frozenwrites

[frozenwrites]

Dear diary, do you remember me?

Because I don’t think I do.

9th of July 2024 Today's song: Cave in by Owl City

I want to tell you some new things about me, but for my pride’s sake I’ll convey them using fictional characters we’re both familiar with. So, there’s this imaginary lawyer who is an absolutely terrible person. He wasn’t born that way, of course, he just kept becoming unkinder and more immoral because he insisted on bottling up and repressing all of his feelings. In the end, they all caught up with him in the worst way, ruining his dreams and hurting everyone around him in ways he couldn’t have planned if he wanted to. I don’t think I’m quite like that yet, but I do see some of my current self in him. Although, because I’m a real person containing multitudes, I can also relate to another, completely different character.

You see, diary, there was once this young adult who moved back to her hometown after dropping out of college. For most of the story, she doesn’t tell her friends or family what had happened for her to abandon such an invaluable opportunity, and as days go by, she starts to make her peace with it on her own. She feels better, settles back into her old life to find respite from the newer one she had run away from, and seems, for all intents and purposes, to have moved on. She was convinced that it was all okay, but then something unexpected happened; a trigger she hadn’t expected, an emotional arrow straight through one of the many holes of her fickle mental armor. She was then forced to face her past all over again. She needed to ask for help to survive it that time. She does, and all is well, but this time for real. It seems that by living in her delusions of easily downplaying a traumatic experience she was only delaying the inevitable, extremely difficult face off she was always going to have with it.

My dear diary, you have been with me for much of this journey, and you’ve seen me change from an impulsive, indecisive teenager who was weak against loneliness to a jaded person of conviction who thrives in both company and solitude. It wasn’t an easy change, and God is my witness when I say it wasn’t a graceful transformation either; I had to see the person I used to be wither away and bleed for the current one to emerge. I still have a long way to go, of course, and I’m okay with having so many more things to learn, but as I go about that I find wondering why I still suffer the same problems I always have. That, my leatherbound companion, is why I’m talking to you tonight.

We’re always forced to use our sense of judgment for things ranging from the laughably insignificant to the massively life-changing, and there’s no way around getting it wrong sometimes. I know that we often make errors despite our best intentions. Why then, do I now let uncertainty get the best of me? I have always been headstrong in the belief that doing what you believe is best in the moment is better than letting the universe steer you. I have made many decisions in full confidence recently, only to find myself disappointed by their fallout. It’s not a constant expectation to be right that upsets me, I’m all too aware that even at my best, my psyche is inherently vulnerable, and my judgment is inherently fallible. But why, diary, do you suppose I still manage to get angry at myself for not doing everything perfectly?

As I ask the question, it seems to answer itself. Perhaps I have become too familiar with who I am now and how I do things that I started to let hubris get the best of me. I’m constantly advocating being open minded and taking every learning opportunity in stride, so maybe I should remind myself to practice what I preach.

I’m sure this entry feels a little more raw and unpolished than what I’ve let you be accustomed with by now, my diary, but I think that was the point. Being open with you is me being open with myself, after all, and it’s always liberating.

Have a very good night.

[frozenwrites]

"I can think of better places and better ways." "Can ye make it be?" "No." "No. It's a mystery. A man's at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there. It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the way that God has set for it. You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man, the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it. You believe that?" "I don't know." "Believe that."

[frozenwrites]

Dear diary, my thoughts are all over the place. 

And this time, I do mean it literally.

31st of march 2024

I’m sure you remember, dear diary, all of those pages within you that I used to write with painstaking effort only to tear them out to burn in the open air. I remember every single time I have done that; I don’t remember what the stories were, mind you, I just remember what I felt while writing them and what I felt while watching them get consumed. As you’re aware, writing has always been my escape, my way of releasing tension; and tearing out those pages and airing them as smoke was, surprisingly, likewise a very liberating experience. I do regret, however, never having stopped to explain that process to you. That is, until tonight. 

“Matter cannot be created nor destroyed”. The amount of… things, for the lack of a better term, in the universe is a constant that I cannot tamper with (although I’ve always liked to believe that by writing, I was bringing something new into physical existence by materializing my thoughts into words made out of pixels or ink; art is thought given form, after all). Following that logic, all the pages that I have burned over the years are not removed from this world, they’re still around, I just chose to give them back to the universe in a new form, that being smoke and the funny smell of boiling tea over burned paper. Just like matter, energy is also subject to the law of conservation: it cannot be created nor destroyed. That makes me wonder, is the energy with which I had permeated every page also out there in the night sky? Oh, quite whimsical is the way I believe the world works, isn’t it? Let’s talk some real science to tether back into reality for a bit.

