There’s usually a season in Singapore when I shower in cold water. That season is usually when it’s just incredibly warm and humid, and it just seems like the best idea on earth. Around the monsoon season, it gets a tad cooler, and that’s when I use the heater (if it’s not busted).
Lately, I’ve added a different dimension to shower with cold water. I read somewhere that an entrepreneur or freelancer type person takes a cold shower every morning to remind himself that what he does is not to be comfortable and lead a charmed life (I paraphrase), but to do his best and work his best. I liked the sound of that, and I’ve been almost using that as a sort of reminder to give each day my best whenever I remember to take a shower. Okay, I jest, but you get the point. And by you, I mean me, who reads this, and serves as my personal reminder most times.
And it’s been good. Maybe it’s a physiological reaction, maybe it’s a subconscious association with the text I read or maybe it’s just an inward rearrangement of my frustrations and how I’d like to channel them into something positive for a change rather than just mull over them, shrug my shoulders and write terrible songs about my feelings.
I tried my hand at a little prose whilst commuting today. It probably had something to do with wanting to write something else apart from my usual reflexive style, and also calming myself down. That maybe if I couldn’t write a novel just yet, I could perhaps start with a sort of short story or passage.
It was mildly cathartic, both to express myself and to also attempt a different style. Here it is, if you’re interested. It was first published on my posterous account, but they messed up my paragraphing. I hate it when that happens.
–
He didn’t like to go outside, and when he had to, he didn’t like talking to people.
“Too many people scampering around saying or doing cursory things. No one’s really honest with themselves anymore. If they were, maybe they’d slow down ever so often.” He would think to himself.
It wasn’t exactly a distrust or escape into solitude more so than it was the immense alienation he’d feel every time he stepped onto the concrete pavement. Masses upon masses of faceless individuals blurred into a cloud of organisms that had no business being alive other than it was just the way it was.
Did they truly not stare in bewildered amazement at the cosmological mysteries beyond the known universe? Were they merely slaves to the physical laws in this plane of existence? Were they not yearning to know more than what already is? It wasn’t that he found their existence pitiful, rather, the intensity of his questions drove him to further retreat into the recesses of his mind, where at least he knew he was safe. Apart from the dismissive reactions that were coupled by candour and pleasantries.
So he walks among them. Amongst us, amongst you. Plain in appearance, nothing special nor captivating, faceless in the void of knowing, formless in the singularity of being.
It seems a little trivial to chronicle that time table down, but maybe I just want to remember that there was a period in my life where playing an instrument was a common feature in my life. Maybe some day, all this will end and I’ll actually not be playing music on such a regular basis, and all this will be a distant memory.
I suppose the question will be, if you can’t remember it, then did it actually happen? I suppose this has something to do with watching Total Recall this afternoon as well. Fake memory implants will are probably very real experiences to our psyche and physiology. I suppose it’s true that our brains will not know the difference between fake and real memories, and since all we’re experiencing are electrical impulses or chemical triggers, then such implanted memories will be as real as if we’d experienced them for ourselves.
It ought to be easy to trick the five senses, and if all five are fooled, then our grasp on reality should accept the virtual experience as the new reality. We’re probably moving in that direction as human beings, considering the amount of time we spend online, and how much the media and entertainment technology is attempting to make us lose our grip on reality by offering escalating experiences that encase reality. Pretty soon, none of us will want to wake up.
And why wouldn’t you? Isn’t it enough that our five senses are all taken care of? Isn’t that the ends to which all of us try to find meaning for? I mean, everything that we ask with regards to existentialism probably seeks to make sense of the sensory information that is presented to us. And when certain questions don’t get answered, perhaps that’s where the void that all of us feel, comes from.
So ultimately, my proof of life that last weekend really did happen, is that I have a blister, I have some pictures that serve as memory, and I have this record that documents a time in my life. Maybe I could be happy with that.
Sometimes, I wish everything would just disappear. Back to nothingness, back to how it all began and that all these expectations heaped upon us would dissolve like a spent candle, the last wisps of smoke as it trails back into the atmosphere and nothing remained. Not even the scent of a fire that once was, fully extinguished as if it were never there in the first place.
