how it goes

8/12/19:


cure me
save me
eyes of my mother
hair of the dog
heart of my father
death of a God

make me
feel something
the earth, rivers
huge like a hug
friends like these
and losing your love

been over hills and
through the valley
I know how
your love goes
over hills and
through the valley
your love goes
I know now
how it goes

makes me
feel something
the earth, rivers
wild like a hug
brothers and sisters
holding me up

been over hills and
through the valley
I know now how
your love goes
over hills and
through the valley
your love goes
I know now
how it goes

(how it goes
with me)

sound of finding

world healer

"cause I made like a Canada playlist today" - Phoebe Bridgers

---

Jon's will 2019

all my money goes to my mom
my car goes to Uncle Gerald
my laptop and phone goes to michelle - the code to unlock the phone is in the blogger dashboard drafts section under the label 'phone code'
my electric guitars the Vox amp and zoom multi effects thing goes to weiken
the acoustic guitar goes to Judith
the classical guitar goes to Cai
my piano/keyboard and stand goes to david samy
my record collection and record player goes to Jia Way
my bass guitar and amp goes to Uncle David
all my books go to Petra
my computer speakers go to Dahil (his computer speakers really suck and I don't know why he can definitely afford better ones.)
all my unsent postcards go to Chooi Ern
my CD collection goes to Nate and Miriam
my relient K and switchfoot cds go to Jeremy Foo
my two anime figurines and my hard disc drive w school rumble on it goes to Parisha
my stethoscope goes to Victoria and Edmund
my steam account with all my games goes to Marcus
my iphone chargers / charger wires go to Lucy (sunderland)
my travel notebooks and journals go to Flory


---

Daisy, let it go
Open up your fists
This fallen world
It doesn't hold your interest
It doesn't hold your soul
Daisy, let it go

---



For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:21








context: my mom is leaving tomorrow for Scandinavia and the arctic circle and when we skyped she started off by telling me where the will is and what to do if anything were to happen to her, who to contact and how to withdraw money from her accounts - i reassured her and we joked about her having to fight off wolves when she got there, but it got me thinking

land of broken hearts

---

radical acceptance...

Aunty Jools - the topic has come up a few times now, anxiety and depression and personality disorder and how there really isn't a cure for loneliness. how nobody sticks around long enough to show these people kindness, how they get tired and frustrated quickly of non-reciprocity - the self absorption - the vanity and despair and self pity. how they don't know how to be kind to themselves much less anyone else.

Theory of grace - HTB church - amazing grace, radical acceptance - a different interpretation. In order for a thing to be lovable it must first be loved. GK Chesterton. Grace is the combination that unlocks a broken heart. Bawling, sobbing throughout worship. Hardly even able to mouth the words - why? I can't explain it.

Forgiving yourself
accepting yourself
being friends w self / accepting shortcomings and finding them funny, being merciful to yourself - being able to forgive yourself for being annoying pretentious ignorant - being aware of your flaws, being aware of the need to improve - without condemning yourself. What does that look like? when you see it - it's irresistible, unmistakable - magnetic, beautiful. That kind of honesty, that kind of authenticity and groundedness, centredness, integrity.
And loving your friends the same way
Infectious - contagious
April radiated an indomitable self love
funny, fiercely intelligent, kind.

---

Brightest star, blackest night

David foster wallace and loneliness in the 21st century - how he was hailed as a paragon of virtue, a beacon of light to so many others, but ended his own life. The end of the tour - how conversations can change people, can be worth repeating - can be instructive, entertaining, important. Sitting down to eat with sinners, spending a few days with friends, Jesus by the lake. Relationships change people. Not drugs, not diets or psychoanalysis and dissecting under a microscope - but allowing someone in, under your skin. A real connection....

---

the history of illusion

exploration of internet, social media, age of unprecedented connectivity, everything transmits faster, propagates like wildfire, like a ripple, instantaneously, everywhere at once - phenomena spreads so quickly, where one person could only influence his small community of 100, 200 - it took time to reach others, now one person's words or actions could influence an entire continent, could spark change - one picture, inspire an entire movement - a revolution.

How our society deprives us of community and shared purpose

Our primitive brains created evolved for nomadic tribes, supporting others being supported - leaning on others, being close - being in a community to survive - our brains crave community - acceptance, validation, friendship, trust, respect. But how modern society now celebrates the individual - individual striving, achievement, independence, self sufficiency, creates systems that allow us to isolate ourselves and never rely on each other, never have to talk to your neighbours or help someone else get water or something from the store. Communal ideology importance increasingly lost. How some believed this was intentional to increase sales - the more miserable humans were in these cities the more they consumed goods such as sugary foods, expensive furniture and vehicles. Capital and investment and profit margins. The numbers were promising. Human loneliness it seemed was good for business.

How asmr becomes corporatised. [a cartel, consolidated, unionised in the name of sustainability, creators giving up their creative freedoms for security]

How asmr helps with anxiety and depression. How does a video actually effect real lasting emotional change - testimonies how it has made them feel less anxious, how people feel better and want to do the same for others, selfless proponents who aren't looking for fame.
the idea being that although asmr relies on reproduction of a physical sensation ie sound, touch, visual movement, senses kinesthetic stimuli, the physical world - somehow generates a sense of euphoria - the theory is that the common denominator is intimacy, attention and trust - things that are uncommon or in short supply, in a typical asmr video the asmrtist gives the viewer undivided attention, he is performing for the viewer the entire time, focused on the viewer's needs, sensations, emotions, affirmations what the viewer needs to hear not just wants to hear. Trust, only a few videos do this but implicitly listening to a stranger make noises is to let down your guard and suspend your judgements and give your attention and accept what they are offering - and the asmr artist chooses how vulnerable to be, by doing these strange actions, invite judgements - criticism, appearance critique - any act of broadcasting - of trying to effect change or affect another person is an act of trust and faith. A bid a proposal a risk of rejection.

Why these videos work is the same reason movies and books and music work, why they stir up our emotions and make us feel things - even though videos on the surface look like a person gazing at a camera and pretending to be caring, what the asmrtist is doing is seeing past the camera to the viewer on the other end and imagining themselves in their shoes, interacting genuinely w that fictional hypothetical theoretical person. What a book is isn't an actual recollection of events but marks of ink on paper that represent things that exist in the real world - done skillfully enough the markings contain truth, express convey communicate something real within the author - similarly, if the asmrtist wants to share something real, it comes through, it inspires something real in the viewer, even though the whole thing is an illusion, a fiction, seems a little silly. It sounds like a far fetched fantasy, a surrealist high concept high school short story conceit that a 20 minute video of a stranger whispering at a camera and brushing a mic can make somebody halfway across the world feel seen, valued, understood, comforted, less anxious, less depressed, less alone. And yet it happens. We sense that sense of community, mutual trust, vulnerability. Our brains are easily tricked, our brains want to believe.

