Life as a blur

Why is it that when one is mentally exhausted time seems to move a lot quicker? A friend tells me she saw me walking through the quad fifteen minutes earlier. I pause...and think, Was that really fifteen minutes ago? I have no clue. To me, it felt like less than that. Could it really have taken me that long to walk across the quad, through a court yard, up three flights of stairs, take a detour to the ladies room and possibly stand at the class door for two minutes before my friend tapped me on the shoulder. Was I moving that slow?

Could it be that one can be moving at a pace indifferent to the world around he/she? Well obviously that's not impossible. Let me rephrase my train of thought. Ahem, could it be that one's mind be in slow motion, distorting awareness of passing time while the world assumes normal pace? Actually that's also possible. One could be mentally thick or just slow in registering the world around them. I'm not making much sense. Could be because I'm still mentally exhausted from the long day. Yes! being tired can make the world seem so much slower, making your head feel lighter, no heavier...lighter? What ever it is.

So when one is so tired, all concentration and focus goes out the window and you find yourself zoning in and out of a conversation like a wavering magnifying glass on an object. Uncertain about what was said one should stay silent right? No, but that's exactly what my tired mind believed at the time was the correct option. Reflecting now still a bit light headed, something tells me silence probably set off a vibe of being discourteous. Could that be worse than confessing the tiredness which ultimately leads to "what your saying is not interesting enough"..."your boring me", even though that isn't the case at all. One is just brain dead, a dying battery.

The feeling of displacement and being totally out-of-it is not unpleasant, nor is it great but some how very usually intriguing. I guess it is because everything I do is so controlled. Letting go is a nice change. Tiredness makes eye lids heavy and vision a bit hazy. Everything seems blurry from a distance, insignificant, unimportant... Like being in your own little bubble world that is dreamy, hazy and carefree.

The technicalities of time

The technicalities of time...what am I on about? I'm not even sure if "technicality" is even the right word for this. Well this is probably going to be the most random post to date. What comes to mind this time round is...well, time. Just a batch of mixed, quirky thoughts relating to the element of time.

If you were a superhero...no, no, no. If you had a super power, what would the one be? Well this has got to be a stupid topic, but in the purpose of I am bored! ...As to say before, me, the indecisive, clueless robot, would not be able to make up my mind. I would be greedy or would juggle between two, no three, or maybe...four. So that was before or maybe still is, but that's not the point, the point is for me time travel/time control has always held a fond spot in my heart, right next to speed, telekinesis and flight! So time travel, the ability to bend time and space per say, just like Hiro Nakamura from Heroes. That power just sounds so appealing, the ability to go to what ever time period you want, or stop time for a break as frequently as needed. And just the sophisticated nature of this power, not ostentatious like super strength. Who wouldn't just love to have this ability?

Well, there is a down side. I wasn't going to elaborate, but... Well, if one could freeze time making the world around one's self motionless, stop growing, living for instance, then what about one's self then? Wouldn't he/she still be breathing, growing...ageing? And there we go. As a time traveler one would age just a little longer every time, time travel is used. Your moving through time but your body is still ticking to it's own biological time clock. What disastrous consequences could occur if the power were not used sensibly. Not only does one risk changing history and all subsequent future but if your lucky enough not destroy your own existence alone, you could end up horribly older in the time period that you do belong to. I guess that's the flaw to such a terrific power to possess.

Time...it's one of those things that sets humans apart from animals, I guess. A quote by someone I know, who probably heard it from somewhere else...

"Humans are the only species on this planet to be obsessed with time."

Wise words coming from a person I would prefer not to consider as wise. But, yes, I totally agree with those words. We are obsessed. Just look at the busy, bustling world we live in. All those workaholics out there! We live by time. It gives us purpose.

Time is quite fascinating, how every fraction of a second transforms from future to present to past in a flash. That sequence occurs perpetually. Something so simple, that everyday thing we trace by a clock, yet so complex in its workings, without it we don't exist. Time, the forth dimension.

Another quote by the unwise person, shall call him Mr. Unwise for pace, once uttered the line

"The yesterday's me [Mr. Unwise] is dead."

What he actually meant was that time changes everything and we change with it, constantly, continuously. So by saying the people we were yesterday or by a matter of fact a minute ago, a second ago are dead is to say we are different people as time passes. Every second our minds process more information and we change, in thought, emotions and experiences. We grow. We are therefore a different person to the person we were yesterday, though it may sound very silly, that person no longer exists and hence is dead.