Too many ostentatious monuments of ourselves in the world sometimes. It’s almost sickening to watch, while my soul retches in disgust at the sheer megalomania that this world perpetuates us to live. Do we really matter so much? And if so, then where does this self loathing come from?
Loathsome and bothersome. There are some things not worth pursuing, yet we pursue them as wolves chasing rabbits. Chasing with predatory eyes, eyes forward, on the prize, within reach of our snarling jaws, one life, one prize and everything snaps shut. We consume, we revel, and in the blink of an eye it is gone. As if it never existed.
I want to disappear, not from my existence but from yours.
Feeling a tad buggered because I am not concentrating on the things I need to be doing, like organising and finalising all the details for this Thursday’s Open Mic at the Pigeonhole, or doing follow ups with the May participants. I just keep getting distracted by Beck, because I’m listening to his Record Club albums, and then my mind drifts to more creative pursuits, rather than administrative ones.
Am I so incapable of work? Probably not, but I think I just need to let it out so that I can address these things and finish the things that I need doing, or rather the things that I’m responsible for.
It’s easy to be responsible for things by just needing to show up (ie. bass playing and being at a particular place on time as per the schedule), but when it takes more than just your attendance, when it requires your very active participation, I think I have some problems dealing with that if I keep thinking about something else.
It does make you ask questions such as, “Does that mean I’m only capable of doing things that I like?” Which is completely ridiculous because we’re not allowed that sort of luxury. I keeping telling myself that I need to be a good steward of my time, and I try to schedule things to the letter, but I realise that it only address my physical being to honour these schedules, and it doesn’t address my mental state. I think when I’m in these physical locations, I need to take my mental psyche along with me.
I think this is also the problem with working from home. Because at least to me, I’m familiar with home being a place of rest, and I don’t really treat it as a place of work, but maybe I’d better start thinking that way if I’m to be of any use working from home.
There’s a whole bunch of stuff on my mind (again) and it’s silly that this blog space gets turned into a ranting board. But, sometimes maybe you just have to write about what’s on the inside, and see if it makes any sense on the outside.
Still, I suppose I would like to at least pen down the things that have happened to me of late, even if it’s just for posterity.
I suppose one of the events that has affected me the most, is the losing of my MacBook Air, iPad 2 and satchel bag. It’s not the first time I’ve lost things, but a couple of things stand out. How branded all the things I have are, and how much I’ve used those devices to distract my attention. It’s almost excessive, when I had the Air and the iPad, I mean, I already had a working computer and an iPhone, technically I didn’t need those things, but I got them anyway, and I built my free time around them. Whether it was reading, or just having them around, to charge my iPhone or write on the go, even if they were just security blankets, or a lifeline to the world of technology.
Still, even after losing them, I’m not severely handicapped. If anything, I don’t really miss them as much as I should, since I’ve almost gone back to the life that was before purchased those products. Mainly, it’s been simplified in a way, and I can think of how to organise all my information again, in a way that makes sense, and if I need to write, or do work, maybe I’ll have to build the decision to do it in a fixed place rather than at the whim and fancy of random chance.
So there’s that.
And then there’s the inevitability of having to look for work pretty soon. A full-time job that is. My time as a part-timer is coming to a close, and as I think of certain responsibilities and obligations, it’s high time I look for that job soon. I don’t know if it’s just about caving in to society’s pressures, but it would seem awfully selfish to just do things for myself without sparing a thought for my family and future family. But I also seem to be at peace with it already. I’m pushing 30, and I’ve taken my music and bass talents a long way. The musical journey is by no means complete, but I think I’ve had a great run, and I suppose I’m also starting to feel a little tired, and a little concerned that I might not be able to provide in the future.
And then, as part of my efforts to get back in the game of communications, I think it’s also high time I start blogging regularly (again). I don’t know why this issue keeps popping up, but it just seems so secondary compared to all the other things that I’ve been busying myself with (aka. living) But, the desire is still there, to have some sort of publishing power, and to be able to share my tastes and opinions to a wider world. Maybe it’s narcissistic, I can accept that. And maybe it’s because I’ve lost an audience that’s why I don’t feel the obligation to write anymore. *shrug* who knows?
