Oregairu, or Why I'm Still Staying Up Late As Tomorrow I'll be Working

Hi.

So recently I've taken a chance to see an anime which a GIF post about it in 9Gag some-when in the immediate past vaguely piqued my interest. Last Friday there's really no one in the house beside me, and I've gotten quite tired playing Dragon's Dogma for hours, repeating killing dragons just to get that Dragonforged Tattered Cloak. So I actually made deliberate effort to search for an online streaming of this anime, Oregairu.

And boy. Was I surprised.

By the realization that the main character is really a living (uh, not really, guess I call it also realization) embodiment of my deepest thought right now. The state of mind I currently use in this day to-day life.

And again I have to feel really left out? I don't know if there's a word about it, but there's this feeling I always get whenever I finally see a movie, a manga, a comic, or a novel, or practically every other forms of storytelling medium, that has gone past their hype, and here I am just now reading/seeing them and feel the awesomeness of the story. There's this quite bad feeling of like I've just missed a really important part of life's experiences and immediate moments with my friends to chat and discussing thoughts about how gripping a heart a story is.

But I digress. Moving on. Yes, as implied, this anime is old. Or not, actually the first form this story appeared to the masses is in the form of light novel. And by old, I mean in a common sense old, in which the light novel first published in 2011. That's like 5 years ago. In perspective, at that time I was still in my second year in university, preoccupied with silly things like ospek or study. In no chances I ever pondered, at that time, to watch contemporary animes or try a shot at one of those 'light novels'. I might have knowledge about one or two light novels, but the sources in which I know about them is.. less than admirable.

I won't go into details about the story. There are already tons of resource material in the internet. If you want to jump to the anime right away, try htvanime.com. Heck, there's even a wiki site complete with full content of the light novel. Heck secondly, there's already Indonesian translation of the novel up until it's latest volume, published in November 2015.

Damn. And again I feel I have left out the immediate moment. :(

* * *

Anyway.

Each people can really have a feeling dimension so deep and vast that nobody can ever comprehend. I, for once, openly admit I'm really dead clueless about feelings. Shit, I'm total loser about being considerate or figuring out what people don't say. I'm a helpless literalist. I see what I see, hear what I hear, and I leave it at that. And I tend to value the facts or choices with pro-cons style of thinking. In some cases, that kind of objective perception may be good, but in many other things, like communication with people, which unfortunately largely populate the Earth, it's not enough. The ability to realize one's feelings, and act with that in consideration, is important.

And right now I'm on the verge of social suicide.

I put up barriers. Because I've given up comprehending feelings. And I've turned that hopeless stance to a deranged kind of pride: that I can put up being alone, stronger than most people who can't help but always need somebody else to accompany them. I'm in the delusional state of considering oneself like a lone wolf. I tightly guard my distinct value system of right and wrong about my and other people's feelings, and doesn't let others complete my understanding. I know that clearly actually. Like, a year?

But I know I will keep telling myself a lie. Seeking outside, something that actually must be seek inside. Pondering inside, something that actually must be discussed with others. Some questions that can only be answered by oneself. Some questions that can only be asked by others.

Some questions that must be asked instead of being left out.

I know I'm stupid and maybe has wasted my time for maybe more than half a year trying to distract myself from thinking what has never been resolved by doing some other things that actually never interest me to begin with. I know. It's stupid and sad. It doesn't mean I love pitying myself; quite the opposite, every time I admit it I take a bullet through my pride. One little thing that I treasure most.

One little thing that shouldn't be treasured the most.

Because what are we really if we hold dear our pride higher than those who genuinely care for us? Who gives us reason to live, reason to reach out to the world?

Reason that gives us the very care we should've spent upon?

I'm still not denying that my ultimate dream is to be perfectly independent so that I can put myself in self-exile and spend my remaining life living by myself, far from civilization and so, far from the possibility of stumbling upon my fellow human. No, it's still there in the back of my mind, and I don't think I can give up that absurd dream anytime soon.

