Today, I want to take a pause from everything that is happening. Two more days until everything is over. I'm getting through pretty fine but I have hit a few snags today. I don't want to think about it right now because my mind has entertained other things.

Lately, I have been feeling rather weak. As much as people can see me as calm and collected over the course of the week, inside I'm practically screaming my head off. Now, more than ever I just want to hold on to something, anything to keep me from falling apart. When the mind gets weak, I tend to lose control over what I'm doing or feeling and that's why perhaps, I can write so much better under these circumstances -- highly satiated with medications and coffee, eyes straining, heart aching and teetering between fainting and consciousness. Amidst it all, I can find only a small fragment of warmth to hang on to and that is the thought that I am doing this for someone or something I will one day be worthy of.

It means that at every point, I am looking out into a window, looking for something that will never come and yet I prepare for it because there is always hope. But then the question falls on why a person, a rather logical man at that, put his faith on something as flimsy and as unsure a concept as hope?

Hope is a trick of the mind. It's the ultimate man-made placebo. It turns cowards into heroes and it's practically free of charge. Whenever I stack things together and count my odds, the scale always tips to wherever I put my hopes in. I find it strange that something I do not have a hold over can be so strong a force but then, isn't everything uncontrollable always as strong? Dreams, despair and even love are but a few forces; each of them strong enough to move mountains, each of them with their own price and poison. How then can I dismiss such power within my grasp?

As bound by rational thought as I am, there are just too many questions I cannot answer. If I spent any time finding answers to questions like "Why?" I would go insane. Truly, that's the fate of people who can't give it a rest. Me? I take my vices. Play some cards, some games, drink my coffee, take my drugs and doze off -- it keeps the mind from thinking about questions where there aren't any answers in. Otherwise, rely on the uncontrollable, on the potential of things -- that's what Hope is, one big potential. It's like that little black box you keep around when you don't know where to put something in.

I do not know the reason why I do the things I do. I don't know why I'm in ECE, or what I hope to achieve, or anything else in this life for that matter. I don't have any answers, I just have a lot of questions and a handful of good hunches -- true answers are beyond me, true answers just lead to more questions. Anyone with an answer as to the reason why they're alive in this world immediately merits my skepticism -- tell me then, your meaning in this world. Will your meaning transcend throughout the boundaries of time or will it only last until circumstances end your life quickly as you come into your self-proclaimed epiphany? If you are so sure of an answer, then you're either full of crap or a god. For these things, I leave it to the uncontrollable, to the flimsy, the abstract, the deceptive, the undefinable -- to the complete absurdity. It keeps me satisfied at least.

So I do then, the things I do not for a reason but for a purpose. Reason is bound by the mind; in equations of circumstance, cause and effect and rules and regulations. Purpose, on the other hand, is something searched for without the constricting limitations of the mind... purpose can come from the heart; its fantasies, its romances and its vices. To say I live for a reason is to say I live because of, to live for a purpose is to say I live to/for. One will always have answers and one will always find questions and for me, the search is always the best choice of the two because in the searching comes the experience... the journey is what makes the person, not the destination.

Let me just hang on what little hope I have left then. It keeps me warm and it keeps me sane. It drives the little demons away and provides me safe comfort from anything (or anyone). And in itself, I find the greatest potential... to move towards directions that I hope could give me purpose. Until then, I wait and prepare, looking out the window until the day comes when I would find that which I'm living for... never having to question why... but instead, why not?