I’ve been thinking that I should come up with some sort of editorial calendar and routine for myself, just as an effort to better myself and not just go on living from day to day (though I plan my schedule a month in advance, but on free days, I become rather listless). But yeah, a routine for writing, getting back into shape and improving on my music are all things I would like to do rather than just getting caught up in the current and vainly planning a schedule.
Perhaps it’s just a frustration that I’m plateauing, and I don’t like that one bit. I also don’t like getting out of my comfort zone, so you can see how there’s a conflict of interests. Hah, such a petty boy I am.
Oh well, I suppose I feel a tad better just letting it out. I’ll re-read this soon enough and see if there are anyways I can incorporate my verbal diarrhea into actions to better my life. Aw fuckit, I think I just wrote myself a self-help book. And I hate self-help books. I think they’re pure drivel, and they prey upon the insecurities of people just to reap a profit from people who don’t know how else to spend their money. But I suppose that’s hypocritical of me. I suppose I don’t like inspirational quotes as well, because they all sound like they’re mocking you. Maybe I’m just bitter. But I like eating bittergourd. Maybe I’m just a little bit messed up, but thats okay, wouldn’t you say?
It’s a dangerous game we play, this activity we call life. I think we’ve been a little too complacent that we don’t recognise how flitting this all is. Whether it’s our pursuits or the times we spend in inactivity, it could all end at any point. The mechanics of life and all physical law could fail us at any time, we’re held together by the sciences of ‘being’ yet perhaps fueled by the mystical forces of ‘being’. Any time right now, stars are collapsing around us, new galaxies are spiraling in and out of control.
Yet, I’m trying to find solace in the satisfaction of things, typing down these thoughts as if they would stay forever, as if they were proof of life, and still the unspeakable terror shakes my bones, grinding upon themselves till dust remains and nothing more.
As I was watching The Prophecy, it reminded me of what I knew of Hell, that it wasn’t just lakes of fire, maggots crawling under your skin or just the agony, but that it was the removal of God’s favour upon you. It’s a spiritual agony, one that I assume is magnified farther more than a physical agony.
But is this removal from God’s sight or favour something we can truly understand in this mortal coil? Is it ignorance that we do not see the unseen favour of God’s grace upon the continued splendor and hope of a new sunrise, of gravity staying at 9.7N, that the clouds have not turned to steam, that the percentage of oxygen has not increased in percentage that the air around us ignites..
Or is it some sort of instinctual faith in God, one that we cannot even not think about? That it lies in our subconscious or our souls so deep, so small like a mustard seed that we would not even realise it’s existence, or even if we didn’t believe in God. But if that faith were taken from us, would the entire world crumble as we know it? Would that be a realisation that God was no longer with us, where physical and cosmic laws ceased to exist and we lost all sense of ego and we the subconscious faith and favour from God, holding us together, in the absence of that, we pretty much dissolve into nothingness?
Is that what it means by a true hell? Damned if I knew, but sure is a kind of epiphany.
The cogs in my brain have been turning again, to the same tune of why I don’t seem to be finding any inspiration to blog these days. It doesn’t seem right, I have my own domain space, I used to be a rather active blogger, and I used to be in the business of communications, promoting and extolling the awesomeness of blogs. There are many things that I love to talk about, my music, my interests and even my own opinions. By all accounts, I should have plenty of things to say online.
I was caught in the eye of the storm when social media started to be taken seriously, where the opinions of bloggers mattered and audiences had an alternative source from the mainstream news. It was everything that a savvy media person would love, an unregulated fourth estate, hopefully beating to the tune of altruistic human ideals rather than the capitalism of corporations or the bureaucratically controlled forms of government released news and reports.
Guess that was all just naivety on my part. I suppose I’m also the sort of bloke that looks left when everybody says look right. Even as the world changed and I wanted to chug along with it, maybe I’ve always looked back to ensure that the good things that happened in the past were not swept along the sea change of the communications and media landscape. But the currents were strong and heavy, people wanted the change so much that everything was swept along, like the tsunamis that hit, infrastructure and slum, beautiful and grimy, all swept along and one person stood almost powerless against a seismic shift.
It seems almost meaningless to stand apart from the majority, when it’s they that determine what the status quo is. But to live any other way, seems like a betrayal to self, and that seems like a life not worth living. Why keep it up if you can’t be yourself? Why bother if you’re just a cog in a machine, a statistic to a boardroom, a PET bottle along an assembly line? Why bother at all?
