Brighter

I'm still here.

How are things on your end, future me? Today it's been cloudy since morning. Actually, for the past few days, the weather was gloomy, dark and rainy. Not a bad kind of weather, isn't it? Here in this place with perpetual summer, we welcome the sun's vacation with open hands.

The story I wrote since two weeks ago is progressing slowly. It's a marathon; slogging through, willing myself to break through the monotony of each day. Not that I find daily life to be boring, but repetitive things tend to dull my mind, and it's tough trying to escape that state. I wonder how your daily life is, future me? For me, it's waking up (the time varies, but usually after 7-8 hours of sleep), light washing, breakfast, writing, lunch, writing, exercise (around 5-6 PM), free time, then sleep. Not exactly a strict schedule, as there are bound to be interruptions now and then.

Exercising is great, but I know that I actually eat less calorie than suggested for an adult male, yet my weight still increases. Perhaps my metabolism is not as active as per an average person, so now I try to be healthier. Not a picky eater, but I have a limited choice of food here. Perhaps you have it better, future me, but if you don't, don't worry about it. Make best of the things you have. Be positive, all right?

There's a conflicting feeling I am burdened with right now. The struggle between chasing my passion and trying to make my life more comfortable, it's really weighing heavily in my thoughts. These train of thoughts, perhaps biased toward my own comfort, oftentimes wander far off-track to the future, rather than how it will affect me immediately. I'm not a 'people' person, that much I know but do I really have no choice but to work for a system that propagates a competitive atmosphere, one that encourage others to shun those who succeed better than themselves, filling the workspace with yes-mans and fake courtesy, and the people at the bottom to relish on the misfortune of those who are in higher position than themselves? I know that perhaps that situation occurs only by the chance of a tiny percentage, but nevertheless it is still something I think off when I browse through the list of job vacancy on the internet. Am I secretly content with how I live right now? A facsimile of the childhood days where we are free of obligations? Am I just trying to blind myself with the focus on writing nowadays, knowing that in the end, this effort will be meaningless, and I'll have no choice but to subjugate myself to the system, becoming yet another cog in the machine that claimed to be making the world better than it was before? I am afraid, future me, of the things that will come.

Musically, I am finding myself enjoying more instrumentals than usual. The absence of words often send me into a daydream-like daze, thinking of stories and characters and settings to fill these blank pages in front of me. Do you remember, future me, that after a long period of writer's block, I realized that writing in pens and papers work wonders instead of typing like this? I have the tendency to look back and make corrections whenever idle, and it made me unable to fully finish a story. It was frustrating at first, seeing those crossed-over words randomly in between the good ones, like the potholes in the road that make us drive slowly to not damage our vehicles, but I am actually able to bring forth a lot of words now. I've decided to go through  the story to the end before editing them, and manual writing will enforce that.

Future me, when will this shackle that binds me will be gone? These inferiority that has long becomes my ghost, creeping and restraining, it's still there whenever I find myself not doing anything productive. My mind, it often is in a state I can only describe as overdrive, gushing thoughts and ideas like a violent torrent, and occupying my thought process mercilessly. it stunted often my considerations of actions, which makes me appear reckless though I decline to describe myself as such. Only by writing my mind seems to slow down enough for me to feel peaceful. Music can do it, too, but not for long. As soon as I become accustomed to the melody, those thoughts and ideas break through and start to invade.

I'm sorry, future me. I try to keep this positive, but I guess not everyday can be a plus, right. We need to have a few minuses to make the pluses even better, like that lightly salted vanilla ice-cream that mesmerized you during the trip to Japan in the summer of 2018 where it rained heavily.