Just watched THE LAST SAMURAI. Man, Tom Cruise actually looks really good. And right now I actually sound really gay. Grins. Dammit. The female looked good too. There. Fixed the problem. =)

It was a typical flick modelled after DANCES WITH WOLVES, where the hero decides to fight for what's right, rather than betray his own conscience. Of course, everyone dies at the end except Tom Cruise, who becomes the hero AND wins the girl. If only these things actually happen in real life.

Think these movies give me an elevated hope in mankind, and I force myself to become cynical right after it so as to bring myself down to earth before I get shot down. Hara-kiri is what the japs call it, I believe. Self imposed death rather than to die at the hands of others. Ironic huh? Ironic simply because I chose to commit hara-kiri out of that same belief in the lofty ideals they uphold.

Think that's how I live my life too. I goof around, and make myself pretty irritating to many, and pretty much a sad act to most around me, thus retaining only a few around me who get to see a little more of myself. Thus I can assure myself that those who stay by my side through all this can really be counted as my true friends. To the rest of the people out there who know me, I'd rather kill off the friendship myself before they do it and I'm left behind to lick the scars. I chose the way of the hermit, simply because I cannot break out of that desire to protect myself from being rejected by people I once used to be really close to. And I don't even mean Grace, though that certainly hurts the most.

Friends in church and in school whom I once spent almost every waking moment with, have now gone. We can't even talk anymore when we do meet up. Its all so polite and superficial. Its like class gatherings at chalets where we all meet up, only to find we have nothing to talk about anymore - so far apart have we drifted - that we all end up watching the TV, to avoid the awkwardness that comes with re-establishing what we once had. And church is no different. When they get attached, or get involved in new friendships, or become pre-pccupied with other matters, I just fade away into the background... forced to take a backseat in the life of someone with whom I once was so close to.

Do all friendships end this way? Do they really have to? Or do I just accept that it does and stop struggling to keep the friendships that are waning? When I talk to Paul about these things, I tell him to remember that he can count himself lucky if he can have 2 close friends to be by his side at his funeral. Yet, deep inside myself I too, wistfully wish I'm wrong - that at my funeral, everyone whose life I once touched and whom I allowed to touch my life will be there to remember my death, and celebrate my life.

Guess watching how people who die on the battlefield together share a really special bond in that last moments of life really makes me wonder if that's really actually a better way to die. To know that in your dying moments, you don't go alone, but that there's someone who's there with you right till the end, with a common cause and purpose as yours. And of course, I'm now talking about that someone in my life again. Shit. I always come back to that. Am I that lonely? Can't I learn to live life the way I am right now, and be content in that handful of good friends that I still have? Why do I always end the day thinking again about looking for that special girl who really understands me, and who can stand being with me?

Think I should just shoot myself.

*bang*

Dammit, I missed.

Grins.

Ah well... guess I gotta go on living then.