Last year, I attended a lecture about thermodynamics with one of the most inspiring lecturers I had ever met. He explained that life in the universe hinges on entropy and change, not stability. Energy keeps changing from one form to another: the power of burning fuel in a car is transformed into the movement of the wheels resulting in friction on the road and then it’s gone. Or is it? That friction that happens on the road resulting in an output of heat is not completely lost, it’s just energy that’s morphed into a new form that cannot be retrieved, it cannot be changed into anything else. But then doesn’t that mean it’s “gone”? Is physics really telling us that what no longer has the capacity to change is essentially dead? Maybe; I wouldn’t know what physics is telling us if it was yelled at me in simple words.

This, however, I do know: Stability is a word that we commonly use with a positive connotation. When your life is “stable”, it’s on track, it’s all under control, and it’s moving in a good direction towards an attainable goal. In science speak, on the other hand, stability simply means how much resistance something has to being changed, which, if my earlier observation holds any truth, is not a very good thing. But now I’m just tying us down with semantics, so let me move on for now. 

Change is a fact of life, it’s something we have to live with, although it’s not always a good thing. The unpredictability of our lives and the ever-changing landscape of factors around us forces us to change to adapt and survive, those who refuse, who get too stuck in their ways or are held back by pride or hubris get left behind, either by other people or by the world as a whole. It just really comes naturally to us to want to stay in our comfort zones close to what’s familiar, close to the mysteries we’d already solved and to the beats we’d already tamed. Did you know, my dear diary, that the fear of death is the most common phobia mainly because we don’t know what happens after we die? People fear the dark for the exact same reason, too. Knowledge is power, the common saying goes, and it’s true that you’d have no reason to fear what you already know; the enemy you’ve seen coming three days in advance is one you’re prepared to fight. All of that ties back into our love for stability and our desire to remain unchanged. I distinctly remember my fifteen-year-old self believing that he would maintain that same personality and interests for the rest of his (admittedly sad) life; back then, I would have unhesitatingly said that had no problem staying fifteen forever. I wasn’t alone in that, either; almost all people of any given age group, when asked, will be quick to claim they’re happy with who they are at that specific point, thinking they’d reached their final form, in a sense, and that any coming changes they’ll have to make, if any, will be very minor. That is despite the fact that statistics tell us explicitly that we are going to change our mind about that the very next year. We are in constant denial about the inevitability of change, and maybe that is because change scares us. When the world around us starts to look different, our knowledge doesn’t hold as much power and we feel insecure, like we’re left in the frightening darkness, fearing death. 

I wonder, then, if change really is inevitable, do we have no control over how it happens? That’s a bigger question than it seems. The stoic philosopher Epictetus once said that the realization of desire is the attainment of that towards which we are desirous, and the realization of aversion is the avoidance of that towards which we are averse. He continues: “if that is so, then it is logical that he who fails the object of his desire is disappointed, and he who incurs the object of his aversion is wretched.” and explains how that is why we should only want things that we can actually get, unlike immortality or infinite wealth, and only reject things that we can actually avoid, unlike death and poverty. Now, how does that relate to our topic about change? Stoics believed that perception indeed makes most of reality and that the world is as we see it. We can be aware and accepting of the fact that things change and continue to approach them with an open mind, fully embracing our limitations and trying to make the best of what we can control and work around what we cannot. I’m not implying that their philosophy is one hundred percent accurate, stoicism is not an infallible scientific principle and it can be interpreted any number of ways. It is just that I simply found a way to link all those new things I’ve been learning about recently and thought I could write about them a short piece that I could come back to for inspiration in the future. 

Dear diary, in this constantly changing chaotic world, thank you for being patient with me as I take longer to formulate my thoughts into new stories to tell you. For now, though, this is me, closing you again for a while, intending to come back to you soon.

[frozenwrites]

03/11/2023 - 11:25 pm 

Today’s song: Somebody Else - The 1975

Dear diary, I'm seeing stars. 

Mind you, not in the sense that I was knocked out. I'm seeing actual stars for what feels like the first time, and it's quite the feeling. Winter has finally come, bringing with it a storm of memories and realizations that can leave me forever changed. It’s been a long time since I stopped to tell you about my life, dear diary; I suppose I had to collect that many new musings to share. The question, as always, is where oh where should I begin?

Many months ago, I told you that I would soon be starting a new chapter in the story of my life. In hindsight, that was rather inaccurate. This has not been another chapter, it’s a new story altogether. It’s a long, eventful sequel in which I’m the same character thrown into a very new setting surrounded by a lot of very new people. A lot of the things I had come to take as stables in my life are no longer within reach, and there are as many new things to get used to. I will have to say that the most interesting aspect of my life right now is the people. It’s been a long time since I had to relocate, and while the people I had gotten used to are still in my life, their presences have been reduced to names on a small screen I only look at once a day. I used to tell myself at first that this is all a temporary measure; I’m only here for a short time before I get back to what had become my real life. I should have reminded myself that this is equally real, and that however long my stay here will be, I need to make a life out of it. 

