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usernamingishard · 6 years ago

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Life is a montage: atleast mine is

As a child I had a strong connection to film, stories, books and cartoons. But first, let me take a moment to describe that any matter, any entity, any item or concept, any notion or instrument is but a branch, with many branching leaves or sometimes further branches. A computer is not just a computer, it's also what that computer can do, it's also what that computer is made of, it's also a single technological advancement amid a timeline of others, it's also a conversation about the gadgets available for the youth. So when I say I had a strong connection to film, stories, books and cartoons, I don't mean just the narration of other's lives through whatever media available whether that media is a book or TV show. What I mean is, I am interested in the concept of three act structure, I am interested in the concept of reocurring themes, I am interested in the power and effect of framing, I am interested in the expression of emotion through facial expressions in movies, and sound effects in cartoons. I spent my childhood delving into stories of heroes, of villains turned good guys, of Romance, of the friendship between a boy and his dog, of how people go through heartache, of how High school is going to be, of what bullies look like and how to stand up to them. I see Movie, Books and cartoons (I'll call Media for short) in every day life, and I see every aspect of my life in Media. This could be called natural, everyone has had their head wrapped around something as a child, but Media is different in that it is an expression of life itself, so in these 50 years since the first product of film, and thousands since the first written word, every part of life has been incorporated atleast once. It'll be very hard to remember a concept or matter or life event that hasn't been mentioned in one way or another in a movie, let alone books. Technologies' effects on life? Black mirror is a single example. Hitler or pearl harbor? Inglorious bastards and a movie of the same name. Coffee? I think you can take a few minutes to find a movie where a character invites to have coffe or drinks. Standing up to bullies? I guess all/most of the superhero movies? However, when Media express them, they express them in such dramatic and impactful way, and I learned that, and incorporated it into my expectations. each wink furthers or enhances the plot, each misstep or stutter is exposition about the character, each door opening scene is suspense. Naturally, the way the plot moves also becomes of the things that I expect in life. There's a happy ending for every plot and subplot, the main character (easily known to be me) gets the love of his life, and there's a solution and reason to this emptiness I feel inside me.

But real life? It's nothing like that. Many times a family member may make me doubt myself without even them actually being toxic, nor should I leave them, nor do we solve their attitude, either by talking or actual effort, unlike any of the movies I've watched. I've never had a relationship no matter the efforts I've payed into the few crushes that I've had the past few years, even though that's how all books end. And the personal flaws in the main character have been with me since childhood, unlike any of the comic book characters I've read grow over them. And worst? Music doesn't play whenever something important happens. Life feels unscripted, random, inconsiderate, unfeeling. I feel out of place so often that I don’t consider myself to be a normal neurotypical, even though I most probably am. However, none of this compares to the aftermath of my last crush. For reasons I shan't delve into, I very vigorously wished to accomplish having her by my side, and as such, turned her standards into my own goals, and became obsessed with bursting through limits not set for me. All through that period, and a few months after rejection, I was left clueless. I had a line to success that I was not on, neither at the failing side nor at the successful side. I felt out of tune. I knew I wasn't a man, and I knew I wasn't human. because I set my whole world on that scale that I was not even in league with. I wasn't under her standards nor was I above, I was her friend. A different zone, you could say. She appreciated and loved me without the hope of being her lover, but I didn't acknowledge that. During that year, nothing made sense, everything I've ever seen in a movie or a book or a TV show was far from applicable to my life. There were no happy endings, no retribution, no closure infact, no good music, no starry skies, no good times with good friends, no family bonding moments. I spent that period just attending school and sleeping. A lifeless robot going through the norms. Meanwhile, inside me was something heavy crushing against my ribs, that although heavy, was empty.

So, I learned to not think about it. This was a very hard lesson that I learned to master. I cut off from my crush for a while, got busy in friends, in anytime I had outside, in any small accomplishments I can consider. Slowly I started to acknowledge the good little things, such as that one positive friend, listening to a good song without interruption, and having lunch with the family after being too hungry at school. I acknowledged throughout that whole time that a girl wasn’t and couldn’t have been the reason behind the way I feel. It’s just that life didn’t go my way for the millionth time, and that was just my last straw. I accepted that life has no absolutely no algorithms, artistic cycles or patterns, in other words no set series of events and experiences, reocurring themes or chronological set of circumstances and changes. As I said, I started to appreciate the little things, and accepted that this is all there is to life. No big event or shocking marriage or solution to a world problem, just a good cup of coffee every once in a while, and a new gift from a good considerate friend every other.

