dandruflakes

[dandruflakes]

Future me is standing by an open window, solder smoke drifting, notebook open, laughing at a fresh bug because problem-solving now feels like play, not proof of worth.

[dandruflakes]

A Happy Fat Old Man

I am standing in the small garden I've cared for since who knows when. There are many plants, flowers, and flashy lights that come from the agricultural tech I bought, but honestly, I don't know where I'm looking. I don't know where my mind is wandering right now. Is it the garden or the past several years of my life? One that I am most proud of and one that I regret the most.

My first daughter will come home tonight to celebrate my 52nd birthday. She always comes at least once a year. Last year, she brought me the initial blueprint of a high-resolution brain scanner she designed for her thesis. Such a brilliant young woman I successfully manufactured right there, haha.

I just received a text saying my ex-wife will also drop by if she gets back from work early. The word workaholic doesn't even describe her attitude toward her job. She owns a capital firm for startups. Despite her success, she will never, and I mean never, prioritize anything higher than her work. She once refused to attend my mother's funeral for her business trip, which I will never understand until this day. But other than that, she's a lovely and caring woman when she has free time. That's one thing I overlooked and realized lately, but unfortunately, not during our marriage.

I've lived a mediocre life for as long as I can remember. The most extraordinary life I've lived was during my young adulthood. I was full of ambition and the desire to escape the poverty that my parents inherited. I remembered I wanted to be a neuroscientist so badly. That becomes the fuel of my spirit to keep going. But I don't know when it happened or how it happened. I just lost it. Since then, I've been living quite comfortably. But that's it. The journey was over since then. My life was rather stale.

There's a huge regret buried deep beneath my heart. The thing that I could never really shake off of my mind. I really don't want to be average. I resent myself for not pushing myself hard enough. If I could just tell my younger self to stop watching funny videos, useless ping-pong tutorials, or anything I did but study, maybe everything would be different now. I wasted so much potential. I truly believe I was a genius, perhaps not a genius in a conventional sense. But it was there. I have the perseverance and brain power to make myself and my loved ones proud, and I wasted it. So, if I can travel through time, I will tell my younger self to just suck it up right up through your fucking fat ass. It will be worth the pain. Oh yeah, ask yourself.

"What will happen if I don't keep pushing myself?"

This, right here. A fat, short-wearing old man who is happy but not really.

[dandruflakes]

I Always Wanted to be Saved

I sat alone in a coffee shop, switching my attention between the work on my laptop and the surroundings: the strangers talking, the car sounds from afar, and the wind hitting things. I was trying to understand what I was doing, why I was doing it, and how I had even gotten to this point in life. Was I just dreaming? It doesn't feel real that I am alive, and all the experiences I've been through are even more fictitious. Minutes later, I just forgot and moved on with whatever tasks were on my hand.

"Oh shit, I am five minutes late to this meeting."

To be alive means to be able to avoid transitioning to the entropy state for as long as possible, and here I am, being alive, being extremely lucky. I am part of a collection of matters that make it to the extreme side of the distribution function. That is crazily awesome. The odds of living are unbelievably low, and it is even lower to have intelligence. At least for me, it is undeniably difficult not to ask a question about the purpose of life. Questions after questions, answers after answers, really did its work on my head.

"Whoa, I was not listening this whole time."

"Sorry, boleh diulang pertanyaannya?"

"Why am I even in this meeting? What is my role here? They all should have been fired."

From my standpoint, I am just a kid whose needs have always been neglected. I wanted a flashy pair of shoes, a sweet apple tea beverage, and to study from textbooks that should have been bought instead of pages of written text that I copied from my friend's books. I also wanted a harmonious family like the other kids.

If I have children, I want them to have me as they need me to be. I want them to have a place to talk to when life gets hard. Maybe someone in school bullies them, or they are in their puberty, or their first heartbreak, and helping them to understand every difficult emotion I had to deal with alone as I was a kid.

I am tired of telling stories about how dark my life has been. It's not that dark, anyway. After meeting a bunch of people throughout my life, to be frank, some of their lives were terrible, yet they developed a positive outlook toward life. The way I perceive and interpret things makes no sense.

Then I looked around and arbitrarily chose a stranger to put my focus on. I wondered what this rando was thinking and what adventure they had so they became the person they are now. Subjective experience is always fascinating to me. That's why I love to talk to people, peeling off layers and trying to unravel the internal mechanisms of their minds.

