It’s been almost one year since my fateful fight with the dragon. Luckily for us all, I killed him. Unfortunately for me, I still bear battle scars. It doesn’t bother me most of the time, but from time to time I would look at my face and vainly think “You used to look so much nicer before you got that scar by your eye” and then I’d think “But at least you still have your eye Kalifa. You came pretty close to losing it…you could have been blind on one side.”

That’s how life is I guess. It would be wrong to not be grateful, thankful for what you have, for small mercies, but you still wish that calamity hadn’t hit you in the face in the first place. You still wish that you didn’t have to fight as much as you do. You wish that life hadn’t thrust the burden of living on you. In some ways you wish that life was more like death; in other ways you wish that it involved more vigour…because maybe then you would be strong enough to live, to love, without ever being knocked down.

…but without the falls, life is nothing but a boring, pre-programmed script. 

I guess though that I’ll see how my feelings change with time. Ever since taking off my eye patch I’ve worn my glasses outdoors just about every day; not because I wanted to see more clearly, but because I wanted around my eyes to be more obscured from the world. 

As trivial as a problem, loss, flaw, hurt, pain, disappointment may be in the grand context of society and existence, it still often means a quite a bit to the singular, selfish heart and mind.

**I came almost on the verge of tears just now because my tablet wouldn’t come on. It eventually did, but it has a very bad short it seems, so I’ll have to work/sacrifice to buy a new one…because I don’t think I can survive in any state of happiness without painting. Such is life!**