There's a drug in Egypt called Hash. I suspect that it's nothing more than a less intense version of weed, and those who I know tried both have said the same, but that’s not scientific evidence so I can’t say anything for sure. Basically, a high means any train of thought is 1. Unstopped, you can get to as deep a level as you’d like in thinking about something, and 2. It feels right. No matter what’s the issue you’re thinking about, you’re right to think about it now, you have the solution to it, it doesn’t feel out of place, and you’re accepted. But the train of thought can be anything. That’s why my friends who are there for the laughs can joke with each other and laugh for hours, while I can literally watch a movie and feel so ingrained into it. Mind you, not a movie on TV, a movie through my eyes. And that was my high, but lemme start from the beginning.

I was with a friend, and another called us, told us he has some stuff to try, so I told him to come. It wasn’t a blunt, it was a pure piece of the stuff, that we could put in a cup, hang a cigarette between the walls of the cup, and burn the Hash. You close the cup with a wallet or anything really, and when there is enough gas collected in there, u remove the wallet and inhale. We did that, playing nothing else matters by Metalica. A friend was laughing in silence, and the other was having red eyes and staring into the wilderness, and I was completely sane and normal. when the hash was snuffed out, they fished out the cigarette and gave it to me. I smoked it, when for some reason the latter half of the cigarette fell. I looked at it, and in a single moment I felt like I didn’t have within me the energy to pick it up in a million years. Thankfully my friend did, and gave me ashtray and told me to snuff the cigarette out, it’s done. I did as commanded, laid my back to the chair’s back, and everything cut to black.

What I thought being on drugs would feel like, was exactly what I felt. Although I have zero memories of this time and instantly woke up to people trying to wake me up, I remembered later feeling absolutely enthralled and impressed at every thought, and the sheer force of final solution that I had reached. I didn't have a single speck of trouble finding the solution to anything I thought, and I was so accurate. Nothing else matters, who does it represent to me? Of course my best friend from high school. Why? Well easily because when the singer says "never cared for what they do, ... what they know" we had a conversation that was just like that. And of course it makes sense that in this moment of high, I'd think of him, because he's the type of best friend I'd wanna show this feeling to, and because his moral compass might challenge the idea of smoking anyway, and indeed I felt like I did not at any moment question if this is right or wrong and just jumped into it. So it's natural that that thought would affect the next one.

What you just heard was flawless argument. There was no pressure to find the right thing to say, no wait process, and not a single moment of loss where something feels out of place or is the wrong answer. After I woke up from the black, I found that I was crying my balls out, and my two friends were trying to wake me to see what's up. They took me to the bathroom to wash my face. You know that dramatic scene in a movie where you look in a mirror and stare real hard so you start to regain control? I did that. My friend said salty things wake you up, so he brought us a sandwich. You know the after credits of The Avengers, how after all the thrill and action of the fight, the next scene to contrast that was the Shawerma scene? That's exactly what I saw, one friend munching in silence as he looked at the ground, the other contemplating god knows what in the sky. To almost make me regain consciousness the friend who brought the stuff went "what y'all just went through, that's trippin'", kinda like how a mafia guy goes "it's alright you have nothing to worry about all you need to do is etc, etc." And that's exactly what I was describing in the beginning. Every single breath these guys took, every single moment of silence, every chat was something out of a movie, and I was having the goddamn time of a lifetime. I was giggling like a lunatic, and at one point raised my hand and made a frame as if I'm filming them, zooming with my eye at the person who's speaking. Everything about a movie, I was so in control and comprehension of. For example, I once was sitting with some people at a pool. I'd look at the pool, the green, blue aqua lights, together with the waves of water would feel so serene and calm and beach like. I'd feel alone, relaxed, sleepy, everything you ever heard about looking at the beach. Then I'd flip my head 20 degrees to the left, and I'd see my friends. Even though we're still at the pool, the scenery changes so strongly, I'd suddenly feel more awake, feel a crowd of people even though there's only four others, feel socially awkward as I usually am around people. Feel the colours change towards orangy red. Look back to the pool, get sleepy, serene, quiet, look to the friends, feel awake, hyper, attentive, awkward. I also did that a couple of times because I was so amazed at how strange everything that was.

I smoked a whole bunch of times since then. I can't put the things in words that would do it justice.

Now, returning to my normal life, something quite strange started to take place. The thing that was lacking in my life, those scenic moments, those expectations, they started to somehow come alive. I started to learn things and change in personality, it felt as though every trip to the beach came at the right time and so I appreciated it more, I

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