a teaspoon of honey

living is difficult

     Hello everybody, hope the sky is (metaphorically) blue wherever you are. I had initially started this with a completely different direction in mind, but here we are. Lol. Life is a ride and I'm not wearing seatbelts.

     Well, as a disclaimer, this is nothing new. Nobody needs to remind you that life is hard and days are weary and many of us feel as though we have been born without an instruction manual. The feeling is as old as time itself, only now it has found a voice on social media, whatsapp statuses and – dare I say it – iPhone cases. So, nothing I am going to say to you will be particularly life-altering but here I am, saying it anyway, because . . . why not.

     Why not indeed . . . See, I know that my problems are small compared to the vast majority of others. 2020, hey. The Beirut explosion, coronavirus, the BLM movement, the airplane crash in my own hometown just yesterday . . . I heard murder hornets are a thing. I don't know. The world has never looked uglier, but I suppose it's always been quite bad, we just tend to forget it when the next new thing comes along.

     I don't know, dudes . . . all of it seems so big and bad and I feel really tiny. and stupid. and it is difficult to feel this – this weariness from carrying one's burdens and the guilt that comes from knowing your problems are minimal. I am no longer very young but I still cannot maneuver my way through important conversations, still cannot help feel white-hot anger in the face of injustice, still cannot help but cry incessantly.

     It's awful. Life is hard and I have learned nothing. At least, that's what I feel, but it's like the years are slipping away from me and I have nothing to account for it, nothing except dark circles and a nervous heart and an existence always just big enough to fit into someone else's box. I don't know what that means. Poetry makes me feel momentarily pretty; and I'll take it if that's the only thing keeping me afloat right now. I will bathe myself with the words of a hundred dead people if it means surviving another day. If it means giving myself undue importance, or worth . . . whatever this is that helps me breathe.

     Life is hard and I don't know what to tell you. I don't know what to ask you. I just want to comment on the sky and how large it is, and how far away. I feel like God exists in the bottom of  empty tea cups these days, and the middle of nights. I could never survive as an atheist and I know this because the sin of suicide is the only thing keeping me alive on some days. There. I've said. I've said the thing I know many have thought. I don't feel shame in it. That's exactly the point of it.

     Albert Camus once said, 'It takes time to live. Like any work of art, life needs to be thought about.'

     I've been thinking about that. This is coming from the same man who said that the very thought of suicide has gotten him through many a bad night, and maybe that's something to think about. Maybe that's all you can expect from an absurdist philosopher. Or maybe it means nothing at all. I know for a fact that my mother means the world to me so just thinking about these things is about how far I will go. I know.

     But what is the point, you'd wonder sometimes. What's the point of a half-existence where you're not excited to be alive and not ready to be dead? Of course, this is just before the moment of religious enlightenment when you've finally found the floor and surrendered yourself to whatever higher power you believe in because what else can you do with your measly little existence. You want to be valued; and of course, you will turn to God when things become the worst. You don't really want to die. You want to be alive.

     Alive, like the others. Like people who haven't thought about suicide ever in the entirety of their lives. Like those people that travel the world, or travel the city, or even just travel their own minds are not afraid and ashamed at everything they see. You know . . . the people you only rarely found yourselves like. Of course you want to be like those people, it's your right, almost — as a human being — to have the same dignity and peace of mind as every common Joe.

     But how can you do that when the world is so effed up.

     I am trying to pretend as though everybody is just pretending. I don't know if they are, but it helps me sometimes. Everyone is a snivelling child who has wronged or has been wronged, and this gives me some comfort. Not that the world is inherently unforgiving but the idea that imperfection is human nature and there is nothing terribly wrong with me. I will treat people just as they behave – silly and immature and just a little bit lost. Maybe that will help. Maybe.

     Listen:

     'One day the "why" arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement. "Begins" — this is important. Weariness comes at the end of the acts of a mechanical life, but at the same time it inaugurates the impulse of consciousness. It awakens consciousness and provokes what follows. What follows is the gradual return into the chain or it is the definitive awakening. At the end of the awakening comes, in time, the consequence: suicide or recovery. In itself weariness has something sickening about it. Here, I must conclude that it is good. For everything begins with consciousness and nothing is worth anything except through it.'

     Albert Camus said that too. Maybe he was onto something. Maybe thoughts of ending it all are not quite so bad, if all you're ending are your unrealistic expectations of people and yourself. Maybe it is a good thing. Maybe . . .

     At the end of the day, I know that I will not win all my battles. I know this – but accepting it is not so easy. Maybe I will not be the brightest person in every room, or the smartest, or the most promising . . . I am still learning to accept that I am not extraordinary at all, and that is not a curse. It is, perhaps, a good thing, to be human enough to stay on the ground. 'Ordinary' may be just another word for contentment, in fact. Like a studio Ghibli movie. I should learn to accept this.

     I don't know if this meant anything to any of you, but I feel a little better. Living is very hard and strange – by the time you figure out what you're doing, you're dead. Lol. Not that it's a bad thing, but it is a thing I think about a lot. Anyway. Many of you know about the death of Sushant Singh Rajput . . . that tore me up for a bit, not gonna lie. I'm no therapist, but I don't recommend it to anyone. Be kind to yourselves my duuuuudes... sometimes you're all you will have. Even before you realize you have God... there are moments when you will feel so gut-wrenchingly alone it is horrible. Simple horrible. Please look after yourselves. Please look after yourselves. Please look after yourselves.

     Before I leave, there's one more thing I wanna share. I don't know if it will benefit any of you, but it's something I learnt from Sheikh Omar Suleiman. Someone asked him how to 'pray for more patience', and he said don't do it. Pray, instead, for your burdens to be eased. That way you are more confident that Allah will ease your pain, and you will become more patient as a result. It helps me. I hope it helps you.

     Anyway, take care you fools. Hope the sky looks a little better now.

     Love,

     Chu