Rides for grownups and overpriced donuts

It's just two weeks and three days remaining until September begins again, and I will try to challenge myself to write a blogpost every day for the remaining days of August. Here's the cipher... and the plaintext.

Just a couple of days ago, I went to the Saskatoon Exhibition, a yearly 5-day event in August where the Prairieland Park is filled with shops and food stores and midway rides. I wasted $103 on a Friday, and because this is the fifth year in which I have went, I got pretty tired of all the rides.

It's way more colourful at night.

One of the rides I went to was something called the Alpine Bobs. It was a staple of the midway: swinging cars going up and down a circular track at high speed. I could close my eyes and imagine that this is what the Olympic bobsledders feel, except that this ride, it's got more bumps.

At the time, I was thinking about how stupid I was to spend such a ridiculous amount of money on rides that I pretty much went on for the past four years, and how I dared to go here despite the fact that school is fast approaching and I should save more money for books and other grown-up stuff.

So I started to philosophize.

I was making life metaphors while on this ride.

I was on the ride, and as it whoozed me across the alpine bob track, going up and down and around and around as it throws centripetal forces against my body, I tried my hardest to avoid bumping into the hard plastic chassis of the car I am in. I was struggling against it, trying hard not to hit myself against any hard surface, until I just stopped, and let go.

I let myself be taken for the ride, bracing for the hard turns and the violent motions of the ride. And surprisingly, it wasn't that bad. 

It got me thinking: if only I also just went with all the violent motions and sudden sharp turns that my life right now is throwing at me, that I stop resisting and just sail through all these... turbulence, it wouldn't be as violent and harmful as I originally thought them to be.

Because from the queue line, the ride seems harsh and cruel and unforgiving. It is once you step on the ride that you realize... how fun it actually is. Eventually, a teenage girl's horrified screams of nervousness and terror eventually becomes peals of laughter and enjoyment. Because that's pretty much how the ride, much like life, is supposed to be taken: horrifying, but when you look back at it, you'll smile and think, "I can't believe I just survived all that!"

And of course the rapid motions and sudden turns are necessary, to make a ride more exciting. Who wants to go on a ride that just moves you back and forth? It's gotta have to thrash around, it's gotta have to drop you from a hundred feet, it's gotta whirl and tilt and spin and swing to make it a ride worth 6 tickets, of course.

Similarly, who wants to live a life that's just humdrum and drudgery? It's gotta have panache, of course. it's gotta have risk and love and friendship and heartbreak and betrayal and success to make a life worth living. 

And no matter how violent the ride is, when it's all over, you'll look back... at all the memories, all the hurt, all the thrashing and whirling and spinning and tilting that you've experienced so far, and you'll smile. Because you've survived all that, and you're ready to survive a lot more.

So then you go to the next queue line, and when it's your turn, you buckle up... and enjoy the ride.

The conundrum of connection

After watching a video about social media killing social connections, I have realized quite a couple of things. Here's the cipher.

We are living in the Internet age: the era of mobile technology, immersive video games, and ever-changing
status updates on our social media profiles. We see and experience life like we have never experienced before: literal gigabytes of information that can be accessed by a quick click of the Search button. The average modern smartphone is more powerful than the entire console used to send a man to the moon.

I think the internet makes it harder for
us to be happy.

But, I acquiesce, that this ease of information we have is the reason why people are feeling more and more lonely every day. I think it is because they see the entire world and then look scornfully at themselves in their current state. Whoever haven't browsed profiles at a dating website, and asked themselves, "Why do all the attractive people have to be so far away from me?"

This desire to be in close proximity with attractive people leads to a feeling of loneliness, a creeping sense of depression, a persistent thought that everyone in their city is unattractive compared to the supermodels and pop stars and swooners who live hundreds of miles away.

However, this global view of the world blinds the person's eyes to the personal connections he makes. He does not see the attractive lady sitting on a park bench, the adorable puppy who gleefully fetches a thrown stick, the supportive friends he goes out with on a weekend night. He fails to savor these little moments that should build him up and instead longs for the caress of the "perfect one": he so much aspires to get to Oz without stopping to admire the majesty of the yellow road he's travelling on.

He looks at the majestic stars through a telescope but he does not see the chair holding him up.

The person should then realize that he is not alone in the world: he is just alone on the internet.

The megaphone

Sometimes when I write a post in this blog, it feels as if I'm talking to no one. That I'm just a small squeak amongst the thundering voices around me.

It's red. I like red.

