It's that day again. I'm pre-writing this while I'm still sober and not depressed/manic and so what I may say here is likely to be subjected to some minor changes on the day itself.
It seems like yesterday I was still celebrating my twenty-first. Now, I feel like I have used up yet another decade, and this time, with little to show for it save for the many different kinds of scars both figurative and literal from the whole ordeal that is life. This is the last year that I will have the leading figure of two, and it is one of those magical milestones in life where you stop to take stock of the goings on and decide how the next part should go.
I'm no different. Having tried to spend two decades redefining myself as a unique individual with the ability to change the world into a better place, I have found increasingly that the real world has a way of simply beating one severely to ensure one's conformity with social mores, for good or for bad.
At this stage of my life, I am almost confident that my formal education years are over, and from this point on, whatever I do and learn is based wholly upon my own chosen path, instead of the pre-set but still delusionary free will paths that I had been on since the start of my formal education.
The path before me differs from before. There are, surprisingly enough, much more choices now that I can take. I have unlocked slightly more aspects of myself that I didn't know existed when I was merely twenty, and each of these aspects provide a path that I can choose to go on as part of my life's journey. I have met wonderful people over this decade, and met with a couple that caused me more than my recommended dose of anguish. There were many significant highs, and just as many confidence-shattering lows.
I have been annealled and heated so many times that I an no longer the boy I was. Am I a man yet? From some metrics, I'm well on my way there. Already I have lost some of the freedom that youth gives; though still forthright as a general principle, I have learnt to curb my tongue at times, particularly when I have sensed that whatever I say will not help in matters at all. T'is better to shut up than to worsen a situation with reason that the other refuses to listen. I suppose this is why the PhD became one of those bad decisions that needed to be excised. I may hold a couple of diplomas, but it seems that I'm always within reach of relying on physical violence; such is how aggravating some situations I can get into. And that's why I curb my tongue and hold my peace---confrontations will not end well for the other party if I do allow myself to go ``all out''.
But those reflective thoughts sound a little too nostalgic and self-defeating. Time to look forward.
What's the year ahead for me?
Getting work done---that's my primary occupation. At least eight hours a day for five days a week; doing something to that frequency makes it hard to just ignore it. To build on my own happiness with a woman that I suspect I am starting to love---a hard path that I've chosen, but it is something that has the highest postive expected value. Staying sane is no longer the problem; it seems that I have learnt more ways of accomplishing that now that I am no longer under any form of direct oppression. I also see a deeper exploration of writing on my side, what with the blitz writing that I've promised to do for the rest of the year, and the exploration of poetry forms that I am about to start on.
All in all, a good year ahead is planned.
I don't regret the last decade. True, it had bad parts, like how all the old friends I have starting to drift away and go into their various lives, or how I was delayed in life for effectively four years due to national service and the ill-attempt at the PhD (silver lining: leaving with an MCS). But I changed from being a machine that emulates emotions into a person who thinks he is a machine emulating emotions. In some sense, I have revealed more of me to myself over the last ten years, and am happier by it. It may not seem much to the less observant, but those close enough can attest to the changes that I have undergone.
Or I could just be delusional. Either way works for me.
This is starting to be an aimless entry. That's fine by me. It's my birthday---I get to choose what I want to say, especially on my blog.
Who can stop me?
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Structure
Blech. I feel like shooting myself in the face.
So, in one of my earlier posts of the year, I said that I would be writing a short piece of something every day and posting it up on my scribble blog. And I felt like writing something a little more substantial today, so something along the lines of writing for 30 minutes from a prompt, way up from the usual 10--12 minutes that I use, while using WriteThis.
I was almost done when the timer went off, and I was typing a word with the `n' character, which promptly told WriteThis to discard the text that I had in the text box. And so, I lost a 30 minute piece of writing. Since WriteThis doesn't have any form of back-up mechanism, and I stupidly did not use a safety copy-to-clipboard save, I've lost that story forever.
I was ready to rage quit. But instead, I just started on a ten minute piece to post as a means of fulfilling today's quota. Such a stupid action on my part. Bah.
------
On slightly less trivial matters, I have been thinking a little on the whole notion of the corporate entity with respect to social, economic and political spheres. I don't think this concept is new, but it is an interesting perspective to think about nonetheless.