I always feel that I don't need anyone to save me. I am perfectly capable of handling most of my own issues. But life goes on, and the world keeps changing. My emotions, problems, dreams, and goals have become increasingly complex. Then it hits me; the need to bond deeper connections with others is supposed to be greater from this point in time. They need to understand me better, and I need to understand others better so we both save each other in the right way and at the right time.

"She is cute, intelligent, and passionate about what she does. What is she thinking right now? Why do I feel naturally attracted to certain traits, behaviors, and characteristics but not others? What kind of people do I naturally attract?"

The online meeting ended. "Bye, everyone, thanks."

No wild animals were trying to attack me, nor was someone in sight actively trying to kill me. I was safe. As far as I could see, there were no real dangers, yet I felt anxious. Fears were creeping up on me. My body tensed up. My mind was racing. I just wanted to get this over with.

I admire the way you think about yourself. You don't expect me to be your savior. You just sat there and were there for me.

"Two heroes."

[dandruflakes]

Bad Sector

Hey!

My inner world constantly revolved around ridiculing others and the struggle to resist believing in my own self-defeating humor.

Okay, that should say a lot about me; I'm the worst--if you understand. Although describing myself as rude, mean, and argumentative, I usually appear to be kind, considerate, caring, and a listen-to-people's-problem person :/

That brings us to today's best QnA:

Q: How do you balance being kind and people constantly crushing you, disappointing you, and stabbing you from the back?

A: Well, there are several actions depending on where I am standing at the moment:

1. Push away everyone trying to help you, don't forget to thank them though, and also smile (learn to give a genuine smile without.., you know..., being genuine) so that you don't have to worry about them disappointing you.

2. When you're upset, bury deep your feelings, go to some quiet place to calm yourself down, then abruptly run back to them and slit their throats. Note: Never do this outside your mind.

3. Take a long long I don't give a fuck about humanity's problems because eventually nothing really matters nap.

4. Consume lots and lots of self-help materials, keep reading, and keep watching until you get to the point when you realize that you're a beyond-help piece of crap with a mouth full of false hopes and will stay that way for a long time, at that time you probably have become a person who thinks others' life worth more than yours.

5. Internally inflate your self-worth by aggrandizing your actual value and capability so you'll look down on others so that it no longer makes any sense to be arrogant.

6. Take Xanax.

7. I don't give a fuck; I would attack the person harshly because they don't deserve love and understanding and should quickly kill themselves.

I could tone down my aggressiveness a bit, only if you could read my mind because nothing can bring me joy more than a spoonful of "oh yea, I totally get what're you onto!" and you list out 20 valid arguments of why you think I'm right. I need that right now.

Help.

[dandruflakes]

Mi Hija

It is sensible to be morally correct to do whatever you want to do; there is no need to feel guilty because you are the mistake; you are the unintended stroke on a beautiful poem the creator wanted to make, and now he wants to erase you, but you are too stubborn to be removed. Now, you exist, spoiled the rest, and everyone just can't un-see you; you are the center of the universe.

Had you killed a man? Either with your swords or with your words, it doesn't matter; you killed someone merely because of your existence. Don't be sad; you'll never ever have to bear this pain as soon as time passes; there is a high chance you will be forgotten as he writes the next page.

Can you feel the earth spinning?

Can you see the time running around laughing as you try to jump to the next page?

Look at you, poor human, you thought you could do everything, did you?

She is pretty, isn't she? That's your problem.

How optimistic could life be? Isn't it attractive to be able to live forever? It is. *You can hear an evil laugh*

"Hey, dad, how are babies made?" You said.

"I don't know exactly how, but I'm pretty sure it was because your mother and I had sex 9 months before you were born."

"What are we, dad?"

"I don't know. I merely exist."

"I thought, you know everything."

"No, no, definitely not. No one does."

"Okay."

They both looked to the ceiling as the answers were hanging there, waiting to fall off.

"Am I gonna die, dad? I mean, like Granny?"

"No one ever had successfully achieved to not be a dead person, Kid."

Dad held her hand, kissed her on the forehead, then told her to go to bed. It's time to get 8 hours of sleep and wake up fresh for tomorrow to learn something new.

[dandruflakes]

An Orange Bag

"It is full of food! Oh shit, there's a ton of them! Look, this is crazy! We will never run out of food ever again. There are unlimited foods inside! Oh my virtual god!" he then cried as he realized the food really was unlimited.

"Hey, hey, calm down, man. Can we not tell anyone about this? Think of it like a top-secret mission to prevent mass hysteria and cause the civilization to crash. This is our chance to save humanity."

"Wow, cool. It's like the Avenger!"

"Yeah, yeah, of course, the Avenger!"

