La Vie

I haven't managed to sleep for more than 48 hours now. I can't stop panicking about god knows what. I feel incredibly vulnerable and alone like no-one cares about me at all. Everyone in this world is selfish, all they care about in the end is their own survival. They are scared just like me. I am past the stage where I can rely on my parents for support. They are weak just like me. They have busy lives and they don't care. I really want someone to be my rock, someone calm and strong who can bring me down to earth and tell me everything is going to be fine, and that they will protect me. But no, I am alone, just like everybody else.

I keep getting moments where it feels like time has frozen and suddenly everything appears extremely ridiculous. It has if my mind has escaped from my body and I am laughing at my body and everything around me. I suddenly realise how absolutely absurd everything in the world is. Sometimes we get so caught up in petty little details and conforming to traditions that we forget the fundamental concepts of existence and see life for what it really is.

These are real...and they were said to me...anonymous and infamous...

"Why are you crying? Look just try acting like an adult for a second while I look through your notes"

"OK...putting aside your morbid thoughts for a second. I think that you are just distracting yourself from your REAL problems. I mean, what was it like growing up for you? Puberty is a very emotional time..."

"I'm sorry but this therapy session is not a philosophy debate. I don't have the answers to your questions"

I never thought that a cheesy pop song from the 60s could really express what I feel. Something which i have never been able to explain. When everything suddenly fits into place and you realise that you are living and breathing and that you belong.
JE SUIS MOI!!!!!!

Et la rue m'habitue à n'être plus personne
presque plus personne
et la ville me force à suivre son rhythme fébrile
son rhythme fébrile
mais quand on se retrouve
quand il rentre le soir
il suffit d'un regard
et je suis moi
j'ai le ciel au bout des doigts
le monde au-dessous de moi
comme pour la première fois
je suis moi
j'entends, je sens et je vois
je suis moi
comme pour la première fois
je suis moi
et la rue me ramène à sa vie monotone
sa vie monotone
dans la ville je me perds, je m'oublie, je m'abondonne
oui je m'abondonne
mais quand on se retrouve
quand le ciel devient noir
il suffit d'un regard
et je suis moi
j'ai le ciel au bout des doigts
le monde au-dessous de moi
comme pour la première fois
je suis moi
j'entends, je sens et je vois
je suis moi
comme pour la première fois
je suis moi
je suis moi
j'ai le ciel au bout des doigts
le monde au-dessous de moi
comme pour la première fois
je suis moi
j'entends, je sens et je vois
je suis moi
comme pour la première fois
je suis moi
je suis moi...

Giacomo Leopardi
"A Silvia"

Silvia, rimembri ancora
quel tempo della tua vita mortale,
quando beltà splendea
negli occhi tuoi ridenti e fuggitivi,
e tu, lieta e pensosa, il limitare
di gioventù salivi?
Sonavan le quiete
stanze, e le vie d'intorno,
al tuo perpetuo canto,
allor che all'opre femminili intenta
sedevi, assai contenta
di quel vago avvenir che in mente avevi.
Era il maggio odoroso: e tu solevi
così menare il giorno.
Io gli studi leggiadri
talor lasciando e le sudate carte,
ove il tempo mio primo
e di me si spendea la miglior parte,
d’in su i veroni del paterno ostello
porgea gli orecchi al suon della tua voce,
ed alla man veloce
che percorrea la faticosa tela.
Mirava il ciel sereno,
le vie dorate e gli orti,
e quinci il mar da lungi, e quindi il monte.
Lingua mortal non dice
quel ch’io sentiva in seno.
Che pensieri soavi,
che speranze, che cori, o Silvia mia!
Quale allor ci apparia
la vita umana e il fato!
Quando sovviemmi di cotanta speme,
un affetto mi preme
acerbo e sconsolato,
e tornami a doler di mia sventura.
O natura, o natura,
perché non rendi poi
quel che prometti allor? perché di tanto
inganni i figli tuoi?
Tu pria che l’erbe inaridisse il verno,
da chiuso morbo combattuta e vinta,
perivi, o tenerella. E non vedevi
il fior degli anni tuoi;
non ti molceva il core
la dolce lode or delle negre chiome,
or degli sguardi innamorati e schivi;
né teco le compagne ai dì festivi
ragionavan d’amore.
Anche perìa fra poco
la speranza mia dolce: agli anni miei
anche negaro i fati
la giovinezza. Ahi come,
come passata sei,
cara compagna dell’età mia nova,
mia lacrimata speme!
Questo è il mondo? questi
i diletti, l’amor, l’opre, gli eventi,
onde cotanto ragionammo insieme?
questa la sorte delle umane genti?
All’apparir del vero
tu, misera, cadesti: e con la mano
la fredda morte ed una tomba ignuda
mostravi di lontano.

This poem always makes me so sad. Nothing in this world is real; love never lasts, and it fades...and decays like everything else. Time swallows all... Don't read this as a tragic love poem. Read it as a reflection on life. Sorry if that depressed you, but this is how I feel and even if no-one reads this I need to express myself! On a similar note. I was given a poem to discuss in my Oxford italian interview which went something like this: 'You take the rose and pass it on, an inexplicable nothingness'.

