Hmmm.

Lol!

I want to go back to the old me. I liked her. She was haunted and she handled it in a dysfunctional way, but she handled it. This new me, she doesn't handle it. She can, but she doesn't. I DON'T LIKE HER.

Problem is, i need to not go back. And i still cannot bring myself to face just why. I wonder where that leaves the free will the new me goes on and on about...

Insights on the self

Today:

1. I must have, for once, really learned from what i studied for an exam. Was thinking about last week and realised that if i had to take any of those papers right here, right now, I'd do as good a job as i did then. Maybe coz this time i wasn't afraid to throw myself no strings attached into whatever i had to study. Costs were huge, but i like this feeling too.

2. I can feel my pulse in my right foot, just below my big toe. It's a bit disconcerting.


Through the week gone by:

1. I would never be able to kill an individual if somebody asked me to, but genocide would come frightfully easily to me. At least in the event of it involving some particular groups.

2. Because of conditioning or otherwise, I have lived most of my life so far prioritising comfort over experience.

3. I have an infinite mind.

Notes from rehab

Significant things have been happening. The latest bout of existential crisis has been the most stubborn fella so far. It hit almost a couple of months ago now and doesn't seem to fall off. Conversations helped, but didn't really solve anything. Goa didn't help, though i was hoping it would and even tried going around believing it had for a while, but the essence of this screwup is that you cannot lie to yourself. Social psych and American lit and Indian lit only served to compound the mess in the head and what a lovely coincidence that they had to be studied intensely for the exams bang when it was all peaking. Actually, the last wasn't quite that bad in retrospect, coz although it left me this far from insane at the time, i did get some masochistic pleasure out of the whole thing, especially Chitre and Plath and the Beats, and i totally cracked the exams. Of course they were to come with their own dose of cognitive dissonance, consolation that i'm not the only messed up one, and anger (don't know at whom) that i will never sublimate it the way they did.

And it kept happening. It will still keep happening if i let it, but exams are now over and my toes don't HAVE to touch that water. There was this Saturday night a couple of weeks ago when i got so high on the Beats. For God knows how long i went over and over and over Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti and Cassidy and Kerouac and Howl and Citylights until i was absolutely, completely, drunk. Drunk, and drained. I hallucinated. I dreamt about all of it all over again. I walked around in zombie state for a few days after. It was a pleasure. I think everyone should experience the simultaneous feeling of being drunk and drained at least once in their lifetime. And for those who have felt that way thanx to substance, you don't know how short ur selling urself.

Oh and how can i forget the pages and pages and pages i churned out with stream of consciousness. It takes ages for inspiration to strike when u have all the time in the world, but its amazing how, when ur running against time, cannot even spare a decent 5 hours for sleep, you get this huge urge to write it all down, like its some sort of catharsis that cannot wait, like you would implode if it weren't outta you NOW, like it never ends. It's amazing. Like when you look ur most beautiful and there's noone to see.

Happiness is no longer a priority. The Truth is. And it would all be pretty friggen easier if there was some starting point i knew of. Some hint. Some clues. But from whom? God as the world knows Him is becoming a little hard to digest. I do know there is some equivalent though, but right now the equivalent is in the mind. The equivalent, at best, so far, is a tendency of things happening as they are. So there is Faith. In what? I cannot tell. I do not know. What i do know is that this Faith is no longer a defence mechanism. We are getting closer and closer to the 'bedrock of consciousness'. Either that, or we are on a fantastic detour.

2 down

Today we had our first SYBA FC (read Foundation Course) exam and honestly speaking, it was lovely lovely lovely, regardless of what Soul and others may say. First of all, Father Arun, who's our FC prof, is wayyy cooler than the other divisions' FC profs because not only does he encourage a hell of a lot of interaction in class (and he believes in the 'nothing's right and nothing's wrong' dictum which really opens the opinion floodgates if u know what i mean), but he also left standing instructions to not write more than 3 sides per answer. Now when ur doing Arts, you generally write a 3 side answer when you don't have anything to write about, i.e. are completely clueless and have to fill paper and waste ink. So actually being able to fill only 3 sides with sense, that was a new experience.

But the coolest thing about Fr. Arun i was to discover today...when he told me to go ahead and write an answer to a question that wasn't there! Well what the deal actually was that all those who had done presentations were assured that there would be a question on their respective topics. Since our topic was abortion, i'd gone in with a pretty decent idea about what i was gonna write...and then we discover that there is no question on abortion! So when Arun came in for clarifications, i had pretty much resigned myself to the fate of having to write on something like the classification of human rights (which is about as interesting as the first few episodes of Seinfeld), but i told him about it nevertheless. And what does he do? He hits me on the head, points out to a question on the right to life (which only included capital punishment genocide and euthanasia) and told me to go along with abortion anyway! I was so delighted that i wrote him some pretty entertaining answers..replete with sarcastic remarks about Bush, ultra-feminist-bashing and i forget now what else. I only wish all the others in my prez group , ie bhagi, Soul, netra etc knew of this and didn't have to end up writing on mercy-killing and torture.

Human Rights have never been so interesting. Even Soul, who wasn't very prepared for the paper, had fun coz she, in her own words, got to create her own rights. Of course, she didn't let go of her right to point out, to EVERYONE we met, the lovely designs my pen had unwittingly made ALL OVER MY FACE! But it's ok, i completely forgive this pen because of how freakishly fast it writes! It reminds me of Sylvia Plath in Ariel. God's lioness........

Yesterday's POA (psych of adjustment) paper was not the best coz i forgot to wear my watch and so i couldn't exactly time myself (read spend the first hour on the first question and the second hour on all the rest). Funny coz it was a paper for which we had to create a plan for Effective Time Management! And then in the subsequent answers it got a little funny coz now i was running against time, the stress got to me and made me forget a few things, and while this is happening, i'm writing an answer on how stress affects retrieval to cause cognitive impairment!

Ok, back to the Multiplication Theorem Of Probability and the Influence Of Sylvia Plath's Life On Her Poetry.