Life is both hard and weird.
Life, in a reductionist sense, is the accumulation of billions of years of chemical processes that manage to interact with each other in a way that allows a package to be created that contains them. Life can be as small as a single cell, to as large as a multi-cellular organism, or it can be extrapolated into the larger view of the ecosystem as a whole.
Life is not guaranteed. If we let life be defined as the set of sets of chemical processes that create a package that is in some ways self-propagating and capable of having a well-defined border of what is itself and the outside, then we find that there are many viable such sets of chemical processes, which explains the diversity of life as a whole. But as I said, life is not guaranteed---some form of life can arise eventually, but a specific instance of a specific life has an infinitesimal chance of appearing.
Why all the verbiage? It is the end of the year, and like always, I get a little more introspective and in some senses, retrospective as well. The contemplation of what I had done over the past ten years to get to where I am now has made me mull over what it means to be ``alive''. I used to believe that I would die at the end of twenty-one years old, and in many ways, I did die then. The cells that make up by current body are not likely to be the same cells some fourteen or so years ago, and the experiences that I had undergone since then have also changed the harder-to-pinpoint parts of me as well.
But to make it more to the point, the verbiage on life is the start of my beginning understanding of the world, in that each of the specific people that we meet in our lives are themselves specific forms of life that, short of a better word, underwent a miracle or two (or more) just to be where they are. And it is because of that type of infinitesimal existential probability of that specific person existing at this specific time and interacting rather specifically with me makes me start to appreciate people (as a whole) much more than I ever did.
I am not turning into a saint or a buddha by any degree, but at some fundamental level, I am starting to ``feel in my bones'' some of the truths that some of the sages have been trying to tell us over the ages, no matter their creed or belief. Existentially, there is no reason for any one of us to be here, not because of fatalism or nihilism, but because if we were to attempt to ascribe a reason for existence, we start running into the attribution problem of to whom this reason is meant for. That is an unanswerable question. It is more of the case that we are here, therefore we exist, and from there, we try to discover our own reason and meaning of existence for ourselves.
I used to have dreams. I liked codes, inventing, and thinking, and was drawn rather deeply into the whole sneaky aspect of espionage. I used to have a solid core of morals (I still do, but things were more black and white to me then, as compared to now), and I used to be someone who was willing to sacrifice myself for the sake of the society.
Then somewhere in between, reality hit me hard and I started to lose those vagueish qualitative dreams. I went with the flow, riding out the probability waves as best as I could, each time trying to position myself in ways that would minimise the type of damage that could be inflicted upon myself. I was never truly ambitious, but I was definitely competitive. If I could see a reason as to why I needed to be competitive, I would go in whole heartedly.
Today, I look back at myself and am a little concerned. I don't have much dreams any more.
It is not that I do not have any dreams---that would be a patent lie---but I do not have those ``big'' dreams any more. Come to think of it, I never really had ``big'' dreams ever, just really small qualitative ones involving a state of being than being in a state. Wordplay aside, I mean that my dreams involved me positioning myself in life such that I would not suffer at the very least, and have a type of contentedness at the very most, where ``not suffer'' and ``have contentedness'' were the extent of my dreams, as opposed to the quantitative ones some folks might have (e.g. ``be married with children by thirty two'', ``reach my first million by thirty'', ``own my company by twenty-five'').
Each day was a blessing if I could wake up, move about, do paid honest work, hang out with people I like, partake in my hobbies, before finally going back to sleep. That's about it for me. It feels as though I have reached the peak of the modern day peasant.
I am bringing this up because I realised that over the past year, I had more overtly started to care more about the people around me. These people aren't necessarily friends nor family, they are just people I meet often when I walk about. I don't know who they are other than how they look and what they are doing when I see them, I don't know anything else about them. But I take the effort to at least acknowledge their existence, to assure them that yes, they had won the infinitesimal probability of existing as a life form, and that they are.
I think it is because of two things. The first is the positive influence of Chara, who does these things by a second-nature that is likely forever alien to me. The second is that I know how it feels to be treated like one does not exist. It is a nasty feeling; while it is often important that one knows how to self-substantiate one's existence before seeking external validation (i.e. ``love thyself before asking others to love thee''), sometimes one is just so angry at oneself that one does not readily see that one's existence is miraculous and should be cherished instead of wallowing down the path of eventual self-destruction. It is in those circumstances that having an external validation can make the difference between gritting one's teeth to soldier on out of the pit, or to go down the path of no return.
It isn't much, but we are all we have for each other. If we don't look out for the people around us, who will?
