theatre of the absurd: Zhangjiajie, Part IV

I did a quick inventory of my pictures and have come to the conclusion that I will need to write three more entries for Zhangjiajie. Any more and any less would be either too bulky or stretched out too thin.

I was reading an email from Jason that he sent me several weeks ago, and one sentence that really leapt out at me was, “Let’s all go out and get pissed.” I need this, more than anything else - I need to go out and get well and truly drunk and pissed, to drown my sorrows and frustrations and everything else I’m not wholly happy with, in the sweet, momentary oblivion of cheap alcohol. I need this and that to happen.

Maybe it’s the fact that I only got about 4 hours sleep last night, but I am in a shitty mood today. Can’t get my dander up to do anything At All. I regret being a fool and I regret saying a load of shit and accidentally revealing too much of myself to someone whom I don’t even know that well. Am I cursed to wear my mask forever? Though it’s not so much of a curse as it is.. defensive mechanism. I don't like getting too close to people, letting people get too close to me. Most people wear me out.
I’m sick of the pretentiousness, the preening, the stupid, vapid, fake valley girl accents - look at me, look at me! I yearn for Europe. When I was younger, if I wanted something hard enough, I got it. I probably need to visualize myself in Europe again. In Europe, no one would even think that your life was boring for reading and attending international events. Completely the opposite, in fact. Nadia shared a sentence with me not so long ago - “if you’re the smartest person in a room, then you’re in the wrong room.” I miss my year in Europe, when I could properly articulate my thoughts and feelings, and those of others, into eloquent words and tangible arrangements. The ventriloquist’d, I once said; we are all plugged into the Matrix, forced to conform to its stifling uniformity. Everyone was much simpler when we were younger, when we had less to lose. I feel that I have less to lose now than I did when I was younger. Every day I live in fear of aging; now I understand it, this obsession with mortality and staying young. Ask yourself truly; would you do as Elisabeth Bathory did, if that was what had to be done to retain everlasting youth? I probably would. The battle against time starts now, and we must fight the long defeat.

I am not entirely sure what I’m doing with my life and where I want this to go. I need a plan B. I can’t wing it like Rowling. Of course it’s easy to say that when you’ve achieved her degree of success. I, I’m only mortal, and bound by my worldly constraints. Boundaries that you’ve set down for yourself, say the self-help articles; the only person stopping you from achieving what you want is yourself. The sky’s the limit, they say. And yet I hate flying, with a deep and burning passion.
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that people do and will have an opinion about you, whatever you do, whenever and wherever you are. And I’ve come to find that I would much rather be opined on and criticized by smart people, than by dumb people.

Things I need to do: I need to properly reread Mrs. Dalloway and rediscover that which has been all but lost. I’ve lost my eloquence of old; I flounder in mediocre, internet writing. I live in perpetual terror of losing what I have left, and cling desperately to the vestiges of my old identity.

Another look at the vendors, and their delleeeecious fried potatoes. YUM, I could eat those all day.

Did a bit of - well, actually a lot of walking, but most of it was downhill, so.

We then went on this truly terrifying cable car ride down to the bottom of the mountains. It wasn't rollercoaster scary, but more along the lines of flight phobia and a little bit of claustrophobia. It's very unnerving to think that you're being dangled several thousand metres above ground and that those ropes and machinery and steel are all that's preventing you from plummeting to a messy death. Pris and I were both on edge and barely had the heart to appreciate the wonderful scenery. Nevertheless, I still managed to get a fair number of pictures in - rather good pictures too, now that I look at them.