One of my favourite quotes, because it so easily captures just how I feel about so many things. Captain America is a supersoldier, he was a soldier in World War 2 who was given superhuman strength & agility, and is one of the most brilliant military tacticians. He has 1940’s values, and believes in good and evil. Things are very black and white to him.
But in this story, he gets a second lease of life in the twenty first century, and the black and white between good and evil has turned to grey. To make matters worse, earth is on the verge of an alien invasion that seeks to destroy all human life as we know it. For once, the things that make Captain America, one of the greatest superheros the good guys has seen, is at a loss.
He is completely impotent.
His mind, strength, agility and values do not come into play, when you’re trying to fight off a planet-sized threat. And that is the conundrum I face tonight.
I come home, read the news about Yong Vui Kong, who is on death row, yet his family is fighting every second of the day, to appeal for clemency from the president. They are not giving up despite the odds, overwhelmingly stacked against them. I read about the control our current government tries to impose on us, I read of a lot of disgruntled complaints about the world that we live in.
And I’ve stood up for a few causes, I’ve tried to be involved and make it my fight too. But the thorn in my side, is that we can never truly be the people who always stand up for justice, or what’s right. Sometimes we also just want to bury our faces in the sand, and pretend that the world’s great and all. I just got my paycheck, and I just blew $40 on Grand Theft Auto 4. I’m thinking of playing it as soon as it gets downloaded. I’m thinking of all the marketing I want to do for my band(s), and even how I’m going to reorganise my life in preparation for my new job in September.
It’s a constant struggle to tow the line, between what’s right for you, and what’s right for society. There are personal and public battles to be fought, and sometimes, I just don’t see the distinction anymore. It taxes me out emotionally more than anything else. It drains me to care. And yes, sometimes, I just feel so impotent.
So weak and powerless, that there are actually so little things I can change, with my two hands, mind, heart and soul. There is a limit, to how much of a fuck I can give. Sometimes I’m near the limit, sometimes I have too much to give.
I don’t have all the answers, but one thing’s for sure, something ain’t right with this world, and when you put your finger on it, it really is an evil too big to hit.
Hopefully bu Tuesday, the cast on my left arm can be taken off, and I can finally carry on with my life per normal. Be that the case, I reckon I’ll miss it somewhat. The conversations I get from random strangers, the way I clumsily try to get things done, or cover it with a plastic bag with each shower. If anything, it was the very strange experience of effectively having only one arm.
Not being able to physically do many things, meant that my mind went on overdrive, but was still paced with not being able to follow through with physical action, that resulted in more detailed thought processes that ensured economy of motion to maximise effectiveness.
It’s funny how it takes a disability to teach you that, step back, don’t immerse yourself in the trenches, and forget the campaign that needs fighting.
Why so militaristic?
I don’t know. Maybe it’s the way my brain draws connection to the concept of strife and obstacles. When I was in the army, that was probably the only time I had to rely on a fighting spirit to see me through certain exercises, that right now it’s just a reflex, conditioned response.
I’m a fighter, not a lover.
And so, I’m thinking about the two or three weeks of break time I will have before I finally start teaching (for real.) Yes, I really am going to be a teacher. I have a contract with the Ministry of Education to teach English and Social Studies. It’s finally happening, life is starting to happen again. While I’d been working for the past two months, it’s only been a short term arrangement, whereas this new arrangement, will be more long term, and I can start rebuilding my life and relationships around this new arrangement.
It’s going to be pretty exciting, I’ve never been more fired up about trying to juggle my bands, commitments and writing engagements all at once. I’ll have to choose carefully just where my time goes. But I think this time away from regular work, while tough in terms of surviving, or having a life (little cash flow), has really opened my eyes and broadened my horizons past my perceptions of my previous industry. I think I’m walking into this new chapter with a whole new set of priorities, and my only wish is that I can finish as well as when I started, hopefully for the better.
But yes, there are some new toys that I really want to purchase, that will allow me to pursue other aspects of my craft to a new level. This is a benefit of having direction I suppose. It focuses your thoughts, and channels your energy into a generator that actually converts it into a usable fuel.
