Joke’s on You, Joker

How long before someone becomes a burden too heavy for you to carry? Or how long until you yourself become that burden? It has been a question that has been plaguing me ever since I had the conscience to make friends. But it has been bothering especially after I made friends who I got close enough to be truly vulnerable with. Suddenly it is like I want to share my sorrows with them and seek support but it is simultaneously accompanied by the worry, “how much is too much? How long until they leave or decide that you’re probably not worth their time?” Not very encouraging thoughts, but then when have I ever cheerleadered (I doubt this is even a word but it is still a cool word to use) myself on?

It is quite funny because when I was younger, I was constantly told by my grandmother that I found it easy to make friends. She had seen me at the swimming pool one day and I had just managed to catch a couple of girls with whom I was talking (in retrospect, I believe one of those girls didn’t really like me that much and wished I would just leave her be). When I came back to the house, my grandmother just smiled at me and said that, with that ability to talk to everyone and anyone, I would go places. It is quite true, people can go places with the ability to talk to others, too bad that as time passed and I grew more aware of myself (a bane it truly was), and with that came the horrible withdrawing into myself that I had to effect.

I think a major part of this change in my behaviour was also the fact that I was constantly reminded, in many spheres of my life, that I was worthless and had things that were undesirable and worthy of scorn. It started from inside the family to outside and well, these were the only two places I existed in (or rather, could exist in). I never got the opportunity, I believe, to form deep friendships because I never let myself feel like I could show or should show vulnerability.  I had to stick to my role, the joker, the one the joke’s on all the time, because well, surely everyone loved the joker right? So with nothing else in me that could ever be loved or liked, best to make myself into something that will surely be. What a farce.

I think until now, part of being the laughing stock of anything at all only reminds me of my self-imposed typecasting. It only brings to the forefront the times when I had to consciously make myself the joke because otherwise I might not be loved as much. And so I think I unconsciously try to be the dumb person who fumbles and mumbles and is a bumbling babbling baboon because I have, for so long, attached my identity to it that to not have it is to feel empty. There, I have said it, I cannot imagine myself as being a non-joker or the laughing stock of a group. And no, this is not about my own sense of humour and ability to make people laugh by smart comments, it is being the cause for other people’s laughs by degrading myself (at least in my head) and being dumb. And when people reinforce it, the performative just becomes all the more believable, reified, if I may. It is a messed up logic, but don’t we all want to feel loved at the end of the day?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Overwhelming Phantoms

How do you know if you are a good friend, a good companion, a good daughter, a good x which denotes any role we might assume in relation to other people? We are not being told left, right, and centre that we’re doing a good and satisfactory job. The times we mess up, we are told that explicitly but not really when we are going on track, not transgressing, and being a general non-nuisance. We are expected to be a non-nuisance, a good person in general, one who is well-liked and tolerated. But then, are we really that all of the time? Are we always doing a good job, a satisfactory job and does that job merit someone else’s word of (dare I say) appreciation?

That is just a random thought that I don’t really see why I had, it had been on my mind in different capacities all this while and I figured I might as well type it out and see what happens. There is something about administrative work that simultaneously makes me apprehensive as well as excited. The apprehension is for the amount of work that needs to get done but the excitement is for what I know will inevitably be the fruits of the work. I know that if I sat down and drafted a document for some purpose of a society, I know that while it is going to be extremely taxing (and therefore lead me to procrastinate as much as humanly and justifiably possible), the fruits of that labour will be worth that effort and labour. And I think that is important because regardless of what I want to be, incentive always makes me a better worker. If I know that the paper I am going to write is going to be a good paper and that the fruits of that paper shall be sweet (or actually, I prefer sour fruits over sweet ones), I will be happier to work.

Aside from that, I have too much work on my plate and I feel extremely anxious about the thousand things I have to do and how I am not making any headway whatsoever. It is not exactly an ideal situation but I genuinely cannot help but feel overwhelmed at this current moment. I have so much work to get done and nothing seems to be getting done and I only feel dumber and dumber as the day progresses. But I think part of the curve is to feel like you’re dumb and maybe at the end of the semester, looking back, I will realise that while I assumed the worst, I actually did learn a lot and that I am left not poorer. I don’t know, it is just a hope and well, that’s about the only thing I have in my life right now. Dramatic much? Maybe, but I think it is justified, existential dread is perfectly legitimate and people need to stop chastising that. I think that gives me the power to dread everything and don’t we all love creating phantoms, especially where there are none?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Raw Materials

Getting adequate sleep has become somewhat of a luxury these days. I find myself collapsing in the unlikeliest of places, falling asleep almost everywhere and embarrassing myself when I end up sleeping in the middle of doing something important. Even right now, I am extremely sleepy and I have readings to do. It is quite annoying because it feels like work never ends and the last week, I ended up leaving quite a bit of slack. So this weekend, I really need to work hard to get back on track. The thing with a course like Literary Theory is that all these texts mingle and talk and converse with each other. If you haven’t read any text, chances are you might get extremely lost in class.

I don’t like feeling lost in class because it makes me feel more dumber than I do on a daily basis. I then need to constantly tell myself, in quite an unconvincing way might I add, that I am not dumb. It just loses its meaning after a while, it just starts sounding extremely insincere and stupid. Anyway, it is not a big task to sound stupid, at least from my limited experience. I can sound extremely stupid without even trying, case in point, some of my own blog posts from the past and well, I still don’t know how this one is going to turn out so this one might add itself to that list. Regardless, I am quite stupid many times and today might just as well be one of those days.

What gives me some modicum of joy is the fact that I am quite wonderfully writing a story (around 500 words) every week. I have ended up writing quite a bit and that feels good, to have something to look at and say that I wrote them. Now, whether those are good pieces or not are yet to be seen. But regardless of the worth/value I assign them, they are still written pieces that can be worked on. They are extremely useful raw material and in the world of writing, raw material is great, it means there is something to work with. It takes a lot of pressure off the writer. You don’t feel as sad when you are not churning out something from time to time, you can work on stuff you started in a moment of inspiration (or compulsion, which is also a good inspiration sometimes, I feel) and never brought to fruition.

One of the primary problems with this blog itself is the fact that every day I write without much raw material to work with. The only raw material I have is the memories of the day and sometimes even that is extremely sketchy. With such a precarious position, it is quite no wonder that most of the time I have to force myself to type words. this compromises on stuff that I could be saying. It is really not about how frequently you’re producing, but rather, what you’re producing and how you’re producing. But anyway, this blog has been going on every day so far and hopefully shall continue to do that until the end of this year. Maybe next year, I can limit myself to weekly stuff. have a theme every week and write one post each time. It is all quite far off into the future and now is not the time to ponder over them. But nonetheless, sometimes the future and the raw material it promises, sound exciting and worth dreaming about, doesn’t it?

And that’s my memory for the day.