So I’m 22 years old now. 264 months. 1144 weeks. I estimate that I’ll live to be 80, assuming I don’t do anything stupid. So I’m about 25% done. I’d like to think that I was never really self-aware till about 16, so my “conscious age” is 6/64. Still pretty young. (Heh, self-delusion.)

How do you measure a life, really? What have I done so far, and what am I to do? (The first things I did upon turning 22- withdraw the last $60 out of my bank account, buy myself a beer and a pack of cigarettes, take a dump, drink, smoke. I got home, deleted a few redundant files off of my computer, tidied up my music a little, and started writing.)

What’s important? What have I learnt? Now is a time for re-focusing, for making sense of my life, for regrouping and focusing. For introspection. This is the first birthday I plan to spend almost entirely in my own thoughts.

Extroversion vs. Introversion

I’m often described as an extrovert- both by myself and others, perhaps because I’m a very loud person, and I can be quite sociable. I enjoy interacting with other people (if I find it meaningful).

That said, I also have a strong taste for reflection. I like to spend time alone, either with a book, or just my own mind. Some of my favourite moments are the moments I have to myself. I think this is a necessity for all writers, especially.

The fundamental loneliness of humans

I read a quote by Alain de Botton (is that his name?) that said- if you’re lonely, you should read a book, because books are written by people who couldn’t find anybody to talk to. I don’t know if it’s too self-indulgent to make that claim about myself, but I do relate to that idea. To that fundamental loneliness. Nobody can ever get you completely, 100%. We should be thankful for the people who do get us about 80% of the time. They are treasures, to live alongside them is a privilege. If we got each other 100%, life would be complete. There’d be little to strive for.

Hell, let’s be honest- we don’t even get ourselves 100% of the time, so how could we expect anybody else to? It’s a full time job, for life. And we shouldn’t want to have it any other way. It’s the sweetest burden.

To be honest, I feel that the distinction between extroversion and introversion is somewhat meaningless- time with the world is enriched by time spent alone, and vice versa. Too much or one or the other, somehow, either seems frivolous or pointless. We are social creatures, we live for others. At the same time, the most important contributions we could make are those that include the findings that we can only discover through thorough introspection. Some truths just need lots of digging.

Perfectionism

I have too much to talk about. My mind really is a bloody firehose. I need to get used to the idea that insights don’t come upon demand- that we just have got to ship often, and that some of it will be great, and some of it won’t, and that’s just fine. I’m too much of a perfectionist.

Let’s talk about my A Levels for a second. I haven’t been studying as much as I know I should be. I will slowly increase the intensity everyday.

Routines.

I realise that I need more routines in my life, so that I might have more freedom. Freedom doesn’t happen by disregarding routines altogether- in the absence of good routines, we fall into bad ones. Of course, there’s no such thing as good or bad- good, in this framework, is what gets you closer to what you want- and bad is what doesn’t.

So if you’re a student, a good routine is doing your homework immediately after school- even if you hate school. Because it takes a lot more time and effort to cram for exams than it does to simply do your homework. Disregard this routine, and you develop a routine of going online after school, and then copying homework in school the next day… incredibly unproductive, inefficient, all-around terrible. It just doesn’t seem so until you have the wisdom of hindsight.

Friends

Some have stayed, some have gone. Actually, if I may be completely honest, I’m always amazed that my friends are still hanging around, that people still care. This is because I’m hyper-aware of my own failings. I’m recalcitrant when it comes to tardiness. I’m always late. I’m irresponsible, forgetful and a generally annoying person. (I do have some redeeming qualities, but I think I shouldn’t really talk about them.)

I have one particular friend that I miss very much. We used to meet for milo and prata late at night sometimes, for no good reason. Sometimes we’d have breakfast. I saw her go through a couple of relationships. (I think.) Once she came to my place because she was drunk and needed somewhere to hide out and sober up. It was hilarious. I always admired her spirit and can-do attitude. I’m not sure why we parted ways. I suppose she was turned off by my arrogance. I miss her, I do. I read a quote by the Dalai Lama that said- friends come and go, just like the days come and go. What matters is that we make each day meaningful.

I have other friends who are overseas at the moment, pursuing further education. I miss them too.

Family

Me and my girlfriend had dinner with my sister and her husband a while ago, and it was a wonderful experience. I was always used to being the youngest sibling, so I was used to my opinions not really counting for very much. I had nothing important or meaningful to say- the only important thing in my life then was my studies, and I didn’t care for them very much.

Meeting my sister made me realize how important it is to have older people in your life that you trust, respect and admire- people who you can learn from. I’ve had the fortune of meeting a couple of other people like this, who are not only willing but eager to share their experiences and wisdom. It blows my mind, and I am very thankful.

Gratitude

We have so much to be thankful for. I am thankful to be born with access to food and clean water, to safety and shelter, to friends and family, to books, to literacy, to education, to the internet. We have to remind ourselves that there are people in the world who don’t have access to that. We are literally cursing them to being “lesser” human beings for it. I don’t mean to say that they ARE lesser human beings- of course not, there’s no such thing. I’m just saying that they are deprived of the basic comforts that we take for granted. We really ought to try and resolve this. I hope to do something about this in my lifetime, at least to contribute to the solution in some way.

Life’s work.

What are we doing with our lives? What am I doing with mine? What could I do that is meaningful and important? I realize that the most important things in life are compassion and service to others. A life lived for oneself is deeply unfulfilling. This could be a matter of neurochemistry, but so be it. I am thoroughly convinced. We are here to help others.

School

I retained in Junior College. A lot of it was because of my own weaknesses and failings. But I also think that the system is simply designed with a specific kind of student in mind, and that students who don’t find that mould will not be able to perform as well. I think that that are others like me, who don’t trust the system, but don’t trust themselves either. They don’t see the point of studying, so they don’t. They aren’t able to construct an elaborate rationalizing system where they work hard at something that doesn’t matter, so that they can then go on to do something that DOES matter (to them.) That’s too complex for a young adolescent with hormones blasting around, especially if you’ve read broadly and you have a sense of how fallible everything is.

Girlfriend

I have to talk about my relationship with my girlfriend. We met in primary school, got together in secondary school, were blissfully in love, grew apart during JC, got together again towards the end of it, and have been together ever since. Neither of us has ever dated anybody else. You could say we’re soulmates. (I don’t believe in such things.) We’ve been together a really long time, and shared pretty much our entire conscious lives with one another. We’re best friends, and play an irreplaceable role in each other’s lives. Not indispensible, of course- nobody is truly indispensible- but irreplaceable, for sure. We’re a huge part of each other’s lives.

It’s pretty self-evident that we’re going to want to be a part of each other’s lives as long as possible. And yet, even then, we’re still learning so much about each other. There’s still so much about each other that we don’t know. There’s still so much work to be done. Living with another never gets easy. (If you think about it, living with yourself never gets easy, either.) It’s lots and lots of hard work.

Still, despite our little failings and troubles, our relationship remains my proudest achievement. There’s nothing else in my life that I’ve invested in so much (apart from reading and thinking, perhaps, but I consider those to be pretty much automatic processes that I have minimal control over.) It makes me glad and thankful to think that I have, at 22, something that many people spend their whole lives looking for- a deep connection with another human being. And even then, I have to constantly remind myself not to take that for granted. It’s incredibly easy to do so.

I have a lot more to say… but I should just go to bed. I’ll keep going, and then summarize it best I can. Thanks for staying with me.