Black Heart

"and I began to believe,
that the consequences of your actions really are just a game,
that your life is just a chain reaction taking you day by day.."

Dear lonely isle,

There are some days you retreat into the shell that is yourself and try to hide inside the tiny hole in the wall.
There are some days the world feels so unpleasant you wish you didn't grow up.

Virtues that we learn through bedtime stories, values we see in our parents, all the things you were taught when you were a lot shorter and a lot happier, you keep in your heart. Like well-wishes to keep you going, prayers to keep you safe, principles to see you through in life.

But as you adapt to the gray, smoky air which is our world, you wonder how you could have ever thought the sky was blue. Like obsolete computers and Nintendo games consoles from the past, you find the treasures in your heart have long been cast aside by society. Virtues you keep and uphold have no place in the world.

Because there is no such thing as truth or justice or mercy in the world. You can grind the world into the finest dust and examine every atom, but you will not find a grain of truth, or an ounce of justice.

They are lies we tell ourselves, and later on, to our children, with the hope that they will grow up into the kind of world and the kind of person we wished was and that we could be. We sometimes try, stubbornly, to stand against the corrupt of society, like a rock stands against the beating waves on the shore. And like the rocks we find ourselves slowly eroding with time, until we are nothing more than pebbles on the beach.

Maybe that's why we love heroes, because they represent everything we wished we were, and that virtues are not just myths of the generations past. The people who're bigger than they are, with a heart for everyone else. But there are no heroes in the world. Not the perfect ones we hope for, anyway. There is no Hercules to fight the three-headed demons of our time, and like the myth we know so well, chopping off one head just brings to life another. There is no end to vice, corruption and the stinking, repugnant, contamination of the earth known as mankind and society.

There are no rewards for the soul who lives by virtues, because there are no consequences for those who don't. There is no redemption at the end of the journey, or salvation at the end of life. Despite what faith may tell us to believe, sometimes you can't help but to know better.

And like the bitter person you are, you can't help but to feel foolish at the notion of trying your best, because the only person it matters to, is yourself. The world works on a different system that what we believe, where the only winners are those who dare to take all, and those who start running before the whistle blows. There are no rules in the world, save for the ones you make yourself. And who's to say you're better off living by them, than those who break and bend all the ones they come across?

The world is one rotten oyster indeed.

And I can't help but to feel frustrated opening it, even though I noticed the smell.

Tomorrow is another day I find so hard to get through.

love, Joyce.