Life is already hard and weird enough, why do we want to make it even harder for ourselves then?
Saturday, December 28, 2019
Monday, December 23, 2019
Existential
Existential.
That's the general type of feeling I get at the end of the year.
In the past, I would often end up wallowing a little in the kind of self-pity thanks to the triple whammy of aging thrice---once through the end of the Gregorian year, once more through my birthday, and yet a third time through that of the Chinese lunar new year.
I don't self-pity any more. There is nothing to pity myself about---my bad skin has significantly become less bad over the years, my old issues of wanting to love and being loved are no longer an issue now, and my usual refrain about how friends often ended up being further apart is no longer that big a deal.
But ever so often, I still get bouts of what I might politely call an existential dread.
This year, it is heightened by a few things that can at best be called coincidental.
Work has gotten to the point where I vacillate between feeling in control of the situation and being completely overwhelmed. It's simultaneously bad and not that bad, and I really cannot decide which of the two states it is in. Regardless of how I feel, the proverbial show must still go on, and things need to be done and delivered, and so that is that; everything else is mostly an academic exercise of wielding and parrying off of power/authority with different types of power/authority.
My hobby time has gone a little weird---I feel a little weary from having been played for a chum every now and then, and the gradual realisation that if I want to go even farther, I may need to take a different tack on things.
My reading time has gotten even weirder still; having finally finished reading 《厚黑学》 recently, I had started on Little Women, which I am now regretting a little, because it has such strong emotive content that it is doing nothing towards resolving my innate existential confuddlement. It also did not help that I had finished the manga Battle Angel Alita, which itself is a type of existential exploration of what it means to seek meaning of oneself.
Vg vf ng gvzrf yvxr gurfr gung V rail gubfr jub unir n fgebat snvgu va gur oryvrs gung fbzrbar be fbzrguvat bs gerzraqbhf cbjre bhg bs gurve xra vf ybbxvat bhg sbe gurz. Juvyr gur rkcynangvba bs cbffvoyr pnhfr naq rssrpg pna or dhvgr uneq gb whfgvsl jvgubhg oryvrivat va gur fnzr nkvbzf, gung gurfr crbcyr pna frrx fgeratgu sebz n fbhepr gung vf fvzhygnarbhfyl sebz jvgubhg naq sebz jvguva vf n fvtug gb orubyq, rfcrpvnyyl jura gur bhgpbzrf ner, sbe ynpx bs n orggre grez, zvenphybhf. Va znal jnlf, jurgure be abg fbzrguvat unf qverpg pnhfr naq rssrpg vf vzzngrevny gb gurz; gurve fgebat oryvrs unf perngrq gur ernyvgl gung gurl jrer ybbxvat sbe. Nz V raivbhf bs gurz? N yvggyr, ohg vg vf gur xvaq bs ``yrnc bs snvgu'' gung bar zhfg xabj ``va bar'f obarf'' orsber vg znxrf nal frafr.
Existential.
It all goes back to that word. This year had been quite awkward, and I am not quite sure what to expect for the year to come. But one can always hope, and perhaps as the days of 2020 make their way known, the existential dread that I feel will ebb away temporarily, only to make itself known once more nearer the end of the next year.
That's the general type of feeling I get at the end of the year.
In the past, I would often end up wallowing a little in the kind of self-pity thanks to the triple whammy of aging thrice---once through the end of the Gregorian year, once more through my birthday, and yet a third time through that of the Chinese lunar new year.
I don't self-pity any more. There is nothing to pity myself about---my bad skin has significantly become less bad over the years, my old issues of wanting to love and being loved are no longer an issue now, and my usual refrain about how friends often ended up being further apart is no longer that big a deal.
But ever so often, I still get bouts of what I might politely call an existential dread.
This year, it is heightened by a few things that can at best be called coincidental.
Work has gotten to the point where I vacillate between feeling in control of the situation and being completely overwhelmed. It's simultaneously bad and not that bad, and I really cannot decide which of the two states it is in. Regardless of how I feel, the proverbial show must still go on, and things need to be done and delivered, and so that is that; everything else is mostly an academic exercise of wielding and parrying off of power/authority with different types of power/authority.
My hobby time has gone a little weird---I feel a little weary from having been played for a chum every now and then, and the gradual realisation that if I want to go even farther, I may need to take a different tack on things.
My reading time has gotten even weirder still; having finally finished reading 《厚黑学》 recently, I had started on Little Women, which I am now regretting a little, because it has such strong emotive content that it is doing nothing towards resolving my innate existential confuddlement. It also did not help that I had finished the manga Battle Angel Alita, which itself is a type of existential exploration of what it means to seek meaning of oneself.