I think that at some fundamental level, structure is the basis of nature. The problem with ``optimising'' nature is the issue of choosing the right structure with which to organise the objects involved.
Starting at a not-so-low level, humans are multicellular organisms. Each of us have roughly the same archetypal structure that makes us human, something that anatomy can easily show us. Yet each cell that makes us up is individual and unique. Such combinations also cause each of us to be individual and unique in the way we behave and in the way we think.
But on an even more macroscopic level, we organise ourselves according to structures as well. Socially we organise ourselves into groups of families, clans, villages, towns, cities, countries. Economically we organise ourselves as sole proprietorships, partnerships, small/medium enterprises, corporations, conglomerations, consortia, trade blocs. Politically we organise ourselves as cells, sects, races, councils, parties, strategic blocs, nations.
There is but one major difference: unlike cells, we can simultaneously be a part of multiple such structures across the three different categories of structures. If there is anything that separates the artificiality of separating artificial from natural, I think this would be the best candidate.
It was once the case thta the three different categories were treated as one. Within a single localised structure of say a village, the social, economic and possibly political groups are one and the same. But as we increase the number of people and increase the scope in which we allow ourselves to travel (both metaphorical and literal), we find that such homogeneity is no longer common. For example, someone may be a staunch ally of the United States (political group), be a part of the Mitsubishi corporation (economic group) and yet be a devout wife in a biracial family (social group). This is a natural outcome from having increased globalisation. Ideas and information are intangible but infinitely reproducible goods, and once a good idea or good piece of information ``escapes'', they tend to reproduce rather quickly and almost without limit.
The problems of the world come about when the membership of each of these groups start clashing. With a cell in a body, it is obvious that it belongs to the body and therefore its loyalty stays with the body. But what about people who belong to different groups across the social, economic and political spheres? What should they do if one or more ideals from their various groups suddenly clash? Who will they side? Who should they side? These are not readily apparent.
In the old days, loyalty was easy---you are loyal to your country, or more specifically, you are most loyal to things that are in close proximity to you. Thus the whole notion of nationalist pride, and calls of defending one's home and all the other brave words that many a warrior had shouted out in the past. But with multi-national corporations being the norm these days, such loyalty becomes murky, since physical location is no longer the determining factor, but ideological alignment is. Should one be loyal to one's country if one discovers that the entity that gives them the most benefits is the corporation that they are associated with? What about one's loyalty to one's country and corporation under the influence of one's religion?
I don't have an answer to the question that I have so posed, but it will be an interesting line of thought to consider with respect to the way the world works. Maybe I might have something new to contribute on this some time in the future as and when I sort out my thoughts on the matter.
So, in one of my earlier posts of the year, I said that I would be writing a short piece of something every day and posting it up on my scribble blog. And I felt like writing something a little more substantial today, so something along the lines of writing for 30 minutes from a prompt, way up from the usual 10--12 minutes that I use, while using WriteThis.
I was almost done when the timer went off, and I was typing a word with the `n' character, which promptly told WriteThis to discard the text that I had in the text box. And so, I lost a 30 minute piece of writing. Since WriteThis doesn't have any form of back-up mechanism, and I stupidly did not use a safety copy-to-clipboard save, I've lost that story forever.
I was ready to rage quit. But instead, I just started on a ten minute piece to post as a means of fulfilling today's quota. Such a stupid action on my part. Bah.
------
On slightly less trivial matters, I have been thinking a little on the whole notion of the corporate entity with respect to social, economic and political spheres. I don't think this concept is new, but it is an interesting perspective to think about nonetheless.
I think that at some fundamental level, structure is the basis of nature. The problem with ``optimising'' nature is the issue of choosing the right structure with which to organise the objects involved.
Starting at a not-so-low level, humans are multicellular organisms. Each of us have roughly the same archetypal structure that makes us human, something that anatomy can easily show us. Yet each cell that makes us up is individual and unique. Such combinations also cause each of us to be individual and unique in the way we behave and in the way we think.
But on an even more macroscopic level, we organise ourselves according to structures as well. Socially we organise ourselves into groups of families, clans, villages, towns, cities, countries. Economically we organise ourselves as sole proprietorships, partnerships, small/medium enterprises, corporations, conglomerations, consortia, trade blocs. Politically we organise ourselves as cells, sects, races, councils, parties, strategic blocs, nations.
