It is of no news that I have cut back on my use of Facebook. Part of the reason was that I found it dull from the many reposts, as well as the falsely positive projections that people provide regarding their way of life.
What I didn't mention was also the annoyance I had from people bragging about their various achievements, like their first solo performance, their first car, their first child and what-not.
For a long while, I found such posts banal at best and distasteful at worst, especially those with regards to some kind of talent-based performance. Actually that's a lie, what I really found lacking in originality are the replies to it. Superlative posts of ``You are so talented!'' or ``Wow!'' or ``You look gorgeous!'' make me cringe a lot. I mean, okay, so someone managed to get their first solo performance. Whoop-de-do. What's the big deal about that?
Then I stepped back and looked deeper into my own thought process and realised that I was projecting my own experiences upon them and immediately learnt of my error. Thing is, most people lead very mundane lives. Specifically, many people in SIN city are happy to follow the herd and do what the majority/mainstream is doing, without ever stepping out of their comfort zones. I'm lucky because I was different, and had been different for a loooong time. So things like performing on stage (singing, dancing, acting, playing musical instruments, story-telling, poetry reading) are novel to most people but are ``normal'' for me, having done them myself already, vastly predating any of the other things that I am more well-known for.
In short, I was being a snob without intentionally trying to be one.
That realisation made me feel bad. Not bad enough to apologise to the people whose replies/posts I found banal/annoying (no harm was done since I didn't actually take any action from my own feelings), but bad enough to force a rethink on my views of the world with respect to its other denizens.
And that concludes today's lesson of the day: one's experiences are no excuse for disdaining another's achievements.
Monday, September 28, 2015
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Beat, But Alive.
*flops down onto the imaginary couch*
The past 9 days were rather hectic, to say the least. There was a medium-scale performance (for us at least) with the orchestra in a musical item last Saturday, then a whole bunch of work-related document wrangling for the week up to Hari Raya Haji, then today's Di-capella Goes 50-50 event.
In short, I'm beat. Tired, but contented. Still one more bed of coals to go over for this month before we segue into October, where different types of hectic things will be coming in.
I think for now, I will put down my dizi and play some flute repertoire stuff.
Actually, knowing me, I'd just play even more dizi in addition to playing more flute repertoire stuff. I'm masochistic that way, I suppose.
Not much to write here. Well, I started with the intention of writing a lot, but then I got distracted and the ennui is starting to set in again. It's like that, not a problem per se.
Till the next update. Perhaps.
The past 9 days were rather hectic, to say the least. There was a medium-scale performance (for us at least) with the orchestra in a musical item last Saturday, then a whole bunch of work-related document wrangling for the week up to Hari Raya Haji, then today's Di-capella Goes 50-50 event.
In short, I'm beat. Tired, but contented. Still one more bed of coals to go over for this month before we segue into October, where different types of hectic things will be coming in.
I think for now, I will put down my dizi and play some flute repertoire stuff.
Actually, knowing me, I'd just play even more dizi in addition to playing more flute repertoire stuff. I'm masochistic that way, I suppose.
Not much to write here. Well, I started with the intention of writing a lot, but then I got distracted and the ennui is starting to set in again. It's like that, not a problem per se.
Till the next update. Perhaps.
Saturday, September 12, 2015
September
It's a Saturday once again, and we are now nearing the midpoint of September.
There were at least two other occasions where I felt the urge to write an update of some kind, but didn't, as you can plainly see. It wasn't for a lack of updates -- there are plenty to talk about, really -- but that I was feeling a little under the weather.
You see, the haze is back. Not as vengeful as two years ago, but enough to cause an annoyance. I feel generally lethargic, with little to no incentive to actually get up and do anything physical. And that's why I just stay at home, but that is not anything particularly abnormal, to be had.
What's abnormal[ish] is that I haven't actually gamed in a while.
For some reason, I don't feel a strong need to muck around with the pretend worlds that the games provide. Not something as immersive as Skyrim/Minecraft, or something as abstract as DoomRL. Just didn't feel that urge... at all.
Perhaps it's because my attentions are currently occupied elsewhere, like the two upcoming SG50-related performances in this month. They have a way of diverting my attention from playing games to thinking about my handling of my dizi.
I think I spent most of the past month or so thinking really hard about things that I never really bothered before, things like proper intonation on my dizi and other woodwind instruments that I was messing around with (like the fife and piccolo), articulation (when to tongue each note and when to slur -- jianpu doesn't usually make a difference between ties and phrasing ties), and ornamentation (when vibrato is needed, when notes ought to be ``clean'', when leading notes should be applied). I think it is a sign that I'm starting to level-up again, having more or less stayed at a mild plateau of sorts. Stimulation has a way of really aiding in the rewiring of one's perspective on even the familiar, and I think that the exposure to a new group (Di-Capella) with new folks has given me the jolt necessary for me to do all these thinking.