How asmrtist lunardream / lunarstar / lunadream/ lunastar best of the best refused to be corporatised, the corporations play dirty underhanded - eventually she loses rights to her channel - or she sells out, which would be the greater tragedy - making videos but being drowned out by copycats, slick polished versions, the marketing department strategises ways to steal her audience - sex sells, inundating the market, half naked, copycats and pretenders. changing public perception of a good thing, making it into a synonym for perverse lonely outsiders, but a small select sect of devotees begin their own movement, tracing each other's faces. Whispering encouragements to each other, leaning on each other. Being there for each other.¹

Her channel is lost - she withdraws, nobody knows what becomes of her - the original, drowned out - but her legacy lives on. People all over the world carrying on what she started. Wouldn't that be nice?

{professor of sapien studies
The story is an anthropology class essay for undergraduate assignment / thesis - nnotes annotations, citations - professor marking misquotes}

Backstory in footnote form
From San Diego father travelling professor, shy as a child - wanting to connect

Asmr videos, a distillation of intimacy

---

'What's it called? ... all the broken souls unite?'
'I think that's a heavy metal band'

---

Milk
face wash
pasta
pesto
chicken
soup
kitchen towel
pay driving fine
sell demarco tickets

---

1. The idea that the person sitting next to you on the underground yesterday reflexively looking at their phone or reading their book could have been feeling the exact same way - this intense disconnect - and wished someone out there felt the same way, and maybe he or she stumbles across this tomorrow and feels less alone, and wishes they had turned round and smiled or talked to you for a few minutes
1b. Probably unwise to be this sincere on a public website's comment section but
3. The seemingly hokey idea that these connections exist, are waiting to be discovered all around us everyday, but require people to be brave, tenacious, vulnerable, honest and kind with themselves and others. To be prepared and willing to share real things and be shot down and dismissed as pretentious and grandiose
4. Thanks for making this. You can have and do have a massive impact on the people around you and I hope you know it

---

Year of unprecedented change again

1. You will discover people like you, the people who feel things as acutely and as much as you; people you always hoped but never dared to dream would exist
2. They will show you a way to be, a way you didn't realise was possible
2b. A lot of them will be younger than you - like a lot younger
3. A way to be genuinely interested in others, caring about others, wanting the best for them and also being able to show it
4. A way to be genuine and authentic in an interaction that inspires authenticity in the other person
5. You will meet people who have been through stuff and learned some lessons you haven't but that would benefit you to learn and they will share what they've learned at it will change the way you think about and interact with the world and look at the world
6. And you begin to realise how much of a difference a kind or honest word at the right time can make, and you start looking for opportunities to speak growth or truth into people, you start getting better at recognising opportunities to connect on a deeper level, and you get better at capitalising on these opportunities
7. seeing the world as precious and mysterious again
8.
9.
10.

---

Close enough to lean on

The idea of seeing the flaw in each other and accepting each other anyway that's grace right? that's forgiveness
that's the key to becoming close
sharing trusting
How to be close to God, trust His grace is enough for you

---

J C____ creat 700 ?aki vasculitis screen biopsy

---

Realisation: by running the donner looper signal separately through the zoom gt effects modules you can add and subtract effects to the loop in real time

---

Post rock shoegaze band names

moso sanjurokkei
shameless plug
jim carrey
violent wonders
bonjiri ecstasy

---

Healed and forgiven
look where my chains are now

---

'why are personality disorder patients so exhausting?'


'It's tiring to love someone who doesn't love themselves.'

---

24/11/19: Petting other people's dogs, taking photos of nature, watching old men dance to the fresh prince of bel air

---

---

1 [ short story idea: the internet is helping us find each other //   the rare ones, the isolated ones, the hidden ones, peeking out from our respective refuges our little boxes and being incredibly surprised to discover that there are others out there just like them [before the internet existed, you would have never met them, never known they existed now they seem to appear everywhere, in the millions. everywhere you look is a kindred spirit, a fellow admirer, survivor of the same trauma, mutual lover of some sacred unknown song] whereas before we had only books to store and record our deepest parts, and to set adrift across the ocean of time in the hopes it'll find someone, a little preserved, pickled, distillation of ourselves in a bottle // unprecedented age of seeking and actually finding // search hard enough and you can find pretty much anything nowadays // how the internet can make us unspeakably more lonely and also infinitely less alone ] ^↩

hikari no frustrato / unfinished thing

"... it sounds to me like you want the kind of closeness that has to be cultivated, earned, encouraged, maintained."

---


you wonderful
and terrible
unfinished
thing, beautiful
and complicated
and full of fear

waiting for
your dreams
to come true
and your hopes to
betray you

bangs and slouching
everywhere
you go, trying
not to be noticed
trying not to be
known

your heart is
a tangled knot you
worry will never
come loose

but one day you'll
look back on your
bright, tentative
and burdened
light and begin to notice
all the unfinished people
who believe in you

and learn to lean on them
and learn to believe in them too

紅葉月

---


" I really hope that it resolves soon..    yeah.   I know that   when I'm feeling.. super stressed and anxious and overwhelmed... for some reason it feels like I'm never ever gonna feel good ever again...     do you- do you get that too?     It's so weird... brains are so weird like that. But then it- it always comes back - it always ebbs and flows and -    no low lasts forever... no matter how much it feels while you're in it like that's your life now - that's how it'll always be - it always comes back around again."

clay pigeons

Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

---

Animated, huge eyes deep with sensitivity staring straight at you. into you. Empathy, warmth, sadness also. Expressive eyes. The feeling she could break into a genuine smile and also burst into tears at any moment.

The thing about her going quiet and pensive and choosing to tell us about her childhood and how she still feels guilty over the incident - she didn't have to keep that in. She could have edited it out. Edited it to make it look like she didn't care. Edit out the way her voice trembled - the long silences, looking down at nothing, avoiding the camera, choosing her words carefully as she spoke. But she kept that in. And people responded to it positively - speaking for myself, that moment of honesty alone - that occurred across oceans, miles away and temporally remote as well, recorded and edited and uploaded probably a good 14 months before I stumbled across it - this rendering of a stranger from somewhere in the globe who doesn't know I exist - What I'm trying to say is that it felt real. felt like being spoken to, being seen, understood, accepted, trusted. That moment supplied more human warmth and genuine connection than I had received in a week.¹

Is it like in the movies? When the actor portrays an emotion so real and authentic that the audience feels it too? Maybe portray is the wrong word. Feels. Embodies. Exhibits. Makes you feel it so visceral and immediate as if it's actually happening to you.