Vg vf ng gvzrf yvxr gurfr gung V rail gubfr jub unir n fgebat snvgu va gur oryvrs gung fbzrbar be fbzrguvat bs gerzraqbhf cbjre bhg bs gurve xra vf ybbxvat bhg sbe gurz. Juvyr gur rkcynangvba bs cbffvoyr pnhfr naq rssrpg pna or dhvgr uneq gb whfgvsl jvgubhg oryvrivat va gur fnzr nkvbzf, gung gurfr crbcyr pna frrx fgeratgu sebz n fbhepr gung vf fvzhygnarbhfyl sebz jvgubhg naq sebz jvguva vf n fvtug gb orubyq, rfcrpvnyyl jura gur bhgpbzrf ner, sbe ynpx bs n orggre grez, zvenphybhf. Va znal jnlf, jurgure be abg fbzrguvat unf qverpg pnhfr naq rssrpg vf vzzngrevny gb gurz; gurve fgebat oryvrs unf perngrq gur ernyvgl gung gurl jrer ybbxvat sbe. Nz V raivbhf bs gurz? N yvggyr, ohg vg vf gur xvaq bs ``yrnc bs snvgu'' gung bar zhfg xabj ``va bar'f obarf'' orsber vg znxrf nal frafr.
Existential.
It all goes back to that word. This year had been quite awkward, and I am not quite sure what to expect for the year to come. But one can always hope, and perhaps as the days of 2020 make their way known, the existential dread that I feel will ebb away temporarily, only to make itself known once more nearer the end of the next year.
Saturday, December 07, 2019
Marching Onwards...
Heh. I didn't write for most of the year, and suddenly as the year draws to a close, you see me have entries in here.
Naturally, life is getting more exciting. Not necessarily good of course---I'm pretty sure that I had mentioned more than once in this blog that when things go smooth, there is almost no reason to be writing blog entries.
So clearly, things aren't going smooth. But how badly are they going then?
------
It's funny how often the phrase ``be careful what you wish for'' gets thrown about. To those who never really understood what this truly meant, better to learn it soon. To those who know what this truly meant, you will know what I mean. In my previous organisation, the management issues were to the point where us engineers were basically sitting around waiting for things to be assigned so that we can do them---the projects were drying up because of management issues, and that our time was fast being co-opted towards fulfilling more and more useless management ``memos'' and ``reports'' for unknown reasons. I was essentially paid to sit around and do things that had little to do with what my skills were, and I was getting antsy.
Obviously the thing I wanted the most was to get my hands dirty to actually like make something.
And I got my wish. More than my wish, actually. So I'm now working around 72 hours a week on a 45-hour week pay, losing sleep, hair, and my sanity. I don't think my brain is getting enough down time to regenerate, and it is not a fun thought, because it means that over time, I would get sloppier, and productivity would take a hit. To be fair, it is exercising the ``making'' part of me, but more of the ``run till you fall, then continue to crawl'' sort than the ``think about things and come up with something innovative and impactful'' sort.
But as they say, it is in times of trials and tribulations that one builds character and learns of who one's friends are. So I'm taking it all in stride. It's not a complaint, just an observation and a note here that when I look back from the future, I would be able to decide if I should be laughing at my naivity, or to nod at the sagacity of past me.
My friends around me aren't having that great a time too---they have their own trials to grit through. 2019 hasn't exactly been a great year for many of us, but that's just how things go I suppose.
Whelp. Enough of belly-aching. Time to grit on.
Till the next update.
Naturally, life is getting more exciting. Not necessarily good of course---I'm pretty sure that I had mentioned more than once in this blog that when things go smooth, there is almost no reason to be writing blog entries.
So clearly, things aren't going smooth. But how badly are they going then?
------
It's funny how often the phrase ``be careful what you wish for'' gets thrown about. To those who never really understood what this truly meant, better to learn it soon. To those who know what this truly meant, you will know what I mean. In my previous organisation, the management issues were to the point where us engineers were basically sitting around waiting for things to be assigned so that we can do them---the projects were drying up because of management issues, and that our time was fast being co-opted towards fulfilling more and more useless management ``memos'' and ``reports'' for unknown reasons. I was essentially paid to sit around and do things that had little to do with what my skills were, and I was getting antsy.
Obviously the thing I wanted the most was to get my hands dirty to actually like make something.