There is but one major difference: unlike cells, we can simultaneously be a part of multiple such structures across the three different categories of structures. If there is anything that separates the artificiality of separating artificial from natural, I think this would be the best candidate.
It was once the case thta the three different categories were treated as one. Within a single localised structure of say a village, the social, economic and possibly political groups are one and the same. But as we increase the number of people and increase the scope in which we allow ourselves to travel (both metaphorical and literal), we find that such homogeneity is no longer common. For example, someone may be a staunch ally of the United States (political group), be a part of the Mitsubishi corporation (economic group) and yet be a devout wife in a biracial family (social group). This is a natural outcome from having increased globalisation. Ideas and information are intangible but infinitely reproducible goods, and once a good idea or good piece of information ``escapes'', they tend to reproduce rather quickly and almost without limit.
The problems of the world come about when the membership of each of these groups start clashing. With a cell in a body, it is obvious that it belongs to the body and therefore its loyalty stays with the body. But what about people who belong to different groups across the social, economic and political spheres? What should they do if one or more ideals from their various groups suddenly clash? Who will they side? Who should they side? These are not readily apparent.
In the old days, loyalty was easy---you are loyal to your country, or more specifically, you are most loyal to things that are in close proximity to you. Thus the whole notion of nationalist pride, and calls of defending one's home and all the other brave words that many a warrior had shouted out in the past. But with multi-national corporations being the norm these days, such loyalty becomes murky, since physical location is no longer the determining factor, but ideological alignment is. Should one be loyal to one's country if one discovers that the entity that gives them the most benefits is the corporation that they are associated with? What about one's loyalty to one's country and corporation under the influence of one's religion?
I don't have an answer to the question that I have so posed, but it will be an interesting line of thought to consider with respect to the way the world works. Maybe I might have something new to contribute on this some time in the future as and when I sort out my thoughts on the matter.
Sunday, January 05, 2014
白い雪
Recently, I got my hands on this nice piece by KOKIA:
KOKIA------白い雪Lyrics courtesy of J-Lyric.net. A translation from Hendri Tan is provided here:
溢れる涙から生まれる雪の結晶
次から次へと生まれては消えてゆく
一瞬の輝きに賭けた人生
もう言い残すことはないと堅く口を閉ざした
沈黙の中で押し寄せる感情が凍りついてく
白く汚れを知らない雪だからこそ
はかなく消えていった
白く汚れを知らない雪だからこそ
傷つきやすかった
静かに忍び寄る終わりの時に気づかず
無邪気にはしゃいだ時はただ過ぎてく
小さな吐息が白い跡を残して
閉ざされた世界に立ちすくみ
冷えきったその手は
もうどんなぬくもりも感じないと
凍りついてく
白く汚れを知らない雪だからこそ
はかなく消えていった
白く汚れを知らない雪だからこそ
傷つきやすかった
生まれたことの意味も知らずに
消えてゆく存在に誰も気づかず
他人の笑いに押しつぶされて
孤独と手を結んだあの子は最期に... 笑ってた
白く汚れを知らない雪だからこそ
はかなく消えていった
白く汚れを知らない雪だからこそ
傷つきやすかった
降り積もる雪たちは
あなたの生きた証さえも残さず白くしてゆく
降り積もる雪たちは
あなたの生きた証さえも残さず白くしてゆく
白く汚れを知らない雪だからこそ
はかなく消えていった
白く汚れを知らない雪だからこそ
傷つきやすかった
遠く聞こえるあの子の声 白い雪の足跡
Crystal Snow was born from my flowing tearsI've been listening to this piece on loop for the past few days, and frankly, it is really haunting and lovely, even without having to read the translation of the lyrics. KOKIA is a lovely singer, and I'm glad to have first heard of her some time back on one of the few non-nonsensical threads on 4chan.
From one drop to the next one, then starting to disappear
Risking on an instant light of human life
There's nothing left to say, so I close my mouth tightly
In a silence, feelings that I ignored begin to freeze...
You won't see the white impurity, because it's snow
It'll soon gone
You won't see the white impurity, because it's snow
It's easy to leave a wound on somebody
Quietly creeping in, in the end I become worry
Innocently I think I've overacted when I thank you
With a small sigh, leaving white prints
I can't move in a locked world
And my hand become completely chilled
Can't fill warmth anymore
And I begin to freeze...