Requires being open and vulnerable. Recognizing that both the good and the bad have value. And understanding that displaying virtue can be construed as boastful, and public sorrow can be considered performative, insincere, obnoxious, false, fetishised, and yet daring, being willing to navigate that middle ground, to walk that tightrope of broadcasting your feelings in a raw and visceral and unpolished way. Attempting to be really truly vulnerable instead of trying to seem it. Attempting to offer something real, to try and connect. To risk the sneer and ridicule and parody and condescension. Requires an odd mixture of honesty and exhibition, of interiority and presentation. Like writing publicly about your struggles or difficult moments I suppose. Like any kind of writing - any kind of art. For it to work on any level and connect and affect a stranger you have to be incredibly authentic and also preternaturally self aware. Skillful in managing how the other perceives you. Skillful in perceiving yourself accurately and acutely. Skillful in interrogating yourself for falseness and truth. Requires you to possess all of the innocence and none of the naivete

---

1 sad, but true ^↩

proserpine / elysium

on my chest
naked and crouching
panties on
the dresser, laced
a stranger
a catholic imagining
yeah
show me some skin, girl
show me under &
beneath
show me what's within

if only my body
knew what my
heart believed
was true

so warm, you are
delicate, bouquet
undressed
your hand on my chest
then you are blood,
a scream thick
and terrible
the release, the desire
the pain

and natures askew
all hell broke loose
so return to
your natural state
you were daughter
of the soil, now
you are also
aflame

Pagliacci

"... that really good art comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable"

---

people keep asking about how the joker movie was but 
really it's not a movie you can talk about meaningfully
to someone who hasn't seen it yet
it's that involved and tightly wound and self-contained that
to discuss it you need to go into detail and dissect
which 1. would involve spoilers and 2. some experiences just
aren't really translatable in words, especially if you're
trying to avoid spoilers. 
it's like if your dog has been shot,
or you've had a leg amputated you 
could talk to someone else whose dog
was similarly shot or wounded, or had
lost their leg as well, you could
talk to them about the experience
and compare notes but to someone who has never had their dog shot
or never had a dog or lost 
a limb it would be pretty difficult to describe the experience
qualitatively without disclosing that your dog has died or that you are one limb less now
it's one of those things
you have to go through to understand
and here's the thing, everyone will have 
something different to say about it
and that's part of its genius and intrinsic value
is that it will be polarising 
and stir up dissent, it will start conversations about
topics we usually avoid. it will make us ask questions
questioning others, questioning ourselves, evaluate our paradigms
it leaves us with questions
and the value of it stirring up unique and wildly differing reactions from different 
people is that you can learn based on your reaction to the film
something about yourself. it can
tell you something about yourself
you didn't know before.
that's a gift. something rare. not every film can do that, you know

fall record 2019

1. bon iver
2. soccer mommy
3. ben howard
4. paper kites
5. fleet foxes
6. little wings
7. (broken social scene / feist) - either, or

---

"i mean it's pretty but it doesn't mean anything, you know? you switch it off, it ends and you immediately forget about it. but if you turn it into a song -- then it stays with people, you know? it maybe changes the way they feel about the world, the way they think about the world. Right now it doesn't mean anything - but if we work on it -- maybe we can make it mean something to someone."


"um... ok. sure."

what to do when the one you want never wants you

"But those who know best say this, that any liberal man would choose the pain of this desire, even for ever, rather than the peace of feeling it no longer; and that though the best thing is to have, the next best is to want, and the worst of all is not to want."
- Pilgrim's Regress


---

1. make a sad playlist
2. write a sad story
3. draw something
4. tell someone
5. tell no one
6. write a letter
7. be alone
8. tell her how you feel
5. tell no one
9. write a song
9. wallow in self pity
10. get over it dude
11. wait it out
13. understand there are things in this life you desire that you can never have
14. learn to accept this devastating and inconvenient truth
13. fall in love with someone else
12. do it all over again

Book of titles (only of titles)

1. dry spell
2. toxicology
3. neverlast
4. holocene
5. the story of thirst
6. perditio
7. the other
8. the unforseen costs of being yourself
9. incomplete
10. the history of illusions ii
11. the coolest girl on earth (conversations with)
12. parallellus universalis
13. kamikaze
14. wabisuke
15. weakness and paralysis
16. takotsubo
17. ETERNALBLUE
18. how to write the songs that will earn you the love you never got from the people who can't give it to you anymore
19. pure song
20. perfect blue
21. autoimmune
22. injured party
23. missile of denial
24. things i thought would make me happy
25. the double
26. completely natural man
27. Die Zeit Ohne Beispiel
28. the incinerator
29. Saturday with no miracles
30. famous and unwell
31. ode to soft goth with bangs
33. shuraba
34. autophobia
35. you can't kill time with your heart (but you can sure make it sing)
36. the addict's prayerbook
37. wayback
38. ghost notes
39. the guy who never dies
40. precursor
41. low boi
42. how to date girls without ever having really been hurt by one
43. press 1 to finally be happy
44. crying in da club
45. roti kosong
46. everbad
47. it's not too late to be a new person
48. keielsanjurokkei
49. in high school she drew pictures of birds
50. ore zanmai
51. everything i heard was a lie i came up with
52. narrow is the gate
53. syncopatience (master of)
54. go your own way
55. an iterative approach to dating
56. rememberer
57. westward
58. westward ii
59. the light fantastic
60. song of the dead
61. comfortations
62. how to turn off your heart
63. shitty loop
64. history of making big mistakes
65. my kind of woman
66. ode to being the person you're supposed to be
67. the hunger artist
68. yakitori hyung
69. heartsink mother, heartsink son
70. ichiban natural girl
71. super change robot
72. a broken heart is one that dared to hope
73. poison eater
74. hms false hope
75. heartland
76. gentlest comedian
77.  saudade
78. suboptimal inamorata (complex)
79. chiaroscuro
80. good job gaijin boys
81. gift of brokeness
82. let me tell you all about my new favourite band
83. young tunku does stand up
84. a broken heart is like a leaking battery
85. student of silence, prisoner of solitude, testosterone hyung
86. the loneliness diaries
87. thrilled to be here
88. young tunku falls in love
89. maximum cliche
90. i like tortoise matsumoto
91. heart's content
99. text me when you get this
100. the history of giving up

wrestling man

Meyoco - Full Flower Jacket by Undoodle on Sketchfab

ho-kago bittersweet time

z3tta1

The japanese word for 'holocene' is interesting in that it's translated as 完新世, but the 完 {kan} expresses both senses of the word 'complete'; the first being the sense of 'wholeness of scope' or 'the entirety' of something and the second being 'to finish,' or the end of something.

