the longest night

I wish I could write this post in better circumstances, and fact is there were better instances just a couple of days ago. But, everything just went down hill since Monday. What else could it be regarding but my research project?

I see myself as a calm lake. The surface of the lake is so still that you can be blinded by the reflection of the sun from the lake surface. But yet, underneath such deceiving calmness lies the emotional undercurrent so strong that no plants or life can establish a foothold. On the outside, I may appear well, or barely scraping through in handling the constant stresses of a PhD research route, but deep down it's always a constant struggle.

Faith? Faith that everything will come to be alright eventually? How is it possible to have faith when you're being stuck down to the valley floor almost every time you are about to climb out of the dark abyss? It would seems I would have more faith in staying in the dungeon of despair than escaping. Hope? The more you hope for, the harder you fall. I daren't hope. Not even so much as to hope I can graduate.

But yet, as certain as hope and faith slowly slip away from my grasp, a part of me urges me to carry on. But how far can I go on, constantly being abused psychologically by myself? Like holding on to sand particles, the longer and harder I tried to hold on to hope, to faith, I could feel myself slipping away.

I've thought of giving up, throwing in the towel, simply just pack my bags and left. But I just don't have the courage, to face my mentor, to face my friends, and to face myself for being a failure. So how can I be 'honourably discharged' from my research? Accident? Yes, hopefully some sickness or accident would render me a few months or a year's break, and thus it would be perfectly alright to discontinue my research studies. Morbid? I sure am. That is what constant psychological stresses and cowardice left me with.

I wish I can be numb of feelings and emotion towards my research. It is the only way I know of to survive these trying years. No hope, no faith, no expectation and I will have no disappointment, no sorrow, no despair.