Sometimes I miss the activity. The buzz of comments around my posts, the countless eyes that read my thoughts and my cryptic messages. I was quite the popular kid when I was in elementary, so I took this for granted. Because everyone had their eyes on me. Because in the same school where I studied, my mom was a teacher. Because I was favored, studied, liked, investigated. Every move I make is observed.

The attention was all mine.

And now, here I am, writing to a blog that anyone barely notices. Like in the real world, my voice is a dot in the myriad dots that punctuate the internet. A small contributor to the vast knowledge of society, the massive archive of human thoughs and feelings, all within the bits and bytes of the digital world.

But maybe then I liked the solace. Maybe, I liked how only I can read my blogs, that it just serves as a personal archive of my own thoughts, unblemished by the pressure of pleasing my audience everytime I click Publish. That in my own little space on the internet, I could be me.

Then I shrug all these thoughts, and think, Whether my blog is popular or not, I still have trouble expressing my feelings plain and bare on the internet, anyway. That I still hide my thoughts in cryptic forms, that I still take pleasure in bewildering my readers so as for them not to have an actual glimpse of what I'm talking about.

Cucumbers.

Good luck finding the meaning behind that. In the end, it doesn't matter how popular or unpopular I am, it's whether or not I trust anyone with my thoughts that matter.

Pizza. 

Unspoken words and inducted thoughts

Many have I written blogposts that touch a specific topic so personal I feel that writing them is an invasion of my personal space. If my drafts folder ever get published, you'd view me as a different person.

I mean, this blog *is* meant to be personal, it's just that some things I want to talk about are not really the stuff you would like to say to a random stranger across the street. Just think of it this way: would you just go up to a random passerby and interject, "I'm going commando today!"? I don't think so.

But then, I'm not implying that my personal, most private thoughts consist of my preference for wearing underwear, or lack thereof, but it just goes to show that I need someone to tell stuff to, without prejudice or any other judgment. A confidant. A breathing journal. And probably, a friend.

I have written posts about trust and love and freedom and independence, but they never see the light of day. Probably I was playing the role of the cryptic connoisseur a bit too much, probably my real intentions are muddled up in a sea of confusing lexicon that nobody would understand. But then again, nobody *would* understand. I'm a Scorpio, the most secretive, most misunderstood sign of the zodiac.

I was once punished for my own honesty. Writing my thoughts down led me into serious trouble, something that reminded me of pain and crying and all that desperation. Then I vowed never to write my emotions again: that never would I ever put my feelings down on a piece of paper where everyone could read it. I must lock up all my feelings in my mind, compose long blog posts in the recesses of my consciousness, where only I could read.

I have stories I dare not tell anyone. Not publicly, at least. I think it's justified for me to think that everybody has one: that one fact about them that they don't want just about anyone to know. Like a vegetarian who adores bacon, or a football player who longs for the loving comfort of a gentle woman. Unlike others, though, I don't have anyone to share it with. But probably I didn't need one anyway.

If only opening the lock was this easy.

But maybe I *do* have someone, I just don't trust them enough. Probably, somewhere out there, one of the people I know are having the exact same thoughts as I do, just waiting for someone like me to trust them with all of their spirit. An unbreakable friendship. Where you tell someone that one thing that will destroy you and trust them not to use it against you.

I don't think I'm even making a persuasive blogpost here. I just wanted to write what I feel about things, which is not my forte, because coming from a scientific background, I always write something with a conclusion. Not all this sappy boo-hooing shit you're reading right now. Is it ever so wrong for me not to just tell anyone how my day went and not go delving into waist-deep philosophical ramblings about life? Probably not.

I guess being cryptic has its disadvantages after all. By hiding my emotions, my real intentions, in the comforting illusion of deception, I shut myself out to the world. Then I go like this, complaining how no one understands me. It's probably my fault then, being so shut out to the people who want to reach out their hands to me, to offer their listening ear to my stories, because maybe, just maybe, one of the people I know sees me as an infinitely interesting person, one whose stories never get stale.

Something nags at me and tells me I might be right. Maybe it's time to break the lock. It might be weird, but I'll try. At least if this blog doesn't work, I hope I have someone to tell it to. I don't say "find" someone because I may have found him/her and not just realized it, but still.

Here's to hopefully getting my trust in the world back again.

Coke slushies

One thing you can say about me: I'm a sucker for Coke slushies.