초심

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.


---

At youth a few weeks ago, reading a bible verse where baptism came up. Afterwards Miriam asked me 'When did you get baptised.' I replied 'I haven't been baptised.' She asked, 'why not?' I deflected because I didn't have a good answer. She joked that there was a baptism service coming up, could fit me in at the end. I laughed and said maybe next year.

Context: Been a Christian for a while, grew up in church. More than 10 years. Just that whenever the pastor says if you would like to find out more about baptism come talk to us, I'd remain in my seat. Convinced myself it wasn't that important.

A few weeks later met Nate for some lunch. Sat down and he asked me, 'so why haven't you been baptised?' In a friendly way. He talked me through his experience of being baptised and why it's important for us to do it. after Making lots of excuses we got to the heart of it which was deep down i didn't feel ready yet to make a public commitment. there was something holding me back.

I said i'd think about it, Nate wanted to put my name down but I said give me some time because i'm stubborn and didn't want to give him the satisfaction. Next day skyping with friends from uni. one of them long term mission trip in japan. the other one left and we chatted, lull in conversation. she said - why have you never been baptised? There's no way she could have known. I hadn't talked to anybody about it, hadn't written it down anywhere public. I asked why - what made her ask the question. She said it was something she had thought about asking for a long time but for some reason, she felt she should / something prompted her to bring it up then. Needless to say, I was shook.

Hard to ignore or to brush off. Would be hypocritical to. You always think it's something that happens to other people. God has a plan for their lives, His will for them is unquestionable, but when God wants to interrupt your regularly scheduled programming - all of a sudden you become a skeptic. When His plan deviates from your plan you chalk everything up to coincidence.

Eventually I stopped kidding myself. I said the equivalent of ... ok You've got my attention...

I took it seriously, started really asking 'are you going to get baptised?' The more I asked myself the more it felt like God saying to me 'Hey, what am I to you?'
It felt a little like Jesus asking Peter on the shore after his crucifixion 'Do you love me?' 'Do you love me more than these?'
Jesus didn't need to hear that Peter loved him three times. He wasn't uncertain or wondering how Peter would reply. Peter needed to hear himself say it, after disowning Jesus in the courtyard. It was for Peter's benefit that Jesus asked him that, so that he could get past his three denials, his past and repair his relationship with Jesus before becoming the rock on which the early church was built.
The question 'What am I to you?' was something I needed to clear up for myself at that point in time.

I think the reason for this is because my relationship with God was not at its best at this point - and for a long while leading up to it. If you've been in a relationship for a long time, you may have experienced how easy it is to take things for granted. go through the motions. say the words without meaning them the way you did at the beginning. Being distant and distracted without knowing how or why. Looking back, the reason I had distanced myself was because I kept failing. I couldn't measure up. No matter how much I tried I couldn't ever be holy enough, devoted enough. Committed enough. Every time I failed I felt guilty and felt like a fraud. Till it got to a point I avoided trying altogether. I made the excuse, maybe once I had figured it out, once I was good enough - then I'd get baptised. Once I'd proven to myself I could do it. That I was a good christian. That kind of thinking meant that over 5/6 years I had pretty much given up on getting baptised. Because I could never be 'good enough'. Because I kept failing to measure up. And church and the bible and prayer turned into an unpleasant reminder of my failings. So I pretty much avoided those things too.

I told Nate this and he said something that hit home. He told me, 'God knows all the times you've messed up in the past. He knows all the ways you will mess up in the future, but He still loves you. I'm not perfect. But God is and He chooses to love me, even though he knows I'm going to let him down, time and time again." There's a line in the book left behind which came out 10 years ago which struck me. It goes 'Saved people aren't good people. They're just forgiven,' Somewhere along the line I had gotten it twisted. By being apart from church, not hearing from God led me to believe a message that isn't the one that Jesus preached. I thought that if you didn't have any deeds to prove your faith you weren't really a christian. My salvation had become works based and not faith based. Somehow left out the fundamental doctrine of grace. That Jesus came to forgive us so that we wouldn't have to feel alienated by guilt and shame anymore.

Even though I know what I am and all the ways that I fall short. There is a verse in Isaiah which goes "Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed," says the Lord, who has compassion on you."

I don't understand why or how but God chooses to love us when we are weak and imperfect, even at our worst. All we have to do is trust Him. He's said it time and time again in so many ways, that He believes there is something worth saving here. Even though it's hard to believe. He's declared it publicly in the Bible; He sent his only son. He's spelled it out unequivocally. And so now the ball's in my court; it's up to me to decide: Do I believe His promises and the power of His forgiveness?

I'm getting baptised, because, even though I know I'll mess up again, I know His love and mercy are greater than my mistakes. And it will hopefully serve as a reminder to run to God instead of from Him when I do mess up. I'm getting baptised as a declaration of faith and intent. Faith in His mercy, in His ability to turn my life into something that will bring Him glory, to finish the good work that was started in me.

ephemera

---



Late afternoon's heavy gold; the leaves transparent like honest conversation; the sun setting like an arpeggiated minor ninth. The hours linger, reminiscing like a younger body's soul; like the flower of new friendship; the earthy rusk of yesterday's plans. The great wild reality of now is vivid and too quick to capture - and rare like strangers nostalgic and sentimental for the same movie. The change is like a tidal wave. Nothing at first, then all at once. The shimmering of this morning, this afternoon and right now hardens and condenses into memory. And tomorrow, the laughter, the words, the sorrow -- are erased and echo like yesterday's dreams.

wonderer

"I mean... I don't know if you've experienced this but... once you've left a place very special to you a couple of times, it's hard to feel the same way afterwards. It seems a little implausible to expect that every departure will be equally memorable or momentous; every farewell more poignant than the last. It seems more likely that every time you have to gather yourself together into a box and unfasten the little hooks and anchors that tie us to each other, the better you get at leaving less of yourself behind. You know how it goes by now. What to expect. You dread it less -- and also mourn it less. When the time comes, you separate yourself from your surroundings; efficiently, neatly, quietly and without fuss. You do this over and over and over again - till at last, when it is time to leave this world, you, like a visitor at a museum, rising from her bench, take one last look and exit through the gift shop without a word."

