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[beginagainagain]

I don’t know if I’ll ever “sort myself out.” I don’t know if I ever needed sorting in the first place. It’s a story that I keep telling myself, that I need to become more disciplined, more structured, more correct. 

Living in Dublin for two months has taught me, at least for now, that only lesson I really need to hold is that, no matter what, I am not guilty. My thoughts, my habits, my life is not a colossal fuck up. It’s me, feeling my way through the universe, finding the best fit for me. 

It’s hard to get up in the morning sometimes. As much as I want to be Arthur Denison, finding new things across Ireland, I feel the Denton JJ, the one who desperately wants to go back to bed all the time, creeping up from me. He wants to drink beers with strangers, suck impressive cocks, and sleep until 12 each day. 

He’s a part of me. I’ve fed him well. Other parts still remain to be discovered. 

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Walk through Edinburgh’s medieval streets and tell me you don't believe in ghosts. The city is ancient. It’s architecture, rigid. Walking under stone cut buildings four or five stories high, I felt I was in the physical form of my teenage British dreams of a life at an artist. 

It all felt so real.

Like I could align myself back to that younger selfs idea of what type of person I was supposed to be. 

I thought watching plays would be difficult giving the old aspirations. Instead, it proved an important exercise. I think much of daily struggle is not having a place for my mental energy. There’s a capacity to think that made theatre feel engrossing. When not there, I would be free to live a less showy life. 

Nowadays, my most energy-intensive moments are had guzzling sugar-rich beers on Parliament Street, desperately looking for a long-term catch. 

Edinburgh felt special. It felt like a return of a part of my soul. I’m eternally grateful. 

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Allow me to put one foot forward in this one-way conversation, I am not to be entirely believed. I embellish, I speak half-truths, sometimes, when I know I can get away with it, I just lie. It’s why I write in this sporadic manner. Not because it is the one thing that anchors me. Rather, it’s the only plough I possess in this time of my life to dig into what I’m really ever trying to get at. 

My writing, my thoughts, my existence undercuts the truth to my life. That I am, at the end of the day, an innocent man. My crimes are not too damning just yet for me to lose hope that I will redeem myself. 

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Jashan Mahal has always been a storyteller. For years, he’d spin wild tales of kings and queens, beautiful cities, and infinite love for his own amusement. Then something happened. Jashan’s internal clock got stuck, repeating the same stories, the same pieces of information concerning real-world geography, economy, and elections so that he became lost, deep in the recess of his mind. 

Now living in a Dublin flat, working as a receptionist in a local hotel, the American seeks two feet on the ground and a head free of demons. Is Jashan’s internal clock a product of growing up and giving up on a childhood imagination? Or is there a place for imagination in a world full of Machiavellian entrepreneurs, corrupt politicians, and a narcissistic public. 

It’s Jashan’s journey to discover. 

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Begin Again: Ireland

Mind warp. 

I’m sitting in an apartment I bought with my own money in a beautiful European capital. Neither London nor Paris, not artsy Berlin or party central Barcelona. Dublin is now my home. City of Celts, Vikings, and Normans. Early home of James Joyce, Beckett, and Oscar Wilde. Now I’m apart of what feels like the most honest place in my existence. 

I’m not here to prove anything. I don’t want to be someone. I’d rather just be. 

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I don’t want to become a monster again. I don’t want to fill my head in with my shit and shut myself off of the world moving around beyond me. To be a self-centered narcissist as I was in my most troubled time. Instead, I’d like to combine the best parts of me into the person I want to be. Intelligent without the bravado, patient but not aloof, smart but with class.  

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God knows no race. God knows no language. God favours no man. Neither yours nor is mine. God is my mother. She is my father. She is the realm of the forever unknown. The guide who gets me through the abyss.

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Things to do before moving to Ireland with reasons why you must not fail.

-Acquire the wardrobe of a respectable 20 something. 

Reason: Working at the hotel as long as I have has made me settle for two shirts and a single pair of pants. If I go to Ireland with what is currently in my closet I will look seriously wack. It’s time to update and mature up with a couple investment pieces. I’m talking two pairs of quality shoes (casual and dress), two pairs of business-casual trousers, and three new dress shirts. Add a quality rain resistant jacket and you can perhaps look the part in a future temping job. 

-Acquire skills inside and outside your current line of work. 

