I want to say that I just had another nightmare, but it's actually a hell of a lot more sorrowful than scary.
I was in Seng Kang Secondary School's school hall, because of course I was. I was an adult though, on an alumni visit together with a crowd of alumni that was large enough to make it look like a regular school day, as ridiculous as that sounds, given every alumni gathering I've been to had only about a tenth, if even that, of that volume. And, for some reason, we were all seated on the wooden floor of the hall, like we were students going through the routine boring, too hot, electric needle sending assembly talks the staff are still so fond of. Maybe we weren't alumni, but instead were brought back to be reeducated for some reason, going through the same belittling treatment as teens would be subject to. I don't know. I don't suppose that part's really that important.
A student... well, "one of us", basically, was on stage speaking. She sounded jovial. The crowd was amped up with emotion and cheerful atmosphere. It was some sort of an award giving ceremony. Me, being the quiet, weird, outcast guy who never found joy in anything them young whippersnappers enjoyed, didn't make much of it. I was more concerned about the needles in my legs and my rapidly numbing ass. All of a sudden, the emcee called for Cypy's name, but she was nowhere to be found. It's no real surprise, since she's frequently absent from school, owing to her frail body and the same condescending disinterest in crap like this, except she has her parents' support to bail on these events unlike me.
Somehow, everyone's gaze knew to turn to me, almost as though a scene out of a surreal horror movie, or an all too accurate manifestation of my social anxiety. It's almost like everyone knew how close we were, almost like I was her only friend and vice versa. It was a really powerful part of the dream, because it's such a bittersweet moment in my dream, when all the dreams I get are otherwise really clear cut happy or sad. It's sweet because everyone acknowledges our ties, reminding me of how powerful our friendship is, and how great an achievement I've made in my seemingly perpetually empty and underachieving life. I was a nobody, I had nothing. I was just another faceless man in the crowd, until she came along in that dream. It's really amazing how my brain can cook up deep, complex analogies like that in a dream I've no control over, yet I can never write literature of that calibre to save my own life when I try.
But it's bitter. Bitter because bitterness concluded that story of our friendship. The last things I could take away from being friends with her were bitter disappointments, breaking down, going insane, a million unsaid things, and the regret of walking away in the way I felt I was forced to that triggers all these goddamned dreams I'm getting all of a sudden.
It's bitter because we aren't friends anymore.
Puppeted by the silent stares of everyone present, it became etiquette for me to conform to their unspoken demands and accept the prize for her in spite of how much anguish it's churning up inside me. Do we really have free will? Are all of us really that different? I don't know. I'm just another faceless man in the crowd, after all.
I took the thing... whatever it was, meant for Cypy, I don't remember, and walked down the steps at the side of the stage, downcast, angry, sad and confused. That was when everybody decided to swarm me and pelt me with insults and mockery, almost as though being her friend was something to be ashamed of. Well, it's not really that much of a surprise, either, since kids are assholes and any little thing different about you is grounds to be picked on, especially when you're already an outcast to begin with.
But we're adults in that dream, weren't we? Or did we suddenly regress into the bratty teens that we were? It felt almost as if all of society's "asshole inhibitors", like fear of prosecution, need to uphold an image, etc., all just fell away because we were students in a school. And without these "asshole inhibitors", everyone felt free to be true to themselves and act upon their most primal instincts and their worst desires. That is, everyone felt free to be the asshole they are at the cores of their beings.
Dear theoretical reader, does it make me a bad person for getting urges to destroy lives? Am I a bad person for getting violent urges to end the lives of many? It's rage of such a calibre I barely even remember nowadays. Nowadays it's easier to just walk away or cry somewhere alone. But I felt like I was trapped in a sea of laughter, mockery and degradation I could not escape in that dream, just as I had felt some ten years ago. It's a nightmare I had, because I fear all the philosophical questions it makes me ask of myself. Are we perhaps all the same? If I lived somewhere with easier access to guns, would I be a murderer by now? Would I have taken by own life by now? For this façade of peace and harmony, what really is the price to pay? Can human will, ill or otherwise, really be suppressed? And what are the costs of such suppression if it were possible? Are we really all the same underneath, with the need to belong in a group, feel powerful and free, and feel the need to defend ourselves? Why do I always feel like a loser for not being the asshole and pulling the trigger, when everyone else was free to be the asshole they wanted to be? Am I weak and pathetic, not knowing how to stand up for myself, or am I admirable for having made it through that hell at all? Why is it such an admirable thing to make it through hell if it's a Pyrrhic victory? Are we all as awful as I am, and am I as awful as all of them? Even if I don't have a whole gang to single others out to put them down, I've developed such violent and condescending coping mechanisms and speech patterns to compensate for my feelings of powerlessness, that when I stop to take a closer look at myself, I feel like I've become just another one of them. Not to mention, it really doesn't help me fit into society.
Are all of us really that different? And if we are, how much deviation are we allowed before we're singled out and corrected? What if I'm just too weird to have enough free will to be happy? What if I'm actually normal? Why do both possibilities scare me all the same? Why is everything so scary in this world? If we're all awful, how do we fix it? Can we really be fixed?
Dear blog, sometimes I'm afraid of closing my eyes. When I sleep, I feel like a fish that can somehow forget to swim and drown in the ocean in which it lives. I get pulled down into my own ocean of negative thoughts and awful memories, useless regrets, and it's only when I start to suffocate do I wake up terrified. And then I fear going back to sleep because I don't want to drown again.
Needless to say none of this is good for my health.
"And kids are cruel. All people are, by nature -- they just lose touch with it as they get older." - Sundowner, Metal Gear Rising Revengeance
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