And I got my wish. More than my wish, actually. So I'm now working around 72 hours a week on a 45-hour week pay, losing sleep, hair, and my sanity. I don't think my brain is getting enough down time to regenerate, and it is not a fun thought, because it means that over time, I would get sloppier, and productivity would take a hit. To be fair, it is exercising the ``making'' part of me, but more of the ``run till you fall, then continue to crawl'' sort than the ``think about things and come up with something innovative and impactful'' sort.
But as they say, it is in times of trials and tribulations that one builds character and learns of who one's friends are. So I'm taking it all in stride. It's not a complaint, just an observation and a note here that when I look back from the future, I would be able to decide if I should be laughing at my naivity, or to nod at the sagacity of past me.
My friends around me aren't having that great a time too---they have their own trials to grit through. 2019 hasn't exactly been a great year for many of us, but that's just how things go I suppose.
Whelp. Enough of belly-aching. Time to grit on.
Till the next update.
Saturday, November 23, 2019
NaNoWriMo 2019 & Concert Aftermath
This year's NaNoWriMo is finally done, and even then, it feels like a bust.
I originally had the idea of having several (haha) storylines of characters interacting with each other, but ended up with what I wrote because of two big reasons:
I am not really super pleased with the result, but a win is a win, and I will take it. This is probably the slowest and most boring NaNoWriMo that I have done in all my eleven years for the following reasons:
But enough of NaNoWriMo for now -- let's hope next year is better.
------
The concert last Saturday was a smashing success, given all the weirdness that we had found ourselves in from an administrative and logistics perspective. Ding, GY + father, and YT came down to support, and from the various feedback from both they and other friends of friends, the overall sound effect from the Chinese Orchestra was well received. It was the first time we were bringing in some heavy bass line support from brasswind friends with trombone, bass trombone, and saxophone, boosting our usually bass-poor section.
No need to talk about bringing in the alto and bass flutes because that was something that I had been doing forever anyway; but that said, it was a good thing that Chara and her friends came by to help. It made the sound all that much richer, and when coupled with the rearrangements of slightly more modern folk/pop music, gave a very lovely mixture that would be hard to beat with a more traditional line up.
Next year is an exciting year for the Chinese Orchestra -- we would be preparing for our 30th anniversary concert. Planning should begin now, and the brasswind folks have said that they were happy to come back and play with us for this one, provided we gave them enough time to work on the scores. That part was a little messy this time round, because I could not directly support due to all the other things I have been working on, both for and not for the concert -- much of the transposition work was undertaken by Chara, who was also undergoing lots of stress at work herself. I am appreciative of her help, and acknowledge that if she had not helped take care of this aspect, I think the concert would not go as well as it did, and the brasswind friends would probably have a less fun experience than they had this time round.
Okay, enough of writing. I am so sick of writing now, especially having just completed this year's 'orrific installment NaNoWriMo. Till the next update then!
I originally had the idea of having several (haha) storylines of characters interacting with each other, but ended up with what I wrote because of two big reasons:
- That required sufficient planning and time;
- I didn't have enough planning and time due to project from work and preparing for the concert.
I am not really super pleased with the result, but a win is a win, and I will take it. This is probably the slowest and most boring NaNoWriMo that I have done in all my eleven years for the following reasons:
- The new web site is atrociously designed -- it was appealing to the ``modern'' aesthetic of quirky in the moment conversations as compared to the thread-based forums of old;
- Write-ins were minimal because of scheduling issues, and even if they were held, I'd have to miss most of them due to my Saturdays being burnt from all the other different things I have going this month;
- All my writing buddies from the old days are basically non-existent due to incomplete data migration from the web site, removing one source of inspiration to write more and write harder;
- There is no official word count validator this year due to oversight in the redesign process of the web site(!)
But enough of NaNoWriMo for now -- let's hope next year is better.
------
The concert last Saturday was a smashing success, given all the weirdness that we had found ourselves in from an administrative and logistics perspective. Ding, GY + father, and YT came down to support, and from the various feedback from both they and other friends of friends, the overall sound effect from the Chinese Orchestra was well received. It was the first time we were bringing in some heavy bass line support from brasswind friends with trombone, bass trombone, and saxophone, boosting our usually bass-poor section.
No need to talk about bringing in the alto and bass flutes because that was something that I had been doing forever anyway; but that said, it was a good thing that Chara and her friends came by to help. It made the sound all that much richer, and when coupled with the rearrangements of slightly more modern folk/pop music, gave a very lovely mixture that would be hard to beat with a more traditional line up.
