True Dada is against Dada
Many feign love of life to evade love itself. They try their skill at enjoyment and at ‘indulging in experiences’. But this is illusory. It requires a rare vocation to be a sensualist. The life of a man is fulfilled without the aid of his mind.
– A. Camus
Featuring the everyday thoughts of our contributors and creators.
Nine
Real talk, I’ve been stuck in a rut lately.
Before, I can never leave something unfinished. It makes me uneasy, maybe even jittery at times. Now, I can’t put myself to commit to anything. Be it a book, a series, a hobby, a job? people?
I don’t know what’s the problem with me. Most things I used to enjoy are nothing to me now. I thought drinking can shake off the pensiveness, but of course just like the empty highs it provided nothing but temporary bliss. Underneath the euphoria and the laughter, I feel pretentious and fake. A phony.
It seems like I’m losing my touch. Every day it gets difficult to connect with people. And reading The Stranger once again made me feel worse. I’m afraid that this detached, indifferent, hopeless cause Meursault speaks to me in levels that I don’t even want to explore. If this goes any further, I might turn into him. Allow myself to be brought by the waves? Done. Frustrate people when they can’t squeeze a bit of emotion from me? Done. End up in jail, and not giving a damn about it? Yeah, might be going there.
All I ask in this world is someone who will get me, understand me, and connect with me naturally and effortlessly. Lost in Translation-esque. Someone who I can talk about anything and not feel like a burden afterwards. Most of my life I’ve been lending my ear to anyone (in my judgement, anyway) who needs them. I do it not because I’m forced to, but because it’s something that comes naturally to me, and sometimes it does pique my interest.
I just want to experience the feeling when someone returns the favor.
Honestly, I don’t know what I want anymore.
So help me God. Or don’t.
Six
How does my mind work? It works nonstop. It thinks when I eat, poop, pee, run, walk, sit, sleep. It has many highs. At lows, it remains active although my body remains at rest. It is especially active between 22:00-2:20. Sometimes splashes of colors are all I see. Living in the tropics is not all warm colors. Yes, yellow, orange, auburn, copper, and red predominates in summer. But during sunrise and sunsets, pastels are everywhere. Some colors are heightened in specific conditions. It’s not just colors that I see. In some situations, all senses are at its peak. Hyperarousal is absolutely colorful but sometimes destructive. I always try to see it as an asset than a liability. Words, sounds, ideas flow continuously. Although not always coherently. It takes time to put one thought or idea together. It’s usually scattered. If there’s a medium, then it’s usually easier to put together. If there’s no medium, then it’s maddening. So I had to learn to put all the excess somewhere. There’s so much excess. Too much excess. I had to control it or at least learn to manage it.
Moments when all senses are heightened are often terrifying and at times, uncontrollable. It’s like trying to present in front of a crowd and seeing all micro gestures, body languages, and facial expressions of people while trying to contain all the emotions inside you to not screw up. Or stepping inside the emergency room with mom and feeling her anxieties building up even when she’s trying her best not to show it. Or feeling the excruciating pain of a dying child from the next room in the ER. Ugh I hate the hospital. Heightened senses can be pleasant at times. Like when I first learned how to ride the motorbike. I drove really really fast when I worked in the jungle. When I was on collision with an approaching a car, I suddenly remembered I was in a country that drives on the opposite side of the road as ours. I didn’t, obviously, die. But I wheelied on the bike and luckily, fell on a pile of leaves. The driver was worried, but I didn’t suffer any serious injuries and was laughing as I got back up to fix my bike. It saves me sometimes. Moments of intimacy are exciting and at times, terrifying. It depends on who my partner is. If he’s gentle, then it’s usually lovely. Feeling his skin and bones are always amazing. Especially when you feel his body heat. I often misunderstand my partner when he is rough. The after feelings often transcends. It triggers a lot of emotions and sometimes negative memories. Often, if he pulls away, then I push. If he talks a lot, I usually shut down. Literally, not understanding or hearing a word he says. It gets exhausting.
There are always fuels and stimuli. These are two different things to me. Stimuli include light, light intensity, texture, sound, sound intensity, smell, colors, emotions, movement. Anything that involves the stimulation of senses. Stimuli are cues but fuels are propellants. Just like stimuli, fuels have different intensities, hence, different levels of influence on me. I consider people to be my strongest fuels. The level of intensity varies per person. Seeing too much colors allow me to base people not by how they look but how intense they are. I think the span of my relationships with people depend on their intensity. Reds are penetrating but usually short-lived. Most of my friends are blues. I think I always look for red fuels. Although basing my relationships on people’s color intensities sound unusual, it is often very exciting because I like looking at different color combinations. The people I love the most are like dispersive prisms. You know, people who can show me different spectral colors.
Twelve
It’s 7:36 PM and I’m sitting here at a random coffee shop drinking coffee. I like how meticulous I can get when it comes to my long black double shot of espresso over hot water. I want a taste of nostalgia. I crave for a smell of saudade. I wonder why... I wonder why this person beside me chose to sit here. I wonder if life now is better than the past. I wonder about the song ‘Taro’ by Alt-j. I wonder where I will be in 10 years. I wonder why I remember moments so easily. I wonder why I remember all the people I have met throughout my life. One look at them and a flashback of “our” first interaction will automatically play in my head. I wonder what makes people wonder. I wonder why I wonder so much but it’s getting late and I need to finish my coffee.
Zero
I would like to think of myself as a shape shifter. To be clear, I do not have a dissociative identity disorder. I just want to feel like I can be anything. At times I am a dancer, a painter, an intellect, an athlete, an average citizen, an idiot, whatever. I have different names too. People call me by a name they most associate me with. The way I multiply is through my lovers. I stand by Don Juan’s philosophy. I guess I am a libertine. Their great admiration to me sustains me as I feed on their ego. Do not mistake me as a wo/manizer. Leaving wo/men I go out with does not mean I stopped loving them. On the contrary, I multiply myself through my partners and I love them all equally and I want them to feel loved even when they think they don't deserve it. After all, like what Nietzsche says, ‘what matters is not an eternal life but eternal vivacity’. It makes me feel everything and nothing at the same time.
Think of me as a nine, six, twelve.