Moving on.

I'm going to try and make sure that I don't end up taking up too much of anyone's time, and my own in fact, in doing this. However, I have been dreading, pondering over, and contemplating this for a good amount of time now, and it is not something that will come easily to me.

I have decided to shut this blog down. I am also afraid of making things more melodramatic than they need to be. Perhaps this is just another trivial insecurity being blown out of proportions by my ego and the events or circumstances that have made it possible, but it is what it is.

Let me present to you a case, then, of why I believe at least a few words should be put down before I decide to finally pull the plug.

Bear in mind, I don't even mean anything permanent. I say this with due retrospect and knowledge that my mood changes like the season. But I have long felt that this blog had turned into something that had been weighing me down.

I know it sounds bad, but it was never due to a single reason, and there's some comfort in that at least.
I made a lot of fond memories because of blogger, and my blog here.

I convinced quite a bunch of people that I was, in fact, someone who could hold attention using words. I even convinced quite a bunch of people to take up writing themselves. Most of which do not continue to write, at least to my knowledge, but a few still do. I have since lost contact with almost all of them, unfortunately, but the memory will remain for as long as I am capable of remembering.

I learned quite a bit, during this whole time. 10 years, to be exact, give or take. I am blown away by that number, now that I've actually counted it on my fingers. 10 years is quite some time.

I learned quite a bit about everything, which makes me happy. I fell in love quite a bunch of times, and it was with quite a bunch of things.

People came, people left. I wrote about almost all of it. I not only learned how to love other people, I eventually learned how to love myself, and I'm still working on it. I have written about my escapades and heartaches several times, I have even written about things I am not too proud of  But it has always been me writing all of it. No matter how high, or how low.

Many things I meant to write, and many things that circumstance and emotion made me write.

I am not aware if most, or any, picked up on the fact that my blog was at many times my truest friend. Even if my truest friend truly resided, and continues to reside, within myself. Sometimes reading myself talk to myself, made myself understand things that the past me just did not see or understand.

It has been therapeutic, perhaps in ways I can not even think of.

I learned how to write, simply because I kept doing it. Whether I was aware of anyone on the other side of the screen reading or not, because somewhere down the road, it turned into something much more to me than just a medium for getting my thoughts across to anyone willing to listen.

I have learned a great deal about myself. I have also realized, that it was the point where I started receiving emails from people I did not even know, telling me how much my words were affecting them across the world.

Be it the times I was going through, which included confronting several of my own demons, or just me trying to find my place in the world. It hasn't been easy, and to be handed a responsibility of sorts, which it surely felt like at the time - even if I'm being grandiose or just naive, was something that only made me nervous about writing, and the messages I was sending out in general.

I have traveled across the globe during the course of the last 10 years, and have only changed several times since then, arguably. It has been a journey.

A journey that included more than a year of going through, almost what feels like a scheduled by the greater design, existential crisis.

I say greater design, because I suspect it to be something people across the world go through after hitting a certain age. And I mean "age," in an unconventional sense; as just a time period in your life.

Obviously not all people go through it, perhaps not even most. But a lot of us do.

Ranging from specifics like, "Who am I really, though?" to sometimes questions as vague as just "why?"

My levels of anxiety spiked at certain times, at certain times I felt like I was going to absolutely lose it. Things got pretty bleak, pretty dark at times. I lost hope a lot, and I sometimes found it too.

For me to try to simplify all the things I have learned, and all the ways I feel I have grown, would be ridiculous to even try to attempt.

I am certain, however, that I have perhaps never felt this comfortable in my own skin before. I am somehow, by my thoughts, brought to the analogy of a snake shedding it's skin to new. It's something I've been feeling for a while, recently.

I am in one of the happier phases of my life, and this is definitely one of the better times to do this.

I am not going to remove or delete the blog, I want all the posts from all the way in 2003, to always remain here. They represent all my transformations and adventures, all the changes I've been through. They include stories that I hold on to just as dearly as the memories themselves.

Tales of people, either arriving or leaving. Tales of misadventures, and upsets. Of victory, and joy.

Pretty good stuff, if I do say so myself. It's been nuts, and I'm glad I had the time to write as much of it down as I could.

If you are here reading this, thank you. I mean it. Somehow, in the back of my head, there has always been an audience reading the words I have been typing down, and it never comprised of just myself. I would not put things up here if I didn't want anyone to read them, even if it was a subconscious decision.

The number of said audience constantly changed, too, but such is life. The only thing permanent in life is change. Honestly, none of this might even have happened, if it wasn't for the fact that there was an audience. Even if it was imaginary at times.

According to Anais Nin, "We write to taste life twice. Once in the moment, and once in retrospect."

I have written for both those reasons too, but there's been a third. I sometimes wrote just to be heard. So, thank you for that.

I do not want to think of this as an end to anything. Instead, I have decided to close a chapter in my book. This only means a new one is going to start.

If you're really creepy like that and know where else I've been writing these days, follow me there, as I continue the experience. If you don't know and would like to know, email me, because I love getting mail from real people. danish989@gmail.com

Much love, and regards.

Dexter...

"So I'll say this. Dexter did pretty well with the finale. I liked how morose it got and applauded the fact that Dexter finally learned what an unintentional destroyer of worlds he was. Enough to make him want to end it all. Of course, he didn't end it all and there's an even bigger tragedy in that, but that shouldn't completely muck up the fact that he finally had a moment of clarity."

- http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/09/23/dexter-remember-the-monsters-review

But, man. Right in the f'n feels.

