It has been far too long since I’ve typed in here. I’ve just been so busy with work and life events that I haven’t found the time to load the familiar blogging interface that has allowed me to chronicle the happenings, ins and outs of my thoughts and feelings. No big loss really, I think I’ve lost an audience, but still it brings comfort when I journal a portion of my ongoing journey.
The main thing I would like to get off my chest, is how I’m thinking of finishing my contract with the Ministry of Education as a teacher, and move on to something else. It’s been a grand journey, and I’ve accomplished most of the things I’d set out for myself to do in that, I could work in an organisation, I could be hardworking, and that I could contribute back to society. One thing I hadn’t planned on though, was that I don’t exactly do a very good job managing a classroom. I’m not a taskmaster in that I don’t think I set enough rules in place to create a conducive environment for teaching. I don’t believe my lessons are boring or that I don’t know what I’m teaching, but I’m just not the right fit for an organisation that requires me to have a particular management style. I suppose I could change, but in this regard, I won’t, not when there are still options and I know much more clearly, what I want for myself in this life. To which I would tell my current employers, don’t take it personally, it’s just business.
I’ve had a ball of a time, and I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything else. I’m really glad I took the step and spent time working the trenches, but I believe it’s time to stop pleasing other people (societal expectations and would-be futures) and start to do something for myself, and perhaps, finally be myself with the confidence that I’ve been lacking.
So that’s a major update. Other things that I’ve been busy with are the usual things that have always kept me busy. Music, writing, being a friend, being a son and also, being a paying customer to the Pigeonhole, a nice art-space cafe that my friends Ave & Rayner have set up. Check out the news and future happenings at this link. -> here.
I’ve really been taken by the place. It really helps that I’m friends with the owners, and that I can perhaps almost live vicariously through their plunge as cafe proprietors. But I’ve had so much fun meeting new people, friends, taking part in PowerPoint KTVs and Open Mic sessions. It’s been a wonderful respite to my otherwise confined working environment of mass produced education for the public. It’s a great feeling to express yourself creatively, and that’s what I crave for, and what I want to be around in my next job. Copywriting? Working in the arts or something music related? Yes, these are all questions that are easier to answer now that I have the blessing of retrospect.
The big lesson I’m taking away from the past four months, is that somethings, I just have to take a plunge, feet first into the chill waters and hope to God that I can swim against the current. Pray that He gives us the strength to swim back to shore and not be swept away by the undertow. But take a first step. Don’t hold back.
Tired because I feel as if I have been working non-stop since the year started. Although I started teaching in September last year, it was only at the start of this year that I was given my own classes, and the whole responsibility of imparting to them the syllabus, the guidance and the example of which to perhaps get through or survive Secondary education.
I’m tired because whatever respite I have, seems to involve playing music, having rehearsals, going for Remedial Training with the army or trying to finish my work. Even when I’m supposed to be able to look forward to the one-week vacation that comes in mid-march, I have to go back into an army camp, so that I may perform my duty toward my country in what is known as the annual In-Camp Training.
I’m tired because I’m constantly thinking and worrying about work. Maybe I’m also just constantly worrying. Worrying about whether this will be the career I settle in because slowly, I find myself having to conform to the nature of the civil service, just so I can prove my worth toward the organisation. It is a rigid process and I am a fluid person. I know I wanted stability, but it almost seems as if the walls are closing in. Maybe I’m tired because I feel as if I want to go one direction in terms of personal development, and another when it comes to professional development. It’s as if, the two don’t seem to be moving forward in accordance with each other.
Maybe it’s because of my constant worrying, that I’m feeling terrified as well. I’m terrified about the future, and the decisions I have to make today, in the vain illusion that I am securing my future. A stable job and a healthy career, how I conduct myself and how vulnerable I should be, so that I may find a partner, which creative endeavours I still have feelings for to grow as a human being, and perhaps the crux of it all, to find my spiritual centre again.
I’m terrified, because the stablising aspect of having a job that is bound by a timetable and strict bureaucracy, while it helps me organise my life and perhaps be a higher functioning member of society, seems to take away some of my more creative functions. I’m terrified that I’m losing a piece of my identity toward the giant machinations of modern man. I’m terrified that I’ll never be able to express myself, or that I’ll become the machine I so intensely fought when I was a youth. I’m terrified that the youth of my existence is redundant and no longer necessary in the age of adulthood. Perhaps I’m terrified that none of that mattered.