Reason: My work, with it all it’s customer service hangups, can teach me a lot about professionalism. Listening to my superiors, accommodating guests, and managing a front desk via face to face communication, email, and inventory systems, all equal to skills for a future workplace. And yet if I’m ever to make any serious cash or acquire serious stability, I need to put my efforts into a quality trade. I can pretend like I’ll learn to code in two months or I can accept that Manav has a wealth of data analytics knowledge I can set myself up with avant je depars. 

-Acquire the website I’ve been talking everyone’s ear off. 

Reason: It’s time to stop imagining the person I want to be and become him. This is nowhere truer than buying the domain and hosting of a website of my own. Will it be a travel website, will it be a personal journal, or will end up the vomit collage of my brain? No one can say for sure. I will, however, never know the truth about myself if I never buy my ticket. Buy the domain now. 

All three of these are completely in the realm of possibility in the next two months. A wardrobe of some quality, the beginnings of a trade, and a website for my soul. Sounds like the infrastructure of a modern human being. 

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I am human, just like the others. 

As much as I’d like to make it that my mantra, I feel guilty. Guilty of the person I should be rather than the one for whom I’ve settled. In this world of a 24 hour work ethic, dreams and realities, growing up and staying youthful, I feel lost. 

My conscience doesn’t always read as an inner compass of peace. At times it annoys the worst parts of me. 

“I should be more responsible, more present, more mature.” 

“More” feels like my true mantra, regardless of what I’ve actually done, it never seems like enough in a world where, in reality, it probably isn’t. 

The older I get, the more I realize, our capacity to beat ourselves up is the most universal part of us. 

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Time is the most peculiar phenomena. As much as we’d like to keep things constant, as much as I’d wish things to be just the same, time tells us shit’s changed. 

I’m sorry Charles. Sorry that the person I was in high school is still part of the man I am today. 

I hope some day you;ll understand, understand that the man I am pretending to be right now is a form of the man I’d rather be than that husk of my high school self. 

I’m not pretty, I no longer pretend to be. What I hope to be is the responsible person we’d envisage ourselves being. 

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I’ve spent the last couple of days in motion. Working here and there, spending my free time entertaining myself. Playing video games for the first time in ages, exercises with more gusto, and finally finding music that holds my imagination again. 

I haven’t been completely ignorant to good music, but I have hovered close to losing my rhythm. Due to lack of new music imports, an overloaded brain, and increasingly social anxiety I thought I lost my ability to dance to my youth. 

Yet the last few days have proved different. I feel I’ve been taking care of myself better than I have before. This includes looking out for my responsibilities and making sure Ireland is running smoothly. This has meant music, recreation as a whole, has felt more... freeing than it did before. 

Responsibility is hard feeling to digest. If one is not careful or misfortune it breaths down your neck. 

“What did I forget to do?”  

“What am I choosing to procrastinate on?” 

“How fucked am I if this happens?”

Valid questions, but not necessarily the only means of accepting responsibility. 

At it’s heart, it’s about acknowledging your honest self. The part of you that is innocent at the moment. Paying taxes, commuting, breathing are examples of being an average child of the world. Understanding my innocence let me abate the breathing for a while. 

The fruit of this understanding? 

I can finally follow a beat. 

To music that fills my soul again. 

That feels like enough. 

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Confidence. 

Where does it come from? Where can I get some? Do they sell it at CVS?

I have so many questions concerning the subject, with so few leads. 

Growing up here in Allen, I was surrounded by some bright individuals. They were young, white, intensely curious, and for the most part sheltered. We sought out beautiful things, we made broad statements about the world, and we came to conclusions we were vastly unqualified to make. Yet something happened upon graduation that still keeps me incapacitated.

The cleverest of individuals I knew understood how to move forward. They knew that they could leave their families and start afresh. 

 Dallas to Austin for college? Natural choice. 

 Austin to London for a Masters course? Brilliant. 

 Minnesota to Montana? Take the leap. 

Money, future stability, and family obligation? All beyond their sense of possibility for themselves. Confidence was a well they had deeper links to. 

My friends from high school had often looked at myself as a sort of anomaly to their lives. While we were in the same classrooms, exploring the same town, imagining the same futures, I hit my roadblock early on. 