But I also can't deny that I begin to ponder if there's another way to face the world. My root of misanthropic attitude, anyway, just like any other case of misanthrope out there, is because we've been experiencing too many disappointments. Disappointments over people's behavior, deceit, shallow-mindedness, and heart prone to hating everything they can't outright understand. Disappointment over how easily they can deliberately decide to hurt each other over things that can be resolved instead by trying to understand each other. (Okay, if it's really that easy this world would be like heaven as of now).

But why there are disappointments to begin with? A way of thinking put it that, because, deep inside, I love them. Not to say big things like 'I care for humanity' or others, it's just that I just expect them to understand, to know what's right and wrong, to know it's good to be fair and kind. For it's really that natural that we can only disappointed by people we care about, people whom we hope something better, rather than complete stranger. It is also that we face so much disappointments over a very wide circumstances that we also begin to judge other's response way more delicately, in a very self-conscious way. We project our own disappointments in them. We're so fed up with heart break we become really careful facing other people to make sure we don't hurt them like how we've hurt. This is in itself might sounds pretty empathetic, but not healthy. Just like how Hiratsuka-sensei put it, it's not possible to always avoid hurting others. Especially the ones we actually care. It's maybe because we care for them to begin with that we don't want to hurt them, but to give them shallow lies only makes the problem worse. Like Hachiman, maybe, deep inside, I want something genuine. More than to be understood, I want to understand. Because human's feelings is like a pitch black abyss compared to fake smiles they occasionally throws at; it maybe really reeks of selfishness to desire such a genuine thing, but that, over a cream-stuffed fakery that is filling the world saturated, that kind of thing is what I really want. That desire of which I resigned any hope towards, thought I can live without, denied it, and putting up barriers.

And makes me throwing fake smiles.

Just like the last post says, I've been a zombie.

I don't know if me being a loner really hurts anybody, but now I know that self-resignation is in itself egotistic and delusional. I don't want to fall for that, but I also don't want to be hurt. But there's really nothing that ensures you that being alone won't hurt anybody, not even you, anymore. If anything, this anime makes me thinking that at least we have to try to live authentically (call for you, Sartre) and to desire authentic/genuine thing, to think, struggle, stumble, and worry--it's not genuine otherwise. Or maybe it's just a heap mess of nonsensical rambling after this anime has made me somewhat hopeful.

That somewhere, someday, there's really some reason for me to not necessarily stay a loner.

I just don't know yet. I'll keep asking, because even if it's just a story, just like any other story, it must have a sprinkle of truth.

The Dead Eye of the Undying Me

Zombies.

The reanimated dead.

Those who still walk this earth, yet soulless and faded, void of any personality nor emotion.

But I'm not gonna talk about their craving of flesh or how they're scary or they're being such a potential apocalypse scenario or whatnot. I'm not even talking about movie or game zombies.

I'm talking exactly about the absurdity of their soulless, yet active existence as a concept.

I'm talking about me.

The current me as I've perceived myself as we speak, at least.

The thought begins as I reviewed several late events I've experienced, and how I acted towards them. To put it simply, lately I've been meeting people. New and old ones. What put the occurrences in the same basket are that they are not ordinary meetings. It's personal ones. And a lot of outpouring of emotions happened. If not face to face, they're relayed by sounds. These.. previously rather insignificant individuals I've known in my life, one day they just came in my life and interacted with me intensely, while baring all their deepest feelings. Not too deep, perhaps, but I'd like to think that these matters they have shouldn't have been so easily talked about to other people, lest the ones they've not usually interacted with.

At least, I won't let myself do that kind of things.

But that's not the problem here. Moving on.

The thing is that while I, with all my active senses, listening and perceiving all their emotions,

..I feel nothing.

It's like I have no empathy. None left. There are just a few, if exactly none, of their feelings that makes me feel the same. The most interesting thing is, it's not like I'm unable to completely receive them, it's more like..

I refuse to receive it.

I refuse to empathize with them.

I refuse to let my heart moved.

Then I realized,

that I've been being like that lately.

Refusing to feel. Refusing to say how I'm feeling.

Refusing to give any meaning, any importance to my feelings.. and sadly, however soft, other person's feelings.

And if feelings is what makes us apart from logical machines, our soul, then I've been soulless.

I've been a zombie. A walking dead.