I’m terrified that these fears do not make me the best adult I can be, and for what reason do I want to be this great adult? Mayhaps it has something to do with finally achieving something worthwhile after having all the opportunities and potential to do something, be somewhere or be someone, and you don’t want it all to come down to squandered chances. Perhaps I’m terrified of adulthood and the future, because I haven’t quite gotten all figured out, or that I haven’t quite gotten it under control. It’s a terrifying thing when you feel as if you’re holding on by a thread, that the rest of your life could all hang in the balance because of a single decision, or an attitude, or knowledge, or faith that what you are doing could be the right or wrong thing.
Gone are the days of playing RPGs where you could reload a save point and relive a character’s life and undo past errors. Gone are the days when life could be escaped into music, television and video games. Gone are the days where life could be escaped by being cryptic on a blog or venting your frustrations in writing and loud music, strange spirits or menthol cigarettes.
For all the times I’ve tried to resist the pressures of life by simply rolling with the punches, it seems like its time to start to fight back, gain some ground, defend your weak spots and go for the liver shot, crumpling every adversary standing in your way.
But allow me to speak plainly here. I’m still tired and terrified, and I have no idea how many rounds I can last before the bell rings, when I either win or lose on points, or I win or lose due to a technical knockout, or I win or lose through the sheer brilliance of the knockout of my life.
A stance is a posture you take to ready yourself. It can happen in sparring, before two fighters engage with each other. Sometimes, you adopt a stance like a firing position, with your rifle, to take careful aim at a target, or even on the starting blocks of a race. Whatever the situation, a stance is something you adopt, to give you a competitive edge. You ready your body to handle the situation that follows after.
What I’m more interested, is the mental and spiritual readiness that comes with the ’stance’. Think of the physical stance as a projection or manifestation of what’s inside your head or heart at the time. I find, that most of the time, various issues are in conflict within me, and thus.. my stance isn’t ready. It gets caught of guard, or it’s too relaxed, and then I just end up ‘rolling with the punches’.
I suppose that what I hope for the new year, is to be able to adopt a stance, to sort out what’s brewing in my mind and heart and to be ready. For what? Well, to be ready.. it’s just that. I’m starting a new career, there’s music to be written, people to meet, and goals to accomplish. I think it’s only fair that I adopt the attitude that is necessary to come out on top when the shooting starts.
It’s an interesting notion that one finds rest only after effort, whether large or small. But rest does not come easy, it does not find itself at the starting point, we are not born with it, but perhaps in death, we all find it.
In between, we get moments of respite, that sneak up on us after sojourns of any sort. In this case, our trip to Japan has been very scenic, yet they involved a lot of walking, a lot of commuting to get to our places of rest. These off-the-beaten paths are well worth the effort though, as they make such rest, that much sweeter.
We’re currently holed up in the Fuji-Hakone guest house, where the staff are gracious and hospitable, and make an effort to serve you, if only to make your stay as enjoyable and memorable as possible. Having been here for only three hours, I can safely say that this guest house and her staff have successfully impressed upon us the idea that we can find rest here.
The cold mountain air, fresh in this part of the world, and the rolling clouds, all lull you into a safe place as you interact with your amenities, family and friends. Up here, you feel far away from the bustling metropolis of city life and city folk. Up here, no one steps on your toes, everybody greets you with a smile. The symptoms and a friendly, close-knit hamlet of people, popular with visitors from afar looking for that rest.
Rest will take effort to come by, and when it does, just let yourself fall into its comforting arms.
Sometimes, on certain days, I like to escape into worlds created by other people. They’re not my worlds for various reasons, but in these places, they could be video game environments I interact with, somebody else’s narrative that I read or watch. Lately, that has been separated into three different medias, Vanquish, Entourage and American Gods.
Well, I did finish watching all ten episodes of Entourage Season 7 yesterday, and I’m about halfway through American Gods and Vanquish now. It’s always a guilty feeling switching between the two, like I should be doing more of the other, or maybe doing something more of something else. Something more productive that escaping. But then, when the idiot box comes on, all concerns fly out the window. The idiot box is the most mind-numbing of medias. It doesn’t need you to do anything, except watch it, and maybe fire up a few neurons to link certain narrative or interest points together. There probably isn’t anything intelligent about watching television, although I think making television would be quite an arduous, intellectual process.
It takes effort to dumb things down. And that’s where people who choose to remain dumb, apathetic, and believe everything they watch, should stay exactly the way they are, and leave the rest of the higher order functions of life to the sapiens.