It comes down to an “it takes a village” phenomena. My vision for myself meant nothing to me unless I was surrounded by others who had shared the sentiment. Without a tribe of like-minded individuals, my confidence evaporated. For my cleverest friends, their confidence kick-started after departure. 

Was it the schools they went to? The friends they found? The families they came from?

Too many variables. Too many excuses.

My family, as much as I care for them. As much I wish we could improve our happiness together, will not follow me from this place. They have nestled into something. In my stubbornness, I forget that my prison is their only home now. If I’m to leave confidently, it’s with knowing that everything will be up to me. 

The fact of the matter is it’s not snake-oil. Caitlin, Matt, Annie, David, Cory, Connor, Adam, and Aaron are people I’ve known enough of to see a complete soul. They lead themselves when there wasn’t a hand to guide. As different as I’ve kept seeing myself, I too am an American millennial. I too, negotiate my physical world with the world I imagined for myself. 

It’s with that point, that common ground, where confidence must come from. 

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Checking In...

I haven’t written in a while and it’s probably for the best. Nothing really interesting has happened for weeks, just going through the rhythms of work, exercise, and sleep. Ireland started with my application sent over last week, in a moment of true kismat going to the post-office I was pulled over by a police officer prowling for out of date registrations. So I got a ticket while trying for a better life, no big. 

That moment probably needed to happen ages ago. Regardless, Ireland is in motion and life feels delicate again. Dreams do that to people I feel, they set our goals in order when we don’t want to get thing’s wrong. 

Kismat met me again smoking with Justin for his 24th birthday. Finally getting a good hit, I let my comfort level move beyond my thoughts. Instead I observed. His roommate Lauren sat on one side of the couch scrolling through her phone and avoided thoughts related to weight, money, and me being gay (I feel horrible writing that). Meanwhile Justin sat on the other other end, in his own little world wondering if his tattoo was a good decision (jury’s out). Beyond these snide observations I came to another more pertinent reality.

That our wild is run on imagination. That we use it, conscious or not, when creating our reality. My life here in Dallas has felt for impersonal because I’ve felt I’ve had to forfeit so much of what I feel is important in favor of a setting I never chose. 

Then loneliness happened, depersonalization happened, and then I began this tirade of traveling and pretending I was modern and confident when in reality I was walking parallel with the person I could’ve been the whole time. A more intelligent, soulful me, who would’ve handled past events with a lot more grace. If I only could’ve considered for one moment how my brain was not the only one working, that I was surrounded by other fucking people trying to place their minds closer to their reality. 

This idea sounds like a round about way for me to understand empathy, but that’s what this is. It’s understanding your position in the choir. When to sing, when to listen, and when to join in. It’s always about imagination. Bringing it into reality.

This thought isn’t gospel yet, I don’t believe in it that passionately yet without testing it. Yet, in light of the Oprah moment it feels like, I feel it’s my greatest clue in becoming my best self. That’s beyond Ireland, that’s for life. 

God’s plan, 

Jashan aka OddOneOut 

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I’ve had a lot of free time in the last couple days. I’ve spent most of it watching Babylon Berlin, learning about Silicon Valley, and playing the extremely unhealthy game of What if? 

Starting as soon as I wake up from bed, my mind moves automatically into the time frame right after Ireland. I imagine all possibilities, especially in the shower. 

      “Move to France and pursue a Masters?”

      “What degree would I choose from”

      “Am I cut out for tech?”

Ideas that have no basis in my reality, yet feel like the only space in which my mind can rest. I want to ask myself to breath, to find something constructive for my attention. Yet when I do place myself in here in 755 Big Bend Drive, I get this straight jacket sensation I’ve had for a half a decade. Truth be said, I’ve conditioned reality to be a prison. More truth be said, I’ve used a million forms of escapism (news, legos, traveling, geography) to leave Allen a million in one times in my head. 

This is not the best route for me. At least thinking so often about which route I should take is not the correct route for me to take. Spending so much time in this factorial headspace places me beyond my most pressing issues. Completing a visa application, gaining work experience here in Dallas, finding fulfilling hobbies I enjoy. These are things I can do for myself here.

To demonstrate just how much this thinking gets me absolutely nowhere in life, I’ll let you in on a common occurrence in the game. Say I move to Ireland, then move to France, pursue a master’s, hell even become a citizen. I don’t picture myself resting at any of those points. Instead I keep thinking of the next thing that will come my way five and sometime ten years from now. 