Missing people is not easy, however. I have a lot of people back home who I wish I could bring over. It’s hard to accept that we all might as well be living in different worlds now, but I digress. You see, I have also come to learn that missing people sometimes comes in the form of looking for traces of them on others. There have been many times when I would say something, expecting a certain familiar reaction from the person in front of me, only to be brought back to reality by the stranger’s voice. That is not to say that change is a bad thing. There might be a learning curve to every new experience in life, but its purpose is always just that: learning. I’m not above believing that there’s so much more in life for me to learn, and I’m not naive enough to assume it would all come easily. The best thing for me to do is to, as I’ve come to often lecture my students, approach everything with an open mind and believe that there is good in every new day. 

There are a lot of other things I wish I had the time to tell you about, such as all the new people who have been making this story of mine worth reading. That will have to wait for a different entry, however. And for the rest of tonight, my dear diary, I want you to know that I will be sitting out here, looking up, and hoping that everybody else who needs good company finds it in the winter night’s sky. 

[frozenwrites]

25/08/23 - Long after midnight

Today’s song: Castles Crumbling by Queen Taytay Taylor Swift

Dear diary, let’s talk nonsense.

You don’t easily forget your earliest books. I, for instance, cannot possibly forget that my enchantment with the world of fiction started with the classics. I was no older than twelve when I finished works like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Oliver Twist; I know that I enjoyed every line and scene from them, but I also remember one book that my younger self picked up, assuming it would be appropriate, but that always eluded my understanding. It’s been some time, my little journal, but I came back to tell you the story of how I fell down the rabbit hole.

Everybody knows about Alice and her wonderland. Her story was told countless times across countless mediums in countless spins and variations; history made the story accessible to all, and the original novel should not have been too complicated, either. It was, after all, an imaginative piece of children’s literature about a young girl’s adventures across a wondrous dreamscape. I got the chance to revisit this fabled work a little while ago, and my experience with it as an adult has been quite remarkable indeed. For instance, I genuinely found it funny how the language barrier was not my problem with the story as a tween. I could understand the words just fine, I simply couldn’t make heads or tails of what context they served… Much like Alice herself! I failed to properly communicate with the book a decade ago only to grow up and realize that it was a story about the failure of communication in the first place. Imagine the irony! From the beginning of the story with meeting the colorful cast of whimsical characters all the way to the trial scene near the end, the reader and the protagonist alike were allowed to see that this was not a world where anything had to mean anything, where people weren’t expected to have any motives ulterior to simply being there. Of course, it is all explained away at the end when we discover that the whole thing was just a dream. That, by today’s standards, sounds like a lazy cop-out to avoid having to justify anything, but in a novel like this one, it was the perfect ending. Think about it this way, there are no lessons or morals being explicitly given to the reader in this one. Indeed, the novel seems to constantly undermine and dismiss any chance of finding lessons in its events; it’s almost as if the book itself is actively telling the reader “Don’t think about what just happened too much, just move on to the next insanity.”

The story was narrated like a dream, where time was not linear (time was actually dead, but never mind that) and flowers had faces. Ending it with Alice waking up only served to emphasize on its messages. Other stories that I was familiar with at the time I first picked this one up didn’t need this, the wizard of Oz told the story like it was real, never dismissed Dorothy’s experience as a fabrication of the mind; but then again, that’s only because it was a novel that needed to be sensible.

I still remember the evening I finished The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for the first time. The story reveals at the end that, after a harrowing journey through a crazy (but not insane) world, that Dorothy, our protagonist, had had the means to return home all along. She laments that there was no need for her to go through all that she did to begin with, but then her companions all exclaim that if she hadn’t, not one of them would have discovered and fulfilled his purpose. That part of the story rang in my young mind like a gong; it tied everything together nicely and gave so much extra validation to the story. That and of course it made the bottom line of a very beautiful lesson of how everybody has a purpose and that no experience is worthless. That we’re all stories told like the threads of a spider’s web: at times we’re told in parallels and other times we intertwine, but in the end we all make up this grand tapestry that is life.

Nothing of that is to say that there are no merits to Lewis Carroll's magnum opus, I’m merely in the process of realizing that that story’s lesson was one that I needed to grow up to understand. But before I dive any deeper into that, let me ask you plainly, diary, do we live in a world that makes sense? You might remember from my last entry how I mentioned that the human brain, our instrument of reason and creation, has taken millennia to evolve into what it is today. But think about how we have all essentially had the same brain for the past few hundred years when industry was booming and the world was being transformed into the earliest picture of what it is now. The world has changed, but we have not. Is that the reason why everything seems to be constantly heading for the worst? We have thousands of years’ worth of knowledge about the evils of greed and conflict, which makes it really quite baffling how we seem to be constantly coming up with more problems than solutions. It reminds me of the depiction of the Queen of Hearts in wonderland. Arguably the most insufferable character in the story, she would go around flaunting her delusions of authority even though she lived in a world where not the fundamental laws of physics had any! Still, it’s not easy to call her evil; it’s like I said before, wonderland’s inhabitants were always being their mad selves because they didn’t know any better. The same queen who ordered and threatened several executions in the later parts of the story might not have been malicious at all. If we, today, are just like her, and indeed it turns out that our brains really are not evolved enough to handle the problems they’ve wrought, are we like children in a playground, fighting over a toy that none of us even understand? Is it possible that that toy is a giant bomb that could destroy everything? If so, how much longer do we have before we set it off? Actually, that one’s easy: we have exactly ninety seconds until doomsday.