Well, in an imaginary world, that could happen. Lately, I wonder if imagination has been leaking into the real world. The same way perspective and reality are so intertwined. It probably has, there isn’t anything really abstract about my thinking. It doesn’t even sound intelligent, although it vaguely tries to be. Maybe I still wished life had giant robots, or superpowers.. but I think what people really want in real life, is to be a protagonist, someone of importance, where the forces within this dreamed up world are working directly for or against him. Everything that exists in an imaginary world works to build directly for or against it’s protagonist. What that means is, a protagonist matters to any story, or make-believe world.
And we all would like to matter. Or die in front of a television.
So, the day has finally arrived. It’s been such a blur, since I stopped full time work last August, and basically took a break for the longest time, trying to find myself, find some answers, realign my priorities, look for a reason. But tomorrow, tomorrow will be a brand new chapter, re-employment, and teaching English + Social Studies in a school. With teenagers.
Wow. I can scarcely believe it. One part of me is wondering what I’ve gotten myself into, and another part of me either knows that this is what I believe I want to do, or should be doing. It’s not going to be easy, it’s only eleven thirty, and I’m preparing for bed, because with teaching comes the fortitude hours of eight AM classes, seven AM days.
I said at the start, that I embarked on a ‘journey’ to find myself again. Did I? Honestly, I don’t think so. But I do know I’ve grown somewhat. I know that with this new job, I will have new responsibilities, and I too will have to be more responsible of the charges under me. As much as I would like to live for myself, and to live out my dreams, I’ve learned that, it’s not always just about me. I have to help enable the people around me as well.
And I’ve had a good run. Playing gigs, writing blogs and even getting recognised for my efforts. They’re small victories that God has allowed to happen. I want to recognise that. They may seem small, or big, I honestly don’t know, and I really just don’t want that to define me. I only know that these gigs, these recognitions in my writing, they are good things, and I am so thankful. It bolsters me and gives me courage to keep working the crafts, even if I am working a full time job again.
Perhaps I wasn’t meant to be an artist, or that sort of artist. I don’t know.. I’m slightly afraid of the future, but more or less ambivalent. Come what may, I know God’s on my side. I’ve been rocked hard by some stellar punches that life threw at me, and still.. by sheer grace, I made it through. Battered, bruised, but pain heals.
Most importantly, I think I’ve learned what it means to rest, to know where your hope is, or where a man should put his strength in. How much, to what measure, to what cause, et cetera, et cetera. There are certain goals that I would love to accomplish, and by the grace of God, perhaps they will be accomplished if for His glory.
I don’t really have all the answers, perhaps I never will. It’s a little new to me, when I came out a fresh graduate, I thought I did have a lot of answers. But they were answers that served a different time in my life. Now, at the start of my twenty-eighth year, I’m looking for answers again. It’s a season of life, of cyclical questions into answers, constant learning, constant speed, constant hope.
And so, I leave this space, hoping to write soon, as a journal, and testament to the life that needs living.
The one thing that has been on my mind for the past week or so, could be dangerous thought. But I just have to put it down in words, just so I know how ridiculous it sounds, or maybe there might be a grain of truth in what I want to say.
“Kill your dreams, kill them now before somebody gets hurt.”
Okay, how’s that for shock value? I say this in the capacity that.. I don’t particularly think that living your dreams will make you happy, from the inside out at least. Jadedness or weary debacle and throwing in the towel because I don’t always get what I want on my terms and timings? I don’t really know.. but the more I look at it from this particular angle, dreams and ambitions are rather selfish things, and people get hurt in the process of us trying to realise our own ambitions. Also, when we don’t hit the targets we’ve set for ourselves, those dreams get dashed, and we become disillusioned and discontent.
And where there is hurt, discontent and disfranchisement, there is sadness. There is something in unfulfilled dreams that make us struggle more than enjoy what’s in front of us at present.
On the surface, it sounds like I’m telling you to throw in the towel, to aim for nothing so that you can hit something. Accept your lot in life and settle. But if you really know me, there is nothing that makes me sadder, and angrier than when someone loses his of her passion for life and decides to settle.
It’s all abit convoluted I admit, saying something, but meaning the other. But this comes from some rather brash and careful examination and deconstruction of the notion of “dreams”. (Son, when you grow up, you can be whatever you want to be.)
