If you see this post, it means that I have aged by a year. Note that I have written this post about 2 days earlier, since I'm foreseeing that the things that I need to deal with over the next two days will probably preclude me from actually having the time to write an entry.
So, 26 years have passed since I first came to this planet. It can be said as a miracle, in a certain sense, due to the circumstances surrounding my eventual appearance on this earth. Then of course, there's the whole chunk of thing called life that I had to deal with, including having to fight off all those derogatory comments from the many strangers who think it is their god-given right to pinpoint and criticise things that they have little understanding about.
I suppose it is due to these largely negative experiences that I have learnt to not give a rat's ass to what people say, particularly when they trigger those warning flags that almost unambiguously label them as douchebags. But then again, based on my upbringing, I have somehow cultivated that philanthropic nature, so I end up in the most paradoxical position of a misanthropic humanist.
But why am I wasting precious writing time here bitching about those people? Let's talk about more happy things, since this is an anniversary in celebration of my birth.
I've long gotten myself a gift for my birthday; I just didn't think it appropriate to talk about it any earlier. It is probably the most expensive thing I have gotten myself, and the more I use it, the more I find it worth my while. I've gone ahead and gotten myself an Altus-Azumi concert flute (model number AZ3000). It's a lovely flute, whose headjoint and body are made of 95.8% ``Britannia'' silver, and whose lip plate and key work are made of 92.4% ``Sterling'' silver. The sound of my AZ3000 is really sweet---she reaches the high pitches without cracking, and it just sounds brighter than the budget flutes that I have been playing thus far. Of course she comes in French style (i.e. open holed), with a B-foot, offset G, split-E mechanism and gizmo key---these are all the very basic that I look for in a concert flute. The responsiveness of my AZ3000 is phenomenal; it has gotten to the point that I would just play sixteenth notes at high speed just to mess around with the quick reaction of the flute. I love instruments that are this nimble, since the numbleness provides the unparallelled ability to convery very subtle emotional cues via ornamentation---if the instrument is sluggish, then the ornamentation will not be easily articulated and thus the whole sound will be rather muddy and have a distinct lack of crispness and freshness that is so important. I expect the AZ3000 to serve me well in the years to come---a good concert flute (much like a good 笛子) can last for a very, very long time with good care and use. For anyone who is interested in getting one (and you happen to be in Singapore), contact The Flute Studio---they are the official distributors of the Altus-Azumi flute series.
Apart from the ``official'' gift that I got myself, I went into a splurge of some sort and bought other useful and semi-useful stuff. There's a student piccolo that I got (the Prelude PC710 Piccolo, a sub-company of the Conn-Selmer group) just to mess around with. Contrary to popular belief, I found that the piccolo was remarkably easy to play in tune, with a deviation of about 5 to 10 cents when playing to A4=442Hz. I attribute this to the fact that the 梆笛 is of a similar range as the piccolo, and that the necessary embouchre and lung power has already been trained for a long time, which makes it much easier for me than for someone who has been playing the concert flute all the while (the embouchre on the concert flute is much looser than that of the piccolo). In fact, I think it is for the same reason that I don't find the upper register of the concert flute that tough as compared to other concert flute players.
Remember Eirian? Well, some things have happened since I got her slightly more than 2 years back. First off, her e-ink display was starting to lose contrast, possibly due to aging/wear and tear. Secondly, the company that built her (iRex Technologies), is no longer doing the consumer business due to the delay caused by the FCC in certifying the DR800---iRex missed the holiday season and went belly-up due to cashflow problems (one story link can be found here). Talking about tough luck. Having said that, I found that the e-reader is something that I cannot seem to live without since it can fuel my bookworm nature without having to lug the associated kilogrammes worth of actual dead tree offerings. And I scouted about for Eirian's replacement. The iPad was obviously out of the equation; apart from the high price point, the display that it uses is hardly suitable for ``all terrain'' reading. Thankfully, Amazon had the Kindle DX, which satisfied the three conditions of an excellent e-reader: good contrast, large screen and long battery life. One click and some time later, I am the proud owner of Eirian II, a worthy successor of Eirian. Eirian II is not without her faults of course, but I think those faults are pretty minor considering everything else that she has. I will not go into a long narrative about the pros and cons of using a Kindle DX---I think that's what review sites are for.
Anyway, enough talk about the stuff I spent money on. Time to talk about more mundane issues. I think for this upcoming year (year 27, if you have been counting and/or not get sidetracked by what I have been saying thus far) I will be focusing even more deeply into myself. I'm already getting sick of having to deal with people as a whole, and I have found that I am losing what I know about myself---it is going to be a major year to remake myself for the next decade or so. Much has happened, as always, and I think that my current policy of isolationism is a sound one, since it gives me the space that I need to look deeper into myself and understand the forces that drive me to do what I do. Distractions of all sorts have to be culled away mercilessly---that is the law of the land, and is probably the best way to ensure that I have the most efficient way of handling things as possible. I'm not saying that I am abandoning my friends and going solo all the way, but that I will remove all those people who have either a negative or no impact on me from my life just to reduce the overall complexity. If I claim that I am in love with my mind, and that I am as misanthropic as I claim to be, then it would not matter if I excise the useless people that surround me.
Cold-hearted? Ruthless? I don't care. It's my life and my choice---if others can excise me from their lives when I prove to be ``not useful anymore'', why can't I do the same? I am still human after all, not some saint of some sort. I don't have to be popular with everyone---I just need to count when I need to count, other than that, why do I even bother wasting any effort? It is time to pull out that utilitarian hat that I have kept away for a while and to put it on, letting my rational side rule supreme once more.
J'ai besoin d'être plus grave et la conquête du monde à ma façon.
Oh, and happy birthday to me! =D
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