"As much as I may have pretended otherwise... for so long, all I wanted was to be like other people. To feel what they felt. But now that I do, I just want it to stop."

"Fear makes the wolf look bigger."

Musings from the sky.

Even more musings from the sky, in a plane, and at airports. I slept through most of the journey and didn't end up writing much this time around. Here is what I did end up writing though.

:::

Nothing like some turbulence to shake some sense of morality into you. Not to mention, make you appreciate and marvel at this remarkable feat of engineering and science, what is essentially a huge tin can flying through the sky at ridiculous speeds.

I'm also looking forward to a little disorientation induced by what I can only gather to be all the drugs wearing off and extreme jet lag. How else do you explain feeling like a tourist in your own 'home town?' (Other than the obvious.)

Your own house where you spent 8 months just 5 months ago.

Around the world like a daft punk song. With all the sore muscles and a general disregard and indifference to culture.

Waffles for breakfast in Philadelphia, Eggs Benedict for lunch in London. Biryani, perhaps, for dinner in Riyadh.

A quote from Fight Club that I've heard quite a few times but only recently actually read in the book has suddenly taken new meaning.

"If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?"

It's like the feeling of being in limbo, just floating in empty space. That is how traveling feels to me. Especially at airports where I'm not worried about keeping face, or "the Romans."

The feeling of being no where in particular. In transit for a whole day.

:::

That is all, really. I slept through most of the journey, I've gotten too comfortable with it. It's actually a good thing.

It's "me," time and it's not possible for anything else to get in the middle of it.

Unless a "single-serving friend," on the seat next to me decides to be chatty. Like the lady visiting her daughter in London was on the way there. We talked about the world, and men beating their chests and everything being just a pissing contest over territory.

There was the guy at the airport that I talked to for a single minute, asking if I could have the seat at the bar.

There was the airport employee in Philadelphia that thought it would funny to comment on how cold it is in Riyadh when it obviously isn't.

And that's that, really. There's been other random nonsense that I've been contemplating blogging about. Perhaps later?

Ciao, world.

This song is the bee's knees. Get Free by Major Lazer ft. Amber Coffman of Dirty Projectors.

I might be in love with this woman, she sounds like the stuff angels must be made of.

Yeaaah, if she could just lull me to sleep at nights, that would be great, mmm'kay?

You're going to be all right.
Trust me.

Even if I'm not sure.

It's been an amazing year so far, and I just had the best 3 day birthday.

Hopefully I can wake up and remember enough to write about it.

Damn. Today was a good day.

24

Damn.

I'm chilling here in my obliterated state, and I don't know what to say.

Shit is so different though, it's crazy. It's like the exact opposite of last year, I can't contain the giddy-ness.

Man.

I need to do this again later, there's just too much going on.

I actually just witnessed and somehow even involuntarily participated in a "friendly," and unintentional DDoS attack on a website that was recently discovered and is on the frontpage of Reddit right now.

Technology and the connected world. I mean, damn, this shit is barnacles, huh?

There's also suggestions in the comments section of the thread about calling it things, but they revolve around the hive mentality of Reddit that kind of creeps me out.

This isn't the first time this has happened, though. I've seen servers crumble under the weight of a collective all trying to access the same website simultaneously before.

It's funny, because in a "normal," everyday situation you would only expect a server to fail or not come through when the website isn't popular enough, and therefore not funded sufficiently.

However, in this case, it's popularity that causes the server to break down in a metaphorical tired sweat.

The subject page, by the way, is: Diy.org/skills

It's a step closer to turning our lives into a "RPG." That's "role playing game," in case you haven't been keeping up with the video game industry.

Reminds me of this surreal short film I saw on YouTube some time ago about a technologically advanced world some time in the future. I'm conflicted as to whether or not to call it a dystopian future, but consider the fact that we're constantly connected to the internet in our brains.

Let me elaborate a bit. Have you heard of Google Glass yet? It's basically a pair of shades that provide the wearer with a HUD. I've just realized I don't know if there's internet connectivity, but I can see 3G or at least WiFi being a part of the experience. I mean, definitely, considering you will be able to upload pictures that you've taken using the glass on to, well, some picture service provided by Google, I'm assuming at this point.

But in this short film, there's no accessory on your face, the HUD is all part of your vision. Something embedded in the brain, on the lens of the human eye? I'm not sure, but the point was, everything turns into a game.

While you're chopping vegetables and making eggs, there's an experience meter filling up right in front of your eyes. You're getting better at things in real time, like it always was, but this time you're witnessing the growth or rate of change, as it is taking place.

You are literally witnessing "experience," as you gain it.

Talk about shit that is barnacles.

This doesn't just range to sliding an egg around on a frying pan, or "consuming media," (also see; watching television,) while staring at a blank wall. This also encompasses such fields as relationships/dating, and other social interactions. You have at your disposal the handy "wingman," app that you can pull up and run while you're sitting across the table from your date. So you know exactly what to say, and when to say it.

You can pull up your date's "social networking" website's "profile page," and figure out all his or her likes and dislikes.

The funny thing about most of this is, it isn't even far from the truth or the present human experience. Life, this one, in the present.

The only brilliant thing is, they've taken the metaphorical "dating game," and portrayed the idea as more concrete, more literal.

You tell me whether that's dystopian or not.

I can not remember what the short film was called, and as kind of a cruel game I'm not even going to attempt to look it up to link to it here. I'm not about that life right now.