Next year is an exciting year for the Chinese Orchestra -- we would be preparing for our 30th anniversary concert. Planning should begin now, and the brasswind folks have said that they were happy to come back and play with us for this one, provided we gave them enough time to work on the scores. That part was a little messy this time round, because I could not directly support due to all the other things I have been working on, both for and not for the concert -- much of the transposition work was undertaken by Chara, who was also undergoing lots of stress at work herself. I am appreciative of her help, and acknowledge that if she had not helped take care of this aspect, I think the concert would not go as well as it did, and the brasswind friends would probably have a less fun experience than they had this time round.
Okay, enough of writing. I am so sick of writing now, especially having just completed this year's 'orrific installment NaNoWriMo. Till the next update then!
Monday, October 28, 2019
TGCO Performance 2019!
This year's NaNoWriMo promises to be a drama-fest, and that's not because of what I am intending to write.
The web site itself, the lifeblood for the whole NaNoWriMo movement, underwent a series of rather drastic changes for whatever reason that I cannot immediately comprehend. The interface is much slower than before, and is very clunky, with an extremely steep learning curve. It tries to be more social media-esque, but did not migrate the associated ``writing buddies'' data from the old system, leaving one's profile completely devoid of any connection with anyone whatsoever.
I honestly don't know what they were thinking.
Web site weirdness aside, this period of this year, I am stuck in the middle of two other major events that will suck out the life of me. One's work related, and the other is related to my hobby. That which is work related, we will not talk about it. That which is hobby related, I will mention it.
For those old friends who are still reading my blogs, it's that time again where I am performing with my Chinese Orchestra from Teck Ghee Community Club. We are performing on Nov 16 this year, from 1930hrs to 2100hrs, at the newly reopened and renovated Teck Ghee Community Club hall.
The OnePA web site has an entry for our performance, including ticket price.
It's a different type of concert for various reasons, but the most obvious one is that it features some low brass and low woodwinds of the western concert band tradition for some our pieces, thanks to a few of our friends who were interested in playing something different. While we aren't really fielding super massive pieces that night, we hope that the selection we have provides a more cosy and community feel, a sort of ``welcome home'' vibe as we inaugurate our return to the community club's building after those two years of renovations.
------
Colds have a way of knocking me off my feet that defies common explanation. While the nasal blockage/discharge cycle is something that I can get used to, the feverish and somewhat delirious state is something that I can never work with, almost literally. It makes the mind foggy and very lethargic, limiting the storage capacity to the point that after reading through one part of a system, I would find myself forgetting it almost immediately. Then there's that dull throbbing headache that permeates through---unshakeable except perhaps with a few extra hours of solid sleep that is not drug-induced.
Nasty nasty stuff.
I know it's a cold and not the flu mostly because I did not go completely delirious with an unstoppable fever. Nevertheless, it sucked a good deal out of me, and during this rather trying period, it becomes even more important that I keep my health in a good state.
Too many people are relying critically on me. I cannot afford to fall right now.
But already I think I've said too much. Till the next update then.
The web site itself, the lifeblood for the whole NaNoWriMo movement, underwent a series of rather drastic changes for whatever reason that I cannot immediately comprehend. The interface is much slower than before, and is very clunky, with an extremely steep learning curve. It tries to be more social media-esque, but did not migrate the associated ``writing buddies'' data from the old system, leaving one's profile completely devoid of any connection with anyone whatsoever.
I honestly don't know what they were thinking.
Web site weirdness aside, this period of this year, I am stuck in the middle of two other major events that will suck out the life of me. One's work related, and the other is related to my hobby. That which is work related, we will not talk about it. That which is hobby related, I will mention it.
For those old friends who are still reading my blogs, it's that time again where I am performing with my Chinese Orchestra from Teck Ghee Community Club. We are performing on Nov 16 this year, from 1930hrs to 2100hrs, at the newly reopened and renovated Teck Ghee Community Club hall.
The OnePA web site has an entry for our performance, including ticket price.
It's a different type of concert for various reasons, but the most obvious one is that it features some low brass and low woodwinds of the western concert band tradition for some our pieces, thanks to a few of our friends who were interested in playing something different. While we aren't really fielding super massive pieces that night, we hope that the selection we have provides a more cosy and community feel, a sort of ``welcome home'' vibe as we inaugurate our return to the community club's building after those two years of renovations.