If I can see myself when I'm interacting with people, I'll see it clearly that I have the dead in my eyes. I wonder what they were seeing in my eyes when they talked to me. I wouldn't dare to ask.

Because deep inside I know, that I'm the one that close the door. I may have been a good listener. But that's it. I just lend an ear. I'd liked to ask if people feel like they're talking to a wall when they talk to me. Lately.

There is one person that made me able to open up a little.

But I ultimately push her off.

Clinging to an archaic concept called consistency, and a twisted sense of fairness. I've been pushing back others feelings, while constantly eliminates potential feelings growing inside me.

I have realized it fully when I saw with my own two eyes how my close friend deal with such an interaction. He was full of warmth, even if his responses were mainly few words that, for me, has little difference in quenching whatever storm I might have in my mind. But for other people, apparently they're enough.

I'm still confused if I'm really a person who doesn't need those kind of consolation words, as it's a fact there are so few circumstances in my life where I decide to share my feelings with someone, or if I just refuse that my feelings is such a big deal in the first place.

Either way, it might not so much dare of a shot if I were to say right now I'm just like a zombie.

Through these dead eyes I walk this Earth, seeing how the world is colorless. Yet it might be that I'm the one who refuse those colors.

And at this point, I don't know what to do.

What is clear though, is that whenever I attempted to open myself and receive others feelings during their session of sharing with me, I feel pain.

It's like a surge of bad memories are also quickly getting inside and making a mess of it.

Even though their emotions should have no connection with what I've been dealing inside with.

So I guess my way of retaliation is that I won't let myself feel anything anymore.

It shouldn't be an important aspect in this practical world I decidedly delving in.

If I just eliminate such potential circumstances where the door I close are knocked, I guess I'll stop feeling bad. I guess I'll be fine in carrying on with my life.

It really shouldn't be such a big deal.

I can still be a kind person, even if it's done by clinging to the norm. Not by having any empathy or real compassion.

I wouldn't give in my values of right and wrong, even though maybe it's dictated by the cold logic of utilitarianism and not humanitarian wisdom.

A person I know - the one I had pushed off - constantly said that I'm a human, not a machine. That I have to embrace that illogical part of me that gives me soul, that gives me passion.

And I deliberately put those advice into deaf ears.

Maybe I'm better suited to be a machine. Maybe I'm better suited being a zombie.

But maybe I've been throwing bit by bit of my time growing to be fully a man.

Maybe.

But this time, I'd rather walk soulless.

May someday I have a change of mind.

Filling the Blank Canvas Part I: The First Step

Lately, beginning from last month, I have been making brief trips to my  university's central library. Scanning through the bookshelves in cold air, I've been searching for more and more literature that can aid me in studying about oil painting.

---------------------------------------------

Right. Let's stop for a moment to clear things up. To begin with, this semester I have chosen to take a class I've been longing from last year but never have dared enough to actually take it. It is the painting class, one subject that obviously wouldn't befit to show up among the list of taken subjects in my academic transcript. 

Imaginary conversation with interviewer.

Interviewer: Let's see.. Basic of Propulsion Systems..Robotics.. Finite Element Method..

...

Hey, what's a Painting subject doing here??

Me: Well uh, yeah, to broaden my experience, sir..?

It's been a long while since I have a desire to up my game from simple sketching with pencil and paper. But painting for me felt so distant, so grand, so insurmountable a thing to take without proper teachings and commitments and time. And for a brief time starting from last year, I averted my eyes from it by actually focusing in learning digital painting. It's a logical shortcut, I think. Really, to take a virtual canvas and a virtual brush and actually create something inside a small 17" screen. And to add to it, you can always repair a broken step by using undo and redo. What could go wrong? And for months I plunged myself, learning all the methods, the skills, .. to find that this medium feels the least intuitive for me. No real brush to grip, no real hand movements to be controlled, and mixing colors in digital way just follow a very different rules from mixing it with actual pigments.

Before long, I took the leash out. But not before I created some artworks. Now don't get me wrong, it's not I give up on digital painting, it's just that I feel I have to build my sense of color and forms in ACTUAL world first before I convert it digitally. I still have a plan to go back to to my trusty Photoshop and tablet pen, though this hiatus must go on for indefinite time for awhile.

