling in mental sand traps, facing confusion and unease, and trying to solve problems which exist only in our own minds. Sadly, we do not recognize that the way to escape the cruel reality that is our selfishness, is by teaching ourselves that happiness is not about having what we want, but wanting what we have.
We have concurred the world, yet we failed to concur ourselves.

A Gold Fish

The emptiness of the world around him bore a striking resemblance to the emptiness that lurked inside of him. Things started to fall into place. He knew all along that the wretched path he had taken would result in no less than disaster. The patterns around him were all too familiar. Yet, the only thing that he could think of was gold fish. Slowly, paranoia took hold of him. Had he turned into a fish? Could the transparent walls be the glass of which the aquarium was made? It certainly made more sense than not. The fluid paintings made sense once he took them to be people and furniture seen through his could-be fish eyes. Dazed from his interesting assumptions he was, that is until the long-expected chain of reason came back to him. How could he be in water when he was just embedded in the maw of the hungry earth? Not to mention that he had legs carrying his weight down a path of what felt like solid ground. The perplexity of his situation started eating at his nerves. He wanted answers and he wanted them now, so he started a one of a kind list. What I am he entitled it. An interesting concept, what was he? He was dead, he was saved, he was lost, he was a fish, he was a man, he was sad. Now, he cried. For love and hope, freedom and peace-peace of the mind, body, soul, and last but least the world- he cried. He cried for what felt like years on end. From fear and confusion, he cried. To God until his throat grew sore, he cried. Nowhere near ready to stop, he swallowed hard, then cried and cried some more. Desperate to contain himself, he lay on his side, grabbed his legs and rested his chin on his knees. His beard hung over his legs all the way down to his ankles. It seemed as though it had been many a year since he started crying. He dismissed the thought shortly after he had had it, in an attempt to clear his mind and calm himself. From there, he slowed his breathing and focused on his senses. The ground felt as soft as snow, and provided comfort ,with which he dozed off into the unknown that is his sub conscience, before he had a chance to interpret his other senses.

Transparent Walls and Fluid Paintings

Cold, dry air rushed into his lungs as he took a deep breath. It surprised him that the boreal air hadn’t frozen his lungs. The tips of his fingers were just as cold as the air he was breathing. As he progressed he looked at his surroundings, viewing walls that weren’t walls, and paintings that weren’t still. However spacious his surroundings appeared, he couldn’t help but feel confined. His feet felt not like his own. His arms swung at his sides. Whether they were swinging helplessly, he could not decide. Unlike his legs, his arms felt perfectly normal. Yet, he could not get himself to want to attempt moving them, no matter how hard he tried. Eventual adaptation to all which once was new to him, finally freed him to pondering his situation. Obviously he had been walking in the same direction ever since he started down the path. He tried to look back, but couldn’t get his neck to turn. The adaptation he had undertaken had slowed his reaction to the unnatural, and he thought "I guess there's no…" Just then, a twitch crawled up his spine and bit his brain with a loud crunch, only audible to his senses, "Turning back?" A boiling mass of emotion exploded through his stomach and burst past his neck. The sudden shock was overwhelming but nonetheless, he looked around and peered at the ground and into the distance. Shocked that there wasn’t any sand of any kind in sight, he almost over looked the fact there also was no ground but that which was under his feet.

Farther Than Knowledge, Closer Than Reality

Not sure how it happened, but the persistent occurrence of the unwanted had led him into quick sand and the harder he struggled to get free, the deeper he sank. Frantically he fought, and in anguish he cried, but in vain were his efforts for there was no around. Now torso deep in the sand and exhausted from all the pointless effort he'd exerted, he could not but stop to catch his breath. At last, he realized that there was nothing else he could do, so he gave into listening to the only sounds there were to be heard, the gradually decreasing pace of his rhythmic breathing, and the pouring sand around him. Scared as he was of his fate, being buried alive, he could not help but worry about having not blinked for the past minute or so. All the same, with almost all hope lost he shut his eyes tight. Two breaths and a sigh later, throwing away the last shred of hope he had left, he opened his eyes, and to his astonishment, looked down to see his legs that were equally thrilled to see him. He wiggled his toes, stretched his feet, and with a confused look on his face, he took his first couple of steps. Just then, an eerie feeling cast its grim shadow upon him.