Rückkehrunruhe

Japan trip. also describes the come down after religious experience

---

i miss you / shadow proves the sunshine

make a mix cd for everyone you're going to miss

---


---

It's a strange thing listening to the songs you did when you were 15 and realising you are now the age the singer was when they wrote / sang that song. You're now where they were then, experiencing the same emotions, feeling the same vibe, still relating, still connected, on the same page. Feels a little like coming full circle. It's like in interstellar, where the protagonist's journey ahead into the unknown future is only possible because he's already been there before. From that point, looking back from the perspective of the songwriter, having sung the same song for so long, the same song the songwriter laboured over and poured their soul into, is it possible that you have experienced the same things as them, thought the same thoughts? It makes you wonder: did I love these songs because of who i was already; who I was always going to be -- or am I who I am now because I loved these songs

atropos cascade

"think of it this way. Everyone has an invisible anvil over their head. It weighs as much as you do initially then after the age of 16, you add one kg for every year you grow older. It has 100 ropes that suspend it above your head and for every year after the age of 16 one string gets cut or withers away. These represent your body's healthiness and physical reserve. The heavier the anvil gets the harder it is for the ropes to prevent it from falling. The fewer ropes there are, the more likely the anvil is to fall. It could all snap at once and fall and crush you in an instant, or it could lower gradually crushing you by degrees, first you feel a pressure on your head, then find you can't lift your head up any more, then you're bent over by an immense weight you can't seem to fight, eventually you are crawling and if the anvil doesn't fall completely it pins you to the floor absolutely until even your lungs are unable to expand. This is just a metaphor mind you. Risk factors: Everything you do to harm your body, adds weight to the anvil and subtracts from your ropes. Smoker for 60 years? add 60 kg to the anvil. Sunbathing without sunscreen for 10 years, add 10 years to your anvil and subtract 10 ropes.

Eventually everyone gets crushed. Some go suddenly, some go gradually. We can't predict the ones who go suddenly, but by counting the ropes and weighing your anvil, we can guess who it might happen to. If you have this condition and these risk factors, chances are you'll go downhill rapidly. If you have this many ropes and an anvil that weighs this much, it'll snap pretty soon - or not. That's all it is - an educated guess. We can't predict the future. We can only gauge the tension and calibre of the fibre and estimate how many ropes you have left. We can't tell you how many years or hours. We can do things in the short term that prop the anvil up somewhat - stenting, surgery, slipshod makeshift ways of strengthening ropes that are on the verge of breaking. We've gotten very good at recognising where the ropes are weak and how to fix them. But we can't make them unbreakable, and we can't add ropes, and we can't make the anvil any lighter. Every year you will still lose one.

Now imagine the invisible anvil analogy, but this time there's one hanging over each and every one of your organs. Your brain. Your kidneys. Your heart. Your liver. Your skin. Your gut. And how your body requires all of them to be working in tandem to survive. How your survival depends on the miracle of them all communicating and cooperating and operating exactly as planned. Your organs are the ropes that suspend the grand anvil over the thing you call yourself. Once they start failing, it's only a matter of time."

this guy gets it

kakistos andron

"but i think... the ones who don't struggle a little bit in the beginning.. they don't get to learn the lessons that will get them all the way to the end."

---

is the lioness evil for killing the zebra, or noble for feeding her cubs?

---

"how much detail did you think God put into making the world?"

"what?"

"as in - how much did He actually determine. Did he decide from the very beginning - this kid is going to spill his ice cream on Saturday which will lead to his dad being late for work and Trump winning the U.S. general election. Or did he just decide, okay so this is how ionic bonds work and here's this thing called natural selection. I think we can call it a day."

"Um..."

"If you take a microscope to everything and try and figure out how everything works - how desperately vast and intricate and interconnected all of life is... from chemistry to our biochemistry to our brains to our societies and cultures... it makes you wonder - if intelligent design is real - then how much of it was designed and how much of it is just letting the program run its programming. How much patching and debugging did God do.. to keep everything running as it should? Do you think he defined only the rules that govern the limitations and capacity of the human brain so that we could develop language and talk to each other... or do you think he mapped out what I was going to think of today and talk to you about and dictate every single word in the sentence I'm speaking now? How hands on of a creator do you think He is?"

"I... I don't know?"

"Me neither. But it got me thinking... maybe eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil didn't cause sin to enter the world. Maybe it was the threshold marker. A symbol. The result of sin rather than its root cause. Hear me out. In a world in which everything you do is permissible, how do you know you can think for yourself and act autonomously? You can't because everything you try to do is something an omnipotent deity has told you to do. Enjoy yourself, don't enjoy yourself. This is how I created you to be. This is all according to my plan. But what if you could disobey - and do something the deity expressly told you not to do. This would be conclusive evidence that you had will independent of your creator / deity. The Tree of good and evil was a way of knowing when Adam and Eve had reached a point in their development as independent entities where they could defy God's will and act of their own accord. And what about 'if you eat this you will surely die?' Well, again - maybe it's not eating the fruit that kills them but deviating from God's will and God's plan. Maybe the only way to get to 'everlasting life' or 'heaven' is by following a very strict code and set of behaviours. Maybe the way to metamorphose from being a flesh creature to a spirit creature requires a series of transformations and habits to be developed. Periods of waiting and hibernation and renovation. And what happens if you don't listen, don't do the required reading, if you don't follow the plan, don't obey the omnipotent creator, the intelligent designer, don't undergo the necessary transformation? Then you remain a flesh creature. One that doesn't live forever."

work in progress

"seems like an incontrovertible rule that dictating the terms of your own reality requires you to first participate and engage and labour in someone else's. The practice before the painting. The planning before the vacation. The scripting before the story. The consciousness before the dream."

song of the year

옛날사람

cold case

"I will tell you right now that if I were the chief [of police] today I would reopen this investigation."

 - Norm Stamper, Chief Of Police in Seattle at the time of Kurt Cobain's death


---


"Oh hey, I've solved it."

"Hm?"

"The Cobain case. I solved it."

"I thought you solved it last week."

"That's... last week I thought I did, but this time I've really solved it."

"Ok so let's hear it."

"So let's start with what we know. We know he was found dead at home in Seattle with a shotgun across his body, a visible head wound and a suicide note."

"Correct."

"We also know that there was a high concentration of morphine and traces of valium in his bloodstream following death. And also that his body was found roughly three days after the actual death. So the actual dosage and concentration of heroine at the time of death is effectively unknown. We know that the shotgun shell was found on the wrong side of Kurt's body. We know that Tom Grant is a private investigator who prior to this had an established unblemished record as a police officer and who now vociferously believes that Kurt Cobain's case is not a straightforward suicide. We know that Kurt had talked to his attorney about drawing up a will that excluded Courtney because he was thinking of divorcing her. His body was discovered by a complete stranger who had come to install the security lights in the greenhouse. These are the facts, released to the public, verified, undisputed."

"Okay."

"Now for the more tenuous evidence. Things uncorroborated but reported by people close to the investigation. Tom Grant was not hired to find Kurt Cobain but to stop him from spending her money. Dylan Carlson, the person who purchased the shotgun for Cobain was allegedly receiving money from Courtney Love to pay his rent and fuel his heroin addiction. According to Tom Grant, Courtney and Dylan communicated heavily during this time and most information was communicated through Carlson, implying that any information regarding Kurt's whereabouts were provided to Carlson first."

