a graveyard; or the birthplace of a change to explore my identity

ever since childhood, something strange used to happen to me. the older I grew, the more I realised it wasnt something everyone experienced... before every long family road trip, I found myself infinitely more excited about the stopovers rather than the destination itself. 

over time, the same feeling began to creep into shorter journeys—even a trip to the grocery store. Assuming this was universal made me indifferent to its existence, and in that indifference, I unknowingly began using these places as anchors to hold onto my personality.

because what even are we at a forgotten mcdonalds in the middle of 100km highway?
A stopover is a place that owes me nothing. It knows neither my name nor my history. It is where I arrive socially naked, stripped of every title, friendship, expectation and memory that constitute major traits of my identity. A clean slate.

i've always seen these places as the architectural equivalent of stepping into a changing room inside of a crowded shopping mall. the world exists just beyond the curtain, yet for a fleeting moment, i'm alone. how do I stand when nobody is looking? how do I truly behave when there is no audience to reinforce the person I've become accustomed to performing? Every action inside that room belongs only to that room; environmentally sealing my habits and thoughts while posture become artifacts of that isolated space. A tiny universe detached from the narrative of my life.

that was where I first learned to observe the indifference.

and through that indifference, I began to see the destination.

only much later did I realise that college had quietly become exactly that. Not the destination, but the stopover.

a place suspended between two versions of myself. Not home anymore, but not yet wherever life ultimately intends to take me. a liminal space whose purpose isn't to be remembered for permanence, but for transformation. a place where identities are tried on and discarded like clothes inside that same changing room. where friendgroups are temporary civilisations, opinions are provisional, ambitions mutate every semester, 

and every version of me dies quietly enough that only I notice the funeral.

perhaps that's why I treasure it more than whatever destination waits beyond it.

destinations ask you to arrive as someone.

while the stopovers allowed me to become someone.

there is a comfort here that permanence could never let me experience. headache inducing EST mornings as I sip sugarless black coffee in the mess, shivering into oblivion while the hangover of the past week hits all at once. debating into sleepless nights while defending the weaker argument simply because I believed criticism, by its very nature, is constructive. wandering through conversations with people I may never meet again, knowing that, somehow, that makes them more honest instead of less.

this place taught me what those highway stopovers had been trying to teach me all along.
that identity is never discovered at the destination.
it is assembled in the places that were never meant to be home, but tried their very best nevertheless.

why is discipline a muscle

Remember the time you promised to not do something, and then went ahead to contradict yourself anyways AND for the first time, the guilt didn't crush you afterwards. 

read the above statements in xor operator format because i just looked at how 'scientific definition structural integrity' maintained I keep my daily statements and thoughts' expressions format.

"In my dreams, I'm dying all the time

Then I wake, it's kaleidoscopic mind" 

sorry for going into a thought spiral somewhere else

but this is what i came across - "my loneliness may be weighed through understanding - my need to explore the world (which is the evolutionary reason behind the conception of consciousness) has molded its exploration towards the inside - as i deprive it of the outside, inwards it looks to find me and one myself - the sudden birth of narcissism as a consequence of my consciousness' need to perceive and consume - for that's all that really is - consciousness is a form of hunger, OR RATHER, hunger is a form of consciousness".

Anyways this came from the video because I've been too consumed by the greed of spending time with my parents rather than living far away from them to work on myself.

when does a substance turn abusive, contrary to the opposite and more obvious meaning of the term "substance abuse"

In a lost land of self love, where there's no allowance for compassion - does arise the necessity for the birth of "abuse".

Only when youre hooked on a substance for too long, do you see it for the monster it's infamous for. Being hooked doesn't only claim the present but also - numerous instants from the future & hence strengthening the habit very easily.

The promise of a promising future - is the generalisation of the different variants of the same promise that both hardwork and a substance promise.

corporate comfort and the big cover up

"You zone out for longer periods of time", played over and over in my head as I locked my eyes with the mirror. Unable to stand upright and getting spun over the countertop acting as crutches.

I finally understood.

confession 9

I'm tired of myself acting this way.

Each and every single moment of the day is filled with instant satisfactory stimuli.

I wake up and masturbate, then light a ciggerate, then coffee, netflix, maggi, chilled pepsi - whatever to take the edge off. All of this - while music plays in my ears and self pity in the subconscious, to fill in the gaps and so that my attention doesn't take an emergency exit.

An exit to see - to see that I'm going no where in life because these things don't have the ability to take anyone anywhere. Except of course - to more and more of them.

It feels like an eternity since I've genuinely felt anything genuine. The memory of being moved by a simple melody or the mere touch of a human feels more distant than ever today.

The rejoice and pride over battle scars after breaking my body down during a runners high yearn to enter my life again; for I've forgotten how to yearn myself.

Misunderstood and rejected is the most overwhelming feeling I drown in while I take on this mask to have a little chat with another human.

I'm physically tired of this limbo.

incepted

I'm quitting alcohol and reefer cold turkey - but only for a while.

This sudden decision was a product of an epiphany during today morning's shower and possibly the goosebumps the song "Porcelain' by Moby gave to me. While listening to the song, besides the lyrics, the only thought clouding my mind was that an idea planted deep enough into the mind, is much more potent than the hardest drug ~ something I heard in inception and also something that stuck to me.

Depersonalisation was an idea to me at some point. Today, I stand far away from that point. 

When I'm high - responsive stimuli tinkering with my nervous system floating around in the room manifests itself to become unmistakably real. The carpet and the drapes come to life while I delve into the lines between Kendrick's poetry. Tears burst outward like an open dam and I'm unable to stop my thoughts from continuously imploding on my conscious. The weight of the world pushes me to express my

thoughts as art but my hold back becomes my inability to paint. If this isn't real then what is?

This being precisely my point - depersonalization and detachment are concepts that I once knew but have now started to feel - when I'm sober of course. 

am I missing something?

This observation of mine majorly arises from the fact that body dysmorphia only increases in people as their body image towards the outside gets better - which should actually be an implication of their body image getting better towards the inside. By towars the inside, I mean how one views themself as. 

I want a good looking body very much, but I don't grind enough for it, which on the surface looks like an indisciplined attitude; and to an extent it is that - but on a more root level, it's actually because I'm very very much comfortable with my current body image and how well it shines on the inside. That; and another reason being my very little fucks for how someone views my body. 

There is a strange stillness that comes with being at peace with myself. Almost like a quiet refusal to declare war on my body just because the world profits from dissatisfaction. In that stillness, there remains no no hunger for transformation; not because desire is absent, but because urgency is. When I'm no longer running from myself, progress stops feeling like survival and starts feeling optional, almost indulgent. And maybe that’s the real sin in a culture addicted to before after pictures. Where I choose not to despise the “before.”

On some level, significant self transformation requires hatred and anger towards yourself. It doesn't happen out of true compassion - it doesn't work on thhe same moral ground on which buying a blanket for a stray dog does. Self transformation of any kind - of whatever kind it may be - is built on some variant of self pity - which I feel like I lack. I do not hate myself enough to rebuild myself and in a world that treats self-loathing as a prerequisite for growth, that may be my quiet rebellion, or my most comfortable stagnation.