You know how you can mix everything up in the Slurpee machine just so you have a wicked cool-looking fucking Slurpee? Not for me. I'd run to the Coke dispenser and fucking fill my cup with it. No, no Slurpee art with double straws for me. Just plain Coke. Not even Pepsi either. But that's a different story.

My friends go, "You're boring." and I just reply with an apathetic "You don't have my tongue. Fuck off." I like to keep things as simple as possible. If it can be shortened, it will be shortened. That's why I write small, I'm trying to conserve paper. Trees are a valuable natural resource, you know.

They deserve more treatment (idk, maybe like cleaning the air we breathe) than being transformed into paper that you wipe your ass with.

And with that, it kinda makes me sad today. I feel... alone. I try to bypass it by reading about the ramblings of idiots posting in Facebook groups, or the crazy stupid banter of a message board. I looked into my Tumblr profile, played hopscotch with the janitor, watched 2 episodes of my TV show, but something still feels incomplete.

Sometimes being so simple can be so sad. Sometimes... I wish my life would have a shitload of colors, a fucking rainbow of memories and experiences with people who range from the utterly droll to the annoyingly obnoxious. Sometimes, I just wish my Slurpee cup would be extremely huge with fucking slushie art in it made with all the fucking colors of their fucking store.

But then again, I only have a coke slushie.

And I'm perfectly fine with that.

Maybe somewhere out there, someone also likes plain Coke slushies as much as I do.

I still have mine to share.

White crayon

The white crayon doesn't show up until you have a 16-pack of crayons.

What is it for anyway? Crayola said it's for 'advanced coloring techniques', where you were supposed to highlight glossy surfaces or emphasize a chiaroscuro, but what kind of pre-schooler would come up with such a concept? I don't even see a kindergartner saying chiaroscuro correctly.

The white crayon. Basically useless, very neutral. It sits at the edge of the 16-crayon pack, waiting to be used. No doubt that after some usage, the white crayon will be the sharpest, most crisp, while all the other crayons have shown dullness due to repeated use.

The crayon has its own brilliance though; a hidden one. Just like how it was supposed to be used to emphasize shading, the white crayon serves a higher purpose. It is not meant to be used or even understood by normal people. Only a chosen few can understand the significance of the white crayon, and when they do, they unleash a masterpiece.

It has its own time, when some artist uses crayons to work on something extravagant, something life-like. It is when the white crayon becomes essential. It rises above the purpose of toddlers using it to create rugged crayon drawings and becomes a tool to enhance, to accentuate, to beautify. It has its own time, when art finally becomes art, an authentic appreciation of the visual world, a symphony of colors orchestrated in the hands of the artist. And in between this mélange of hues and shades, the shades of the white crayon bind them together, make them cohesive, or draw the boundaries between one color and the other.

It is then that the white crayon does its job. Unfortunate as it may seem, the white crayon is the underestimated knight of the crayon box, whose real purpose is only known to a few. Often misunderstood, the white crayon symbolizes everyone whose real potential haven't been tapped, those whose brilliance will someday break the twilight of the world's dismal, repetitive drudgery.  A day will come when all the world's hidden talents will emerge and bring forth the real ability mankind has.

What was hidden shall be seen. The white crayon, inert as it may seem, does actually have a purpose. And it's one that is the most artistic of all: to impart beauty onto the world.

Glass slippers and pumpkin cars

It's funny how little girls get treated like royalty. Princesses, shades of pink, a tiara and a ballgown, all those sparkly and glittery jazz. But as she grows, the poor little princess begins to realize that life does not end in 'happily ever after'. She removes her tiara, steps down from her throne, and removes her ballgown (!!!) to reveal her usual, normal-person dress.

In a snap, her shiny coach goes back into a pumpkin, and her servants become nothing more than rats. She does her normal activities, studying, sleeping, working. Aside from the things she has to do to keep herself alive, there's nothing new happening. It's the same thing every day.

Our princess gets trapped in the realm of drudgery, as she deals with unpaid credit card balances, academic pressure, and the stress of the workplace. She curses the weather for being too extreme, her boss for being too much of a jerk, and her family for being indifferent to her feelings. She envies those people who has real friends. She goes home with a sigh, she drags herself to school. This is her life.

Every once in a while, she puts on her tiara and pretends it's all going to be alright. She pretends that she can get everything with the snap of a finger, that she can get a good laugh from the court jester. She gives orders here and there, pampering herself with the royal benefits of being a princess.

The microwave oven beeps and she snaps back to her misery. And somewhere, somehow, she hopes that somebody has her slipper.