  throughout my life, people have asked me whether i get lonely being an only child, and i always told them that i've never really experienced loneliness. i was being completely honest because i was content with and fulfilled by my own little biosphere of intimate friends and loving parents. in innocence and ignorance, i was easily-amused, easily-satisfied. then one day, i carelessly tossed it all away and became someone that i don't know and can't quite reconcile with yet. and now, even though i'm experiencing more things and surrounding myself with more ppl than ever before, i feel really lonely for the first time in my life. a line from the bell jar: I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of the tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo. i feel like a huge gaping void has been born into my life, and because i don't know what else to do, i continue to do the exact thing that created it in the first place. it's like the biblical analogy of the garden of eden. once you take from the tree of knowledge and bite into the forbidden fruit, what you lose can never be retrieved. you are aware of your nakedness for the first time, and your first instinct is to find cover and cower in shame.
i guess this is what happens when ppl go from one extreme to the other. the question is: how far can the penduluum swing before the ball goes careening off into space? i am trying really hard to find the lessons that i'm supposed to be gleaning from all this. all that i've come up with so far is that people are not that different from one another after all.
no matter what you look like, how you dress, how old you are, where you're from, what you do, what you've experienced, beneath it all, deep down, we are subject to the same blueprint as human beings. ultimately, we are insecure creatures, subject to moments of vulnerability and weakness, and we all want to be loved and accepted. it is the hackneyed fallibility of the human condition, but for the first time in my life, i'm coming to realize the truth of it and really, really starting to believe in it.
everyone has needs, whether they be physical or emotional. i am not beyond that. i can no longer categorize ppl into the "good" and the "bad," because if i were to do so, i wouldn't be sure where to place myself. despite my aggrievement, i can find no contempt in my heart, not for anyone else and not for myself. i think there is always a legitimate reason for why someone is the way they are and why they do what they do. i call this my jean-valjean theory, and adhering to it is a simple means to my own salvation. deep down inside of everyone, i know that there is a good heart, even if they themselves do not believe so. no matter how chipped or broken, i truly believe that there is always a way to mend it. i wish i could form a coalition of healing and recovery from the shock of self-discovery.
i want to tell ppl who are just as lost as me, and i truly believe that almost everyone is or will be at some point in their lives, that i understand, because in the past few days, these are the simple words of compassion that i've been craving. i just want someone to embrace me emotionally and to say to me that they understand what i am feeling, even if i'm not so sure about it myself.
i feel like life is a game of pinball. as a player, you should be able to guide the course of the ball while working with some immutable power like physics and gravity so that what appears to be chance collisions is actually the result of skillful manuevering. somewhere along the line, an anomaly occurred in the game and the ball with my name on it hit a wrong button that sent it bouncing offcourse.
i can only wait and watch with numbness as the ball meanders through all the wrong channels before i am able to flip it back up. this is the best way i know how to describe what it feels like to momentarily lose control. somebody once told me that i need to stop dreaming and start living. i've definitely started doing a lot more of the latter, but i am extremely saddened by the concurrent loss of the former. my second question of the day is: is it not possible for dreaming and living to exist in conjunction with one another? 