Mind you, not ninety seconds on a regular clock, but on the doomsday clock. It’s a symbol, an indicator, and a means of warning introduced in 1947 that currently exists on the website of the bulletin of atomic scientists. Midnight represents catastrophe and the committee moves the clock hands closer and closer to it depending on the current state of affairs. Over the last decade, the hands moved no less than half a dozen times and it currently sits at ninety seconds to midnight. Call it fast or slow, the trajectory is one and the same, and things need to change. The scary thing is that atomic weapons are not the only threat the clock is concerned with; there are a variety of other man-made disasters, perhaps the most glaring of which is the climate situation. That is not a recent problem, none of them are, and if we know what’s happening, why does the doomsday clock remain much like a screaming alarm clock ringing by the head of a giant, gluttonous monster that cannot wake up because it’s eaten too much for its own good? I ask that, not having any answers myself. I even keep using the pronoun “we” even though I myself am just an individual, one thread in that tapestry of many more. At any case, I know it’s not a pleasant thing to think about, but I keep reminding myself that it’s important because a lot of the time, the line between life and death, between withering and prosperity, is called awareness. In this case, it’s our collective awareness of what’s really happening that could be the first step towards making the world a better place.

Lastly, I want to recount that time, a few years ago, when I was in the presence of Dr. Talal Abu Gazaleh, a celebrated mogul of the tech industry. He noted something that’s been on my mind ever since: We might have had a few industrial revolutions where we looked at the world and thought up ways to bend it to our will, but what we will need next is a human revolution where we start looking inward to find out what we can become for our world.

[frozenwrites]

01:00 - 5/6/23

Today’s song: Valerie - Amy Winehouse

Dear diary, I missed you.

A heavy weekend followed by what I’m sure will be a very long week. I think I’m long overdue for a night at my desk, pouring my thoughts out with music playing in the background so I don’t go insane. In the endeavor of taking my mind off my troubles, I want to write about the things that have been on my mind for a long time now, like my recent adventures in reading! Before that, however, let me tell you, dear old diary, about brains. 

I’ve always been fascinated by human cognition, not only because I often struggle to understand my own thoughts and actions, but because I’m sure everybody else does, too. I believe it was the great mathematician Ian Stewart who once said that if our brains were simple enough to understand themselves, we’d be far too simple to understand them; and if that sounds like a paradox, just bear with me. Our brains have been evolving over as many years as we’ve existed on earth, and it’s commonly believed that at some point, they allowed us to develop the ability that would distinguish us not only as a species, but also as individuals: reasoning. We can detect causality as well as effect, we have foresight, and the tendency to retrospect and introspect and pursue aims more sophisticated than mere survival - we just all happen to do it in vastly different ways. 

A few days ago, we buried my dear grandfather and held a long funeral over the course of which I got to thinking about old people, those whom we can very easily think of as time travelers- seeing how they all come from eras very different to our own. It’s often hard for us to comprehend their actions, why they were that certain way, or how they could have possibly thought they were doing the right thing. I used to tell myself that it was simply because they’d come from different times and settings than I was familiar with, but then again, even when they were young, they weren’t always in agreement with their peers. At least, no more so than you or I are with those ridiculous folks on twitter threads, right? The truth is that people have always been different, our minds tend to paint the world in unique ways that suggest that no other point of view could possibly have it right. 

I’m certainly no exception to that; over the years, I’ve always had trouble responding to personal development (self-help) books. I tried reading for the likes of Carnegie and Sharma and all the other giants of the genre but with very little in the way of results. There’s just something about other people telling me how to think that immediately gets my mind to clam up and reject all but their vaguest, least detailed advice. That’s not uncommon, it’s simply because I’m not at all a semantic person; I need to analyze and come to my own conclusions if I want to learn anything. I know people who need rigid facts and tangible evidence to ignite their cognition, and who am I to say that they’re learning wrong? 

