I needed to believe.

All I want from life is to be warm, safe and at peace with my actions given my fortuitous position in this world. Sometimes I feel terribly, terribly lonely in believing that being lucky enough to be well-educated, secure and safe gives rise to some significant moral duties as one girl with an extraordinary amount of autonomy, one girl lucky enough to truly express a right to self-determination.

I hate it when people laugh at me for studying what I do - it's this stupid sense of duty that propels me through academia.

Kindness. Understanding. Passion. Selflessness. I just want to be able to look at my hollowed-out, pale face in the mirror and feel like, for once, I've done all that I can. I'm trying so hard - please cut me some slack.

it is the language of the beasts

Shackleton, Blood On My Hands

Journalists denying climate change science and the following inevitabilities, Rupert Murdoch's media enterprise bribing police and conducting illegal phone tapping and hacking; Australians continue to piss back and forth on the topic of asylum seekers. I met up with a friend who's been travelling overseas for the first time in eight months today and I remember confessing to not reading the newspaper anymore - all of it feels vaguely apocalyptic. Terrifying things happen, wrongs continue to be perpetuated, the world smiles, and carries on. So it goes.

As a younger girl I was always fascinated by the idea that a society so complex and tangible as ours could one day come to an end; these days, the concept seems far too real to think about.

I find myself less and less partial to opening up to others, these days. It's interesting to chart the progression of my personality over the past two years - from a bright-eyed, optimistic and outgoing eighteen year old to the quietly-spoken, moody, perpetually-despondent student I am now. These are the same old complaints, these are the same tired platitudes - what's the fucking point?

Sorry. This isn't quite self-pity, I guess. This year feels like a turning point of sorts. I am standing on the edge of the abyss and it is gazing back at me. (Sorry, Nietzsche.) These days I am almost convinced I know exactly what I want from this life, and how to go about achieving it. The problem is. Well.