Basically, sitting here at 23, imagining a wonderful future, doesn’t do shit. If I told my 18 year old self all the things that would happen to me, he’d probably explode (listen up younger self, you’ll move to New Orleans for a summer, lose your virginity to a New Yorker, and have one of your biggest life moments figuring out you were meant for a Humanities degree, bonne journee). 

Point is, life is the most unpredictable bag of bones we receive. Learning to rest and do things now helps create a better reality for me anywhere. 

Calmate papito, calmate. 

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It's occurred to me lately, over a few good nights of sleep, that the key to my own content might be outside of my head. Literal thinking, thinking of the world that physically is, might be the best place for my attention.

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I think back to a moment I had with a guy I met a year or so ago at Round Up. This was back when I was in the middle of a degree I thought would never end, when I used drinking and sexing barely decent strangers as an opioid, and when I accepted a constant feeling of falling as my constant existence. 

The man I speak of was in his mid-twenties, strong-cleft, and Irish in his features. There’s something about his porcelain skin that spoke to me, at least I estimate. It began with hime buying me my drink in a sort of 1950s manner, across the bar and with a gesture of acknowledgment. It was subtle and lacked cockiness, rare in the South. 

Our early conversation was is a blur if I’m honest. We were both dressed rather business casual, both wearing collars and him in a tie. If I’m really honest I’d admit he eventually sang “Piano Man” on the karaoke stage, I don't claim the word edgy. I do remember things going further into the night, our conversation entering into ethnic heritage (Indian & Jewish), our musical interests beyond Elton, and our love for the Russian lit greats. Everything felt like it was going well, perhaps steady. 

Then, somewhere around Tolstoy it shifted. Rather, it ended. Our shared interests and our good night hit an abrupt end for him. His word’s went from pondering Siberia to confessing how “people see you differently when you’re wearing a suit.” With that admission, I simply walked out, leaving me to ponder what the hell had just happened in the last couple of minutes. 

That image, of me, standing in front of someone feeling completely genuine as they walk away from me feels frequent. I later found out he worked as a manager at Hot Topic, something I never would’ve held against him. Instead, my admission to being a hotel receptionist would’ve become far more empathetic. Yet his fear of digging any deeper doesn’t feel out of the ordinary where I live.

That moment since has felt exemplary from me of the general mood here in Dallas. Essentially, “look at me when I’m at my best, just don’t delve any further I don’t what’s there.” People here see face values. We feel comfortable inspecting our most recent customer service experience yet appear incapable of making judgements of each other’s complexity beyond the universal conclusions that “people are horrible.” We never give people a chance. 

I’ll remember that man for a while I predict. Here’s part of a catalog of experiences I’ve had here that some up my will to move. Not to be wealthy, or more cultured, but to feel wholly there. 

Whether that be with one person or many. 

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Maybe it’s the lack of juggling I’m having to do this period in my life. Maybe it’s the lack of appetite I’ve had for my previous vices. I hope it has something to do with a level of maturity I’m preparing to muster. Regardless, I believe I’ve found some focus. Focus, that word, it feels far more erudite than I’ve ever been. Master of None felt like my real title. A human encyclopedia, sans the common sense needed to really make it in the “real world.” Yet focus now seems almost intoxicatingly present. 

I won’t say I’ve become some sort of genius by any stretch. Work is more a chore than ever with the hours getting longer and my coworkers are getting apathetic. Despite that, I am confident I’m fulfilling my duties to the required tasks. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but if I had to compare myself with an outsider in my position I would stand a chance compared to the current crop. 

Focus is turning into the newest skill I hope to cultivate. To preform when others are watching, to preform when no one is looking, and most honestly, to build a certain level of trust from others that I can get the job done, regardless of the circumstances. 

I’m putting my application through to Dublin in a matter of weeks. It’ll be Catherine and I, surviving in puddles of rain and social akwardness. Their will be twenty somethings that are more qualified than us, better looking than us, and frankly the right kind of patrician or plebeian for every job for which we submit a CV. Focus will be the edge we’ll need to help guide us towards the path we’ve set. 

Save your money. Create a website. Move abroad. Get a job. Get an apartment.  Keep moving forward. 

Whatever you do, don’t look down.