Never say of anything, "I have lost it"; but, "I have returned it." Is your child dead? It is returned. Is your wife dead? She is returned. Is your estate taken away? Well, is that not likewise returned? "But he who took it away is a bad man." What difference is it to you who the giver assigns to take it back? While he gives it to you to possess, take care of it; but don't view it as your own, just as travelers view a hotel.

- Epictetus

I've been sick with a virus all week, yet I turned up for work each day, because my team had so many projects to be actioned before the office closed for the Christmas break. This little display of corporate patriotism put me in bed for the first three days of my ten day holiday. Curses! Am I stupid or what?

I went to see a doc on the weekend, hoping he could speed up the recovery, but he wouldn't sell me any drugs. He said antibiotics are useless for a viral illness, because they don't make a difference unless there's a bacterial infection as well. But he did proscribe an expensive placebo to calm my coughing... a mysterious sugar-free elixir that tastes suspiciously sweet. "It'll make you a bit shaky" the chemist warned me, "just reduce the dosage if the shakes annoy you." Actually, I'm quite enjoying the enduced twitching. My arm pulses like it has an auxillary heart all to its own. It's sorta cool, like I'm some prison psycho on the verge of going bananas.

In other news, a friend's colleague collapsed in the office last Friday. When the paramedics arrived they pronounced him dead of a heart attack. He was 28 years old.

Lying in bed for a few days gives you plenty of time to think. How am I feeling? Numb, mostly. Followed by lonely, and sad. None of which has anything to do with being sick. Life has been distant and surreal, days and weeks slip by without registering in my brain. Suddenly it's Christmas and I realise it's been almost four months since she left. Thinking like this makes me angry. It's been 4 months! Stop wallowing you sad sack of shit! Just get over her! Move on! This is the time of year to be happy! You could drop dead tomorrow! Is this how you want to spend your last day on Earth? Lying in bed feeling sorry for yourself? Get out there! Forgive and forget! That's the way!

His friends would say 'Stop whining'
They've had enough of that
His friends would say 'Stop pining'
There's other girls to look at
They've tried to set him up with Tiffany and Indigo
But there's something about Mary that they don't know.
Mary... there's just something about Mary...

In the past few days, a few friends have come forward and put their arms around me and said "Be strong, we're here for you." I've been touched by these small gestures of kindness. In my distraught state, I felt I was alone in the world. I wanted to die like a phoenix, and be reborn from the ashes. But even when I did not feel like talking, a few special people have spent time with me, and shared my grief and despair. In my weak and pathetic state, I am grateful to know that I have friends who are willing to step up to the plate and protect me. Most of all, I am relieved to hear others echo my thoughts and feelings - it means I am not going crazy.

Before last Friday, the phrases "a heavy heart, a sinking heart" were just that - words. I never understood this could be a literal state, that one's heart could indeed become too heavy, and sink until every heartbeat felt like a pain in one's chest, a hollow, sad note from an old bass drum.

One night you were so sick you were shivering with fever. I brought you dinner, washed your dishes, undressed you and tucked you into bed. Though I was tired, I rubbed your back til you fell asleep. Then I lay down beside you, and listened to Norah Jones sing 'The Nearness Of You'. In the dark, with my eyes open, I imagined our future.

We had a love that was simple and pure. We took care of each other, and we had no need for fear or distrust. Life was not about problems then.

But this man, he does not know love. This man, he is insecure. This man, he does not dream. The world is not the same. The pain will fade with time, but I feel unalterably changed. My heart was unshielded, and the knife went deep. Will it ever heal completely? Will I be capable of sharing that kind of love again? Or has this experience hardened me, made me distrustful and cynical?

There will be many other nights like this, and I'll be standing here with someone new.
There will be other songs to sing, another Fall, another Spring, but there will never be another you.
There will be other lips that I may kiss, but they won't thrill me like yours used to do.
Yes I may dream a million dreams. But how can they come true, if there will never be another you?

Without exaggeration, this is the lowest point in my life. Nights are worse than day. I can't sleep, tortured by images I cannot be part of. Reality is destroying my memories, my truths, my ideals. I can't believe they are together. Could she really have changed that much? I can't bear to think she is the same with him as she was with me. If that were true then the most beautiful relationship in my life must necessarily be diminished. They say they were meant to be. My heart clouds over. Could she ever say that? If so my world would crumble. I thought we completed each other... if they were meant to be, was does that mean for me? That the memories I hold dear, the dreams I live for, are not meant to be? Are impossibilities? No, I can't accept it. But if she's truly happier, then our relationship is cheapened in my eyes. Did I imagine it to be perfect? Was I deluding myself? My friends say no, because others noticed how beautiful it was too. Everyone was shocked.