The Itch

The mental peace provided by the last entry I wrote has been rudely disturbed. Glad as I am to have had such a long period of recession, I fear my addiction to the drug has gotten worse, and I have hit devastating mental turmoil. I find myself powerless, yet again, to knowing the reason for this turbulence, yet fueled by the confidence in the efficiency of writing as an outlet of feeling and thought, and a soother of minds. So, with thoughts over flowing and no idea where to start, doesn't seem relevant but to start with one question, who am I? Simple as this question appears to be, it feels as though I have to go through a whole lot of "back" to relieve this itch. Here goes.

Daily life forces me, as it does everyone else, to mingle with lots of different people. In order to fit in with these different groups, we have to understand how we must behave and speak, and follow the acquired pattern of behavior. That, however, is not to be confused with hypocrisy. I believe a hypocrite behaves in certain ways in order to achieve personal gain. As long as I'm behaving the way I am to escape falling into an awkward fix, then I'm not being a phony. All said in the hopes of retrieving that mental relief which I enjoyed for about a month, however it still feels a long way from reaching that devil of an inch, let alone relieve it.

I have no doubt we have to, and we do, acquire different behavior patterns which we must use in different social groups and situations. I've also come to realize that we are inevitably, subconsciously emotional; some elements of these patterns of behavior appeal to us. That dooms us to picking these elements up, and introducing them to "ourselves". So, when I'm being "myself", am I really being "myself" or am I being a merge of all the elements of the social behavior patterns, that appeal to me? How do I know when I'm being myself?

There's always more to everyone than what we see. The problem I'm facing is seeing beyond what appears. What is also surprising is how I never learn anything about myself, unless pointed out to me.

It seems that many years of social education have left me itching to know who I really am; a little at ease to have identified the problem, I still find myself disappointed of not achieving the peace I was hoping for. I know now that what I've come to interpret as being myself is behaving through patterns I've acquired. The problem remains, how I know which behavioral elements are my own, if any are, and how to pick them all out and build "myself". I guess the itch has always been in my reach, but I over looked the fact that I don't know how to relieve this one in particular.

Told As Viewed

It is normal for a teenager to have no sense of belonging. It's a quest that everyone takes on at some point in their adolescent lives. Finding this sense is effortless for some, but it's not exactly a drink of water for most others. It's disturbing how the incorporation of emotion and thought can lead to tragic acts.

Teen suicide has increased a lot lately, so much so that it has become one of the major causes of death in Canada. So, what relevance does that have to me? Suicide is ridiculous to me. If you already know me, then you know that I have a strong belief in logic and common sense. I know how strong emotion can be and what it can do to a person's psychological state. However, I also believe that the mind conquers all. How so?

I can not remember the last time I cried -which is sad- but I do remember how I stopped it. In addition, I never accept anything as true without having any evidence to its accuracy. Therefore, I do not expect anyone to take my word for anything. All of which leads back to my previous point, the mind conquers all. People cry upon encountering emotional turmoil. The argument, emotion, the rebuttal, the mind. When I cried, I always ended up going up to a mirror, looking at myself, and saying "I wonder what would happen if I smile…SMILE! " and I would smile. I like to believe that it was my mind that stepped up and destroyed the emotional arsenal. But who knows? Maybe I just have ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), though my cousin, Karim, who always makes sense, thinks it's most unlikely that I do, and i agree.

Upon writing what you've read so far, I managed to baffle myself. That happened as I thought of you, my audience. I think that even though this is supposed to be an outlet of mine, I crave for leaving my audience dumbfounded. That's why I wondered what my audience would be thinking as they get to this point. Or maybe I just have ADD. I figured my audience would wonder, "if the mind conquers all, then how come our emotions play a huge role in the determining our mood, and the decisions we make?"