That about wraps up the quirky items.

Greener grass

Indifferent to the title it may seem but, no, this is not a post about tips to make that dry, dead, lawn of yours more lush and green. Green thumbs are the last thing that I will have so any plantation should stay clear from these fingers of mine!

Photography of Thomas Parkes. Link.

The saying goes "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" which is true, perceptually. As people we can't but ponder the 'what if' question, always want what others have and never be fulfilled with what is possessed. Maybe it's a deficiency that comes with being human.

Maybe it's the inability to appreciate the short term. The idea that we never seem to appreciate someone/something until they are/it is lost and gone forever.

Or could it be that we just have a low tolerance for boredom? I don't know about you, but when I say I want something I long for it, when I have it I find joy for like...a few days, a month, a few months at most, not long after it's just as lack lustered as the next pile of junk. I suppose it's just the obsession with the new, the different, we want something vibrant and not dull...boring. It's kind of childish and it just may well be! But it is the pursuit and not the destination that piques our interest.

Then there is the green eye that manifests inside us all. We see the child next to us with the shiny new toy and our mines fill with the diabolical to...screw him over and retrieve our prize! (lol) Jealousy, such an ugly trait, yet I can live with being a hypocrite by saying that.

Oh, and yes, what if it were all so different? If it were different my lawn would be as green as that guy's in the photo. Well here's an explanation, the clouds are darker on the greener side. Either his side just gets more rain or the owner sold his soul to the devil. Whatever it may be nothing is what it appears to be at first sight. There's no point in pondering and there's no point in envying, things are what they are, change it if you think you can.

Fractured fairytale?

Taking flight from my previous post, I mentioned the well known fairytale 'Sleeping Beauty', in particular Charles Perrault's version. So what can I say, my brief reference of this fairytale sparked a flame of interest and there I was reading about many other classic ones on Wikipedia soon after (lol), realising, though they may be classics, and heard them many times, I don't know them as well as I thought I did.

We have all heard of the term 'fractured' being put in front of the word 'fairytale', giving the description 'fractured fairytale,' to contemporary interpretations/retellings/alterations etc... A popular one is Shrek the DreamWorks animation film and subsequent sequals. So with all these new retellings, how many of us actually know the originals and there underlying morals? To be fair it's hard to pin point which are the originals since like 'fractured fairytales' there were many variants of even the earliest versions, the more well known being Perrault and the Brothers Grimm.

Modern interpretations, retelling after retelling have no doubt lead to a "chinese whispers" effect, though not to a large extent but through subtle omissions, altering details and perhaps a simplifying or dilution of meaning. Cinderella, possibly the most adored fairytale of them all, with many differring orgines, from version to version, the most popular one that of Perrault's with his inclusion of the fairy-godmother and the glass slippers, but... Who remember's how many times Cinderella attended the ball? Once? Yes, once? Well it was actually twice, she got to wear two different gowns; losing her slipper on the second night. I may in my faintest of all memories recall being told that version only once in my childhood. For all I know she attended it just the once in my memory of all sequent retellings I have heard since.

Aside from the culling of these seemingly insignificant details it's probably more insightful and possibly a bit shocking that some of these other classic fairy tales whose prime audience today are young children have had more gruesome versions and moral interpretation of more sensitive matters. The meaning of fairy tales today have been dulled down and sugar coated with simplistic morals and 'happily ever afters' to protect the innocence of our minds. First editions of Grimm's fairy tales have shockingly, a pregnant Rapunzel ignorant of her condition; in Cinderella, the stepsister's gruesomely cut off parts of their feet and are blinded by pigeons; has Rumpelstiltskin tear his body into two; the stepmother in Snow White being her jealous real mother instead. Sleeping Beauty too, having variations of being a two part story predating the Grimm's, told by Perrault whose has an even earlier variant by Giambattista Basile, whose tale Sun, Moon and Talia had Talia as she is known as, giving birth to twins after being impregnated by the prince all while being asleep! Gruesome I do say, not even going into the underlying morals of the innocent Little Red Riding Hood.

So here I am to say starting this post on a platform of delight and innocence, and ending it with gratitude to the storytellers of my childhood for their sugar coating of 'happily ever afters' all the while wanting to re-coat these 'fractured' fairy tales that are all what they are to me now.