My birthday is coming up and I’m about to turn 24 years old. What lies on the other side when I cross my birthday? I’m nearing the quarter of my life, although I don’t think I’ll reach the age of a hundred. I’ll probably reach the age of 50 then die. Have you ever had a gut feeling that you wont grow old? I have. I don’t know if it’s because of a sickness like cancer or something because of the way I’ve treated my body (I’m trying to take care of it now by the way-trying to keep a balanced diet everyday with all the food groups and stuff and trying to get myself to exercise). I don’t know if it’ll be an accident-getting run over by a car or I’d die a hero because I’ve saved someone’s life. Who knows?
I’m 24 and I’m thinking about death or rather, abotu dying young. Death is such a dark subject to some people. Morbid and very negative. But then there are philosophers that think it’s not. It’s the end. So what do you do? Live like you’ve never lived before. People have trouble understanding that previous sentence. I mean, how do you really live? SHould you take this in a literal sense? Well, I'm not being literal. How you live really depends on your own beliefs, what you’ve been taught and the choices that you make in your life. I don’t think there’s anyone who can really tell you how to live and anyone who can judge and criticize how you’ve lived. All the things you've learned are there to guide and not to dictate. Your life is your own-not theirs. It’s only sad that some people or perhaps a lot who aren’t aware of this fact.
I’m only glad that I’ve been blessed with a mind that is open to understanding, though limited, it still tries it’s best. And I’m also glad that I’ve been exposed to people, books, and experiences. Experiences that in certain instances were troubling, sad, peaceful, wonderful, sweet and mad (insane). Altogether, they are enlightening and very entertaining. I mean it’s not common to experience a death threat at the age of 16 from your own stepfather now is it? It’s also not common to discover that your physically blind best friend can see more about life than those who have their perfect eyesight now is it? And the list goes on…So many and yet there’s more to come. I feel like so much has happened already. But even if so much has happened, I can never say "been there, done that" the same way that I can't say that I know everything that there is to know about life. I've learned so much and there's more!
So what’s in store in the age of 24? Hmmm…we shall see…

I’ve always dreamed of having a life elsewhere. A foreign country far away where I could write my short stories and novels. Perhaps I’d live on a beach or in some vineyard in France, although I’ve never been there. I’ve been so taken by the places that I see on travel shows, movies, pictures and sceneries described by the books that I’ve read. Often times I want to escape my life here and constantly, I try to escape myself. Why can’t I be satisfied as to where I am in my life for long? Maybe it’s just part of human nature to keep wanting and thirsting for more. What is it that can truly satisfy us? Of course the answers to this question varies depending on what the individual truly desires.
I look at certain people and they seem content. Perhaps contentment is a state of mind that I just have to master. Be content with your own situation by recognizing the misfortunes of other people. Seeing what I have as opposed to what I don’t. That may be calming for a short period of time and wanting will then again persist until such time that it will become hard to resist.

There’s this voice inside of me claiming that I am destined for more. Even with the loudest of noise surrounding me and filling my ears, it would shout and see to it that I hear, making it difficult for me to ignore.. It tells me over and over that this is not it, there’s more. Most of the time I listen and then I dream and that’s when I start dreaming again of a life elsewhere. Feeling stuck, I drown those dreams in alcohol to escape the constant pounding of restlessness. I wake up the following day with a hangover and then the voice starts to nag once more.
Will I do something to stop its nagging? Yes. I have to and I fear that if I don’t, I might later on start blaming the people around me for the great things that I should’ve become and bitterness will consume me. Or I’ll just altogether blame myself and sulk at the opportunities lost.
Time can never be put on hold and procrastination wastes it. No matter how much I try to fight this voice within, it will never shut up. There is no one else to shut this voice but me. I’ve been at the crossroads for far too long. It’s time to start walking and instead of this voice nagging at me, it will perhaps start talking and I’d have a decent conversation with it instead.