And so with that, here’s to new chapters, new directions and constant surprises.
But very, very fulfilled. It’s been the craziest month and a half so far, and I think that things will finally slow down after next week before I start the next phase of my life.
What’s transpired?
- started part time work
- handling bookings for band
- broke my wrist
- saw a friend get married
- saw a friend off as he left for the states
- watched broken social scene
- got involved with the Youth Olympic Games
- wrote two blog posts that made its rounds
- one got a minister’s attention, and tonnes of haters ragging on me
- taping a segment with my band, for a TV programme. no idea what’s going on
And that’s just mid July to August.
My reservist deferment got resolved, so now I will start teaching in mid September.
But before that happens, I’ll have the party of parties, as one last hurrah. I just one to get pissed, dance till dawn to my favourite tunes, and favourite people, even the ones who make me awkward.
I’ve been typing in this space, it’s less pressurising than typing in the other blog, perhaps because there are less people reading. It’s a bit weird, on the one hand, as an extrovert, I thrive on the praise and energy of external sources, but in the same way, I’m being reflexive and afraid that I’ll never measure up, and the last thing I want to do is to over compensate.
But it’s been a good night. I went down to Home Club after work with @ambarvalia, @kosherjellyfish and @bioanarchism, to catch Lunarin play, but throughout the night, I kept meeting so many different people, it was hard to keep up with. Tat Yang, Roland, Jordan, Kevin, Charan, Willy, Edder, Dottie.. I feel a tad bad, because I didn’t really know where my attention was supposed to be focused.
There are a couple of things on my mind right now, but I know there’s nothing I can do to change anything by just thinking or worrying about it. I guess change will only come if I’m willing to do something about something.
So on that cryptic note, I will say goodnight, because having to work tomorrow and to earn a paycheck, is equally important.
I’m still in a cast, for another two weeks. I acquired a displaced hairline fracture along my radius three weeks ago playing football at my friend’s stag party, and was on a half cast for about three weeks. Just yesterday, I went back to the hospital hoping that I would be free of the cast, but alas, they put me back in a full cast this time round, for a period of two weeks.
But it’s not so bad. For starters, the full cast is way more comfortable than the half cast because it’s made of this interesting gel that hardens once it gets wet (and subsequently dries). It’s much lighter than those plaster casts, and my fingers have slightly more maneuverability, in fact, I can even still play bass with a few tricky finger positions. The only downsides are that I cannot rotate my wrists, and there’s a portion of the cast that blocks half my palm making it impossible for me to play chords, or my xbox.
But yeah.. another two weeks, and I’ll be free from this prison my left hand is in. It really does limit the things you can do, and even though you sort of get used to it, things are never really the same. It makes me think of how people adapt to the hurt they go through, and while it’s admirable that they go through life, I suppose it’s easy to forget that things are never really quite the same.
I suppose I will be a bit more empathetic after this injury heals, but for some, the battle scars are more obvious, and with way more impact.
Distillation is the process of purification. It calls for only the purest essence to be collected at the end of the process. It’s a tall order, but I wish that more things in life were distilled. Cut out the BS, say what you want to say, deal with the circumstances with a surgical precision that leaves only the smallest of scars.
But we’re not the pure entities we wished we were. Despite the maturity I’ve gained as a result of not always getting what I want, I don’t think I’ve developed a hard heart that doesn’t break when I can’t give you what you want. It hurts me that I will hurt people, simply for being the person I am, and the choices I make. It makes me irate that I cannot be all things to all people, that as much as I have the ability to love, I will always have the capacity to hurt as well.
And in that sense, the singular, distilled thought, is that I am still that much immature, if I still believe in happily ever afters.
A pregnant pause. This screen has been left blank for about three hours ever since I switched my laptop on, after a pretty long, but epic day.
I don’t know if it’s because I can’t find the words, or if it’s because my left arm is still in a cast, but for now, the words aren’t really flowing. But that’s always the problem isn’t it? Every time I live, and I come face to face with a blank canvas, I feel as if I’ve given my all, and still, yet this great, empty screen, demands more from me.