Back to the topic at hand, though. When this year started, I resolved to diversify my reading spectrum, which meant including more nonfiction. I started exploring older tomes, like the meditations of the stoic emperor, Marcus Aurelius, and the art of war by Sun Tzu and the book of five rings by Miyamoto Musashi. I often chuckled at myself for being so deeply engrossed in what was essentially the journal of a Japanese swordsman from half a millennium ago, but I just couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the thoughts and ruminations of these remarkable people. I later expanded to the memoirs and documentations of other, more recent figures ranging from Howard Hughes to Joseph “the elephant man” Merrick. Even tonight, as I’m writing this, I have on my desk a book that is just a large collection of interviews with famous authors. All of this has served to keep my enchantment not only with human brains, but also with the human people who didn’t restrict theirs. Some days, I find myself smiling as I ponder how I compare to them; The writers and philosophers, artists and eccentrics of today and of all the years gone by. The ones who embraced their individuality and realized, probably earlier than most, that life is too short not to be lived to the fullest.

[frozenwrites]

"... That only works when you start everyone off equal, right? You can't start someone off in a muddy shack in the middle of a warzone and expect them to do as well as one born in a castle."

"That's the good bit. The lower you start, the more opportunities you have."

"that's lunatic."

"no, it's ineffable."

- Good Omens

[frozenwrites]

"When thou has done a good act, and another received it, why dost thou look for a third thing besides these?"

- The Meditations, Marcus Aurelius

[frozenwrites]

"Many that live deserve death, and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death and judgement."

- Lord of the Rings

[frozenwrites]

The Seven Lessons I learned from Evelyn Hugo

Believe me, I also wanted to sing Ariana's Thank u, next when I first read the title, but let's move past that. It’s almost been a month since I finished this book, and while my brain has been brimming with endless thoughts about it since then, I'm still lost as to how I should go about discussing it. Let me just lead with the clearest thought in my mind right now: I loved this novel. It was not at all like I expected, but I was only pleasantly surprised by what it turned out to be. Now, I want to write a review, but not one where I simply present my opinion and recap what I liked about it. The way in which I came to appreciate this novel was unusual for me, and so it's only natural that I take a different approach in discussing it, it'll be fun! So, get the tea boiling and sit down for a couple thousand words of me analyzing a few of this book's key aspects, namely the main character, the representations of love and attraction, and finally the novel's take on morality.

Evelyn

"What could be farther away from my tiny sad apartment in Hell's Kitchen than this?"

Let me begin with one of the relatively lighter elements of the novel. It's uncommon for people from poor backgrounds to dream about and pursue success, they're naturally urged to run away from a life that's failed to satisfy them; And indeed a lot of them make it. But then, there are people like this novel's titular character, those who run away because staying where they are might as well be synonymous with death. The book is very quick to establish Evelyn Hugo as an uber-successful starlet, A Hollywood veteran, an icon of beauty and glamor, but it's only when her elderly self decides to tell her real, unabridged story to the world that we realize that calling her early life "humble beginnings" would be far too generous. For one, Evelyn was a Latina, so even her family's racial background was something of an obstacle for her growing up in the states around the middle of the twentieth century. She lived with her nearly destitute parents in a poor neighborhood literally called Hell's Kitchen (that’s a real thing, I had to look it up), and her mother, the only positive figure in her life, died during her childhood. She was left with nothing more than an abusive father in a small apartment in a world that was very content passing her by. It wasn't easy, and so since her early teens she had to learn to become an opportunist, a survivor. She had to use her wits to find a way out, and use what little she had to ensure that she takes it. That meant doing things from lying about her age all the way to, as crude as it sounds, weaponizing her femininity.

I truly appreciate how Evelyn made it known early on that she had no regrets about all that she had to do to find her fame and fortune. She acknowledges that her story was not that of a linear success; it was not typical. She remembers all the questionable things she did to herself and to others but shows no remorse for them, because she knows that it was all done in the interest of keeping the promise she's made to herself since she was a little girl; it was all for the sake of realizing her late mother’s dream of a good life.

Evelyn is a very interesting character. The novel forces you to see her as an intimidating, gargantuan figure, a jaded woman who's seen just about all that life could possibly have to show her. The way she presents herself in addition to the way she narrates her story with remarkable confidence and clarity gives her a voice that you can't help but listen to, as if you, too, had grown up in a world where she was the most frequent name in the headlines.

One more thing, and this is to do with the writing mechanics of the novel, Evelyn is a reliable first person narrator. I neglected to mention earlier that the novel is a frame narrative, a story told within a story. The author heavily alludes to how Evelyn wants to tell an honest account of her life, and that's supported by the fact that she's approaching her twilight years. The reader can easily trust that Evelyn has no reason to embellish or alter anything because of the context in which she's telling her story to the primary narrator. It’s a long story, I’ll say it’s a story worth sitting down for.

On infatuation

"He was only kind when he was happy, and he was only happy when he was winning. I met him on a winning streak, married him as he was ascending."

