an addendum: apparently, i shouted in my dream this morning, though i have no recollection of it... my housemate asked me why i was shouting in the morning and i didnt even know. rather disturbing... i dont think i've had such bad dreams in my life that i physically reacted to it in such a manner.

an update: its fucking 0543 now and i cant sleep... im gonna take out the g... again, sigh.

went away to the beach (anglesea) for the weekend... and i have this to say: sobriety is overrated. time passes way too slowly when sober (not in reference to the weekend but sobriety in general). however... i did almost eat nonstop for 24 hours... so i guess that's good... healthy even. and played beach cricket though i had no fucking idea wat was going on... hit the ball, run; that seems to be it. and i caught the blues brothers for the first time, after a heavy dinner of babercued meat... which left me dozing off infront of the tv. we almost broke the "no chems" rule to stay away but decided it aint worth the trouble since it's been a good weekend... so we drank more.

i had wanted to write over the weekend... thinking a getaway in a house overlooking the beach and ocean would be good inspiration, i was inspired... but the words were clumsy and it felt too fake to be writing at a getaway. but just before sleeping... i managed to draw and i was worried i might be losing the skill i just rediscovered... so i suppose something good worked out in the creative department.

it was a good weekend away with friends, just doing nothing and whatever we were comfortable with... i almost felt pressured to be having fun but there was just no energy after the taxing week and the food weighed too heavy in the stomachs.

sober and good.

scarey in a way... that i have to remove myself from the environment i put myself in... to be sober.

reached home on sunday, finished my video edit, and took out the g to relax.

monday: submitted the video, did a 3d presentation, and spent the night at home sober, wanting to chill out a bit b4 i got back into the work... and as i said, sobriety is way overrated... must be the worst time i've had trying to chill out... not having anything to do cept being on the net.

tuesday (today): wasted my day chilling out and moderating the forum, discussing some forum issues, my only constructive thing being a simple html page i put together to submit searches to the engines i frequently use. had dinner, and arranged with friends to have dessert cos i was having a cake craving... so we went and had a pretty good time digging in and feeling sick from all the cakes, and laughing and joking in general... and planning nye. surprisingly, we had a pretty good time doing something normal and sober... i've forgotten wat it feels like to sit around for a coffee and just chatting... it was very relaxing and enjoyable.

finished 2 3d models of comets and im just chilling now... i dont feel particularly sleepy even though i know im on my way to fucking up my sleep pattern again... but well, it's been a pretty good day considering i did fuck all in the day, and then did work at night till 4am... so im feeling quite good about it.

sober and productive, that's a nice change.

why am i writing this? i dont usually chronicle my weekends or days like this... but perhaps this journal is filled with too much pain and angst, perhaps... i need to remind myself that i am afterall, still human and alive... i would hate to look back on almost 2yrs of this journal and see only pain (not that im happy or euphoric right now).

hate to sound cliche but i hope this is a step towards the reconstruction of my self... learning to look beyond the pain and the silent black and white of my world.

i feel like... i am on the brink of something, perhaps i might call it fate, or destiny even (ha!) but as i've said... over the past 6 months, these past 2 months, and the past few weeks... things are becoming clearer and i think this is a step in that direction, no?

again... i find myself falling into an introspective mood as i type... a bad habit of mine... rambling on and on. i get like this sometimes... when i start, i cant stop writing; unfortunately only in relation to my personal self... if i could do this on a professional basis, that would be nice.

who knows... cos i for one sure dont... but perhaps in chronicling these changes, i might know someday.

i am putting this here as a point of reference to what i just blogged, the actual webpage can be found here

-

i've held back on replying because i know yaya personally and i got him started on this chemical journey.

however... i guess i cant help offering my 0.02c... its not just with drug use (however, more so and more importantly) but with life in general... we need to be able to step outside of the circle/boundary that is our lives, and be able to look IN, and see how we're doing, as objectively as possible.

and because drugs affect our minds/characters on such fundamental levels, it is even more important that we are able to step out and view our drug usage independently and objectively.