------
Colds have a way of knocking me off my feet that defies common explanation. While the nasal blockage/discharge cycle is something that I can get used to, the feverish and somewhat delirious state is something that I can never work with, almost literally. It makes the mind foggy and very lethargic, limiting the storage capacity to the point that after reading through one part of a system, I would find myself forgetting it almost immediately. Then there's that dull throbbing headache that permeates through---unshakeable except perhaps with a few extra hours of solid sleep that is not drug-induced.
Nasty nasty stuff.
I know it's a cold and not the flu mostly because I did not go completely delirious with an unstoppable fever. Nevertheless, it sucked a good deal out of me, and during this rather trying period, it becomes even more important that I keep my health in a good state.
Too many people are relying critically on me. I cannot afford to fall right now.
But already I think I've said too much. Till the next update then.
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Fun Employed
I'm working elsewhere now.
After two or so months of being funemployed, I am finally fun employed, though I am technically still within the period of my probation. Unless something utterly catastrophic happens, I am likely to pass my probation and be a permanent addition to the company.
I look back upon the path that got me to where I am, and I am amazed at the number of happy coincidences that have occurred just so that I am here where I am. Happy coincidences---that's the phrase I have chosen to describe what I had observed. I am sure that had things turned out differently, I would say the same about the path that had taken me there---after all, when one's expectations are generalised to maximise an overall mean metric, the number of states that fall in the ``good'' outcome category is significantly larger than having a very specific expectation.
I could have gone elsewhere should I choose to pursue it, but I have chosen not to. Many might think me mad for not choosing the ``obviously'' better route that guarantees a larger compensation package. But a fat pay cheque is not my primary objective after all. Inasmuch as I had said many times in the past that I was basically a loner, the reality of it all is that I still crave company among my people. Going elsewhere would make me a transplant, a leaf in the wind with no roots, a culture mendicant who is forced to re-enculturate oneself with the new place, losing a substantial amount of one's cultural character all in the name of assimilation.
I don't think I can do that. I have inadvertently sunk my roots deep without my realising. That which I derive the most pleasure and happiness from are the things that I cannot find elsewhere.
Maybe this closes some doors. That's fine---I'm past the age where I expect a boundless future. I'm old enough that next year the government has to acknowledge that I am an old geezer who ought to qualify on his own merits a subsidy and a chance at bidding for his own tiny apartment without necessarily having to find a spouse. But even with an infinite number of doors, the length of my personal path and choices have always been finite; so with the closing of some doors, maybe it isn't that bad after all.
------
In different news, I'm finally fed up enough with having to lug 90kg of ass around to want to do something about it. Considering that my physical ``training'' is basically nil at this point, it seems the right time to use a strong caloric deficit to drag that 90kg down to something more in tune with an ``acceptable'' mass of sub-65kg (using a value of <23 kg/m² as the guide), with a waist measurement of sub-35in (<90cm). The manner I am pulling this off is to run off only one meal a day, currently chosen to be dinner, and chug water at a rate of no more than 1 litre/hr. The last time I tried this was a failure because the calorie deficit was too steep for my body to keep up---I was doing aikijujutsu twice a week, which burnt a lot more energy than my sedentary lifestyle now. It ended me blacking out in the middle of training.
To prevent death through steady loss of essential micronutrients through such a poor diet schema, I am also taking a multivitamin daily.
So far, so good. But we'll really see the effects of such change in a few months' time. After all, it took me thirty over years to become a 90kg lardass.
Till the next update then.
After two or so months of being funemployed, I am finally fun employed, though I am technically still within the period of my probation. Unless something utterly catastrophic happens, I am likely to pass my probation and be a permanent addition to the company.
I look back upon the path that got me to where I am, and I am amazed at the number of happy coincidences that have occurred just so that I am here where I am. Happy coincidences---that's the phrase I have chosen to describe what I had observed. I am sure that had things turned out differently, I would say the same about the path that had taken me there---after all, when one's expectations are generalised to maximise an overall mean metric, the number of states that fall in the ``good'' outcome category is significantly larger than having a very specific expectation.
I could have gone elsewhere should I choose to pursue it, but I have chosen not to. Many might think me mad for not choosing the ``obviously'' better route that guarantees a larger compensation package. But a fat pay cheque is not my primary objective after all. Inasmuch as I had said many times in the past that I was basically a loner, the reality of it all is that I still crave company among my people. Going elsewhere would make me a transplant, a leaf in the wind with no roots, a culture mendicant who is forced to re-enculturate oneself with the new place, losing a substantial amount of one's cultural character all in the name of assimilation.
I don't think I can do that. I have inadvertently sunk my roots deep without my realising. That which I derive the most pleasure and happiness from are the things that I cannot find elsewhere.