So when it grips you, and you turn back to look at the devastation behind you, to look at the stragglers and your heart goes out to them, as you look back, like Lot’s wife, one becomes paralysed as a pillar of salt. I told you not to look back the voice from the heavens seemingly says as you feel the cells in your body begin to crystalise. I told you so.
So what does this have to do with not blogging? Well, I suppose I’ve been trying to paint a scenario, trying to lay out my thoughts so that it at least makes sense to me. And I suppose what I want to say is this:
That the joy of blogging has been lost to me some what. There are so many different blogs, different bloggers, different social networks, different mediums, different audiences, different products, different content.. All this variety to address the different needs, wants and interests that we all have. But the one thing I can’t seem to find, is that different voice that somehow seems to resonate deep within my own heart, that perhaps we human beings aren’t as alone as the things we strive to own or achieve that set us apart from everybody else.
It’s like trying to say that there used to be a time when I used to read blogs by using bookmarks, or I remembered their URLs because they were special to me. This was before RSS readers and social networks and everybody started sharing links on their Facebook walls. This was a time when I enjoyed the reading process, when bloggers were not inserting keywords and tags or break news stories to ensure that they would get more hits, either for popularity or advertising dollars. This was a time when bloggers shared because they wanted to, they made the content that they wanted to and the numbers didn’t seem to matter.
And even I haven’t been spared that. When I became the ’social media guy’, things seemed to change into a numbers game, even if people told you that it didn’t matter. But everyday, you had to answer the same questions. Which blogger had more blog hits, who were the popular ones, who were the brand ambassadors, who exhibited the brand values..? It was all quite horrible that the penultimate form of self-expression slowly seemed to be turning back into everything I abhorred about commercialism. Of course I’m not insulting bloggers who choose to make a living out of it all. It’s just pure idealism on my part, and it’s my cross to bear that I’m not getting the same joy reading and blogging again.
But I suppose I had to get it out somehow. This frustration, this tiny blip once again, to remind myself that my own opinions matter, even to me, and it still feels good to get it out there, even if I have to read it back to myself.
I exist. I existed. I will continue to exist until my last breath.
Posted: April 5th, 2012
Categories: Journal
Tags:
Comments: Comments.
I’m spending my last few minutes at the Rainforest BnB after spending a weekend with Nicholas Chim talking to a few music industry type people in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
We’re just spending some time in the lobby, before we leave for the bus stop to take a bus ride back to Singapore. I wasn’t really feeling inspired to write, seeing as how I feel very lazy if I have to recount every single thing I did after I’ve pretty much uploaded most of my photo moments and captions via Instagram.
This makes blogging very lazy, and with that laziness follows a lack of people who see this space updated, and probably uninvested in checking it regularly.
I wish that I could start being reflexive all over again, to share my life with long-form words rather than just pictures. I’m losing something that was once close to my heart, and I wonder why I’m not doing as much to hold on to it, to make sure that I always get joy out of doing it. There are also things that I’ve learned, that as I matured, we don’t need to always share in public, even if it is a blog that few people read. Or it could also be something where I realise, who really wants to know about this shit that I do?
So, I just paralyse, and not write, but I really would like to do it more, since I have more time than I usually do.
I’ll be anything you want me to be, because a part of me died and I’m not sure who I really am. I’ll believe in anything you say, because I’m not so sure about the things I should be sure, anymore. It’s startling when you come across the realisation that you’re just made up parts, a series of reactions to external stimuli, and somewhere along the line, whatever was instinct and intrinsic just became shell games as we pile upon more and more laws of logic and knowledge to shield us from the grander mysteries of life.
Somewhere along the line, we’ve forgotten who we were, what it means to be alive, and perhaps whether we’re going to do anything about it.
Just some random musings while I feel a fever rising, cooled it down with a shower and off to work an evening shift. Such are my indulgences.
p/s: I also thought about how trivial it is when we hinge so much about how we feel about what other people think and feel about us, yet, when everything is reciprocated, it seems so real, and then you realise they are equally as lost as you, just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl.
