This way to the stars

The power of illusions

A few days ago, I read "The Art of War", Sun Tzu's military treatise. As much as I was disgusted at the amorality of some of the principles he put forward (such as not providing an obvious escape route while the army is in desperate ground so that the soldiers would be motivated to fight to the death, thus leading the army to victory, to the satisfaction of the power-hungry generals and kings), I was really struck by some of the things that Sun Tzu said about knowing yourself in order to be successful in battle.

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

The battle currently raging inside my head? Will vs Imagination.

I hate my imagination. It's indispensable in life all right; sure it's what makes us human (it enables us to dream and have goals and make inventions and so on...) but these past few days my imagination is running wild and contriving fantastic scenes inside my head that invade my peace of mind. Everyday I'm besotted with delusions that I would desperately wish to come true but which I know will never happen. And somehow, I find myself deliberately blurring the line between illusion and reality in order to indulge myself in dangerous feelings. The real boundaries of the situation is so indefinite for me that it's so nice to extend them a little further, especially with my mind idle this sembreak. It's daydreaming on steroids. And I think....I'm succumbing.

I won't say anything more here; it gets too awkward for me. Anyway, you get the picture.

I tell myself that this won't last, that it'll be over once my mind is occupied again with the mundane subjects I'm gonna be taking up in the second sem. But somehow I feel that these thoughts will have some consequences on me someday, one way or the other. The worst thing for me would be when the real secret behind these vague references is revealed to everyone, seeing that I'm really secretive about issues like this. It would be doubly worse on my part if the other doesn't share the same thoughts. But that's just the point - I don't know now, and that's where I get the liberty to create illusions and to succumb to them.

Something bad will happen out of all this. I know it.

But you're in my heart
I can feel your beat
And you move my mind
From behind the wheel
When I lose control
I can only breathe your name...

My will is slowly losing the battle...

posted by steph @ 1:33 AM