I’ll admit that one of the better things about growing up, is enjoying afternoon beers at your local pub without the guilt of being underaged. But that’s just a small perk. Anyway, I do enjoy these moments of beer, talk and watching life go by.
Defeat is a terrible thing. It’s also not as instantaneous as we’d like to believe, as in, we believe we can pick ourselves up from it just like that, brush it off aside like a bad fall and just keep moving forward. I mean, seriously, we live in a generation that doesn’t look positively on people who bitch and moan after a spill.
The thing is, sometimes it’s not just defeat we carry with us as we pick ourselves up. More subversive than that, we carry the shadows of doubt and disappointment along our battered bodies, we don’t give ourselves enough time to heal, and we continue through life unchecked. Wait long enough, and it might incapacitate you, and you’d never have seen it coming, and so you fall down again, one time after the other, every time..
I don’t know, maybe it hit me today. The misery I carry inside me, just because I want to be strong, not just look strong, but because I want to be strong. It’s what I’ve always believed in. Do right by the people who love you, don’t be a burden, be independent, don’t hold grudges.. but in essence, be an island.
But it’s not easy, when you hold one level of standards, and people hold a different standard. One’s not more right than the other, but because of our differences, and our indifferences, one of us is still bound to get hurt. Usually that’s me, because I care, I empathise, and even when I want to be an island, I somehow always allow something to sneak in.. and like a bubble boy, you don’t want even the slightest speck of dirt to get onto you.
Call me pompous or self-righteous, because maybe that’s what it looks like. When people fail to meet the unnecessary standards I place upon myself, I get disappointed. Usually at myself, and really no fault of someone else, just me, and my impossible. But I guess I’m learning that life is dirty, life is messy, and it’s utterly random, utterly out of control, and there’s no stopping it.
No stopping the hurt, the grievances, misunderstandings and miscommunications. Our relationships are all flawed because we are all flawed. We don’t do the things we say, and we don’t say the things we do. We fumble our way all through life, sometimes hurting someone right or loving someone wrong, and yet, despite all the disappointments and defeats, we pick ourselves up, brush of the hurt and move on.
We have to move on, one step at a time, every time. Don’t stop, don’t stop till you’re dead. Do everything, but don’t stop.
Would you believe that I’ve had this text input window open for more than two hours? It’s not so much that I don’t know what to say, but more like “is there any reason why I should be typing in here tonight?”
Honestly, there is no good reason, I’m just wasting my time, listening to Tom Waits, and then I got distracted by Brand New. I might add a video I found of them recently, because it’s such a great rearrangement of their song, “Jesus Christ”.
But apart from that, I’m grappling with something that should really be inconsequential because it’s just me being a judgmental bastard, but I’m getting really tired of seeing all this PR and Social Media bullshite on my twitter and blog feeds. Of course I could just block or unfollow anyone whose content I found irritating, but it’s not the persons, it’s just the inane subject matter that I’ve moved past, but it still follows me around like bad B.O.
And then, it might also just be me, who’s just being a snarky jerk who’s not eating any pie now, and seeing other people eat pie. Let’s just call it petty jealousy.
But seriously, maybe I’ll be sorting my life out really soon, when I get that offer letter to teach. But that’s another adventure I’ll talk about another time.
Right now, I remember asking Jess where all the arty, funny, Christian girls were.. and it’s true, they’re all in Australia. I’m facing a drought in the dating scene, or if I ever had one in the first place. Given, I’ve kind of (d)evolved into this commitment phobic person, simply because I cannot get my house in order, and yet I hold on to a conservative value system that wants to believe in the right type of relationship, yet I’m attracted to off-beat girls who usually do not share similar values and beliefs as I do. And if I want to do the right thing, it’s not to lead anyone on right? Right… …
Ah Catharsis, you are my best friend. Consequence, you can take a ticket and I’ll see you when I’m done with all the other crap I gotta deal with first. But yeah.. hang in there, or maybe just go home.. you and I never really worked out.