"Where are you going with this?"

"Essentially, I believe Kurt died of a heroin overdose, perhaps intentional, perhaps not. Dylan Carlson discovered the body and then informed Courtney who instructed Carlson to make it seem more like a suicide. Then removed herself as much as possible from the specifics in order to maintain deniability, authorising Carlson to act with autonomy and full discretion. That explains why the details surrounding the note and the shotgun seem so strange. If he had been discovered dead and his body tampered with and planted inside the house, it would have to have been by someone who had access to insider information regarding Kurt's habits and preferred habitats, and also someone who had free access in and out of the house. This limits suspects to those who were very close to the person."

"... But why frame it to be a suicide? Why go through all that trouble?"

"That's the question. If Kurt had simply died of an overdose - it would be a damn shame. If Kurt had died by suicide it would be a little more tragic, but the overall result is the same. So who would stand to profit from Kurt's death appearing to be a suicide? Maybe someone who didn't want a lot of investigation into the cause and events leading up to his death. Someone who didn't want private and public investigators snooping around."

"You mean Courtney."

"Yes."

"But why? What was she afraid of the police finding out?"

"I don't know. Only one person can answer that...

but imagine how it would look if you're discovered to be having an affair while your husband is miserable and depressed and found dead at his home. And what if the person you're having an affair with is the person who discovered his body. Would you worry that people might conjecture that you both conspired to have him murdered to keep your affair a secret? Or maybe you would fear that people might conclude that the thing that killed Kurt was finding out that his wife had been unfaithful. And if so, would you fear how the people who loved Kurt would react? Would you be afraid of being cut out of the will? Would you worry they may try to take your daughter away from you?"

"I mean... wow."

'Right?"

"Have you told anyone else this?"

"You're the first. I've drafted a letter though to the local newspaper and I'm planning to get in touch with Tom to discuss the theory and whether or not this makes any difference to the investigation."

"I'm sorry."

"What?"

"I can't let you do that."

"Y- what are  you


---


Sergeant Donald Cameron, one of the homicide detectives involved in the case, specifically dismissed Grant's theory, claiming, "[Grant] hasn't shown us a shred of proof that this was anything other than suicide." Cameron, however, has been accused of being a personal friend of Love's.[26] Dylan Carlson told Halperin and Wallace that he also did not believe that the theory was legitimate, and in an interview with Broomfield implied that if he believed that his friend was murdered, he would have dealt with it himself. In Kurt & Courtney, he specifically states that he would kill Love and any others involved if he believed that they had murdered Cobain.[27] He has criticized Grant's investigation.


Filmmaker Nick Broomfield, deciding to investigate the theories himself, brought a film crew to visit a number of people associated with both Cobain and Love, including Love's estranged father, Cobain's aunt, and one of the couples' former nannies. Broomfield also spoke to The Mentors' bandleader Eldon "El Duce" Hoke, who claimed that Love had offered him $50,000 to kill Cobain. Although Hoke claimed that he knew who killed Cobain, he did not mention a name and offered no evidence to support his assertion. However, he mentioned speaking to someone called "Allen" (Allen Wrench), before quickly interjecting, "I mean, my friend", then laughing, "I'll let the FBI catch him." Broomfield incidentally captured Hoke's final interview, as he died days later when he was struck by a train in the middle of the night.

- Wikipedia article on the Suicide of Kurt Cobain

夢前の現実

days gone by

this video is so old hayley was still punk(ish) and ethan luck was still in relient k :'(

perfect blue

glory daze

undeleted scenes

life and death ii

"Doctor can you come now? This lady is having a seizure."

It's an hour after I should have gone home. I am hunched over in the doctor's office scribbling furiously in the notes of a patient who had fallen and hit his head and is now unresponsive. This is the fourth time I've been interrupted now. This is also one of those requests you can't really say no to.

Without looking up I say, "Sure," tersely, then toss my pen onto the desk with the unnecessary flourish of a disaffected teenager.

As I make a beeline for the emergency, the osce / acute scenario adrenaline rush is beginning to kick in. Mentally I pat my pockets, making sure I've got everything I need. Okay, let's make sure someone is timing it. She might need lorazepam. Maybe a valproate infusion. This is going to be straightforward, I think to myself. No big deal.

I draw the curtains back and see the sister in charge standing over the patient with a very worried look on her face. I immediately register two things: 1. that the patient is motionless and 2. that her lips are a shade of blue that in an unconscious patient generally means that you should be very worried and need to act very quickly.

"Is she still seizing?" I hear myself say. "She isn't breathing," sister says, visibly alarmed. "Is she still for resus?" Sister asks. The A&E nurse who brought her up says there isn't a DNAR form in her notes. My fingers reach for her carotids. No pulse. Agonal breathing, but no pulse. "Should we start CPR?" Sister's eyes are wide. Urgent. Time seems to slow down for this bit. I look at the A&E nurse and ask, "Is she definitely still for resus?" The nurse indicates yes. I look back at the patient, then at sister. "OK, let's start CPR," I say, my voice sounding surer than I feel. It's been two and a half years since I last participated in an actual arrest.

Everything seems to happen all at once after this. Sister is performing high quality chest compression and I'm doing a decent job of maintaining oxygenation and securing her airway. I look down and note a bright red streak of blood staining the left corner of her lower lip as her torso rocks with the force of each compression. I wince internally. What an uncomfortable, traumatic, terrible way to go. The crash call has been put out and 6 other nurses and a surgical doctor have materialised, marshaled miraculously from neighbouring wards. The on call medical SHO appears beside me and takes over the oxygen mask. The pads are now attached. Sinus rhythm but no pulse. We continue compressions.

Half a minute later, while trying desperately to remember whether to give adrenaline now or the next cycle, someone points out that her arm is moving - that she is moving. I look down and the arm is indeed moving. Her neck is straining and as she exhales I feel an increase of pressure in the airtight chamber of oxygen we're attempting to force into her lungs. "It looks like she's breathing for herself... " Realising that no one has contradicted me, I say, "Let's check the rhythm." Sinus rhythm, rate 68 bpm. "Is there a pulse?" Three people check, including myself. "I've got a carotid pulse here," says one of the nurses. I feel simultaneously incredulous and relieved. I feel her radial, just to be sure -- and it checks out. "We got her back," somebody says, the tone is similarly half congratulatory and half surprised. By now, the med reg has arrived.