A quick link for my major artwork done digitally. 

Zoom this shit in and you'll see how crude it is, yet I've decided to put this study on hold.

And so, I set my mind again in painting. The fact that one of my friend (in the same mechanical engineering major) has actually took the class in earlier semester kind of encouraged me, but if it isn't for another kind of drive in the beginning of this year I would maybe still ponder the possibility of taking this class while doing my final project.

Let's just say that because of this drive I went and signed for painting class anyway. I have two considerations. Firstly, I already know I am such a procrastinator; that if I just kind of informally learn to paint there'll be many excuses to be faced: prices of tools, lack of actual guidance, TIME.. the list could go on. So the best thing I can do is to actually create a study plan which allocates all the time and money, and to be committed to the plan thoroughly. That's where the significance of taking this class kicked in. By actually taking the formal (kind of) education route to study painting, I'll be kind of FORCED to go through the study plan (albeit considerable freedom is maintained, especially about learning the basic with our own pace) lest I'll have a bad grade, either because I neglect to learn or because I abstain from lectures often. 

So without further ado, and with the hopeless knowledge that there'll be no one among my friends that I can ask to join me in this rather daring endeavour, I signed for the class and gave a rather eloquent note to my thesis adviser to ensure that he'll agree to my choices of subjects this semester. Amazingly, he agreed. But not without slight warning that I should not neglect my thesis.

"I guess that's fine, although painting can evoke a certain 'artist's spirit' that is extraordinarily slothful.."

No kidding. My thesis adviser actually wrote the exact letters in his reply (above photos for illustration purpose only)

I bracingly went to the first lecture (this was only my second time I went inside Arts Major building ever; and as far as I know, I know no one there) only to find out that I'm the only engineering student who took the class (others are from business and management, yet still others are from interior design, multimedia, etc). I was about to scratch my head and throw a rather mild surprising look until I noticed that I was also the only guy there other than the lecturer (a big deal for a guy who spent his senior high school education in an all-boys school, then found himself in an undergraduate major which also have the least women in the campus). Needless to say, it was the most hellish social situation I've ever experienced.. yet. But it must take more than that to deter my mind. 

At one point in the first lecture I even went out for a short while,

took a seat on the corridor and screamed internally, "What have I gotten myself into?!"

I found out that the framework of the lectures themselves is rather informal: there's just a brief three week study about the basics and fundamentals; the rest is up to the students to broaden the knowledge themselves and sharpen their skills through practices. The lecturer already gives a clear assignments: four paintings by the end of the semester. Additional learning can be achieved by continual lecturer's assistance and advice for the students' progress for each painting.

Eventually I noticed how alarming a challenge that presented itself right unto my face: not only my other fellows in this class actually have previous experiences dealing with brushes and canvases, the impromptu nature of the lectures is actually quite a miss for me who is the type that learn best when there's clear guidance and/or step-by-step approach. But of course, it is to be expected if you're studying a subject that have no objective evaluation such as arts. But the matter is, even the study of basic techniques and technical aspects of painting didn't follow a structured plan..

I would surely be overwhelmed by the feeling of devastation had it not come into my mind that I have ample resources to self-study. The most powerful of them all, is, of course, the internet. There are tons of videos in YouTube which discuss the basics, and vast kinds of subjects about painting in e-books or simply websites in the net. I could also have the option to ask someone I know to teach me.. although in the end I didn't go down that path. I have always been most comfortable studying from the silent teacher: books. And that was the beginning of my frequent visit to the library, attempting to drown myself in beginners' subjects, as well as in the masterpieces of classical artists such as Cezanne, Degas, Delacroix... 

..and don't forget about a painter who cut his own ear.

(to be continued)

A Blank Canvas

This week has been harsh for me, not because the wheel of my fate is on its very low, not because the arrangements of celestial bodies is on its malicious formation, no.

It's because of my own damn fault.

I must admit, I've done many foolish mistakes in my life. Mistakes that ought not to happen in common life of a common person, mistakes that doesn't suit my age. But I've been very prominent at that. As strange and frustrating as it seems, my stupidity never once cease to amaze me. And now, the accumulation of my ingenious sobriety and my grand hubris has cost me quite a fortune.