You won't see the white impurity, because it's snow
It'll soon gone
You won't see the white impurity, because it's snow
It's easy to leave a wound on somebody
Before I knew the meaning of being born
Everybody's worry of not surviving anymore
People's laugh is being wasted away
Totally confused -- need help
laughing
You won't see the white impurity, because it's snow
It'll soon gone
You won't see the white impurity, because it's snow
It's easy to leave a wound on somebody
The gathered falling snow
Even as a proof of your living, the left white begin to disappear
The gathered falling snow
Even as a proof of your living, the left white begin to disappear
You won't see the white impurity, because it's snow
It'll soon gone
You won't see the white impurity, because it's snow
It's easy to leave a wound on somebody
Somewhere far out there I can hear the little boy's voice
Footprints of white snow...
Wednesday, January 01, 2014
Quick Summary
So, a quick summary of what I had written in 2013:
That’s an average of 0.074 pieces of writing a day, compared to 0.34 last year. I'll be frank, it's an atrocious number of writing, at least, if you compare only the publicly available stuff. I have reverted to writing diary entries these days instead of using my own blogs to publish my thoughts on issues around us, partly because it is just more handy (grab book, grab fountain pen, go!) compared to using Blogger (log in, click new post, realise I can't gauge how much I'm writing from the lousy back-end text entry area, load up Q10 to scribble, copy and then paste into text area before publishing). The other part to the reason is that my thoughts on many things have started to stray more and more into the not-so-good-for-public-consumption realm.
What this means is that I have decided that certain thoughts that I have are to be kept relatively private, and are not meant for world consumption. Is it because they are seditious? No, they are just private thoughts. It's tricky that way. Sort of like a religious conviction---you have them, but you can't exactly explain or even talk about it that makes sense to anyone but yourself.
Besides, now that I've turned more or less into one of the millions of corporate drones in the world, what kind of care-free frivolous whimsical writing am I supposed to do? I don't really have much good news to write about, and I've been on cold turkey from writing verse because I think my verse is just terrible, and not to mention that I am less inspired these days due to corporate drone-hood.
The last six to seven months of being back in Singapore have been very sobering. The environment that I was used to is no longer existent. Everywhere I look, I see new and strange sights that I would not have dreamed of just two years ago. Everyone seems to be rushing around in circles, and those who seem smart enough to escape the cycle of busy work have done so by just leaving it behind and disappearing elsewhere. It's a bleak outlook, my fellow reader, a very bleak one. And it's getting to the cynic in me.
This year though, I have rekindled my old hobby---reading, and I don't mean reading scientific papers from conference proceedings or journals, I mean fiction, or at the very least, classics. Already I have put up a reading list on my own web site to track the books that I am reading, will read, and have read. Perhaps this is my way of escaping the cycle of busy work, to embed myself in alternate worlds that were created by writers past and present, to see things from their perspective, to live more lives than I can physically do so vicariously.
I think I'll boost the writing output for this year. I can't let it slide away like that. Of all the things that I do that are not work-related, writing comes in as the first thing, followed by music, followed by my martial arts and running, of which I had not been doing much of late due to over-use injuries. So, as a part of the plan, I will write a short story fragment every day, using the venerable WriteThis 2, my steady companion throughout all these years to help me keep my ``blitz'' style of writing going. At the same time, I'm doing a rewrite/retelling of the fantasy story I wrote last year. Having read the Ender series, I think I have a gimmick that I can explore a little more fully than that horrible draft I had written earlier and make it into something a little more substantial, but infused with a little more local flavour. I refuse to sound like a typical American or British writer---I think that the interesting Singaporean style of talking and phrasing will be a more refreshing feel than what has already been said out there. It won't be a best seller (because I'm not going to get a publisher for it), but it should be quite fun. I'll probably work on it a little each weekend for the rest of this year as a means of getting something useful out. Can't do it more frequent than that because it will start to eat into my Aikido, running and reading time. I value my reading time of the Economist a lot---that periodical contains way more content and punch than the average person that I converse with these days. How sad can that be?
To the few loyal followers of my blog(s), I apologise deeply for the relative lack of updates. Let us make a deal. No matter what kind of crap I have, I will try to write something here at least once every fortnight. It's one of the few tenuous connections that we have left between you, the reader, and I, considering that I am almost on the verge of shunning that abominable social network known as Facebook. No matter how inane the post may be, no matter how short it may be, I will write something here every fortnight at the very least. Perhaps such a schedule will allow this blog to not fall into oblivion like all the other blogs in existence.