Maybe this closes some doors. That's fine---I'm past the age where I expect a boundless future. I'm old enough that next year the government has to acknowledge that I am an old geezer who ought to qualify on his own merits a subsidy and a chance at bidding for his own tiny apartment without necessarily having to find a spouse. But even with an infinite number of doors, the length of my personal path and choices have always been finite; so with the closing of some doors, maybe it isn't that bad after all.
------
In different news, I'm finally fed up enough with having to lug 90kg of ass around to want to do something about it. Considering that my physical ``training'' is basically nil at this point, it seems the right time to use a strong caloric deficit to drag that 90kg down to something more in tune with an ``acceptable'' mass of sub-65kg (using a value of <23 kg/m² as the guide), with a waist measurement of sub-35in (<90cm). The manner I am pulling this off is to run off only one meal a day, currently chosen to be dinner, and chug water at a rate of no more than 1 litre/hr. The last time I tried this was a failure because the calorie deficit was too steep for my body to keep up---I was doing aikijujutsu twice a week, which burnt a lot more energy than my sedentary lifestyle now. It ended me blacking out in the middle of training.
To prevent death through steady loss of essential micronutrients through such a poor diet schema, I am also taking a multivitamin daily.
So far, so good. But we'll really see the effects of such change in a few months' time. After all, it took me thirty over years to become a 90kg lardass.
Till the next update then.
Sunday, May 19, 2019
I Quit My Job
It has been quite a while since I last wrote anything here. But this refrain has been rather clichéd of late.
After nearly 14 years of association with I2R, I have finally resigned, and am serving out my month of notice of termination with them till the beginning of June.
It is a bittersweet moment. Much of my early adult working life was spent with the Institute, and the people I met there were smart and very technology oriented, the kind of things that I was very interested in (I still am). But things have progressed to the point where it was no longer tenable to be working there. My bond being done at least eighteen months ago meant that if there was ever a good time to leave, it was now.
I leave behind whatever is left of a team that I had spent a productive six or so years with. I made new friends among peers who were much closer to my age group than the last few times I was at the Institute. We bonded over an increasingly difficult environment that did not seem like it was going to get better any time soon.
I am not intending to write all that I want to say about the whole situation here---if you can meet me in meat space and want to talk about it, I would be happy to discuss it with you. Probably. HR already had a stab at it with me, and I gave the poor HR representative a whole bag of stories that will likely to be filed away under the ``delinquent employee---do not bother'' pile.
The main purpose of this post is to mark another milestone in my life.
Some of the people who know about this have asked the same question: ``Where are you headed next?'' My answer to them is a single ``nowhere''. I think I need a little break from it all so as to rethink and recalibrate my perspectives, especially since I am no longer contract bound to continue working or pay a hefty penalty. Part of the time off is to seriously think about where I am heading, ``career''-wise. In this time and age of pervasive slicing and dicing as practised by HR management, the ``career'' as a coherent track of work skill/ability development is no longer in vogue; the coherence is deconstructed to work with what is effectively a so-called gig-based economy where individuals whore out their individual abilities for paltry pay as companies claim yet another successful way of saving training costs while still maintaining their base line.
I have a few side projects that need completing. Despite talking about it potentially being done more than a year and a half ago, this time I am actually much closer to completion, prose-wise with respect to content. What is left is the sourcing and creating of necessary diagrams, illustrations, and photographs to fill in the existing placeholders. I have a concert coming up with my Chinese orchestra in November, and will need to practise a little more on refining my solo. I also have new impetus to improve upon my concert flute playing skills, and have a couple of pieces that I need to finally complete the writing of.
Oh, and I need to finally sort out my belongings in preparation for the inevitable move to a new place once we have figured out where and what exactly we are going to live in.
And I think that is roughly it for this update. Till the next time I suppose.
After nearly 14 years of association with I2R, I have finally resigned, and am serving out my month of notice of termination with them till the beginning of June.
It is a bittersweet moment. Much of my early adult working life was spent with the Institute, and the people I met there were smart and very technology oriented, the kind of things that I was very interested in (I still am). But things have progressed to the point where it was no longer tenable to be working there. My bond being done at least eighteen months ago meant that if there was ever a good time to leave, it was now.
I leave behind whatever is left of a team that I had spent a productive six or so years with. I made new friends among peers who were much closer to my age group than the last few times I was at the Institute. We bonded over an increasingly difficult environment that did not seem like it was going to get better any time soon.