The other medical SHO has also arrived. He had clerked her in downstairs. He informs us that her old notes show she apparently had a DNAR in place in 2016, but none had arrived with her and the care home aren't sure if she still has one in place. He discusses it with the medical registrar and they decide to sign one now so she doesn't undergo CPR again. It doesn't really feel like a victory; we bought her just enough time to die of something else next time.

I'm asked to speak to the carer and explain what has happened, which I do. The carer seems unfazed by the fact her patient was dead a few minutes ago. She's a prim looking forty year old woman dressed in a business skirt and woolen blazer. She accepts my facts and explanations attentively and without fuss. "Sure, I'll let the care home know."

I get back to my notes which are waiting for me in the office, on the desk where I had left them half an hour ago. I finally complete the entry and hand over to the on call team, telling them about the gentleman in the side room who has probably got an intracranial bleed and a neck of femur fracture. I finish the day by requesting bloods for patients tomorrow. I register the irony to appreciate later. Now that the emergency is over, the mundane tasks need tending to. All in a day's work. Other patients still need looking after. The gentleman in the side room may never wake up, but there's no time to dwell on that either. It's time to go home.

In the hospital carpark, I reflect on what has just happened. I was ostensibly part of a concerted and successful effort to revive someone from death... Is this what it feels like then? There is strangely no euphoria, no endorphin driven impulse to high-five or back-slap or fist pump. Just the general vague sense of having done something challenging and good, like inserting a difficult cannula or reassuring a worried relative.

My housemate is leaving today and she is holding a party where I will be expected to make small talk. Hours later I am at the party meeting strangers, feeling out of place as usual and trying not to offend anyone. Nobody asks if I have saved anybody's life today. I am hopefully being appropriately inquisitive and jokey, wishing there were an ALS algorithm to follow for social situations like these. And life goes on.

unhealed parts / fight back

For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

- 2 Corinthians 5:4

---

To shed new light on the issue, lead author Kristine D. Sørensena, a psychologist, twice interviewed 15 people receiving outpatient treatment for AVPD. The researchers said the overarching theme to emerge from the interviews was the participants’ struggle to be a person. “They felt safe when alone, yet lost in their aloneness,” the researchers said. They “longed to connect with others yet feared to get close.” In the researchers’ opinion, the participants’ profound difficulties with their “core self” and in their dealings with others do indeed correspond to “a personality disorder diagnosis”. '

Beneath the overarching theme of struggling to be a person, there emerged two main themes, the first being “fear and longing." This included participants’ descriptions of having to put on a mask when socializing and their difficulty feeling normal. This constant performance meant they felt other people never really knew them. There were some rare exceptions to these difficulties: For instance, one participant said they felt authentic when with their young daughter, yet other participants described how, as their children grew older, their usual insecurities returned even when in their company.

---


Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”


---

"... to see every single person you meet as someone admirable, or pitiable. to cultivate a relationship that is both healthy and enjoyable. Remember that everyone has something to teach you if you let them, and the same goes for you. Talking like this... I guess it sounds as if I've figured everything out, but the truth is that most days I don't feel this way. Most days I feel afraid, threatened, terrified, envious and distrustful of everyone I meet. I feel small and unappealing and undeserving of love. I am petty, cynical and vindictive. In those moments most of all, I need someone there who knows and believes I can be better; who reminds me with their kindness and patience that there is another way to be."

heal boy

sinking deeper and deeper into a tiny unexamined existence


---

- only broken people need therapists. because healthy people have things to say that other people actually want to hear

- interesting. what makes you say that?

don't lose your way

statements tees for hipster teens

 "Rule"

 if you know then you know

"Forever"

requiem for a softboi

'That dream is both a noun and a verb. An accusation and imperative. An implication. An invitation. A destination. You declare the outside world to be immaterial, inconsequential. Full of nascent potential. A seething sea of desire and emotion waiting to be shaped by your will. 'Yume' - its romanisation phonetically reads, You May - as in Tim-'

'Got it. Basically you think you're kind of a big deal.'


'yeah.'

---

a softboy is what happens when a fuckboy develops a modicum of emotional intelligence. it is a natural progression, the inevitable next stage of their evolution.

---


"Next we have the archive of ballads from the Romantic Age. These are a collection of songs written before pre-consciousness and the interlink. Partners were unable to select from the geographic pool and filter based on criteria. You must remember that the process of choosing a procreative mate was thus very different for these forerunners. The affair was haphazard, uncoordinated, ambiguous and reportedly miraculous to those experiencing it, the endeavour being primarily and often solely informed by a forerunner's biochemical directive. The authors envisioned that these connections would endure a lifetime, and this can be seen reflected within the mood and lyrical content of these primitive songs in the form of outrageous pledges of devotion and hyperbolic, sometimes morbid, metaphor. Why don't we listen to one?"

sleeper hit

number girl
was playing
lit up
like a ghost
as the
summer ends
we turned 18 years old

i was born
and raised in Normal
40 minutes away
from their hometown
loaded as
a bowl
we watched
kids laugh
on sidewalks
and turn
18 years old

found an old
photograph, 6
months ago
where the lights
were the lights
of a small town
and the rain came
down like
a broken radio

諸行無常

"... the introspective slash emotional slash confessional mode predominated. For a time, it appeared as though this would continue to be the case prior to the advent of the modern cellular telephone, which heralded a new kind of technology that would eventually enable one to take a picture of oneself, embellish and augment those pictures, then instantly transmit those images to the cellular telephones of other individuals, simply with the press of a button."

"Don't listen to that stuff," Moon said. "It's anti-sapien propaganda." The holo-girl flickered as her projector circuits misfired, cutting out audio and skipping ahead. Every now and again this would interrupt her, resulting in a pause where she would look around the room, as if she had lost her train of thought, before resuming her script.

"... sense of self worth rapidly shifted from the internal to the external. This technological epoch allowed for near instantaneous dissemination of the image and saw most industries increasingly invested in appearance and 'brand' with the subject matter of most popular songs following suit."

Dita looked closely at the holo-girl. She was designed to look young. Her cheeks were healthy and plump, her lashes long. Her model was very well done. The folds of her skirt tousled themselves realistically with the movements of her torso, as if they had real weight. Dita had read books about how humans long ago loved objects with a kind of sacred intensity. How they admired the beauty of statues and paintings so much they installed them in their homes. Dita looked up at the holo-girl whose eyes scanned the room blindly as she talked. Emotionless, blank eyes that did not see, deaf ears that did not hear.

"... that the image holds power. What began as an act of sharing cherished moments and information with a few special people soon turned into an exercise in solipsism, in dominance and promotion and influence -- an insidious shift from, 'haha, hey look at this' to 'look at me.'"

