Time-being

"It made me sad when I caught myself pretending that everybody out there in cyberspace cared about what I thought, when really nobody gives a shit."

"And when I multiplied that sad feeling by all the millions of people in their lonely little rooms, furiously writing and posting to their lonely little pages that nobody has time to read because they're all so busy writing and posting, it kind of broke my heart."

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

Today will be different. Instead of a picture I decided to quote from a book I'm currently reading.

It's true isn't it. You probably came here via that little link you saw somewhere out of curiosity, and in an attempt to grasp who I am by examining how I write, what I think, where my heart and mind is. I would never know who you are, and I don't particularly need or want to. Maybe you don't exist. Maybe I'm really just a pitiful creature howling into oblivion thinking there is an audience out there.

I won't deny hoping. Hoping that there is at least one soul who comes by to understand. But sorry to disappoint, I'm not writing this in an indirect attack on this world, like how so many people do to release all their opinions. 

It's like that kid's story I heard somewhere, where people in a town spread a secret one to another about the king, until it reached a boy who didn't know what to do with the information. His mother advised him to dig a hole in the ground and whisper into the hole before covering it up, which helped relaxed the tension in the boy. However, a tree sprouted from where the hole was, and its flowers began to spread the king's secret far and wide, until it was no secret anymore and the king found out. Needless to say, he was embarrassed and furious, but he couldn't punish anyone and had to live with the pain from being constantly reminded about his secret.

Don't you think it's true? Not just blogs - other social media platforms are the same. People who are naive enough to think that ranting on their blogs, condemning others on Twitter is okay because "no one will know". Silly, these people don't even cover up their holes properly, almost as if they meant for others to see their dirty words, to know what happened, to feel bad. Convenient too, because they don't have to feel guilt about attacking others. They can always say it wasn't them. It was the tree whose flowers spread it.

No one gives a shit, Ozeki is right. It is a sad fact that more and more people are trying to be heard instead of trying to hear. But just because she's right doesn't mean we have a right to be resigned to this fate. I'm trying so hard to abstain from social media where I can see so many naive cowards, like Twitter. Instagram is fine, pictures are great. 

Maybe my blogging stems from hope that someone would come by and take an interest in my perspectives. But I do know that nobody actually cares for philosophy, and flock to the materialistic. I want to preserve my thoughts. I want to preserve my mind. I'm preparing for the future. Questions that swim around in endless currents in my head, that plague me so much, I want to keep them. Moments of truth, of enlightenment, I never want to lose them. All of it, I will document in diaries and blog entries. 

A Tale for the Time Being holds such an element. Nao, a Japanese girl, wrote a diary which was then found by Ruth on a beach preserved in a Hello Kitty lunchbox wrapped in freezer bags. Nao had meant for someone to read it, and described it as reaching out to her reader in a connection. We are all time beings. Because Ruth was reading about Nao, wondering about Nao's life, she was reaching back in time to connect with Nao.

I guess it's a little complicated! You should read the book. Right now during my break I'm trying not to let my brain rot by filling it with junk like games and comics, so my sisters lent me more books to read. I just borrowed The Handmaid's Tale from Stacey, which I would read after this book that Stella lent me. I have to thank my sisters for helping me cultivate a love for reading, and their tastes in genre have also influenced me, Stacey for example, reads a lot of utopian/dystopian themed books like The Handmaid's Tale, while Stella reads mostly philosophical titles such as those by Paulo Coelho.

Reading is important. It doesn't just improve your language, but it helps you gain new perspectives and insights, and makes you think past shallow ideas and thoughts. I find it a shame that a lot of people brush off reading like it is nothing. You need to read if you want to hold a good (or bluntly put, intelligent) conversation with someone.