But the last few days have gone by in a blur for me. After sending Kairen off on Thursday, and I finally made it home at about midnight, I sat down to write a post commenting on some things that had been going on in Singapore’s music scene. I’m glad it’s been receiving traction. It feels to have written something that resonates with an audience you’ve been trying to reach out to. But it’s very draining, to either write at the level regularly, or to have the discipline to do it daily. But I suppose once my arm recovers, I’ll look at ways I can find an audience for Singularity Industries.
I suppose it also calls into question, how else I want to run my online assets. I’ve been thinking of starting another blog, one that isn’t so serious, but focuses more on my geeky tendencies, and actually e a repository of my version of cool. I already have a title and tag line for it, but I’ll keep it secret for now.. because I’m going to launch it soon. I just hope I can keep up.
And then there suddenly has been an influx of gigs for Leeson, so that’s a good thing, and Shelves will be recording pretty soon. Plus I’m entertaining thoughts of another musical project.. and school is starting in September.. so there are many things to look forward to. It’s almost like, the past ten months that I’d been quiet for, never happened. I got the rest I needed, and things are picking up again. God is good in that way. In some ways, I feel I’ve drawn closer to him, or rather he’s drawn closer to me, and there are certain stress fractures I see in our relationship, mainly because of my own doing.. but I suppose at the end of the day, I just want to do the right thing.
And so here I am, Sunday, at three in the morning still blogging, even after an epic Saturday. There was a lot of fun, I loved the company I was with, good people, good fun, good talks, good art, good music. days like these are pretty rare, when things work out, parking lots found, good food, absolute steals from the music shop.. let’s just take our respite when it comes.
And with that, I suppose I will fall asleep after reading some pages from a book I borrowed.
It was supposed to be a cool July evening with a slight drizzle outside. But it stopped, and the muggy humidity has set back in. Still, it’s nice to find a few quiet moment before I fade into blissful rest.
It’s been a crazy three weeks as I found a job for the next two months before I start teaching, played gigs, had rehearsals, was part of a wedding entourage, and even fractured my wrist! But more importantly, I was with the family and friends that I love.
Won’t say much more now, but I’ll let the pictures do the talking:
Got plenty of updates for you kids who still read this blog *blorg*
First off, @pixiedub is having me on her show, The Missing Crease, and I am SUPEREXCITED.
I love sharing music and talking about it! I totally geek out around it, and the only thing that beats spazzing out on music that shoots bullets into your head, is the kind you get to share with people! You know what they say, something is more fun when it’s shared. And @pixiedub seems like one of the most fun people I know on Twitter, plus I’ve listened to her show before, and she’s an absolute blast, like your past!
So here’re the details:
Tuesday, 13 Jul 2010, 10PM (SG Time, GMT+8)
You need to click here –> THIS LINK <-- to end up on the unpopular radio blog, and click on one of the links to listen to the livestream at 10pm!
I've already spent all night trying to perfect my list, cuz it's my first time. And that makes me nervous. So everything has to be perfect. You know how it is with first times.
What you can expect is a rather.. electronic mix that's filled with good beats, subtle hooks and a hazy air of melancholy. The best kind of music for a Tuesday night I'd add.
Next up, my band, Shelves, will be playing a set at Blu Jazz this Friday. We play at 10, and you can find the details below (Or above in the picture)
Blu Jazz Cafe
11 Bali Lane
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010
Time: 10PM
IN FACT, you should commit to catching us play, while drinking a copious amount of beer and RSVPing to the Facebook Event page that Noel so painstakingly put up. Just CLICK –> HERE <-- and say you're coming!
Don't be a stranger either, come say hi! None of us bite, and all the guys are married, and I'm super awkward, so there'll be none of the lewd groupie shenanigans (If you are female).
We're also playing with rockers, Basement In My Loft, who’re also playing Baybeats this year, so you know they’re good! I’m telling you they are, because I love their songs too!