"Can I tell Mom and Dad?"

"No! Do you understand..., when I say about not telling this to anyone. I mean, nobody, not a single soul, knows about this except just two of us."

"How about my girlfriend? Can I tell her?"

"Do you have one?"

"No"

"So, yeah."

"Where do we put this thing so no one will see this?"

"We're gonna need to buy a safe box."

[dandruflakes]

Apologize

"I'm sorry." He said, followed by a long uncomfortable silence.

"I shouldn't have done what I had done to you. It was wrong that I had no more excuses left to give. I am truly sorry."

You didn't respond. He hurt you so much that you thought it was the only way he lived his life. You never expected he would feel sorry for what he'd done.

"Say something, please." Tears started to run down his face.

"Please don't cry. It hurts me." He chuckled. "How egotistical maniac of a person I am, even when you cry. What I thought is that I don't wanna feel bad seeing you cry."

"Look, you know me so well. I'm not the kind of person who is comfortable sharing my feeling. But this has long crossed my limit. I no longer be able to bear this burden. So hear me out." He started to feel calm, took steps to the chair, and sat there, focusing on his breathing.

"I'm sorry for every time I called you stupid.

I'm sorry for every time I told you that you don't deserve love.

I'm sorry for every time I judged how your nose looks.

I'm sorry for every time I told you that your lips are weird.

I'm sorry for every time I told you that you're ugly.

I'm sorry for every time I told you that you were weak.

I'm sorry for every time I corrected your minor grammatical error.

I'm sorry for every time I pointed out your typos.

I'm sorry for every time I banged your head into the wall.

I'm sorry for bothering you every night so you can't sleep.

I'm sorry for every time I pushed you too hard.

I'm sorry for every night I didn't let you sleep when you still had items on your to-do list.

I'm sorry that you have to breathe smokey air from my cigarette in the room.

I'm sorry that I pushed away many of your friends.

I'm sorry for making you question yourself." His voice started to tremble as he said the last line.

"Sorry, I'll keep going. I'm so sorry you have to do this."

"I can't, I'm sorry ..." He broke down and sobbed like a child.

[dandruflakes]

Eye Drops

"Hey, you awake?" Spoke softly in her ear, cuddling her from the back. She gave no response.

"Beep... activates ultra horny mode." He touched her belly button like it was a button.

"I really wanna eat your face 'cause you're so ... annoying, but it's so dang pretty, like a lovely birthday cake I never had, I don't wanna ruin it." She tittered as she woke up.

"My face now is not even the original face you had first seen, mmm... it has been replaced by the food—more specifically nutrients—I ate since then. However, what I meant to say was: Do you still love me?" He said, stumbled upon words.

"Go to sleep, silly. I have a meeting at 9, and I believe you have one too." She answered plainly.

'Okay.'

'You mean the world to me.'

[dandruflakes]

24 Hours Earlier

"Hey! Be careful! We don't have any if you break this one." The man warned him as he would die if he failed to attach the connector correctly.

He sat in the corner of the room with the light turned off. That night, he successfully broke his record for staying awake for more than 26 hours. Impressive, he thought.

"I should probably go home. It's been ages since I had slept." Continued to pack his things, "See you later!".

He pulled his cigarette out of his bag and lit it in the parking lot. The smoke formed a turbulent flow. Tears started to run uncontrollably from smoke stinging his eyes, or he just cried. No one knew.

"I'm gonna miss this place."

[dandruflakes]

Swastamita

‘Thanks!’ He gave the money and performed a Pan Am smile—to avoid getting more death stares. Proceed to walk away.

Where’s my key? He reached the right pocket on his grey hoodie, and blunt ridges touched his hand, which meant the key had not enough time to teleport itself to another pocket.

Not too distant from his parked motorcycle, three young men were smoking a cigarette, talking about their other friend who was just married. One of them seemed dominant; his gesture showed confidence like he knew everything about everything. The other two seemed tirelessly seeking his approval by agreeing to whatever this man had to say.

A piece of money slipped as he pulled the key out of his pocket. He glanced over to take a look but got distracted by those three. They started talking in a confidential voice, like they were discussing something he should not know. For a second, his mind wandered off far away from this moment.

They stared at him like he didn’t know they did, a second later shifted toward the money on the ground, and a strange silence occurred. The street lamp made everything look orangish, just like a beautiful sky one evening at the beach; he regretted having spent without someone in his heart. He took off from there, sailing like a ghost. As he started to drift away, he glanced over the rear mirror, saw the joy on their face, and moved on.