The Pseudo-Spark

The Spark. What is it?

No, he’s not a famous author (hi Nicholas Sparks).

It’s a classic example of two deep relationship issues :

1. A lame excuse to leave someone hanging
2. An example of a hopeless romantic trying to find something that doesn’t exist.

One is the worst kind, which I don’t want to talk about. Let’s look at the second one.

In life, we’ve indeed been conditioned by the world to believe such a spark exists. It’s in every bloody romance movie… but the truth is, if you’re looking for a brilliant, passionate spark in every relationship you form – you’re going to end up alone. You’re looking for something that doesn’t exist, and in doing so create a barrier between yourself and those that could make you happy : because that’s all the true spark really is. Making someone happy.

As humans struggling through a hostile universe, all we really want is to feel happy. To feel good. Not to be consumed by sparks of insanity. So when you tell someone who makes you laugh, and makes you happy, that there’s no spark between you two –then I think you’re making a mistake.

In a relationship, all you ultimately offer to another person is a warm heart. It’s not about your body (well, maybe that’s why there’s no ‘spark’) or your attitudes and values. It’s about giving a fraction of your identity to a fraction of theirs and together amalgamating. To create what? A simple form of unified happiness.

Something's Wrong With This Graph

Life, can be compared to a very annoying function; forever repeating with increasing and decreasing values and turning points. Between turning points, there are usually expositions and dénouements, right? Just like a well-made play’s structure. Yet this isn’t always the case – because life thinks itself a nonconformist teenager, and is often inclined to throw you ‘curve’ balls.

How is it that life can juxtapose highs and lows within literal minutes? Is it nothing but a test of character, to view whether our inner peace can easily be reduced to rubble should the winds of change blow too quickly. Or maybe it’s like that old wives tale – where if you make a funny face and the wind changes…it’ll stay like that. So why is my face not funny? Don’t answer that.

Essentially, I had an amazing night. Truly. It made my heart beat like an 808 – cheesy imagery for cheesy emotions. And I didn’t even pay extra for the extra topping; the cheesy simply came naturally. Obviously, it was about a young man. And, obviously, the low was as a result of this entire issue being suddenly reduced to meaning nothing. Let’s not go into details. However, it’s very amusing to think back – as I stood next to his friend and watched him get into the car, his friend turned to me and said, “Don’t give up.”
“Why?” I asked.
“…because nobody’s ever gotten anywhere by giving up,” he simply replied.

As to whether this advice is still relevant to my love life I cannot say. However, within minutes after receiving a text from my wonderwall saying that there’s no “spark” (which I will write about soon) I received a phone call from a wealthy investment company saying I’ve been considered a finalist for a bursary they’re offering. Wow. I’m going for final interviews blah blah blah soon.

There’s something wrong with this graph.
Maybe there’s no spark, or whoever’s drawing it isn’t very ‘bright’.
So, when I woke up at 4AM after processing these key moments in my life, I’m still not sure how to react. But than again – who needs to react to anything, anyway? Screw the system. I won’t cry or be happy about stuff.

Lined Memories

As I fill in these skinny lined pages, I wonder : what’s the point of all the prettification? What’s the point of leaving behind our marks and our goodbyes when the person may never look back at our little farewell message again?

More specifically, I began to think of the temporary nature of human relationships. How fragile we are in our friendships…and our very existence, for that matter. It’s quite something, putting your diary out there and asking someone to write in it. It’s like saying : “Here, if I ever choose to look back at my final year in school, I’d like to see your token of superficiality.” You’re putting yourself out there. As I stick in a picture of the guy I took to my matric dance, the thought of whether or not to ask him to write within the pages of my textual time capsule occurred to me.

How do I phrase it? Indeed, I would love to have a memory of him – as I’m one of the few nostalgic souls who can spend hours lamenting on the past- yet I don’t want to pressure him into writing something he doesn’t mean, as we aren’t the closest of friends. Yet somehow, by virtue of the fact that I’ve spent the apparently most important night of the year with him, I’ve forged this inexplicable bond in my head that only the dizziness of female emotion would induce. Therefore, I have come up with the following question – being the smooth operator that I am :

“Hey, so …I’d like you to sign my diary – you can write something in it if you want, but just signing it is okay.”