Again, I’ve been distracting myself instead of typing in here. So many times I feel a guilt, hanging over my head every time I choose to ignore my blogs, in the rather vain attempts of leveling a character, or advancing in a quest on Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning, or perhaps watching Mighty Boosh episodes instead of sorting out press contacts for the upcoming SHELVES album. There are things to be done, are they are all hanging over me.
Perhaps what I’d like to address, is the first world problem of working part time, even having the time to do things that interest me, yet, distracting myself from it all, by playing video games. I suppose this is growing up, when you lose that streak of reckless abandon, and you fully realise the consequence of every action, even if you don’t comprehend the magnitude of each one.
I’m not saying that I’ve only been playing video games in my spare time, but when the things I love also constitute as “work”, there’s a part of my brain that seems to enter a block, and shuts it out as “non-fun”, which is childish. Here I am, given an opportunity to run with something, with the people and places to support such endeavours, and yet, I’m quite afraid of failure because it might be seen as the squandering of an opportunity.
I wonder if that’s why people choose mediocrity, because society seems to have a low tolerance for failure. Which is sad, of course, since we’re humans, swayed by emotions, taught to give up our humanity in the grand, efficient system of capitalism.
But back to my own childish desires. Yes, it would be prudent to recognise that I haven’t always been the most mature of adults, I don’t know if I desire the change to become more mature, I wonder if it will turn my entire perspective out of proportion. I mean, could you imagine knowing a Brian who was serious all the time, who couldn’t make a joke, who’d do everything for the sake of profit, who would only talk passionately about the next thing you could own, rather than the next thing you could do?
I’ll admit it’s all questions right now, and I have also lost my train of thought because I’m typing this out while I’m on shift at The Pigeonhole. I can’t really peer into the future, but I am thinking about it, worrying about it, because while I tend to live the moment, I do think that preparing for a future and supporting the family unit as basic responsibility in either age we’re living in, but I’ll be damned if I turned into a money grubbing hoarder of materialistic useless things. Call it a basic frustration that we’re not the things we own.
So even know, the future, opportunities, ruts, successes and failures are all hanging over my head. It’s a fear of the unknown, but when you’ve done everything you could, and still can’t predict the future, I suppose it’s time to let it go.. and live in the moment once more, and not let life pass you by.
I think I made it home about an hour ago, and I’d been out of the house for nearly sixteen hours. Frankly, I’m really tired, but I wanted to type in here because I’m feeling a certain way about something, and perhaps it’s best to commit it to a post, as a testament of some sort.
To understand, one has to understand that it’s been about a month since I left the teaching service. I’m currently employed part time at The Pigeonhole, where I service the counter and customers, make coffee, pour beers, and clean up after patrons and collect their dosh. Then, I’m supposed to get a music label off the ground, when I don’t even have a label name yet, and juggling gig commitments with various music projects.
All these things don’t make me a lot of money, but they’re things I love doing, or love the idea of. There’s probably enough passion in these activities, to make me want to embark on a sort of working vacation to cut my teeth deeper into my interests, yet, there’s a lot of doubt as to whether this is a most responsible thing to do or not.
But y’know what? There’s something about helping to open a shop space at 9AM, mopping the floors, serving customers, brewing coffees, pouring beers, chatting with them, then when your shift is over, you switch to email answering mode, and organise various other projects and relationships into order, then helping to set up a gig space, do your sound check, play your show, hanging out to talk with friends, talking with other bands and artists, making thirty dollars in total and then spending all thirty dollars on drinks and CDs, and even making a loss if you count buying lunch and dinner.. there’s something about doing all that which beats being stuck in an office, or a situation that aids you in a responsible way, but plays no bearing on how you would really like to contribute to society, or even the world and culture in general.
I realise I’m terribly blessed to be afforded the chance to things of my interest, even if its at the expense of well, my expenses, but today is offering me some perspective of what it really means to live.
Living but not really living, might be catering to all societal pressures and doing something that is financially beneficial, and you get to spend and improve on oneself, be it internally or externally. But even with working at a loss today, and if I were to be optimistic, breaking even one day, the benefits to my life, and perhaps whom we’ve touched today, and have been touched in return, they’re all rather intangible. To me, it just shows how little, money is valued, and only through society, how much money is valued. This mathematical construct, numbers.. attach value to human worth, human experience, tries to make the intangible, tangible.