In terms of music, I think I've reached the age where few will say that I'm a neophyte, even when I'm working on an instrument that isn't my main. Seeing and hearing how other folks (professionals and certified amateurs) handle their instruments provides a kind of external benchmark for me to determine how the outside world has evolved, and helped me determine just what I was missing in my own education of the process.
And yes, despite what folks may say about how I play, I know that I'm missing some stuff in the completeness of my skill set. I am sufficiently inspired to actually work on that, though I will still refuse to subject myself to the formal certification process -- I'm happy to be who I am with regards to music.
That said though, it is hard to want to learn more/express while still keeping a low profile. We'll see what I can do there...
------
Software architecting is a very interesting topic, and I find myself working increasingly in that regard instead of just bashing code to get things to work. I have found that over the years, as I work on more and more systems, I tend to write less and less actual code, even to the point that I'm not actually designing new algorithms from scratch the way I used to do maybe some fifteen years ago.
Software architects are the prototypal ``master programmers'' -- they provide the abstract framework of a system, defining the types of component partitioning discipline required to get a system going. There is a strong business aspect to it, as I am starting to learn, because the most efficacious architecture isn't necessarily the one that gets deployed simply because the business resources and decisions do not support it -- cost (time and money) are very important factors towards architecting that the hacker-class programmer will not care too much about.
In some sense, understanding the process behind good software architecting has made me moderate my hacker-sense into something that is more realistic -- I don't feel the kind of invincibility and immortality that I had back when I was fourteen and trouncing my seniors in competitive programming. It's a good thing, since sustainability (maintainability) is a very important aspect of system design that isn't really thought of much by the self-thought hacker-programmer.
Anyway, I think that's all I care to write for now. Here's something mildly related:
There were at least two other occasions where I felt the urge to write an update of some kind, but didn't, as you can plainly see. It wasn't for a lack of updates -- there are plenty to talk about, really -- but that I was feeling a little under the weather.
You see, the haze is back. Not as vengeful as two years ago, but enough to cause an annoyance. I feel generally lethargic, with little to no incentive to actually get up and do anything physical. And that's why I just stay at home, but that is not anything particularly abnormal, to be had.
What's abnormal[ish] is that I haven't actually gamed in a while.
For some reason, I don't feel a strong need to muck around with the pretend worlds that the games provide. Not something as immersive as Skyrim/Minecraft, or something as abstract as DoomRL. Just didn't feel that urge... at all.
Perhaps it's because my attentions are currently occupied elsewhere, like the two upcoming SG50-related performances in this month. They have a way of diverting my attention from playing games to thinking about my handling of my dizi.
I think I spent most of the past month or so thinking really hard about things that I never really bothered before, things like proper intonation on my dizi and other woodwind instruments that I was messing around with (like the fife and piccolo), articulation (when to tongue each note and when to slur -- jianpu doesn't usually make a difference between ties and phrasing ties), and ornamentation (when vibrato is needed, when notes ought to be ``clean'', when leading notes should be applied). I think it is a sign that I'm starting to level-up again, having more or less stayed at a mild plateau of sorts. Stimulation has a way of really aiding in the rewiring of one's perspective on even the familiar, and I think that the exposure to a new group (Di-Capella) with new folks has given me the jolt necessary for me to do all these thinking.
In terms of music, I think I've reached the age where few will say that I'm a neophyte, even when I'm working on an instrument that isn't my main. Seeing and hearing how other folks (professionals and certified amateurs) handle their instruments provides a kind of external benchmark for me to determine how the outside world has evolved, and helped me determine just what I was missing in my own education of the process.
And yes, despite what folks may say about how I play, I know that I'm missing some stuff in the completeness of my skill set. I am sufficiently inspired to actually work on that, though I will still refuse to subject myself to the formal certification process -- I'm happy to be who I am with regards to music.
That said though, it is hard to want to learn more/express while still keeping a low profile. We'll see what I can do there...
------
Software architecting is a very interesting topic, and I find myself working increasingly in that regard instead of just bashing code to get things to work. I have found that over the years, as I work on more and more systems, I tend to write less and less actual code, even to the point that I'm not actually designing new algorithms from scratch the way I used to do maybe some fifteen years ago.
Software architects are the prototypal ``master programmers'' -- they provide the abstract framework of a system, defining the types of component partitioning discipline required to get a system going. There is a strong business aspect to it, as I am starting to learn, because the most efficacious architecture isn't necessarily the one that gets deployed simply because the business resources and decisions do not support it -- cost (time and money) are very important factors towards architecting that the hacker-class programmer will not care too much about.
In some sense, understanding the process behind good software architecting has made me moderate my hacker-sense into something that is more realistic -- I don't feel the kind of invincibility and immortality that I had back when I was fourteen and trouncing my seniors in competitive programming. It's a good thing, since sustainability (maintainability) is a very important aspect of system design that isn't really thought of much by the self-thought hacker-programmer.
Anyway, I think that's all I care to write for now. Here's something mildly related:
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