I think there’s hope, and there’s false hope. I think there are notions of personal gratification and comfort that are unrealistic, or at worse, damaging to the world we live in and the relationships we keep. More intimately, we kill ourselves for a dream that stays a dream. I think modern thinking to a degree has made us our own gods, and that it is our right for things to go the way we want them to. Our entitlement, inheritance or what have you. Oh the selfishness of it all.
In the chase of dreams, perhaps a concept introduced to us as far back as the fairy tales of happily ever after, of the protagonist verses the antagonist, good triumphing over evil (or in a post modern context, perceived truths and evils.) But the reality of life just isn’t like the man-made constructs we have of the themes of hope, happiness and triumphs. It is not in our dreams that reality exists, but in our realities that dreams exist.
The concept of dreams has been held in such high regard, that it paints a flawed picture of the reality and struggle that curses us in this mortal realm. It’s two dimensional to put it bluntly. It is also self-serving, and perhaps ultimately self destructive when we keep thinking that the grass is greener on the other side.
So I’m not saying kill your dreams totally by throwing in the towel, quite literally. The atrophy of such behaviour would be the utter stagnation of passion as we know it. A life, not worth living. Quite the contrary, if you’re a fan of my radical (yet utterly inane) notion, is that re-examine what it is that lets you live out your life passionately. Chances are, you won’t find them in some constructed dream you’ve cobbled together from watching too much TV.
Face up to this reality, that life is a struggle, but it is still worth living for. And one of the very first steps is to count all your blessings. We have more than we realise, people, friends, pets, ideas, love, hate, loneliness.. and ultimately, some form of hope. This last part might have been a bit confusing, but it’s a concept rooted in duality. You can’t hate if you’ve never loved. You can’t feel loved if you’ve never been lonely or undeserving of it. You can’t feel rich if you’ve never been poor, you can’t feel healthy if you’ve never been sick. Count your blessings, work.. find solace and joy in the struggle. And one day, I promise you.. it will all end, this mortal curse and blessing all at once.
It’s amazing how often I actually come into this blank space with nothing to say. It really is a blank slate, the title to this post probably won’t be thought off till something just randomly pops into my head closer to the end. Honestly, in this version of my blogging/writing style, there is very little thought that goes from brain to screen.
For example, my blogging platform (wordpress) just generated “353″ as my default permalink, of which I will definitely change, but I’m telling you that now to demonstrate just how much I am not thinking at the moment.
It’s nice to type in here without that sort of pressure.
I suspect I do not function well under pressure. I secretly am afraid, and pressurised if someone tells me that I write well, or do various things well. I usually just try to say thank you, and not let it get to my head. The moment I do, constant editing and a quest to write the perfect piece takes over, and I just get paralyzed. I’m the sort of person that flows, I react more than I plan.. it’s just the conditions I thrive in. These are not necessarily the skills that will make you a successful person, but you will find a richness in life that money doesn’t always buy. You see things that other people don’t see, you thrive on little quirks that make you raise an eyebrow, as you give a silent chuckle to yourself as you get the little inside joke that is inherent in all things life-related.
Today, while working on the video project, I guess I could finally articulate just what sort of creative person I am. I think I am a rather subtle person. Perhaps I would do better at a cinema-verite style of filmmaking where I just like things unfold in the frame. It’s a slower way of telling the story, but I think I like letting the audience unpack what they are consuming. Open to interpretation as they say. Leave a few visual markers here and there, light shifts in tone and pace.. nudges instead of signposts that lead you on. Where meaning is discovered rather than explained.
Perhaps I’m like that on a daily basis. As much as I’d like to know where I’m headed, I’m also very much intrigued by what is going to happen. Good things still surprise me, bad things are expected, but when you see something marvelous, it truly is a beautiful sensation. That’s why I’ve matured from just being a cynic, I’ve been lifted out from that pit that the earth is a cold dead place. I know that it is, but the wonderment comes from actually being alive, and being pleasantly surprised when life sometimes deals you a good hand.
In some sense, it’s perched on the old saying that you can choose how you want to feel. It’s true, in life you get dealt shitty hands, and you get dealt some stellar hands. But life isn’t figured out in a lifetime, as long as you are still open and you haven’t completely closed your heart, you just prepare yourself that much more should something good come along, or at least pass you by. When you close your heart, you close your eyes, and you only see what your brain’s been conditioned to think. It’s different from having an irritatingly sunny disposition, but an open outlook to both the beauty and darkness of the mortal coil.
