O the memories - first time in print!
Aug. 18th, 2004 12:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyrasantae
I was digging around in the stuff (read: junk) lying around in my room collecting dust when I found a couple of sheets of looseleaf with stuff all over it. I thought I'd share it with you because it talks about my feelings after the Cataclysm or the Sundering or whatever I've called it in one of my other journal entries. I'm going to try to type this out word for word with original punctuation. I might add some editorial comments, in footnotes or in-line notes, if I deem them necessary, but I don't know yet since I haven't typed it out as of right now.
Although the colour painting of the "fish" symbol (mentioned within) that I have elsewhere in my room appears to be in the style of the stuff I painted in grade 9, the absence of any mention of Survivor in this piece indicates that it was written before the discovery that the TV phenomenon would become my next source of spiritual sustenance.
Dearest Friends (and other Acquaintances1):
I. Introduction
As you may or may not know already, the past year was very difficult for me. Through a multitude of unexpected depressing events, I have decided to write this account of my deeper thoughts. I hope this will be a revelation to you. It is modelled upon a document Beethoven wrote about his deafness commonly called the Heiligenstadt Testament.
Allow me to start from the beginning. Near the end of Grade 7, all I had was that notable was a box of Magic cards, a smaller box of Star Wars cards2, a set of dice, and the 2 - 1st Edition AD&D books that Bryce gave me. After much convincing, I got my first real RPG set: the Dragonlance 5th Age set3. A year later, my RPG stuff alone consisted of 2 sets of dice, a set of the 1st edition AD&D core rulebooks, a set of the 2nd ed. core rulebooks (plus an extra DMG) and the "Complete Psionics Handbook" and 2 Ravenloft setting books, and 6 Dragonlance supplements (including the original game set), and a full set of The Guide to Adventure game. Most of this I bought for myself or were gifts. Also were a few Dragonlance novels I got for my birthday.
I don't want to go into depth into what happened then, but to make a long story short, one day, all of that disappeared, along with some other things (most notably a Lord of the Rings tarot card deck, a set of playing cards with Star Wars pictures, and an assortment of props from the RotA4 movie.) They obviously felt that they were doing this for my own good, but it was close to exams and that made me even more distraught. It's been like that since then. I can't even phone my friends5 without having to do it in secret.
II. Feelings
Now my life is boring. I miss all of my friends, but even if I had them, I wouldn't be less bored. It's that my passion for fantasy has been outlawed. And that's why bonds me to my friends; each of them shares a different aspect that, when put together, makes ME. Now, I dream of them day and night, for I envy them so, for their freedom to do what has been forbidden to me, even for other sacrifices. I really want to be able to be myself, to be who which was born to me. Even some people have admitted that my looks alone can speak: it tells the world of my passion for the imagination.6
Sometimes, I think that not only has my passion been banned, but my life has been controlled as well. I have very little freedom now, such as I'm always watched when I use the computer, and not being able to read fantasy books or books on mythical or mysterious things without being glared at. I am NOT a puppet! I wasn't born to be made into what someone wants me to be. (see lyrics to "What U See (Is What U Get)" by Britney Spears7). But now I feel really lost. I want to tell people, but there's no one to tell. I can't tell the PU's [parental units], because they started it, and my friends (people like you) are often busy at school and I can't phone them at home. I've tried to express it through music and singing to the PU's, but they don't know why tears come when I perform. What's best, for me, is expression through art. So far, it has been the most successful. Art and the imagination is something no one can take away. No matter what anyone does, the spirit will remain. The memories will remain. I often dream about my past, when my days were so much happier, when home was a place I wanted to be. Now, sometimes I wish I could be at school forever, where I could truly trust my teachers and friends. I'd want to get away from reality, and immerse into a daydream.
The symbol on the right represents me, a fish being pulled by its tail fin, a kite being flown. But if you look at it vertically, it looks like [sic]abstract person. The line over what would be the left side of the body shows that this is a scar that will never heal. 8 It will remain with me my entire life.
Now I wonder whether I can prove myself again and how. I don't even know what they are looking for before I can get my things back. Is it responsibility? Is it perseverance [sic]? I have no idea. Sometimes I think my only hope is to wait, cope with it the best I can, and hope for the best. Because no matter if you are one of my best friends or not, I know that someone can help me, and it is you. Please, come forward and guide me through this.
I didn't have a choice. If I had, it wouldn't have affected me as much. When I had to close the box and seal it, I felt I was sealing my fate, to be a miserable person forever. But I know that's not true. If there's anything that remains of my ruined self, it is my hope, my spirit, my unbearable desire for justice. I didn't do anything wrong!