Life is a funny thing, we all want the best out of it, but we don’t necessarily put in the effort. Instead, we sit back in our recliners and criticise the world around us. We’re very critical people. I’m very critical. It’s something I struggle with, and something I sometimes don’t mind lapsing into. There are moments of sarcastic brilliance, but there are also moments of when I’m just an uptight monkey that seems intent on killing the joy of people around me.
Call it jealousy or immaturity, but I really doubt I’m alone in this. When I’m miserable, I want the world to be miserable with me. I’m the centre of my own universe, how else should I feel when everybody else seems to be speeding by, leaving me in the dust?
But when you spell it out like that, it really just is envy isn’t it? There’s nothing to sugar coat when you spell it out. Black text on a white background, specks of truth on a blank canvas.
I’m really just putting some thoughts down because I haven’t done it in a long time. I’m also trying to finish reading this article about Lady Gaga, which I find rather fascinating, but I really want to write more. But I’m also afraid to speak freely, not because it’s less truthful, but the unfiltered mind can be rather hasty, and raw as it may be, may not fully represent the intent behind callous words. Think of it this way, most people have good intentions, but they end up screwing everything up.
Yeah, that’s why I watch what I say.
You know how it is sometimes that you feel like you’ve got all these great ideas, or great kinds of thinking, but no one seems to understand what you mean. Like, it makes no sense not because you don’t make sense, but rather, they just cannot seem to comprehend or see it from your point of view, because the experience is not shared. It’s miscommunication on such a fundamental level.
But perhaps we’re afraid to share because we’re afraid we’ll be judged. And we can understand that, because we always judge others. It’s a vicious cycle, and I don’t know if open debate will truly break the cyclical nature of our habits. Maybe my only hope is that, by not locking this up, someone might stumble on this and discuss it with me. Quite difficult, when there are fifty thousand other things clamouring for our attention.
But yes, sometimes I really have to turn Twitter or Facebook off because there’s just so much incessant noise on it sometimes. Life updates, opinions, freedom of speech, democracy. They’re all great things I’m sure, especially for those of us who update constantly. But sometimes it’s tiresome. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not their fault at all.. they have every right to, but it’s more on me. I’m the one who’s tired, and the one making the judgements, hence I’ll do the switching off and the walking away.
I think it’s important to switch off and walk away, gather your thoughts, recollect yourself, find your center of balance again. Well, if not you’ll just become another hater.
So, perhaps we all have this immense need to be special, to be appreciated for our thoughts and actions, leave some kind of footprint or proof that we exist. I don’t know.. is that what drives those of us who’ve chosen to put our lives on the net? Incidentally, is that what drives us to create? All just for a vain legacy? That we mattered.
It’s probably true to a degree. I’m sure like most good intentions, it’s not the central force behind the things that we do, but let’s be open that it might be part of the reason. That all human beings have some sense of jealous pride, that we want to end up on top, or better than our peers. We only have one another to compare to right? How else will we know that we mattered, and that we’re better than the lowest common denominator?
So what’s wrong with being the lowest common denominator? Well, I guess I’m open to the fact that some people mind, and some people don’t mind being the lowest common denominator. I guess that’s key to my intrinsic problem in trying to help / understand people, and that’s the fact that we’re all different. Our thinkings, motivations, inspirations, defeats.. when they all get jumbled up, I’m not too sure how we could call it as it is.
And so, in another bout of random connecting of my synapses, I find myself back where I started. The duality of life on this planet, how we fit in and out of society’s norms. Ah.. the grand paradox once again.
About two weeks ago, Xander, Mo, Amanda and I set off to the National Museum to check out the exhibition on ancient Egypt. It was fun, especially when we made silly jokes at almost everything. But on a more serious note, we saw a wrapped up mummy and many wonderful artifacts, thousands of years old. It kind of blows my mind at how well preserved, or salvaged these once everyday items used to be.
Maybe someday this blog will belong under layers and layers of data.
Outside the National Museum
Inside the National Museum
A walkway to another exhibit.
