Today I had a moment of complete alienation from every single occupied space on earth and in the universe. I felt like not a single space that was safe or habitable. I felt the need to be dead rather than alive, asleep rather than witness the atrocities, unknown and unconscious rather than face the uncertainty of tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I've realized that as I grow older I become more conscious of mortality and the unknown, and instead of being all carpe diem I do the opposite and live in a constant state of fear. I don't remember when I started being afraid of airplanes or ships or cars, for that matter. I'm aware, every single moment of every day, of the follies of humanity encroaching upon the shores of my tiny island, the only place I think might be safe, my country, my home. 

Whatever the farrago of explanations and reasonings for why Singapore has almost none of the problems a state of its age, size and nature should, it doesn't really matter. All I know is I'm as blessed as can be but I cannot harness this understanding to become brave and step out the door. 

All I know is that one day I started to entertain and relish the thought of, what if I never knew my parents or my family or Gus or anyone, and I was all alone, how perfect that would be because I would never have to know loss, I would never have to go through that pain. And I thought about retreating into myself and living like a hermit, and instead of scaring me the thought appealed to me. Is this growing up? Is this what happens? The epiphany that almost everything has the possibility of crumbling into a gigantic heap of disappointment, loss, pain, suffering. 

But it's more than just statistics or numbers indicating chances and trying to rationalize arbitrary occurrences. No, it's the very nature of the way the world turns that is the essence of fear, increasingly, that the hand of man has a larger part to play than the order of nature in shaping how we live, that we have become subservient and subject to the whims and fancies of the flaws of human nature. So what do we hope for? For human nature to be better? Did God intend for us to have faith in Him and faith in humanity? Because it's so difficult. 

I can feel the fear beating in my ears and crawling under my skin, and this is what my existence has been reduced to, that I have to grab onto the moments where I'm distracted from it and prolong them for as long as possible. So I guess it's not completely random that I'm typing this at 4.15am in the morning, then. Finding answers before the sun is up is impossible.