Call me naive, idealistic and even a dreamer.. but until the day we (individually or society as a whole) are free of the value we impose on money and currency, I don’t think we’ll be any closer to finding happiness and contentment.
What time did I get up today? I think it was half past twelve. Great, waking up when half the day is gone. It could be the story of my life, if I were to think it were full of missed opportunities, but really, it’s more about how I don’t think I have anything interesting to write about.
I suppose interesting is all rather relative. By all accounts, i do think I have it interesting when I see thing through my rose-tinted glasses. I play in bands, am rather enamoured by the inane things in the world, I have my own domain space, I do things the way I normally want to do them, although at the end of the day, you’re not above what’s commonly expected of you. It’s that grey line that keeps sifting back and forth between right and wrong.
Anyway, I do feel rather funky today. Not in the groovy sense, but more like some kind of sticky situation. Not that it’s trouble, it’s that, I can’t find myself being creative funk. I just packed my room today, and it feels great to have plenty more walking room, and being able to find my stuff. However, it just doesn’t feel like I’ve accomplished much.
Accomplishments like I want to write some of my own music, I want to commit them to a recording, but I don’t seem to really get along with commitment. In some sense, that’s also why I seem to be typing less. The only thing that I seem to be doing rather regularly, is taking snapshots of moments in time. Maybe there’s a certain distance I put between my subject and me, that doesn’t seem so vulnerable. Maybe it’s an element of control I still feel like I have, rather than plunge into an unknown element doing something I’ve never done before, whether it’s putting new thoughts down or penning new tunes.
Maybe I am afraid that people will hate it. It’s a rather real fear, that when you birth ideas into the world, and you think they’re really special, but in the end they’re not. Like children. Heaven knows how many brats grow up thinking they’re a gift to the world when they’re really just taking up space with their banality. (Which sounds like what I’m doing now.)
It could be misanthropy. I wonder if I’m a misanthrope? It seems like a rather unhealthy disposition, but they can’t say anything if it’s a medical condition, can they?
I also wonder if there’s a condition for an overuse of punctuation marks.
It’s my last night in Spain, and I’m spending it at my uncle’s home listening to music by Ennio Morricone while sitting on a couch, bashing this out. I’m slightly buzzed from the alcohol, with a burning fever to type all this down lest I forget.
I remember a time when I used to talk with my friend, Yuanheng, when we were still in university and he used to tell me of the genius of Sergio Leone, and we would talk about Spaghetti Westerns, Clint Eastwood, Chow Yun Fatt and all the points about cinema that spat in the face of classics only to become classic styles on their own.
This was a time of fearless daring, when we wanted to break rules, or adhere to rules, it didn’t matter. Homage or youthful dissident, we wanted to do our best in creating something, we didn’t care if we were recognised or not, nothing else mattered. On days, sometimes the project would consume us, on other days, we would wish we’d never started on it. We would live in that perfect, paradoxical moment of creation’s cradle, and we would allow ourselves to be shaped and molded on a moment’s whim and trust in the all-encompassing creativity that what we did would ultimately find meaning, ultimately grant us success, richness and glory.
It was a furious time when everything mattered and nothing mattered. Those times of being a student, not an adult, before we were sucked into the corporate deluge of endearing profit margins and making the world a better place. This was before all that, when we had a youthful ignorance of how the world operated, how we could change everything about the world into our image, how we were the very centre of our own universes before it collapsed like a house of cards around us.
Seemingly perfect in the things we didn’t know would break us, like all stallions will be broken before they are ridden. This age has broken us, to ride us like prostitutes in a brothel, no longer the majestic creatures that fairy tales would have us believe, that in a dream. we could be anything we desired. No, this world has only taught us we can be what society desires of us. THIS IS WHAT WE BLED FOR.
And in the end, that is all we have left, save for moments like this. Hazed upon by alcohol, a connection to the Internet, a subscription to a server and I can pen this down, that for one moment in time, I remembered, before I am consumed again, what it was like to feel alive, be alive, exist outside of the shackles of perception, of the all-seeing eye, we were free of it’s gaze for once. And I fear the addiction to such a feeling. Fine.
