The Drowning of the Ego

Surviving Hostel Life is an anthology that takes us through the experiences of Annie. As Annie went to college for the first time, she encountered life beyond the love that she had swam in since birth. To hurt and be hurt, and meander through paths of indecision, crowded her mind with dissatisfaction. She felt like the rules of life were obvious to her then neighbours, but not to her. She made friends, but as relations reshuffled, some bonds strained, while others dissipated into nothingness. Annie was baffled by how differently the world lived. She had read about evil (the enemy of morality) but it surprised her at how mundane it was. It existed in everyone. It was finding evil within herself, that jarred her most. Self identification and identity crisis led her feelings to surpass things that ought to have been important to her in life. In self pity, she never realised the feelings of others. They, to her were akin to characters in a book. That their hearts beat and bled like hers was understood, but never felt. Yet when she experimented with kindness and truth, and everything gods and godly men had been preaching since the advent of humanity, she was bitten by treachery. Her faith was so weak, and her opinions so fickle that she succumbed to different (dwindling) feelings every day. She also battled with the concept of morality itself. What was moral? There was a love of the forbidden kind, that she felt ashamed to even allow herself to feel in secrecy. As Annie's internal turmoil grew, unbeknownst to her, she grew less capable of daily functioning. To want something, and not work for it... to not want something, and being forced to work... the latter was at least a stronger path. However, that was not what Annie chose. To her unsettled mind, the quietness of others around her made her insecure. When she spoke, she could understand that people listed with he patience of adults indulging a child. She could not decide, why things were difficult there. Back home she had enough friends and had never encountered those reactions. She had began with the conclusion that the world was bad. It was later that she formed the hypothesis that maybe the problem existed internally. This gave birth to self loathing, She began convinced that there was not an ounce of goodness within her. She wrote and wrote till finally she understood sunshine again. Life was good and there were no more beasts. Not in her, nor in those around. Having understood that, Annie recognised the importance of embracing herself, that is, recognising the good within, and being kind to evil. Not nurturing it, but showing it a way out of dark. As Annie wrote, pieces of all these puzzles fell into place and produced a beautiful image of her- as she really was. Thus, Annie was born again.