As long as we’re still breathing, I’ll try to keep my heart and eyes open. If you blink, you might have just missed the spark that’s in all of us, in all created things.
Life is a struggle, from the moment we are born, our mothers suffered in discomfort as much as it could have brought them joy. It’s a funny thing, but life is a struggle.
Some people say that life is a disease we’re dying from. Looking at it that way, our lungs struggle painfully each day to take in oxygen, until one day.. they give out.
Life is a struggle to stay young, where we fail with each passing day. It’s a struggle to stay relevant as new ideas and mainstream thinking set to impose their collective wisdom on your individuality. It’s a struggle to stay unique in the cesspool of mono-thought.
We struggle daily to find our worth, and fend off the demons that seek to place doubts in our minds. It’s a struggle when we give, or we receive, what we say, what we do.
We struggle in our times of rest, to lay the thoughts of productivity at the door. We struggle to make our balance and find our peace. Our freedom was bought from the struggle of those who fight, and those who died. Our wealth from the struggle of the poor. Our poverty from the struggles of the rich and powerful.
This is our struggle, this is our keep as long as we are alive. Like worms squirming in the ground, not knowing up from down. This is our struggle in the vast cosmos that seeks to devour our souls, as we struggle to define our physical and spiritual integrity in the face of a force of nature that contains the same elements as all of us put together. It’s a struggle to maintain our physical forms made up atoms and molecules, like everything else in the universe. As we fight against gravity but standing on solid ground, not being sucked into a black hole. All these forces and reactions, just because they don’t cause you pain, doesn’t mean struggle is not in play. Friction, opposing forces and energy all hitting against each other to maintain order in the universe.. everything that prevents us from merging with the singularity.
Struggle, is like black against white. When you struggle, you make meaning and you see things that weren’t there at first glance. Struggle from the day you were born, till the day you die.. breathe your last and be taken back to the earth, the molecules that gave birth to your physical form. Your spirit, back to the heavens.
I will write in here until my eyes bleed out, that much I can promise.
A lot has changed in the past year, that’s all I can think of. Soul searching here and there, finding out where my strengths and weaknesses are, what I wanted to change, and changing some, stagnating in others.
That’s life. It’s not really the success story of perfection that the world constantly tells us to achieve, even if they’d like to admit that we are all masters of our own fates. The reality is that society expects various things of us, and maybe I’m not really that brave with regard to the unknown. For starters, the need for a job and a source of income. Support our families and loved ones. Even if I’m not married or have a partner, my family is a responsibility, one that I’ve grown to accept, and appreciate. There will always be things that I hate about them, but there’s also so much more that I could love. Though it’s not a matter of having more loves than hates, but learning what family is during this last year, and the things we do in the name of family. I can appreciate, and I’ve been blessed to be allowed to appreciate.
A vengeful spirit that counts the cost, leads us to be conservative in how much we want to give. But I’ve learned that you can give you all and still not receive, yet.. the less you give, the more you fade from existence. You disappear from the hearts of people when you seek solitude. Sometimes, I liked that solitude, other times, I scream at the walls. My neurosis means that I tell myself that I have to pick one. My growth tells me that they each exist as two sides of the same coin.
Duality is the main idea I’ve picked up this past year. How one person can be two different things, and not be fake. It’s not about wearing two different masks, but accepting the good and the bad that exists in all of us, and in all situations. To keep walking even when you’re not fully healed, to stop walking so you can heal yourself. It’s like walking forwards and backwards at the same time, or walking two different paths at the same time. Life.. simply isn’t a linear phenomena.
I just signed a teaching contract with MOE, and there are still doubts in my head, as there is sureness as well. It can be both the best and worst decision I’ve made my entire life. But there’s something about Singapore’s meritocratic culture that tells us we have to make only the best decisions, as if it were a multiple choice answer. I reject that. The best choice is also the worst choice. There will always be something down the road that will ask for our sacrifice, or make it seem like we made a bad choice. But that is the reality.. we have to experience the bad, as much as we experience the good. We cannot go through life experiencing only good things. Even though we crave for comfort instead of struggle, life itself is a struggle just to stay on the path.
So, it might sound like I’ve gone no where in my quest for an answer, but I think that my thinking has matured, and can finally accept both the good things and the bad, and not just seem them as singular concepts, but a holistic concept affects the human condition. That’s a good thing, it’s a step forward. It might be a bad thing, because I’ll end up over-thinking and paralyzing myself again. But hey, life’s a ride.