I cannot sleep tonight. The city is burning, and the wind beats relentlessly at my window.

I don't like what I'm hearing. The thought of the love of my life fucking my so-called friend just kills me. The knowledge consumes me, shatters my dreams and hopes. How could she leave me for that superficial asshole? Everything I believed in is now under question. I feel so foolish. I denied it to myself because of the devastating implications of the truth. Insane lies, cheap emotions, worthless memories. What's there to live for once you realise you don't know your lover and you can't trust your friends? I built my life around these relationships, and now I find myself exiled to the desert of hard feelings. And in my confusion, daily life seems like an annoyance, an unbearable distraction. I need time to think. I need someone to talk to. I need to know I can count on my friends to care for me and help me deal with this immense betrayal. I have been bitten by a snake. My blood curdles and burns with the poison. But to kill the snake would be a pyrrhic victory. I need an antidote so I can once again feel the ground beneath my feet, and enjoy the slow breath and swell of being alive.

"Child, what is it that you seek?"
"The truth sir, the truth."
"The truth is in your heart."

Watched this documentary about the Holocaust. The filmmaker interviewed some Polish villagers who lived next to the concentration camps... they all claimed to have been ignorant of the mass murder that went on around them. But how could they ignore the billowing smoke and stench of burning flesh that inundated their homes day and night? If you witness a man being beaten to death and do not intervene, does that not make you complicit in the act? What if the murderer was a friend, a neighbour, or a brother, and he had good cause to hate that man? Would you turn him in, or sympathise and shelter him? Moral dilemmas. In our comfortable first-world countries, we often forget the violence that punctuates human history. Would I have dared stand up to the Nazis? Would I have joined the underground resistance or just turned a blind eye? I think my principles would have driven me to take up arms. But what if the people being persecuted had wronged me in the past? Would I still have this moral conviction?

She holds the hand that holds her down

If you witness incest, and say nothing, are you not condoning the rape, encouraging the rapist? Sure, incest is not a black and white issue, the line between rape and consensual sex is sometimes blurred. But even if you commit incest out of love, does that truly absolve the relationship of its social stigma? Why do these stigmas exist? Is it purely because of increased likelihood of genetic mutations? Or because they threaten the moral foundations of the family, and community, the institutions which give meaning to our lives?

Incest deprives the child of a childhood seperate from adulthood, of parental guidance and love distinct from the selfishness of sexual lust, and vice versa. Hence girls who experience incest as a child are more likely to slip into dependent relationships, and become prostitutes, pornstars, drug abusers, beaten wives and the like.

It's sad that the children are unaware that the behavioural patterns they accept out of love, will alter their lives in incomprehensible ways, endangering the possibility of experiencing untainted love later in life - the altruistic love of equals, without submission, confusion, self-loathing or heartbreak. Yes, the child is not always an innocent. But even the Lolitas of the world deserve a glimpse of life's many possibilities... a rich delta of fertile valleys and tributaries stretching out to a mysterious, cloud-swept horizon... a view of alternate futures that they are deprived of, held back by the arms of inappropriate lovers.

A busload of anonymous Chinamen passing me in the street remind me that my life is as inconsequential as the next. One should not take things to heart, for in this world a million souls come and go, so downtrodden they are ignorant to the sadness of their very passing.

What is my paltry drop of suffering, against the salty ocean of ambivalence? In a world of wars, climate change and wholesale extinction of species, one man's suffering is another man's "I don't give a fuck." I kick your dog. I take your paper. God giveth, and God taketh away. Wax on, wax off. Better you than me.

Well bite the wax, tadpole. Look for the fly. An eye for eye, a mule for mule.

Confucious say, "Who am I, but a speck of light, on the ass of a fly, on the ass of a mule, taking a particularly putrid dump. When one could so easily be a piece of shit, to feel light, even on the ass of a fly, is glorious."

Things I long for. Peaceful light, strangers at the door. Oh come in, come thru the door. You've been here before. Oh you've been here before.

Been finding myself alone a lot more than I'm used to. It's got me thinking how an unexpected breakup can fuck your life up... shock, betrayal, bitterness... Group dynamics are thrown into disarray as relationships are polarised. Suddenly, you wonder if your friends are really your friends. Motives are questioned, loyalties glimmer and fade in the limelight of emotional turmoil. Can you believe what they say? Can you accept the silence of what they do not tell you? Can you tolerate knowing you're not as important to them as they are to you?

For that very reason, should you forgive or forget them? Perhaps it is not your choice. Is it not ironic that a friend you cannot trust is worse than an enemy? At least we never let our enemies get so close, and we are not surprised when they wound us.