Being young and believing in romance is a tricky thing. Evelyn had to learn the hard way, just like most people in real life, that love doesn't come easy, and that a relationship isn't defined by the magic in its beginning. One thing that I've had to remind myself of, personally, on several occasions, was that we take about twenty years, give or take, to decide what and who we are. With that same logic we can't expect ourselves to figure out another person enough to spend a lifetime with them in the matter of months, but it's much easier said than done, isn't it? That's the thing about infatuation and physical attraction, being charmed or enchanted, or however else we call it. It's an impulse, and we can't easily find our sense when our hearts are being pulled closer together like magnets and everything seems perfect as if the stars had aligned the moment we locked eyes from across the room.

I got carried away expressing myself there, you'll have to excuse me. This might be a good time to make it known that this piece was written long past midnight and I'm so not planning to edit this section in the morning.

At any case, I didn't mean to label physical love and intimacy as invalid, it's still as real as any other meaningful type of relationship. And in fact that reminds me of the time we studied pride and prejudice in one of my courses.

I distinctly remember all my classmates condemning the immature romance that Lydia ends up with, saying that eloping with a stranger or getting married after a very brief courtship just didn't sound right. I truly understand those perspectives; we would all rather believe that love needs to be profound and meaningful, but the truth is that it doesn't always have to be. Some people are content with physical relationships or are perfectly happy living in fantasy land until the magic of their love inevitably wanes and the whole thing falls apart. However, it's still extremely important to read people more thoroughly, because time will undoubtedly reveal new sides of them, some of which might not be so desirable. And that's a pitfall that Evelyn stumbles in with her first attempt in love.

The book's title alone alludes to the fact that it'll involve a lot of failing relationships of different natures. And even though I don't personally condone, or agree with the motives of, a lot of them, I still think there's a lot to observe in every romance, friendship, or family bond in this novel.

F-ing up trying to do what's right, trying to do what's right by F-ing up, or simply not caring either way

"... The cruelest thing you can do to someone you love, give them just enough good to make them stick through a hell of a lot of bad."

Now this is a part that I couldn't ignore, one that I knew I'd have to look into because it's the main cause of most controversy surrounding this title, and also the main reason I decided this novel was worth reviewing to begin with: morality. I mentioned earlier that Evelyn makes a point to show no remorse for her actions, believing that she was justified in everything that she's done, and I noted that right away. What I didn't know was that it was all foreshadowing. Evelyn's actions get progressively worse, that is to say, more morally questionable as time passes. She was not necessarily a bad person, but perhaps the nature of her early life, the one that taught her that nothing was off limits in the interest of achieving her goals, skewed her understanding of what was fine and what was simply too far. Examples of the behavior that I'm alluding to include taking advantage of men to make them do as Evelyn herself wants or putting others in social or physical danger to help somebody she cared about. There are several angles to observe this from, and I have two to demonstrate here.

Moral Licensing:

I feel like this is a good opportunity to explain the concept of Moral Licensing. It's been present in the worlds of sociology and psychology for years now, and it simply means that people have the tendency to (subconsciously) that for all the morally good actions they do, they gain some entitlement to do bad ones. Imagine that on payday you donate a sizable amount to charity, but then around the end of the month when you're strapped for cash, you see no problem sneaking a nice bill out of a restaurant's tip jar; they probably won't notice it's missing, right? That's how moral licensing works.

In Evelyn's case, it was the other way around. Maybe in her perception, the world had treated her so badly in younger years that she was entitled to bend the rules to her favor when she had the power and influence to do so. That does make at least some sense, but where exactly, in such a case, do you draw the line? How do you know that you're taking things too far or that you're in the wrong in a particular situation? Well, it's important to remember that Evelyn's world changed overnight when she became an actress with a new name and a new look. She was no longer surrounded by crime and poverty and miserable people just trying to get by; now, she was exposed to a lot of rich people seeking more wealth and successful people seeking more glory. Simply put, she came from a harsh environment to another differently harsh environment, and that's what we're going to explore next.

When in Rome,

Evelyn quickly gets accustomed to what living in Hollywood really is like. From an insider's viewpoint, one could see people constantly trying to climb their way to success on the backs of the unwilling, learn nobody can trust anybody, and most of your effort as a star will go into maintaining a decent public image because the paparazzi and the press are relentlessly watching like hungry vultures. We as readers are not expected to understand what that's like so easily, so we're supposed to take Evelyn at her word when she says things like how even her actor friends were happy to tank her career if it means gaining an advantage in theirs, and when she says that feeling is mutual. Maybe it's true that being in such a merciless environment, combined with having learned to fight for what you want from a young age, makes people like that.

I have to believe that that second point is a main reason as to why the story is a frame narrative. The writer and biographer that Evelyn is telling her story to, Monique Grant, is a normal person, and so a lot of the time her reactions and thoughts in response to what Evelyn says closely reflect what the reader is thinking as well. Monique was a very interesting character to me because every time the narration shifted back to her (so like, no more than ten percent of the novel's length), I felt a sudden change in the air, as if we were suddenly back in the real world. It was great how her ordinary life was shown in stark contrast to Evelyn's; Monique didn't have to go from extreme poverty to extreme wealth, didn't have to make powerful friends and secure her place in a harsh landscape where appearances mattered most. She didn't have to make any decisions as radical or risky as Evelyn.

