Studying Africa is not easy. It's freaking depressing. I seriously need to rant.
One good thing work has done for me is it's shown me what type of thinking I like. I like creating systems, organising them, working out how each component of the system functions and interacts with other parts of the system. Which is, I guess, why I like theories, because theories are just systems. And I guess that's why I haven't let go of the ES, because it is such a
disorganised theory. The individual components aren't linked to each other in any systematic way, and there's no interface, and there're multiple layers in each concept and when people use these concepts they emphasise different layers with different results and so on. It irritates the hell outta me, and I very itchy-fingeredly want to make it into a usable and neat theoretical system. You know, it may seem strange to people who know me, but I really get a kick out of creating an excel file with many components, and all the auto-calculations linking everything to each other, so that all the user has to do is to key in some raw data and tonnes of stats start falling in line.
Just goes to show that a disorganised personal life (and habitat) is no reason to think that a person doesn't like organisation. Actually, the truth is, my room is in such a mess because I haven't thought of a sustainable way (i.e. doesn't require any maintainence) to keep it organised. (I wonder how many people will believe this?)
But Africa... Africa is a totally different matter. It's impossible to view the whole thing as an academic exercise. Studying Africa means reading pages and pages of depressing and scary things - reading about disease and poverty, women and children being abused and raped, people getting killed and killing with almost casual indifference, amputations, mutilations, corruption, torture. And I don't even have the comfort of telling myself it's just fiction, because as much as I get pissed off when all people do is write about Africa's problems, I can't deny that Africa's problems get so much attention because the problems are DAMN HUGE. Just being reminded of man's seemingly limitless capacity for violence and suffering is enough to make me feel sick. Really, try it yourself. Every few minutes I have to stop reading and take a breather, to remind myself that where I live, things are not like that. It's a relief looking up from my books to take in the contented, prosperous commercialism of your average Singaporean mall. It's a relief to go back to the theories and go back to what I'm most comfortable with - a detached, disinterested intellectual exercise.
So anyway, reading about Africa is how I spent $150 on clothes and shoes. And I'm seriously concerned not just about my finances, but my mental health as well. After hours of reading about human rights abuses, walking past a mannequin with a detached arm lying on the floor, all I could think of was guess what, they do that to real people as well. It is sick, really sick, and it's really happening, maybe right now. That's not a particularly easy thing to realise. Lots of people know, but I doubt many fully register this. I suspect that to many people, all the terrible things they hear on the news is like fiction, something that happens far away and is not quite real. Everytime I read the news I get depressed. I've developed a habit of shaking my head sadly everytime I read news on Africa (because hey, when is news from Africa ever good?). I don't understand how so many people can be immune to the news. Doesn't anyone feel horrified? Day after day of bad news from everywhere, of people dying and suffering? The news is like a daily body count, you know, which is why I hate the news. Is it just me? Why doesn't anyone feel horrified that our world is such a grotesque, painful, frightening place? Why doesn't anyone feel scared that it could so easily have been them as well? All it takes is for you to be born in the wrong place.
As for myself, I need a good dose of escapism. Music, for one. Music in itself is refreshingly free from such horrid thoughts. Classical music is nothing except itself. It's pure, free from the ickiness and grossness of reality. Retail therapy was my antidote for the day, as well as a thankfully brainless manga. Retail therapy to surround myself with pretty things, manga to immerse myself in a world that doesn't make me feel like puking. LSB to make me feel safe and to remind me of the good things, like love and all that jazz.
I'm in trouble because when I'm too emotional about something, I find it very very difficult to study it properly (the silent screaming in my head makes it difficult to think at all). And you know, that's why I don't like studying history. I don't like reading so many sad and depressing 'stories'. They get me too involved, and then it's virtually impossible to find any sense of perspective after that.
Argh I need to reintroduce a sense of normalcy to me, else my over-active imagination will guarantee me violent nightmares of killing and being killed. I must be the only joker around who gets scared after reading academic books. (T_T) Maybe I should have studied the EU instead. Then all I need to worry about is nightmares of being drowned in regulations.
