Crash

Everything that has a beginning has an end.

Seems that everything has crashed just a little in recent times. Blue screens, dead Macs, lonely ties, flashless cameras, unscored penalties, yellowed text-books and clown smiles are but a few of the things spiralling around the people around me right now, even as I try to hold on to some semblance of sanity in this wild world.

Unfortunately, many of us never get to test the afore-mentioned quote; many things don't even have beginnings. More often than not, though, many of us simply fail to believe that the beginnings could or should happen at all, living simply with a pang of regret and doubt swirling in their being until something trivial distracts them for a time. A frayed knot, hanging by a door-jamb? I'm afraid not.

Others do make the proactive attempt to initiate something. Chasing a dream is almost always noble, though sometimes the magic of a dream is in the journey, and not the destination. Other times you might need to realise that some dreams need more than one mind, heart or body to be truly fulfilled, and that the distinction between dream and reality can be so hazy yet tangible at the same time.

There are few things less awkward, if not painful, than waiting for a response. Hoping for one, and knowing deep down that there is every chance you'll be disappointed. It's one thing to put up a brave face and smile at the cameras, but every photo has its negative, and behind every shot there lies a story waiting to be told. A picture paints a thousand words, but often they remain unspoken in more ways than one.

To some, the single-minded pursuit of apparent perfection is a virtue, to others, a fault. A scholar can be branded a heretic, a diligent student can be labelled a geek. But we all know that textbooks don't hold all the answers. If life is but a huge math problem, the formula to solve it has not been proven yet; we are all but random variables in its twists and turns. You don't study for life, in any way you look at it.

Then there are the times where things are so plain to see for just about everybody else except those invovled in the act. It's like watching a film with unrestricted narration; you see the bomb, you know the bomb is there, but the hero can't detect it because of an inconvenient shadow. What will happen, as the hero and heroine remain oblivious to their surroundings, caught up in their own world of happy thoughts and sparkling lights?

Sometimes relief comes in the things we take for granted. It is said you don't know what you have till it's gone, and I do believe it's very true. Sometimes all it takes is a brief absence, the threat of separation, for someone to cherish another even more dearly, clutched to their heart the thing that seems to fill their world with meaning and light, music and laughter.

Of course, at times things go awry and the only person to blame is staring right back at you in that blue screen. Maybe things could have been sorted out before, maybe the memories could have been saved. Perhaps it isn't truly your fault, perhaps your innocence is hardly feigned. But crashes always happen, and while they rarely reign in the end of all things, they can be a pain, in more ways than one.