Fate calls for payback. I'll do just that.

And now, the time has come for me to do what I supposed to do a long time ago. To put oneself in a miser, spartan way of life. There is exactly no glory in doing this, for this is the clear consequence of my error. It's human to err, they say. So is to rise up over mistakes. One can't dwell on his past folly, or he will cease being human. I'll do just that. 

I will burn the bridge, so as to not let myself be fooled by the illusion of having any choices. Some great deeds are done by people who are driven by the fact that they have no choice. I'll just have to follow on their footsteps. Although, there is nothing great in this decision; really, this is a way to whip my own shoulder, to let the anger and sorrow bleed out from within; to purify my thought. Life has its downs; now I'm climbing my way up again.

My friend once said, if you have a problem, the surest way to make it worse and haunts you for the rest of your life is to pretend that the problem doesn't exist. You must face your problem first, however harrowing, however terrifying it is. Then and only then you can move to the next step: to find the solution. One has to be honest with his own feelings, with his own weakness; a lesson so commonly said it almost sounds like a cliche; but one that will never die out because, well, people do it time and time again. They trip; and then rise up acting that it's not hurt, all the while their bleeding feet paints the floor.

There is no turning back; no use lamenting the dark times; no self-loathing anymore. I will have to accept I am stupid; that I have my own portion of fallacy. And I want to rise up.

Do I have the courage to do deed that have the initial value far greater than any I have been facing before? The bridge is already broken, so no looking back. I am forlorn; the weight of my sword only helps me plunging myself forward. And then, after the heat of battle, I will know better.

Painting the blank canvas.

Reminiscence

When broken faucet doesn't mean a bath-less day.

When cloudy sky doesn't mean a sure sign of impending rain.

When the ticking of the clock only measures time, not silence.

When staying up late is because of surge of inspirations.

When being sleepy in the midday doesn't mean you're bored.

When disdain of intimate topics ends the subject right away.

When passing on the front gate doesn't mean anything but going for a lunch.

When seeing an old building instill an admiration of old Greek architecture.

When I can walk without worrying about what I must, or mustn't, carry in the bag.

When hearing Fur Elise reminds me of the old grand piano on my grandpa's house.

When I was an ignorant youth, life is as easy as pie (I'll just borrow this phrase, Sting, hope you don't mind).

I miss them all.

New Year.

....Aaaand New Year has come.

It's quite a let down that I had to spend the New Year's Eve still in the clutch of sickness, but we can't always get what we want, right?

Actually, that's one of these three invaluable lessons I have learned the previous year, those supposedly ordinary lessons that people may always hear now and then, but those that I have just realized with full awareness now:

1. that what you want isn't always what you need, and vice versa;
2. what is painful doesn't always wrong, and what is pleasant doesn't always right; and
3. that morality is embedded deep down in our gene, with its most primal reference is that of emotion.

Those were what 2013 has taught me, and taught me hard.

So this new year is here; I must get ready lest I will miss upcoming lessons, and they will hit me hard again. I'm just a man that always trying to make some sense of his life, that's all.

It cost no one nothing; but me and my naivety.

Ignorance is Bliss?

"In much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow."

Is it fine if we live contently in this piece of land we supposedly rightfully belong, blissfully ignorant that in the past, in this very area there are bloody struggles and unjust undertakings done to make it lawfully rightful for us contemporary citizen to have?

Is it acceptable that we just live our respective civil, relatively trivial life without the knowledge that in the past, the value of humanity had become so severely degraded that brutal repressions, tortures, and massacres happened, in the pretext of creating a peaceful state we have presently arrive to?

Is it actually sounds right that you are now happily leading your life by making use of facilities and provisions readily available, that hides the ugly backroom full of corrupt plays, ruthless overthrows, and sly deceivings that are so disgustingly full of hypocrisy that they defy all the good values that you are taught all this time? 

There's a beautiful passage I have stumbled upon from the novel "The Island of the Day Before" by postmodernist semiotician Umberto Eco:

"To speak always seriously provokes irritation. To be always witty, contempt. To philosophize always, sadness. To jest always, uneasiness."

Ignorance is bliss indeed. By the price of losing our humanity, that is.