The setting of pen to paper would help verify the reality of time passed. Was March really that long ago? Are these memories really … just memories? It’s funny how the fleeting moment becomes transposed into simply a memory : as the time you’ve spent reading this will become nothing but a memory of time spent trawling a chick’s blog.

Matric dance partners aside, what of the people in your life beyond school that mean something to you? The friends you’ve made along the way. Would they be perturbed by the fact that you’re asking them to enter a piece of themselves into your memory book? Or flattered? Or – maybe worse than the both of these – completely indifferent.

Relationships are so confusing. Putting them onto paper seems to clarify them, to me, but it’s asking the person to write that’s most unnerving.

The WonderWall Theorem

Sitting here, at 5:31PM the day before le Life Sciences paper two, listening to You’re The One That I Want off the Grease OST. Yes, there is a valid reason to this maddening infatuation, as I shall go on to explain.

Somehow, in my history for the past few years, I’ve discovered a pattern in my love life that can be summed up in two words : wrong timing. I tend to fall for someone at critical moments in my life, especially evident at this point…and I know exactly why. I call this the WonderWall Theorem.

We tend to fall for people, because that love makes us feel good about life. It’s a balm, a salve, a tender band aid to the cruelty of life and its scathing ways. It’s a way to deal with the injustices of society, you and your little happy, heart shaped fantasies. The person I fall for becomes my WonderWall. He don’t save me, though, I save myself getting lost in thoughts of him instead of the reality I have to face.

And that, my friend, is the way of the escapist.

Above all, the most fabulous thing about this is he probably doesn’t read my blog. Which is for the best, he might get scared. Win/Win situation.

Keats, Godot & Feeling Lonely : But hey, we’re all dying anyway.

According to Sartre, in life, man lives by a code of morals and ethics. These morals are determined by none other than man himself – since science and pure fact have no emotional connotations whatsoever. Thus, man is governed by his own rules and his own sense of conduct – not by any law. So if an action is considered immoral, it’s through your own interpretation : not anything else. This entire concept blew my mind.

It is upon this free flowing principle of thought –that man is entirely his own device, that Absurdism came in. Here’s something to think about : “We are born astride of a grave” (Waiting for Godot). Essentially, we are born to die. Anything we do in between – form relationships, study, worry, work – will go in vain in this life. Yet, regardless of this impending death, we go about our lives in our own way. We perform our absurd duties in our absurd world with the full knowledge that it’ll all just end one day! Why? Why do we continue to push, pull, worry and strain our hearts and souls to no avail? Is it because we fear an Ultimate Judgement? We fear The “Great Judge President” of Paton’s A Small Boy Who Died In Diepkloof Reformatory? Or is it something more?

Man is placed between the horizontal axis of earth and the vertical axis of religion and morals. Wherever you place yourself is ultimately your own co-ordinate decision : yet what good does it serve? I understand, were it not for this metaphorical Y-Axis we’d all descend into madness…but, would we be happier?

I recently read a poem by Keats, “When I Have Fears” – and it is precisely these fears that have assimilated into my life over the past few years. It’s this impending force of death, lurking around any corner, that pushes me often into a catatonic state of… sadness, for lack of a better word. I, like many people, often fear that I shan’t have the chance to be wholly and truly loved in return for the extent of emotion I feel for someone else. It’s comparatively easier to give love freely…. but when you reach a point where you feel as if you’re casting stones into an ocean that will never lap at your feet, the effort to pick up each pebble would leave you numb (as Keats stands alone, so do I, at times).

Perhaps this is the cause for our human frenzy in life. We rush about before the light that gleams an instant (more Godot) ceases to burn. Paradoxically, we may rush relationships to get them to where we want them to be, instead of enjoying the journey. And maybe that’s why so many teenage relationships fail; you’re too excited when you find someone you like, and want to love, that you end up messing it all up because you can’t wait to shower rainbows and fluff onto them.

But hey, we’re all dying anyway.

And yes, like Keats, I too experienced the joy of a Fair Creature for a moment.