III. Memories
Sometimes, when PUs keep reminding me to put the memories behind and move on, it makes me want to remember more. But I don't know whether I should remember or not. I've always liked to cling onto history, but I don't know whether I should apply that now. It's already been so long, and I still haven't forgotten. Maybe that's because I absolutely refuse to drop it all and start all over.
The PUs seem to want me to be who was I when I was in grade 4. But I've grown and changed since then. I'm COMPLETELY different now. Back then, I was solitary, quiet, few friends, but humorous and willing to speak. You could still say that I am still a bit solitary and have few friends, but I am more outgoing now. I didn't like who I was in grade 4. I was in GATE [Gifted And Talented Education program] but I was still teased a lot. But that's made me a much stronger person. Teasing doesn't really bother me anymore.
IV. Brains
The scientists say that the 2 sides of the brain do different things. The leftside [sic] controls your logic, reasoning, cognitive ability, speech, etc, and the right side art, creativity, music, imagination. The PU's are very left-brained. They seem to think that the right side doesn't exist. But it does, in me. I have a need to nurture and develop it, along with the left side, which I develop in school with subjects like Hum [Humanities], Science, and Math.
In their childhood, the PU's never cared about the arts. It just wasnt [sic] important. You didn't need it to get a scholarship, it wasn't practical. So it didn't really take an important place in their lives. Therefore, they don't want it to be an important part of MY life. But art is important now. Artists can make a decent living from selling their works. People are becoming (remembering?)9 how to appreciate the arts. Many beautiful designs and sculptures are being made today. They commemorate things, and celebrate things. What if we didn't have them?
Brains are very important things. We need them to live. Both sides of the brain are there for a purpose. If the right side is useless (except to control the left side of the body), why is it there?
V. Revelations
I've had some rather strange dreams. One was in which my best friend10 had become someone I never imagined he could be -- a drug-dealing criminal. And he had gotten together his own gang, too. In another dream, I was a victim of a massacre, but I was the only one to actually die.11.
I think that everytime [sic] I get a dream that I can actually remember, it means something important. In my opinion, the first dream mentioned had disturbed me for a while until I figured out what it meant, and I think it was showing me how my PU's felt about me being "obsessed." They have long since compared it to drugs.12 The second one seems to show that I am really feeling very picked on, and everyone else seems so lucky.
While I'm on the subject of revelations, I would also like to thank those people who helped me figure most of this situation out. You know who you are. No matter whether you did it because you are kind, or you did it just so I would stop being so depressing, I don't care. I thank all of you, no matter why you helped me.
Anyway, the word revelation is commonly linked to prophecy, but it also means "the act of revealing something." I feel that too much of me is being revealed right now13. I don't believe it's right to be watched over all day and all night.14 Well, I'm exaggerating a bit, but still, people should have opportunities to work in private on whatever they want, in any place. This means we are all entitled to have some private time in our room [sic], outside, watching TV, on the computer, whatever. None of us want to be spied on all the time.
I feel awkward when I am doing something for fun, such as playing a game, reading, or writing a story, simply because I'm being watched over. I become afraid because I don't want to be "caught" "doing this" or "doing that." Sometimes I can't even keep my door shut for any more than five minutes. We all need our private moments sometimes, just to sit around and think, daydream, or do stuff.
There's no sense in a person without privacy. A person without secrets is just someone with knowledge, someone without a mind, [or] the ability to think. Our secrets and thoughts are what makes us individual besides our looks, what makes us all different. No two people can ever be the same, so why try to make it happen? A non-thinker has no place in a world like ours.
[Fini. Was this unfinished? I don't know.]
Footnotes
1 I had a system of sorting who was a Friend and who was an Acquaintance. Friends were what most people would call "best friends" and Acquaintances would be what most people called their "friends."
2 Now out of print.
3 Also out of print.
4 "Rune of the Ages." Based on a short story that I wrote (which was once on Fanfiction.net but no longer - it's been a long long time), it was an amateur film thing that I made for class. It was a disappointment to me because one of actors insisted on my insertion of an additional character, which somewhat damaged the metaphorical meaning of the antagonist character (okay, now that was mostly BS, but whatever).
5 Most notably the "(philosophically) close friend" mentioned in this entry.
6 They say I still have that; that I still don't look or act adult. And my sister bought me some make-up for college (the American use of the word) yesterday. Ha!
7 Don't ask. My cousin bought my sister the "Oops I Did It Again" album that summer.
8 Another one of those interpretations I come up with after I finish a work :)
9 I held the belief that there was once a time when art was an appreciated and important part of the human lifestyle. I had in mind the culture of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, the Renaissance, times like that.