So yeah, good music all round!!! Seriously, come on down and we’ll party like beasts. Bring your friends, tell them to check out the best live music this side of Singapore. Listen to the show tomorrow!!!!
I want to get ink. Specifically that particular ‘X’ you see at the top. But just the ‘X’, and in black, not white. On the forearm where I can see it, and you can see it. Maybe I’m a bit of an exhibitionist in that regard, or an attention seeker. Maybe what I want for it is to be a talking point. Perhaps all I really want is to show what I think on my sleeve.
It doesn’t really mean anything. Simply because, there’s no real significance as to why I want to get ink. It’s a shallow, aesthetic reason, and maybe I shouldn’t hide from that. I’m going to be a teacher, and they do not condone this sort of deviant behaviour. I also go to a church, that while modern, is also rather conservative. And because it’s so shallow, so devoid of meaning, and such an immature, rebellious ‘up yours’ to the societal pressures around me, and I’m not really thinking it through.. an ‘X’ really is the most perfect symbol to remind myself that I took charge of my own life, didn’t care what other people thought of me, and followed my heart instead of my over-thinking, self-reflexive mind.
So if people ask, it’s the most distilled symbol to sum up the last 27 years of my life and how things are going to change around here.
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.
A fairly resounding day with me presenting to a class of nine, 14 year old students a compact, two hour introduction to making documentaries and some erstwhile tips to surviving the process. It was a lot to condense, and I didn’t have that much time to prepare, but if you can be bothered to look through the presentation, there are links at the end of it that points to the examples I used to highlight what documentaries could be.
After that, it was off to a social gathering organised by my church’s young adults’ network. I thought it was quite a nice gathering from folk, and I caught up with a few leaders who were older than me, and we talked about my decision to start teaching (in September). I suppose it was kind of cathartic for me, and also introspective to listen to the accounts of people who have been there before me.
So there was food, and there were sodas, someone made incredible cheesecakes (that were generous with the crumbly base.) But things really picked up when my friend showed up with his incredible “Horse Head”. If you wear this, you inadvertently turn into Horse Head Man. Here are the pictures:
“To kill a Horse Head Man”
Lens: Helga Viking
Film: Pisitl
“Let all creation sing..”
Lens: Helga Viking
Film: Pistil
“Validation”
Lens: Helga Viking
Film: Pistil
“Nothing to see here”
Lens: Quadcamera
If you would like, you can view the rest of the set here. –> link
And lastly, I was just thinking, before I die, or after I die, I would like to publish all my personal entries into a book entitled “The Published Work Of The Misadventures Of Brian Leery.”
I decided to type in here, because I wanted to remember something, or how someone made me feel.
I met someone nice today, and even though nothing developed, I wanted to remember it, because it’s been awhile since I felt this forgotten, pleasant emotion.
That’s really the best I can do to describe the person and the emotion: pleasant, nice.
There’s no need for extreme superlatives, because I can’t extrapolate the future, nor did I go out of my way to impress said individual, it all happened like a casual conversation, she seemed down to earth and we didn’t really expect anything more, or anything less.
In case anyone (read: the two giraffes and three possums that read this blog) is wondering, she was not the “fascinatingly scary” girl mentioned in my tweets. –> here.
No. This was the simple, vanilla girl that took my blood sample and handled some of my administration when I went down to the clinic for a medical check up. Through casual conversation, she knows I’m going to start teaching in the near future, and I know she’s going to enroll in medical school later this year. Very plain things, but I’m a vanilla sorta guy, and it doesn’t get more vanilla than this. Okay, maybe going to med school’s sorta like having cookie dough in your vanilla ice-cream, but that’s it!
So there were no exchanging of numbers or anything, because, nice and pleasant as she was, I think she would be a little too young for the time being, or I’m not exactly back in the game myself (self-imposed exile since I have no work.) But I wanted to type this in here, because it was nice, to notice women again, or at least be attracted on that level.. y’know.. a tiny clue that your heart hasn’t completely turned to stone and that you still have some emotion left, plain as they may be.
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.