A feeling is an opinion or belief, not based on reasoning. It is triggered by emotion; a chain reaction which could block out the mind. With that being said, the absence of the mind does not qualify as the mind being conquered, rather its being a spectator. The mind can only conquer itself. When the mind decides to ignore itself, emotion takes hold of the situation. It is up to you to allow your mind to react.

I have made it my mission to help you, my audience, learn from my mistakes, in hopes that you yourself do not have to deal what I have; skip right to the, moral, if you will. So, what I have learned is that emotion tends to distort the mind, and sabotage logic. If ever you find yourself in a state of intense emotional agitation, you must write. Grab a pen and a pad, and write down anything, a letter for instance. Once you're done writing it, put it aside, sleep on it, not literally of course, and read it the next day. By then, you aren’t drunk with emotion, and your mind would have the chance to retaliate to whatever event took place.

I picked this method up from my uncle, who in turn picked it up from a friend of his. It always worked for her, as it did for me. We can only hope it to work for others just as well.

It sounds logical enough, maybe that's why it worked for both her and me…

Or maybe we just both have ADD…

The Drug

Sitting down to write this was not a decision that I made. The decision was made for me. It's sad I think, that in order to be able to sit down and write something that is significant, I must be feeling like I am right now. This intense emotional agitation that takes away sleep, and puts…let's just say "ideas" in my head, could also drive me to write something which I believe would inspire. I would like to share what I've learned and hope it will reach someone. I'm not saying I have a clue what to do, but I am hoping that by organizing my thoughts I would have at least some idea on how to react.

Addiction, I never believed in it. I think I underestimated its abilities. Fighting or avoiding addiction is not as easy as you might think. It is a very cunning foe. I used to think addiction was limited to drugs, and you probably guessed by now that I believe other wise. Drugs by definition are anything that changes or enhances the way you feel. Drugs can be helpful. Alcohol for example, from what I've read, can wash the pain away for a certain period of time. After that, the pain is back, so is the alcohol, and so an addiction begins to take shape. I believe that almost all drugs are harmless, unless used wrong. Then again, it all comes down to what your definition of a drug is.

People wonder about love. I have thought about it a lot. People often ask, "What is love to you?" with "Facebook" as a reference, here's what you guys think love is:

· love is the most beautiful thing in the world
· love is great
· Don't believe in it
· Love is just a beautiful thing, but it hurts too…
· If love dies I die
· A pain in the ass!
· When you feel cold and your heart beats 10000 times per minute

Sounds just about right don't it? Some have faith in what they believe is love. Others do not believe in love to start with.
I've been asked that question a few times before, and my answer was basically similar to everyone else's answer, but that was before I found out what I truly believe love is. Brace yourselves…

Love is a drug. First of all, it is addictive. I don’t believe anything is more addictive than love.
Though you have to realize it's different than most other drugs in the sense that once you take the first taste, you're stuck forever. There's no rehab for love. The lucky ones are the ones who hold out on it until they reach "The age". Let's face it, no matter how much you believe that you can find love at teenage and that it would last forever, it's just not going to happen. It only does in a few cases, and it kills you when you find out you are not one of them. But by the time you find that out, you’re already addicted to it, and you won't stop until you find it. You go from one relationship to the next, every time with hopes that this one is it, only to be disappointed time and time again.

I guess I'm writing this because I'm tired of looking around me, and seeing all these amazing people brought down by love. I can tell you that you don't need to do this, because I know how it feels, and I know it's not exactly something that you can bounce out of. The bad news is, people are going to hurt you, and you are going to hurt people no matter how hard you try not to.
So my advice would be this, since you are going to go through with love anyway, it's not like you have a choice, do not take a relationship, from a dating situation to a real relationship, unless it is absolutely perfect. I think everything that feels interesting should be given a chance. Even though most of it won't work out, you can always end it as soon as u feel its not right, and you will improve your knowledge of "the drug".

But hey…I guess that goes back down to your definition of perfect.

Take care of yourselves, just like I'm going to take care of mine.