I am not intending to write all that I want to say about the whole situation here---if you can meet me in meat space and want to talk about it, I would be happy to discuss it with you. Probably. HR already had a stab at it with me, and I gave the poor HR representative a whole bag of stories that will likely to be filed away under the ``delinquent employee---do not bother'' pile.
The main purpose of this post is to mark another milestone in my life.
Some of the people who know about this have asked the same question: ``Where are you headed next?'' My answer to them is a single ``nowhere''. I think I need a little break from it all so as to rethink and recalibrate my perspectives, especially since I am no longer contract bound to continue working or pay a hefty penalty. Part of the time off is to seriously think about where I am heading, ``career''-wise. In this time and age of pervasive slicing and dicing as practised by HR management, the ``career'' as a coherent track of work skill/ability development is no longer in vogue; the coherence is deconstructed to work with what is effectively a so-called gig-based economy where individuals whore out their individual abilities for paltry pay as companies claim yet another successful way of saving training costs while still maintaining their base line.
I have a few side projects that need completing. Despite talking about it potentially being done more than a year and a half ago, this time I am actually much closer to completion, prose-wise with respect to content. What is left is the sourcing and creating of necessary diagrams, illustrations, and photographs to fill in the existing placeholders. I have a concert coming up with my Chinese orchestra in November, and will need to practise a little more on refining my solo. I also have new impetus to improve upon my concert flute playing skills, and have a couple of pieces that I need to finally complete the writing of.
Oh, and I need to finally sort out my belongings in preparation for the inevitable move to a new place once we have figured out where and what exactly we are going to live in.
And I think that is roughly it for this update. Till the next time I suppose.
Monday, January 14, 2019
Quick Summary
So, a quick summary of what I had written in 2018:
That's an average of 0.033 pieces of writing a day, compared to 0.044 last year. It's horrifically low, but it is, as I mentioned before, a natural progression as life starts to fall into a discernible pattern.
2018 was more of an amplified version of 2017 in many ways. But among it came a few bright rays of sunshine that made the year a bearable one. I think that I have levelled up on my concert flute playing at a much greater rate than before, and that my general 笛子 playing skills have also improved quite a bit from the cross-training that came about from playing on the concert flute. I spent less time working on writing new music, mostly because the situation at my Chinese Orchestra isn't as dire as before due to having a ``full-time'' conductor being present, but used that time that was released to understand more on musical acoustics of instruments, particularly of the flute/笛子 family.
This post is likely to be the latest quick summary type post that I have put up, and I feel a little bad. The truth here really is that it is no longer as fun to write on Blogger than before, with the mostly unalterable width of the text area of the post body itself, and the massive number of hoops to leap through just to write something on it. My meat-space diary has seen more action than here, and I have little doubts that it will continue to be the case in time to come.
2019 is a year that is likely to see big changes in my life, so here's to dealing with it all and emerging at the end of it a more improved version of myself.
This blog is by no means an abandoned one!
Edit: True to form, when I hit ``publish'', Blogger fucked up the paragraphing of this post, thus necessitating an edit to unfuck it. Good grief!
- 1 poem posted here
- 6 essays/rants posted here
- 0 prose/stories posted here
- 1 NaNoWriMo winning entry available here
- 4 pieces of compositions/rearrangements posted here
That's an average of 0.033 pieces of writing a day, compared to 0.044 last year. It's horrifically low, but it is, as I mentioned before, a natural progression as life starts to fall into a discernible pattern.
2018 was more of an amplified version of 2017 in many ways. But among it came a few bright rays of sunshine that made the year a bearable one. I think that I have levelled up on my concert flute playing at a much greater rate than before, and that my general 笛子 playing skills have also improved quite a bit from the cross-training that came about from playing on the concert flute. I spent less time working on writing new music, mostly because the situation at my Chinese Orchestra isn't as dire as before due to having a ``full-time'' conductor being present, but used that time that was released to understand more on musical acoustics of instruments, particularly of the flute/笛子 family.
This post is likely to be the latest quick summary type post that I have put up, and I feel a little bad. The truth here really is that it is no longer as fun to write on Blogger than before, with the mostly unalterable width of the text area of the post body itself, and the massive number of hoops to leap through just to write something on it. My meat-space diary has seen more action than here, and I have little doubts that it will continue to be the case in time to come.
2019 is a year that is likely to see big changes in my life, so here's to dealing with it all and emerging at the end of it a more improved version of myself.
This blog is by no means an abandoned one!
Edit: True to form, when I hit ``publish'', Blogger fucked up the paragraphing of this post, thus necessitating an edit to unfuck it. Good grief!
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