My mummy lovers.
Sorry there aren’t any photos of the exhibit, my iPhone sucks in low light conditions. And I realise my pictures have nothing to do with the exhibit. But I suppose this will make do, that I still meet people in real life.
Is such a difficult thing to say, when there are so many different paths, so many choices, that you don’t really know what it is you want.
As I’m typing in here, I’m also trying to get a music review going, and the words aren’t flowing on that side. I am such a fractured mess of different things, of different creative pursuits, I don’t know if I’ll ever be put back together again.
That’s how I’m feeling right now, like I just want someone to pick up the pieces, and put me back together.
Well, with that out of the way, I shall attempt to write my music review again. Excuse me.
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And just like that, I’m back. It took me about an hour to get a short review out. It’s a little different when it’s a little more forced, and you have to study the material a tad closer. Well, I just want to say for the record, that writing with a reason, is not easy. It’s easy to read, but that don’t mean it’s easy to write. Like it’s easy to get on a plane and fly to another country, but it isn’t easy to build or fly a damn plane. So anybody who thinks writers have an easy life, you can shuvit.
Oh why so much angst brian? Don’t mind me, this is where I get to say anything I want, keep those writing gears all greased up. It’ll probably happen now and then. See how effective disciplined writing can be? When I left this window to work on the review, I’m now back at this window and it’s absolutely easy to write gibberish.
Alas, I am no where closer to finding out what exactly it is that I want. I’d like to play guitar and sing the blues a whole lot more convincingly, but I’m stuck with having to practice. I don’t like practice, but sadly I’m no genius when it comes to music, and I’m only practicing a fraction of what I should be doing. So if you do the math, I suck.
Well, with that, goodnight. I have to be up in about five hours time, and it’s going to be a pretty long Sunday for me, starting at six in the morning.
So well, I just got home from another night of beer at the usual haunt with some of my mates, and you’ll have to forgive me if I’m slightly buzzed, but every time I am, a song pops itself into my head, and I have to type out what I’m thinking off, if only to alleviate my restlessness.
So the song I’m thinking off tonight, is I think by Dave Matthews, though I can’t remember the title, I think it’s from their ‘Everyday’ album, and the song keeps playing in my head, hence today’s title. No, I can’t explain it.
There really isn’t any point to this entry, not that I’ll ever try to make a point in this blog. I’m still trying to get used to the either of different blogs for different thoughts, though I’m not too sure if all the readers understand the difference. Well, chances are, if you chanced upon this space, it means you understand the difference between Singularity Industries and Harmless? Bananas! because I do not plug this blog at all.
Not that it matters. Whether I choose to type freely or believe that I should watch my tongue. I don’t really know what any of this is for really.
I think perhaps, one of the conversations we were having today was about how do you know if ‘that’s the girl you want to marry’? While I won’t go into details, it has been plaguing me that I have not really been infatuated with anyone powerfully enough for the past three years.
Infatuation, which might be a rather dirty word in the realm of long lasting, meaningful, relationships, has actually been the enabler for me to woo girls. But, slowly, I find myself lacking that, or dare I even say, I’m not even inspired to. Infatuation’s sort of like a first step for me to understand what, or why I fancy someone. Alas, I do not really know if I’ve really progressed from there. I’m not too sure really. I think of all the things I’ve done for women in the sake of the chase, may have just boiled down to infatuation, and I do not like to use the word for the emotion, love, lightly.
Sorry if this isn’t making sense. But I’m just wrestling with my own mind right now. I think I recognise that I’ve been infatuated way more times than I’ve ever been in love, and it should sort of make me sick for such a shallow reasoning. But I also acknowledge that it’s a very critical first stage of the entire phenomena we know as a ‘relationship’. And further to that point, it’s been awhile since I’ve been oddly infatuated with someone that it makes me throw reckless abandon to the wind, and act like an utter fool.
Suddenly I feel like eating fish and chips.
Update: The song wasn’t by Dave Matthews, but The Killers. The title is as it is though.