10 That would be him (see footnote 4) again.
11 I still remember parts of the first one fairly clearly, but I don't remember the second one at all. Hmm.
12 Slight misuse of the phrase here. I meant that they had compared it to drugs in the past and still were doing so.
13 So why was I writing this!?!?
14 Oh. That way.
Now my fingers really hurt from typing. Ow.
Although the colour painting of the "fish" symbol (mentioned within) that I have elsewhere in my room appears to be in the style of the stuff I painted in grade 9, the absence of any mention of Survivor in this piece indicates that it was written before the discovery that the TV phenomenon would become my next source of spiritual sustenance.
Dearest Friends (and other Acquaintances1):
I. Introduction
As you may or may not know already, the past year was very difficult for me. Through a multitude of unexpected depressing events, I have decided to write this account of my deeper thoughts. I hope this will be a revelation to you. It is modelled upon a document Beethoven wrote about his deafness commonly called the Heiligenstadt Testament.
Allow me to start from the beginning. Near the end of Grade 7, all I had was that notable was a box of Magic cards, a smaller box of Star Wars cards2, a set of dice, and the 2 - 1st Edition AD&D books that Bryce gave me. After much convincing, I got my first real RPG set: the Dragonlance 5th Age set3. A year later, my RPG stuff alone consisted of 2 sets of dice, a set of the 1st edition AD&D core rulebooks, a set of the 2nd ed. core rulebooks (plus an extra DMG) and the "Complete Psionics Handbook" and 2 Ravenloft setting books, and 6 Dragonlance supplements (including the original game set), and a full set of The Guide to Adventure game. Most of this I bought for myself or were gifts. Also were a few Dragonlance novels I got for my birthday.
I don't want to go into depth into what happened then, but to make a long story short, one day, all of that disappeared, along with some other things (most notably a Lord of the Rings tarot card deck, a set of playing cards with Star Wars pictures, and an assortment of props from the RotA4 movie.) They obviously felt that they were doing this for my own good, but it was close to exams and that made me even more distraught. It's been like that since then. I can't even phone my friends5 without having to do it in secret.
II. Feelings
Now my life is boring. I miss all of my friends, but even if I had them, I wouldn't be less bored. It's that my passion for fantasy has been outlawed. And that's why bonds me to my friends; each of them shares a different aspect that, when put together, makes ME. Now, I dream of them day and night, for I envy them so, for their freedom to do what has been forbidden to me, even for other sacrifices. I really want to be able to be myself, to be who which was born to me. Even some people have admitted that my looks alone can speak: it tells the world of my passion for the imagination.6
Sometimes, I think that not only has my passion been banned, but my life has been controlled as well. I have very little freedom now, such as I'm always watched when I use the computer, and not being able to read fantasy books or books on mythical or mysterious things without being glared at. I am NOT a puppet! I wasn't born to be made into what someone wants me to be. (see lyrics to "What U See (Is What U Get)" by Britney Spears7). But now I feel really lost. I want to tell people, but there's no one to tell. I can't tell the PU's [parental units], because they started it, and my friends (people like you) are often busy at school and I can't phone them at home. I've tried to express it through music and singing to the PU's, but they don't know why tears come when I perform. What's best, for me, is expression through art. So far, it has been the most successful. Art and the imagination is something no one can take away. No matter what anyone does, the spirit will remain. The memories will remain. I often dream about my past, when my days were so much happier, when home was a place I wanted to be. Now, sometimes I wish I could be at school forever, where I could truly trust my teachers and friends. I'd want to get away from reality, and immerse into a daydream.
The symbol on the right represents me, a fish being pulled by its tail fin, a kite being flown. But if you look at it vertically, it looks like [sic]abstract person. The line over what would be the left side of the body shows that this is a scar that will never heal. 8 It will remain with me my entire life.Now I wonder whether I can prove myself again and how. I don't even know what they are looking for before I can get my things back. Is it responsibility? Is it perseverance [sic]? I have no idea. Sometimes I think my only hope is to wait, cope with it the best I can, and hope for the best. Because no matter if you are one of my best friends or not, I know that someone can help me, and it is you. Please, come forward and guide me through this.
I didn't have a choice. If I had, it wouldn't have affected me as much. When I had to close the box and seal it, I felt I was sealing my fate, to be a miserable person forever. But I know that's not true. If there's anything that remains of my ruined self, it is my hope, my spirit, my unbearable desire for justice. I didn't do anything wrong!
III. Memories
Sometimes, when PUs keep reminding me to put the memories behind and move on, it makes me want to remember more. But I don't know whether I should remember or not. I've always liked to cling onto history, but I don't know whether I should apply that now. It's already been so long, and I still haven't forgotten. Maybe that's because I absolutely refuse to drop it all and start all over.