When I’m in a dark mood sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I died the following day. I try to enumerate the people who would cry and miss me. Would they weep in my wake and after I’m buried, would they still continue to? Maybe some will and some wont. I don’t know. Life goes on. I’m not expecting them to weep for the rest of their lives. They’ve got their own living to do. Will I be remembered? How will I be remembered? Have I done things that are significant enough to touch their lives?
I think I’ve tried to live my life fairly the way I can. I think I’ve helped people and tried to be an existentialist. I’m not really sure if I’ve done the best that I could because sometimes, I’m so jaded and consumed by self-loathing. But since I’m a contradiction, I bounce back and look on the brighter side of things. I mean what else could I do? I don’t want to be dark and pessimistic all the time. I find it such a drag when I come across people like that. I can’t say that I’m pretty little miss sunshine. Hell no. But I’m not a dark person either. Well, I can’t really understand myself sometimes.
So when I die, are there people who have actually understood me? It doesn’t matter. No point to it. I’m just trying to live life the only way I know how.

Took a friend out last weekend. She was feeling down.
We went to a friend’s bar trying to avoid the “scene” and responding to the lure of an open bar on Johnny Black scotch. I’ve always been in good company with Johnny B. He’s a favorite among friends, specially mine.
Johnny B. gave a good hit after 3 glasses so I decided that it was time for a beer. Went to the bar and got myself a nice ice-cold bottle. My other friend took me aside and introduced me to a group of people. And without warning, my hit deserted me. There he was standing and smiling. He thinks that we’ve met before, but to me-I don't think I've ever seen him before in my life. Nevertheless, I lied and said the same. We had started conversing when this idiot former love interest of mine butt in. So I quietly left. I didn’t get to see or talk to him after that. He stuck to my head the rest of the night while my friend got drunk and threw up.
I’m wondering if I’ll ever see him again. It’s been a while since I’ve had a crush. I've got a silly smile stuck on my face. It feels light, dreamy and nice.

Office gossip. Damn thing never ceases to exist. And like the many kinds of gossip, it’s as creative as it can be. And people always wonder why there is office gossip. So my answer would be that some people turn their work into their lives. It becomes so boring that they would have to add spice into it. So the spice would have to be gossip. It’s like the work place becomes a soap opera or some tv show and the gossip is the story line. Work can only be interesting if it’s your passion and that if you’re a workaholic but to a lot of people it becomes routinary and boring. So gossip adds the humor, the drama, the conflict and to sum it all up, it adds excitement. It’s terrible if you become the subject of the nasty rumors around, but I tell you, every person is a subject at some point. Gossip circulates and everyone gets picked for a story line or two.

I have been going out too much. I was out almost every night last week.
And what do I get? A fever and a very bad sore throat. Been drinking and smoking too much. So I stop them altogether. So my life basically turned into endless days of waking up, going to work, going home, watching tv and writing in my very personal journal. Well, it’s just a small notebook containing the many thoughts that I have each day that I don’t wish to show or share with anyone. If anyone read it, I might as well be dead.

Anyway having a mind that is utterly restless and needing constant stimulation-be it from a philosophical conversation, tv and movies, I needed another drug to sort of keep it preoccupied (even if it always is.) And that drug of choice are books. I had nothing new in my room so I started to read the book “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” again. The story remains the same. I never really expected it to be different, but what I find interesting is that arguments and points made by the writer made sense in different ways. I find that books can sometimes be like a kaleidoscope. They offer different views and all the while they can be found and contained in just one thing.
The probable explanation for this is that I’m getting older. Arguments and points become more interesting and complex that I have to constantly debate on the different ideas that occur in my head. Sometimes I think that I’m going nuts. I have to tell myself to relax because too many thoughts are racing through my mind. So I tell my mind to go blank. It follows for a while but it only lasts seconds and then it’s back to its thought processing again.
It’s only books, music and the beach that calm my mind and altogether. If they did not exist, I would’ve run my head into a wall and knocked myself unconscious.