now... my own history and experience:

i can honestly say i got into the scene without the help of drugs. i've been listening to electronic music for a couple of years now (singapore is not exactly conducive to drugs, having a zero tolerance policy and random urine spot checks in clubs). so i think i can safely say, when i got into the scene, it was purely for the music. that has always been my priority... even with my history of drug-taking, the drugs i choose to take, i would like to think, expands my mind and enhances the musical experience. drugs like ketamine, nitrous, cocaine, heroin, etc; do not appeal to me at all because from what i can tell (with my limited experiences of them), they dont do anything for me, and my music.

with that belief... i have never needed to take more than 2 pills a night, usually, 1, or 1.5; and i assume the music would take me places once the chemicals open up the doors.

however... this year, with some personal upheavel in my life... i have resorted to consuming drugs for the sake of being fucked/in a daze. i dont even take them to feel good anymore, just to be in a daze in which my mind doesnt have to function (i tend to brood and think too much). i have not had a sober night in more than a month... usually drinking alcohol (started with scotch which got me depressed so i changed to beer) or smoking some dope... telling myself that i just need to take them to relax.

slowly, without me realising, or my refusing to see, it spiralled out of control and it reached the stage where i would push myself as hard as i can go... so i dont have to deal with comedowns, and i can just black out when i hit the bed, because i DO think too much.

fast forward to wotw 2002... despite the good night i had listening and sharing richie hawtin's set with my crew... come the day after, my mood destabilised and i was oscillating between serious/cheerful/despair. i cried for more than 2 hours, totally feeling the futility and despair of my life, my lack of direction... and if not for my friends... i think i would've, might've, cut myself or done something, just to FEEL anything even remotely alive.

im not writing this to gain sympathy... as some of u who know me in person, i am very very personal about my life and i dont open up to people at all.

i am however, writing this in support of what yaya has written, that there can never be a bad time for self-assesment, comparing ur current state of attitude with ur attitude when u first started drug consumption.

too easily, we can convince ourselves of a need or a reason, to overdo drugs, too easily, we can rationalise it.

and when u, or we, overdo it, and it all comes crashing down, i pray to god... we all have our loved ones with us.

that is all.

these past four weeks has been a haze... slowly i put myself back together after six months of deconstruction/destruction. when i can look back on the past six months since april, it feels like i have been on prozac (though i've never taken it, but this is the only way i can describe it), living like a zombie, my life in a loop everyday, of motions and breathing. detaching myself from my life has helped cope with last semester but it has not solved anything and in hindsight... only delayed the inevitable. i have continually ingested substances of any kind, legal or not, living in a contant daze because that has ironically become the only surety in my life, a comfort in the haze in which my mind stops functioning and that is the only way i can stop thinking because i need to stop, thinking.

it came crashing down, feeling total despair and crying my eyes out so much i wouldnt have recognised my face, for two hours or so, i cant tell the time. and thankfully, i had friends there to catch me when it did, thank god... they spoke to me and in their voices, a beacon of sorts toward which i could cling to, identify with, because i myself had no more identity except for the despair and loss. total complete dissolution of my self and the only certainty was the utter despair i was living through. how do i put that into words, how do i pin it down, and hope to translate it into pixels on a screen? order, chaos; static. even as i try to order my thoughts now and put them down, i can feel the encroachment of tears and chaos. i shake in the cold and i wonder... how much of it is the cold, and how much of it is the quivvering of my soul bared and naked in the cold.

since then... i have been slowly putting myself back together... it has been hard and rough... a jigsaw with no reference, a model with no instructions. i dont know where im going but i am trying to put myself back together with no reference or instructions.... i feel like i am putting a new me back together. slowly, i am trying to find myself after killing myself and i hope it is not too late.... there has been moments, thanks to the talks with my friends... there has been moments when, i could see, after three years of living in a silent, black and white world, i could once again see where i would like to be headed. moments of clarity and inspiration when i could see myself in my mind, in the future, doing what i can, or want, or would like to.

it seems like this brief period of deconstruction/construction, i am rebuilding a new me with a new purpose and vision and i have to thank my friends here for that. it comes and go, which is not surprising... after three years, six months of lack... the passion and inspiration i am rediscovering is not certain but what is? i try to explain to them what i saw in my mind in that moment of clarity and i am embarrassed for sounding farfetched and cheesy, coming across as a fool for dreaming... and i try to reassure myself, it doesnt matter and... (im crying... why am i crying? i dont understand... things are coming together arent they?) i try to convince myself, that it is a dream i should hold on to and with it, learn to live again because a dream is what i lost these past three years (and a utopia in the past six months) and... are we not the stuff that dreams are made on?