And with that, I conclude the oddball year that was 2013 and look forward to a better one in 2014, where it will be the official last year of being twenty-something.
- 3 poems posted here
- 22 essays/rants posted here
- 1 prose/story posted here
- 1 NaNoWriMo winning entry that I have censored because it was dreadful in the choice of content
That’s an average of 0.074 pieces of writing a day, compared to 0.34 last year. I'll be frank, it's an atrocious number of writing, at least, if you compare only the publicly available stuff. I have reverted to writing diary entries these days instead of using my own blogs to publish my thoughts on issues around us, partly because it is just more handy (grab book, grab fountain pen, go!) compared to using Blogger (log in, click new post, realise I can't gauge how much I'm writing from the lousy back-end text entry area, load up Q10 to scribble, copy and then paste into text area before publishing). The other part to the reason is that my thoughts on many things have started to stray more and more into the not-so-good-for-public-consumption realm.
What this means is that I have decided that certain thoughts that I have are to be kept relatively private, and are not meant for world consumption. Is it because they are seditious? No, they are just private thoughts. It's tricky that way. Sort of like a religious conviction---you have them, but you can't exactly explain or even talk about it that makes sense to anyone but yourself.
Besides, now that I've turned more or less into one of the millions of corporate drones in the world, what kind of care-free frivolous whimsical writing am I supposed to do? I don't really have much good news to write about, and I've been on cold turkey from writing verse because I think my verse is just terrible, and not to mention that I am less inspired these days due to corporate drone-hood.
The last six to seven months of being back in Singapore have been very sobering. The environment that I was used to is no longer existent. Everywhere I look, I see new and strange sights that I would not have dreamed of just two years ago. Everyone seems to be rushing around in circles, and those who seem smart enough to escape the cycle of busy work have done so by just leaving it behind and disappearing elsewhere. It's a bleak outlook, my fellow reader, a very bleak one. And it's getting to the cynic in me.
This year though, I have rekindled my old hobby---reading, and I don't mean reading scientific papers from conference proceedings or journals, I mean fiction, or at the very least, classics. Already I have put up a reading list on my own web site to track the books that I am reading, will read, and have read. Perhaps this is my way of escaping the cycle of busy work, to embed myself in alternate worlds that were created by writers past and present, to see things from their perspective, to live more lives than I can physically do so vicariously.
I think I'll boost the writing output for this year. I can't let it slide away like that. Of all the things that I do that are not work-related, writing comes in as the first thing, followed by music, followed by my martial arts and running, of which I had not been doing much of late due to over-use injuries. So, as a part of the plan, I will write a short story fragment every day, using the venerable WriteThis 2, my steady companion throughout all these years to help me keep my ``blitz'' style of writing going. At the same time, I'm doing a rewrite/retelling of the fantasy story I wrote last year. Having read the Ender series, I think I have a gimmick that I can explore a little more fully than that horrible draft I had written earlier and make it into something a little more substantial, but infused with a little more local flavour. I refuse to sound like a typical American or British writer---I think that the interesting Singaporean style of talking and phrasing will be a more refreshing feel than what has already been said out there. It won't be a best seller (because I'm not going to get a publisher for it), but it should be quite fun. I'll probably work on it a little each weekend for the rest of this year as a means of getting something useful out. Can't do it more frequent than that because it will start to eat into my Aikido, running and reading time. I value my reading time of the Economist a lot---that periodical contains way more content and punch than the average person that I converse with these days. How sad can that be?
To the few loyal followers of my blog(s), I apologise deeply for the relative lack of updates. Let us make a deal. No matter what kind of crap I have, I will try to write something here at least once every fortnight. It's one of the few tenuous connections that we have left between you, the reader, and I, considering that I am almost on the verge of shunning that abominable social network known as Facebook. No matter how inane the post may be, no matter how short it may be, I will write something here every fortnight at the very least. Perhaps such a schedule will allow this blog to not fall into oblivion like all the other blogs in existence.
And with that, I conclude the oddball year that was 2013 and look forward to a better one in 2014, where it will be the official last year of being twenty-something.
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