I've always felt that the world into which we were born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of our talent. And it's precisely because the world looks onto our talent with such a frighteningly repulsive indifference that, as artists, we are compelled to make our talent important. We are forced to assess; the things that hurt us and the things which helped us cannot be divorced from each other, we could be helped in a certain way only because we were hurt in a certain way; and our help is simply to be enabled to progress from one conundrum to the next. So we write out of one thing — our experience.

Everything really depends on how relentlessly we force from the experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly offer. That is the only real concern of an artist — to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art. Therefore, all art; writings, paintings etc are a kind of confession, more or less oblique. It's the main way we give order to this flux which is life and the only way we know to create true art; to be forced to tell the whole damn story, to vomit the anguish, the sorrow and fury up. And that alone has the power to break open the the vaults of the dead and skies behind which prophesying angels hide.

I just got home from attending a small gathering at T's. I was not really in the mood to socialize but I'm glad I went. Everyone there was witty. It was a good mix; a philosophy student, a poet, a composer, several musicians, a painter, about eight people around a table, all intellectuals and artists, and all of them friends, all drunk on champagne — the empty bottles littered the table — celebrating T's new job. They laughed and poked fun and quoted each other, while I sat and marveled. It was a bright, cliquey, old-fashioned, unselfconscious gathering of people, neither fashionable nor wealthy, but all of them talented, all of them incredible; you can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.

It occured to me then that despite how different our modes of expression were, we're all the same and we want the same things. We're not fond of rules and have no respect for the status quo. We're not ones to choose between being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. We want  to go mad by ricocheting in between. We want to live in all the shades, tones, and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And we want to change things.

Today, as I walked over the golden yellow sand which had been washed clean by last night’s tide, I slowly began feeling the warmth of the long slanting rays being sent out by the sun. Pink and mauve waves were sparkling out at the sea and the salty water that was rushing in at intervals swirled about my ankles, forming creamy foams. The breeze smoothing across my face was refreshing and salty, and gave me a pleasant feeling as it ruffled up my hair.

I turn my head around and see you standing there, you smile understandingly-much more than understandingly. It's one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, one that I may only come across four or fives times in life. It faces - or seems to face - the entire external world for an instant, and then it concentrates on me with an irresistible prejudice in my favor. It understands me just as far as I want to be understood, it believes in me as I would like to believe in myself, and it assures me that it has precisely the impression of me that, at my best, I would hope to convey.

It reminds me that in spite of all my deficiencies and how imperfect I may be, I am enough. I am lucky.
The latter I know is for sure.

I was on video call with Pio late last night all through the wee hours of the morning. He read me Peter Pan over oovoo till I fell asleep. This week has been pretty difficult; fever, sore throat, flu-bug, revision, sleepless nights that afforded me too much time alone with my thoughts. In spite of it all, the sound of his familiar voice never fails to assuage my thoughts and my apprehensions. His familiar sonance drifts me off to sleep no matter how wrought up I might have been. He recited my favorite passages and those words turned into vague visions lulling me through the first dreams of the night. Strange isn't it? How a single person, someone like him, could have complete control over my sleep: I dozed off at the second he chose; sedated and incredibly comfortable.

♥

Yuletide season waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful; Christmas trees gorgeously illuminated and lining the streets, European shell-molded chocolates, gifts donned in the traditional red and green with gold and silver ribbons, the carolling of cherubic voices warming hearts and spirits, echoes of hosannahs filling the air. In attempt to capture this beauty I find myself breathing hard, breathing deep, breathing it in imprints upon my soul. Regardless, there's still this sense that I missed something, the collapsed feeling under my skin that I didn’t experience it all. There’s that fallen heart feeling that I might have rushed right through the moments where I should’ve been paying attention.

Christmas morning. I awoke with a bittersweet memory; that night on your bed, alone with each other, fingers intertwined, warmth of your body pressed against mine, your heartbeat a lullaby serenading me into dreams as we fall asleep sharing each other's breath. I knew then, that there were certain places on the earth which naturally brought forth happiness, as a plant peculiar to the soil, and that cannot thrive elsewhere.

I close my eyes again, fall back into bed, inhale, and feel a rush of heat and energy that takes my breath away. It is the feeling of wanting something so much that it borders on an actual need, and the power and urgency of this need overwhelms me. This absence of you asphyxiates and wrecks me. To be in this unbearable state of want; like being so close I can taste your breath but the centimetres feel like infinity between our lips, is a sweet agony, a delicious torture.