Dita recalled reading a book written by a human about what the future might look like and was so struck by how wrong and how simplistic it was. Apparently there were many of these kinds of books. The humans it seemed spent an inordinate amount of time recording their predictions about the future. She marveled at how they used their intellect to justify absurd inventions and wild fantasies - and also at how bleak and terrible these imagined futures collectively were. It was as if the humans actively resisted anticipating anything other than moral and sociopolitical decline. That things could not keep getting better. That they could only get worse.

"... to perpetuate the duplicity and disingenuity of living as if unwatched -- to feign non-performance on a platform invented for the sole purpose of broadcasting broadcasting broadcasting..."

The holo-girl had apparently suffered some kind of critical error. She repeated the word over and over again, like a car stalling against a very steep hill. How long had she been talking for? Dita wondered. Would she snap out of it perhaps, or would this be her final loop. Maybe they had something in common after all. An obsolete design for an obsolete purpose. Death by repetition.

lacrimae rerum

love letters to ghosts

somewhere else, you are looking over my shoulder
and critiquing my syntax,
and later on, after the movie,
when your hand is on my hand,
i look surreptitiously over at you,
and realise how precious this is,
and resolve to memorise every second of it
so that i would have some totem, some
kind of touchstone, some kind of hope
of remembering you when you are gone,
and then you say something funny, like
'my eyes are up here, buster,'
and i respond with something clever,
and you giggle,
and the moment passes, and i
forget about the alternate reality
of a me who sits at a desk, imagining you
beside me, and me turning to face you,
telling you that somewhere else
is a me who isn't beside you
and how i am so glad
i'm not him

year of infinite promise and despair

life and death

"Every surgeon carries within himself a small cemetery, where from time to time he goes to pray."
- Rene Leriche


---

83 year old gentleman admitted with episode of syncope at home, reported feeling dizzy, clammy then lost consciousness for 10 minutes with rapid recovery and no further episodes of syncope. Reports suprapubic tenderness, sudden onset and severe intensity immediately preceding syncope. Bloods showed an AKI with a potassium of 6.0 with no T wave changes on ECG. Palpable bladder, tender and dull to percuss on examination. Seen by my consultant and diagnosed as vasovagal syncope and AKI secondary to acute urinary retention. Plan was to catheterise, treat the potassium and repeat the U&Es afterwards. At least that was the plan - before he started going vacant in the resus cubicle.

'We have a vacant episode over here!' One of the nurses yelled in my direction. Entering the cubicle, I find my man, who 5 minutes ago had been sat up, alert and talking, smiling and and asking questions, now staring off into space and acting like a robot that had its batteries taken out. Something was seriously wrong - and it was my job to find out what.

Stepping up to the plate, I tried to see if he would respond. "MR X... MR X! CAN YOU HEAR ME?" "WUH, WOUHHUHhuhh" he said. His eyes were still open, unfocused. His body splayed out on the trolley.

Another syncopal episode? Absence seizure? Acute stroke? "MR X???" No reply this time. I hold one of his flaccid arms in the air and then let go. It falls back onto the bed like a wet noodle. Same on the other side. Acute stroke causing syncope and affecting both sides?

All this time the nurse says to me, "He looks bad. I've seen patients like this before. Right before they're about to go off. Majorly."

The med reg happens to be passing by. He looks at me quizzically through a slit in the curtain and makes a palm upward motion with his hand as if to say, 'what's going on?' I bring him up to speed. We both stand there for maybe a minute, looking at his pupils, assessing his neurology, watching GCS drop and trying to work out why.

A passing A&E consultant glimpses our man and the complete lack of action being taken and, with a concerned expression, asks, 'What's going on with this man?' I tell him he's having a syncopal / vacant episode. "Has he had any atropine?" "No," I say. "Well, let's give him some atropine. Where's the defib machine?" The consultant's voice ramps up a notch in both volume and urgency, having decided he was now in charge of this acute scenario. He drags the defibrillator from a resus cubicle two beds down and applies the pads to my patient's chest. His heart rate reads 33, 34, 41, his systolic blood pressure which was previously 120 is now 60. We speed up his fluids and give the atropine and his heart rate goes up to 100. Within the next 3 minutes, his systolic BP goes up to 100 and the patient wakes up wondering what all the fuss is about. I struggle to find a viable vein to insert a second canulla for the insulin dextrose infusion and the sister in charge offers to have a look, which is the diplomatic way of saying, here, I'll do it. You're taking too long.

Life and death scenarios. That's what we're here to deal with. The whole point of medical training is being able to spot when something is going wrong, working out exactly what is going wrong and how severely wrong it is, and then being able to correct it. Contrary to popular belief, there aren't that many things that make you go from alive to dead in under five minutes. One of them is a blood pressure too low to provide oxygen to the brain, the heart and the kidneys.

Later on, I tried to debrief myself. If only, I thought, if only I had kept my head and gone through ABCDE I would have stumbled upon the answer in C. Instead I stood there, scratching my head. Not even thinking to ask for a set of observations.

The confounding factors were that I had looked at the observations 10 minutes ago - and not realised they may have changed drastically since. Secondly, we - and by we I mean the consultant - had provided a diagnosis. One that didn't fit with the current presentation. I didn't think to revisit the diagnosis again. And lastly and most worryingly, I hadn't recognised the acuity of the situation. I had in the back of my mind the knowledge that the last episode of syncope lasted for 10 minutes and ended with spontaneous recovery, and assumed that this would turn out the same.

I can't stop thinking about how, if that consultant hadn't stepped in, that man would have probably arrested - and died. From sat up, chatting and smiling - to not moving, not breathing, not living. Irreversibly, irrevocably, indefinitely dead. I had never been so close to that threshold before. That razor fine border between the two infinitely opposite states. An indiscernible event horizon, a turning point as invisible as the molecules that make up the universe, where on the one hand you have thought, emotion, relationships, identity, a past and a future, on the other, stark and absolute nothing. In ancient greek mythology, Atropos was the goddess who ended the life of mortals by cutting their thread with a pair of shears. The idea that human life was something as fragile and tenuous as a stretched out piece of thread. Liable to snap at any moment, without warning. Maybe they were trying to tell us something.

In an alternate reality, that patient would have arrested and we would have commenced CPR and shocked him, and maybe he would have regained circulation, but he would have also sustained cracked ribs and most likely a degree of hypoxic brain injury. If he hadn't regained circulation, his case would have gone to the coroner seeing as he had only been in hospital for five hours. And maybe I would spend the next five days, five years, fifty years asking myself - what if? What if I had done more? What if I could have done something to save him?

my friend tells me about how he nearly collided with a divider going 40mph driving home from his GP interview

yeah defo, im just thinking in an alternate timeline 
id either be dead or disabled 
already

feeling pill

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