Desert Places

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it- it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less-
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars- on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

Robert Frost

I hate the way the world has become so plastic and deceivingly smooth. Style and originality have been crushed into a suffocating flatness, smothering the past and its inhabitants beneath it. I will not get sucked into this. I will peel off all of these layers with a knife and make them bleed!!!!!!!!!!

Last easter I remember going to church with my father while visiting my grandparents for Easter Sunday. I offered to go with him to a Methodist service. It was a small church which had one minister who also spoke at about 3 other churches in Yorkshire due to the lack of ministers and funding. I was easily the youngest person there. Most of the people were about 75+. The church and the service were very modest. The minister spoke clearly and unpatronizingly in a very human way which I liked. During the service he handed out some small chocolates and as he did so an old woman piped up: 'That's what we came for!' which broke the ice immediately. However there was something that really distrubed me about the service. I kept looking around at all the old people who seemed to be clinging onto their religion as a kind of desperate last hope. There was something that the minister said in his sermon which particularly affected me and related to a lot of things which I had been thinking about: 'We all feel hopelessness at times, but the Lord gives us hope and purpose'. I am constantly getting depressed over the fact that my life seems so empty and pointless and I am absolutely powerless and being swallowed up by time. But something inside of me made me feel like religion was just an easy way out. It prevents us from finding our own individual purpose in life. Sartre teaches that we alone have the power to create ourselves through the choices we make. When we die we achieve an 'essence', a sense of self. In my opinion, religion is a way to stop us fearing the unknown and feeling hopeless and pointless. But now I have learnt to embrace these feelings. In fact I have never felt so free. At times this idea of being completely free scares me, but then it is also exciting and presents endless possibilities. I do not believe in God and I will stick with that belief. I will be like Don Juan, and die being true to myself. Wow this sounds self-righteous.

My dream is to be like Catherine from 'Jules et Jim'. She is a character who is desperately trying to transcend the bland banality of the world in which we live which is made up of pedantic traditions and rules which crush the human spirit and our free will. In order to do this she acts as randomly as possible, sleeping with two men at once and jumping into a canal for no reason. I feel like jumping into the Thames...

Our perception of life on earth is actually a virtual computer game. We are in fact living in a huge dollshouse in the world of giants with computer screens strapped to our heads. While the giant people sadistically watch us perform actions that we think are part of our real life but are in fact just part of a computer game, they get a sick pleasure from seeing us bump into things in the dollshouse. This is my new perception of existence...HELP ME.

I don't even need to elaborate on my reasons for submitting this...

What is obsessive love?Forward and Buck believe that rejection is the trigger of obsessive love. They state four conditions to help identify it, namely, a painful and all-consuming preoccupation with a real or wished-for lover, an insatiable longing either to possess or be possessed by the target of their obsession, rejection by or physical and/or emotional unavailability of their target, and being driven to behave in self-defeating ways by this rejection or unavailability.

Obsessive lovers truly believe that their “one magic person” alone can make them feel happy and fulfilled.

Obsessive love can also have a great affect on certain individuals surrounding the "love addicted" person. These people are the silent victims sitting in corner and on the sidelines. The relationship of their friend, or family member brings deep angst and sorrow to them for having to see a person they are close to disintegrate, figuratively, right in front of them and be mixed into this controlling as well as controlled life style.

What causes it?
Hodgkinson believes several factors create a climate for obsessive love: leisure, as cited by anthropologist Branko Bokun, who believes obsessive love almost always happens at times in a persons life when they haven’t got enough to do; education, as nearly all obsessive lovers are educated people and thus able to think about and analyse their feelings; feelings of vulnerability and a perceived failure to belong, believed by Hodgkinson to be the most important factor, applicable to people such as those who do not have a recognised place in the world (e.g., those who are required to perform an unfulfilling job), and those undergoing dramatic life changes and the associated fear and lack of self-confidence; an inflated opinion of oneself, as this is believed to ultimately stem from insecurity, with this insecurity driving the obsessed to seek an individual with attributes that they want for themselves; particular childhood experiences, such as deep feelings of unworthiness during childhood that lead the obsessed to seek out one who finds the obsessed similarly unworthy in adulthood; feelings of being special and/or different, as there is an apparent correlation between feelings of distance from peers (whether real or perceived) and obsessive love; and inequality between the lover and the beloved, e.g., the beloved may be married, older, too young, famous, or otherwise unattainable.

It is worth noting that almost all of these conditions apply exclusively to the obsessed, and not to the target of their obsession.

Hodgkinson recommends realising that one who loves obsessively has not fallen in love with a real person, but rather an illusion. It is estimated that up to 90% of obsessive love is motivated by projection. The obsessed is not falling in love with their target because of any salient properties of the target, but for what that target represents to the obsessed. Hodgkinson suggests Regression Therapy as the most useful remedy.

The dangers of obsessive love
Since obsessive love is more of a delusion than actually falling in love with a real person, it can lead to dangerous results depending on how far the obsession grows. Obsessive love can lead to stalking, rape, murder, and other harmful things to the target of obsessive love or anyone the person believes is “in the way” of their delusion. In one case, John Hinckley’s obsession for actress Jodie Foster caused him to attempt an assassination on former President Ronald Reagan, because he believed it would grab her attention.

ALL THE ABOVE