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Addict
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Saitama, Japan
Posts: 107
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Today I woke up to hear a buzzing sound in my room
Today I woke up to hear a buzzing sound in my room. Half asleep I realized it was mobile – which had somehow switched to silent mode and was now vibrating – rattling against the tatami matting. I didn’t know who was calling, but I answered anyway. As usual, the shoddy insulation in my apartment made the signal cut out so I missed the call. Then I realized the time. 10 am – I was an hour and a half late for work!
Lately, I have not been able to sleep properly. I could say it is stress caused by overwork or homesickness or my girlfriend leaving to go back home (she was on a short stay visa and couldn’t find a job to stay longer), but I really don’t know.
Lately, I have also become irrationally angry – at myself, at others, even at the slightest of things. Whats more, a couple of days ago, I developed some sort of rash, which I think must be a result of stress. But why? I have thought about this….
I think about my life. What do I really have to be stressed about? I have money. Of course I want more, but everyone does. Even if she is overseas, I have a loving girlfriend – meeting her was probably one of the best things that happened to me. My family is happy and healthy. My friends are fine – the ones overseas keep in contact often enough and seem fine. The ones in Japan I see regularly and we eat, drink, chat and watch movies. A regular, normal life I would say.
Even though I was late to work today, everything turned out ok – no big concern. I was told to put in for 2 hours leave (It took 40 minutes to get to work), I filled in a form, handed it in and that was is. The day passed easily. My work isn’t that stressful to begin with. Often, half the day is taken up with doing nothing, which can be a bore, but hardly stressful; I surf the net, drink coffee, eat snacks, read newspapers and books.
I think about death. It doesn’t worry me much. I mean, I want a long health life for myself and the people I love. I think about being back at home. I want to see my parents before they are old and grey (or should I say older and greyer – sorry if you are reading – Dad). I want to eat food that I can’t get here – go to the regular restaurants I used to go to. I guess that is the extent of my homesickness.
People die every day. There was the tsunami. There were the earthquakes in Niigata. As I type, I’m certain that there is war going on somewhere in the world – someone is being shot, blown up. I read in the newspaper yesterday of three young Vietnamese boys trying to earn some money by collecting scrap metal. In their search, they unearthed an old fragmentation mine left over from the Vietnam War. They tried to break it apart with rocks. It was live and exploded, killing one and severely wounding another. They were around 7 or 8 years old.
I can see them now, one young little idiot bashing away at a bomb with a rock in his little hand, thinking of the food he could buy by selling the scrap. The next he is pieces. I can’t exactly describe how I feel about such ridiculous and sad things happening.
I think about dissatisfaction. The Buddhist word for suffering is dukkha, or something similar, and it means not only to suffer, but to feel like something is either missing, or out of place – like a slight bump in a cartwheel that is just enough to be noticed. It is always there and can be ignored, but it is still there. It can create a feeling of restlessness, of dissatistaction.
I think about thinking. Considering how much time we spend doing things – eating, sleeping, watching TV, reading – doing usual daily things, what time is left over just to think for ourselves, consider our lives? Or is the problem the opposite? Instead of ignoring problems, am I thinking about them too much? I can understand being over analytical could just make me more frustrated and confused. Interesting, the fact that I could be compounding my stress be thinking about it.
What is this hum drum life we are living? At the moment I am feeling like the color has been sucked out of the world and reminds me of a poem. Here it is:
Colors are fragrant, but they fade away.
In this world of ours, none lasts forever.
Today, cross the high mountains of life’s illusions
and there will be no more shallow dreaming
no more drunkenness.
To me, and I know this is subjective, it means that you should treasure what you have while you have it, because nothing lasts forever and that if you can see through the bullshit in the world, all the useless crap, – you wont be one of the mindless masses any more
I know this sounds just like a bit of melancholy crap and many might say deal with it, but I just felt like writing this down. Maybe some will be able to relate, having your own tales of feelings of emptiness. I’m sure that there are people worse off than me – people who suffer clinical depression. I’m also sure that there others who have the most crappy lives but live life without worrying about stuff like this.
Perhaps when it comes down to it, worrying like this is a luxury. To those who don’t have enough food to eat, those who are living on the streets its fairly meaningless. Perhaps this feeling is normal and it is here to stay, a fixture of everyday life that you learn to deal with it. Perhaps everything will be different tomorrow. Perhaps this is just not knowing what the future will bring…
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Comments on style, format or content please! Thanks all!
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Colours are fragrant, but they fade away.
In this land of ours none last forever.
Today, cross the high mountains of lifes illusion
And there will be no more shallow dreaming, no more drunkeness.
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