Now, where does that leave us with Evelyn Hugo? Is she a good person? A likable character? And more importantly, do her moral values factor in all of that? In the world of fiction, it's not uncommon for the audience to favor a villain and dislike the one that's trying to do what's right. Think about how Hisoka, for instance, a psychopath and a cold blooded killer, has inspired the intrigue and admiration of a lot of viewers. Remember how the main cast of Peaky Blinders were a crime family that we were all actively rooting for, and finally don't forget that officer Javiert from Les Miserables was only a policeman trying to do his job and pursue what he thought was justice. I'm sure that in the real world, these things would be a LOT more complicated. That is because morality is a tricky concept; not always does what's morally right align with what we need to do, and neither are we always able to see all the ways in or out of a particular situation right away, because we're not omniscient, and we're guided by emotions and impulses more often than we care to admit. I guess when it comes to Evelyn, the least I can do is admire her conviction and the way she stands by her actions all the way to the end… except that I can't so easily do that either. Remember, Evelyn says very early in the novel that she's choosing to confess everything because she's approaching the end of her life, and all her friends are already long gone. Does that mean she was hoping that the release of death will absolve her of everything that she's done wrong? That complicates things even more, but I'll leave that door unopened for the time being so as to not spoil too much of the novel's later events.

For now though, I'll give this novel a good 8.5/10, because I respect that even the parts of it that I couldn't quite savor, I still learned from.

Happy reading! ✨

[frozenwrites]

"Dickon," she said. "You are as nice as Martha said you were. I like you, and you make the fifth person. I never thought I should like five people."

- Mary Lennox (The Secret Garden, 1911)

[frozenwrites]

This Review was Written... Without Merit.

That was a bad one, I know, but I can’t help it if the excitement of having read a YA novel that's relevant today overflows in terrible puns. Colleen Hoover’s popularity hasn’t evaded me over the past couple of years, I just never paid it much attention because I foolishly assumed that I’d outgrown young adult novels. Long since gone are the nights of me staying up until morning reading for the likes of John Green and Nicola Yoon and Rainbow Rowell, but when I saw Hoover’s bestsellers gloriously monumented in one of my favorite bookstores, I decided that it was time to return, and I like to believe that I picked the absolute best book to start with.

In the interest of keeping this thing spoiler-free, I won’t go too deeply into the plot, I’ll just have to review the book’s other… merits (last one, I promise). This is the story of a teenage girl called Merit Voss, whom, the novel is quick to establish, comes from a rather eccentric household. That in itself isn't a new trope in this genre, but it was how the main character's origins and family factored into Merit's growth and development that captivated me so instantaneously. She was a young girl who was a part of something much bigger and more complex than herself, and like teenagers often do, she was about to make a mess of it all. The plot progression was smooth and fluid. I enjoyed that, because while the story started out like I would expect from a typical romance, a little while later came the moment in which I smiled as I turned the page; I realized that this novel was more layered, and interesting, than I anticipated. The topics that Hoover looks into in this one are, as is usual for this genre, close to reality, and very likely to resonate with most people. Through the teenage protagonist's eyes we are exposed to revelations about family, expectations and pressure, self discovery, depression, and a few more. I have always believed in learning about life through fiction, and by the time I was done with this novel, I'd gained more than a few more perspectives. Also, and this is a very personal thing, I couldn't help but notice when I was seeing the world through a younger person's eyes that I was taken back to a time that I'd forgotten all about. My life (or anybody's, for that matter) was nothing like Merit's, but I could really empathize with her feeling like the subject of a world that wasn't her own, trying to either escape it or find happiness in short bursts. The first person narration was the most suitable to show that too. The story was in her voice, which instantly revealed a few aspects of her character; she had plenty of vibrance in her soul, but it was constantly muffled. Possibly because just like most people in her position, she hadn't yet grown to be comfortable being herself.

On a less bleak note, the nature of the reading experience itself was all that I hoped it would be, too. This is something I truly missed about Young Adult novels: they are just so easy to read. Hoover's writing style, combined with the smooth movement of the plot, the simply set scenery, and the masterfully executed dialogue made this a read for no more than two sittings (granted I had plenty of time in both). It was also a very nice touch to have a bunch of discussion questions at the end of the book, they were quite interesting and did a fine job cementing everything I'd collected from the novel into my mind.

Finally, my objectivity might be slightly clouded by the euphoria of having just finished a good book, but the whole point of a good YA novel is to make us acknowledge how we feel about things, just like Merit does, and so I'm ready to rate the novel at a solid 8/10. It was a good experience, and very likely won't be the only thing I read by Colleen Hoover. ✨

[frozenwrites]

Dear diary, a sad song made me smile.