The PUs seem to want me to be who was I when I was in grade 4. But I've grown and changed since then. I'm COMPLETELY different now. Back then, I was solitary, quiet, few friends, but humorous and willing to speak. You could still say that I am still a bit solitary and have few friends, but I am more outgoing now. I didn't like who I was in grade 4. I was in GATE [Gifted And Talented Education program] but I was still teased a lot. But that's made me a much stronger person. Teasing doesn't really bother me anymore.
IV. Brains
The scientists say that the 2 sides of the brain do different things. The leftside [sic] controls your logic, reasoning, cognitive ability, speech, etc, and the right side art, creativity, music, imagination. The PU's are very left-brained. They seem to think that the right side doesn't exist. But it does, in me. I have a need to nurture and develop it, along with the left side, which I develop in school with subjects like Hum [Humanities], Science, and Math.
In their childhood, the PU's never cared about the arts. It just wasnt [sic] important. You didn't need it to get a scholarship, it wasn't practical. So it didn't really take an important place in their lives. Therefore, they don't want it to be an important part of MY life. But art is important now. Artists can make a decent living from selling their works. People are becoming (remembering?)9 how to appreciate the arts. Many beautiful designs and sculptures are being made today. They commemorate things, and celebrate things. What if we didn't have them?
Brains are very important things. We need them to live. Both sides of the brain are there for a purpose. If the right side is useless (except to control the left side of the body), why is it there?
V. Revelations
I've had some rather strange dreams. One was in which my best friend10 had become someone I never imagined he could be -- a drug-dealing criminal. And he had gotten together his own gang, too. In another dream, I was a victim of a massacre, but I was the only one to actually die.11.
I think that everytime [sic] I get a dream that I can actually remember, it means something important. In my opinion, the first dream mentioned had disturbed me for a while until I figured out what it meant, and I think it was showing me how my PU's felt about me being "obsessed." They have long since compared it to drugs.12 The second one seems to show that I am really feeling very picked on, and everyone else seems so lucky.
While I'm on the subject of revelations, I would also like to thank those people who helped me figure most of this situation out. You know who you are. No matter whether you did it because you are kind, or you did it just so I would stop being so depressing, I don't care. I thank all of you, no matter why you helped me.
Anyway, the word revelation is commonly linked to prophecy, but it also means "the act of revealing something." I feel that too much of me is being revealed right now13. I don't believe it's right to be watched over all day and all night.14 Well, I'm exaggerating a bit, but still, people should have opportunities to work in private on whatever they want, in any place. This means we are all entitled to have some private time in our room [sic], outside, watching TV, on the computer, whatever. None of us want to be spied on all the time.
I feel awkward when I am doing something for fun, such as playing a game, reading, or writing a story, simply because I'm being watched over. I become afraid because I don't want to be "caught" "doing this" or "doing that." Sometimes I can't even keep my door shut for any more than five minutes. We all need our private moments sometimes, just to sit around and think, daydream, or do stuff.
There's no sense in a person without privacy. A person without secrets is just someone with knowledge, someone without a mind, [or] the ability to think. Our secrets and thoughts are what makes us individual besides our looks, what makes us all different. No two people can ever be the same, so why try to make it happen? A non-thinker has no place in a world like ours.
[Fini. Was this unfinished? I don't know.]
Footnotes
1 I had a system of sorting who was a Friend and who was an Acquaintance. Friends were what most people would call "best friends" and Acquaintances would be what most people called their "friends."
2 Now out of print.
3 Also out of print.
4 "Rune of the Ages." Based on a short story that I wrote (which was once on Fanfiction.net but no longer - it's been a long long time), it was an amateur film thing that I made for class. It was a disappointment to me because one of actors insisted on my insertion of an additional character, which somewhat damaged the metaphorical meaning of the antagonist character (okay, now that was mostly BS, but whatever).
5 Most notably the "(philosophically) close friend" mentioned in this entry.
6 They say I still have that; that I still don't look or act adult. And my sister bought me some make-up for college (the American use of the word) yesterday. Ha!
7 Don't ask. My cousin bought my sister the "Oops I Did It Again" album that summer.
8 Another one of those interpretations I come up with after I finish a work :)
9 I held the belief that there was once a time when art was an appreciated and important part of the human lifestyle. I had in mind the culture of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, the Renaissance, times like that.
10 That would be him (see footnote 4) again.
11 I still remember parts of the first one fairly clearly, but I don't remember the second one at all. Hmm.
12 Slight misuse of the phrase here. I meant that they had compared it to drugs in the past and still were doing so.
13 So why was I writing this!?!?
14 Oh. That way.
Now my fingers really hurt from typing. Ow.