i am writing this down now... after my absence from this place for two weeks... trying to capture it and when i need to, revisit this place for a reminder. and i am trying to capture this down because... i was just hit by a brief spell of depression as i write this, coming unbidden and unwanted... and i am afraid that... perhaps the time for construction is not yet come and i am sliding back into the haze again? no... that would be somewhat melodramatic wouldnt it?

another reason for writing this down... i dont know how long this brief period of hope would last before it gets extinguished... and who knows... after all the deconstruction/distruction i have put my mind through... there might not be much of a mind left to find. i can say, with all honesty and fear... that i might be losing my grip on reality: i had a nightmare today before i woke up... talking to my parents in my dream and telling them these past six months and having the proverbial agrument with them, crying... and i woke up gasping. checking the time, it was 3pm in the afternoon, i had absolutely no idea why it was 3pm cos i had the distinct impression that i had woken up earlier than that. i stumbled out of bed lost and confused and i noticed, my eye mask and earplugs were neatly placed beside my bed: i have no recollection of taking them off and i am certain i put them on this morning before going to bed. i distinctly remember putting on my earplugs first, going to the toilet, coming back into my room, switching off the light and heater, lying down in bed, looking for my eye mask and putting that on, and then, sleep.

but absolutely no recollection of taking them off or maybe, even waking up. today, i doubted my memory and my sanity despite the fact that it all looked as if i was putting myself back together.

i am beginning to entertain the thought that perhaps i should look for help, despite my belief that i would never do so unless i actually tried to kill myself.

it just occured to me tonight, that my friends in singapore are probably having supper at this time of the night... so i made a cup of teh for myself; joining them at the silent metaphorical table, at the prata store in my mind. a toast then... to friendships and the transience of life, the only surety we have. i am not sad...i am simply having this moment of acceptance and acknowledgement. i miss the act of communion at the supper table; more so than the act of supper itself. i miss the company, the banter, and the comfort of friends. it might not be forever, but for this transient moment, it is eternal.

...and so
the dark
ends

cool blue
sterile
in its horrific
beauty

stark
brittle
crisp

the pale white
playing itself
across my wall

my life
my cold fingers
losing their grip

my mind
spiralling
losing its grip

and yet

i persist, in this daze
i struggle, in this haze
i cry, in this cool
i drown, in oblivion
i die, with every breath

and yet

i
cant
let
go

of the dark
in this light

and so
it begins

breathe

soft yellow washes
tinged with orange
edged with darkness

burning red
peeking between
bands of darkness

magenta cool
it steals in
softly
quietly

bleached
mono
chromatic

breathe

i let go
engulfing dark
comforting dark
i let go

breathe

i surrender
to this dark
another dark
i surrender

breathe

cant fight
it
no
just trying
to

breathe

easy
no?

i cant sleep... after a harrowing day of emotions, feeling so drained and empty now... i cant sleep. i lie in bed with my eyes closed and my mind's a mess, so's my heart. did u know i loved u? did u know how much u were to me? do u know i love u still? and how empty i am every night? i want to talk to u and hear ur voice again, but that is not gonna achieve anything except make it worse. if only i could reach across time and space, to the days of a better world and and find comfort in ur voice and ur arms.

do u know what u've done to me? turned me into? i guess not... i dont even know what i have become, perhaps some soulless machine that tries to remember it was once living and thus pretends to be a mockery of being human. do u even read these pages? i cant talk to u and yet i am having this one-sided dialogue because i am all alone here in the night... and all i can think of is reaching out to u; but that has its pain and price which i dont think i can deal with... so i write on these pages of cold technology, looking for the solace i cant find.

what do u know of a heart's yearning? i am all alone and all i want is to be with u again, but that is obviously too much for u to give. why did u stop loving me? i gave myself and my world to u, and u broke them both. i can never understand that, never.

and so i am, here, now, a broken man grasping for ur love and it seems, i am destined to drown.

i wished i died the day u left. cos it feels like... i died and didnt know it... and i continue to breathe, thinking i was alive.