I wish I could say it was the first time that I woke up craving heartbreak, but some days are just like that; we simply want to evoke those feelings and sit down with them. I have always done that through music (and reading sappy fanfiction, but that's another problem altogether), and I find it really intriguing how a song could have so many different meanings to me every time I listen to it. Camilla's 'Consequences', for instance, no longer makes me want to dim the lights and feel sorry for myself, and Rascal Flatt's 'What hurts the most' makes me remember the most beautiful moments that came before a loss, rather than the tragedy itself.

Making peace with our unresolved feelings, confronting them, and realizing that we're perfectly justified in feeling broken every now and then is a lesson that I needed many years to learn, and I was just reminded of that today. It's almost ironic how possible it is to recharge one's positivity through what used to make them miserable.

After all that, I can only wonder if this will encourage anyone else to look deep down and find acceptance for something that they've been running away from.

You can take it easy and breathe now, friend. And maybe happily sing along to this downer with me.

[frozenwrites]

To you, with the remains of a love that almost was not,

We knew we weren't meant to be, and we never really were, and yet you broke my heart. You then fixed it before shattering it again only for me to continue the miserable cycle in which we took turns hurting each other. As of today, it's been a whole three years, long enough for the wounds to have closed up and for the hearts to have healed. Long enough to only remember each other well and long for the best moments we shared. I suppose time has that kind of effect: dulls out the painful memories and adorns the brighter ones. But my, what an unusual pair we were! I almost can't help but ask how and why we came to be, and since when were we fated to come together?

Those questions, valid as they may be, are not important. The story is over and there are no more chapters; all I have of you today are the memories. In all those memories, I see you laughing, I see you telling me secrets, looking at me like you found the stuttery gibberish I spouted interesting. As short as our time together was, it was far better than it should have been. It felt like a lifetime, a long, very happy lifetime in another world that was our own.

Sometimes I wake up wondering what you're doing now, what you've done since then. Did you pass that course you used to read with me all summer? Did you finish that book I gave you? Do you still keep that selfie we took with you wearing my glasses?

Am I still the only person you've ever watched a sunrise with?

Perhaps, if I really wanted answers, this letter would've been addressed to you by name, but our story is long since over and I've already gotten all the answers I was entitled to.

It's not likely that you'll be seeing this, but if you do feel a tingle in your heart the moment I press send, I want you to know that this is me, telling myself I miss you.

Signed,

A

[frozenwrites]

2nd of July 2021

In that dream I was alone. That was a good start, better than most. I was in an open field, soft grass as far as the eyes can see. The sunset painted everything a magical shade somewhere between red and orange. It was so peaceful that I didn't want to walk around and disturb the beautiful scene, so I plopped myself down, lying in the grass, and closed my eyes for the first time. I smiled, realizing how the silence around me wasn't dead, and how my solitude wasn't a bad idea. For the first time in my life, I didn't hear conflicting voices in my head. I felt complete even though I was alone, and in total control of my own body. I smiled wider because I didn't have anything to hide or anything to think of. It felt like God himself was sculpting the world around me into all the things that made me happy.

But then, in the same way all good stories end, I woke up. Coming from where I was, the real world felt bleak and colorless. It wasn't peacefully quiet anymore, and the war in my soul raged on like it has for many years, a season unending. I was back in a world that didn't care about my troubles.

Take a deep breath, steel your nerves and swear you will be alright.

[frozenwrites]

5th November 2022

Dear Diary, 

Tomorrow is my university’s graduation ceremony for the year 2022, an event that I, originally, should have been a part of. I’m not. Do I wish I was? Am I sad because I’m not? The answer is a little more complicated than a yes or no. 

Going by my original plan, I should have finished my degree last fall, but things had actually started going off the rails more than a year before that. You see, the second half of the year 2020 was a tragic chapter in the story of my life; so many bad things, none of which I have any interest in remembering, happened. All you need to know, little diary, is that I still remember the exact moment I hit rock bottom, and every following moment I spent down there.

I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t anybody. I was just there, wishing that I was not. 

By the time that year, and consequently that fall semester, ended, I was more husk than body. I was saved only by God’s Mercy and the efforts of a few friends who realized that my soul and body were in two different, but equally horrible, places. I was brought back, once more aware of the world around me. Even then, I was far from okay. That following year started with a version of me that only wanted to be healed, because he was maimed skinless, leaving blood on everything he touched. That wish would soon be realized, though, because it is often said that once you hit the gutter, you can only go upwards, and so I did. 

I still believe that everything, good or bad, happens for a reason. I still don’t fully understand why I had to go through all that, but I do know that I survived something not everybody could have. I also know that a lot of good things happened because I took the longer way around towards my graduation. 

These days, I’m happy, more aware of my own emotions and those of others, and much better equipped to handle anything life throws my way. All I’m trying to say, dear diary, is that I’m okay, and something tells me that's how I will be for a good long while. 🤞🏻