- 7 poems posted here
- 35 essays/rants posted here
- 3 prose/stories posted here
- 1 NaNoWriMo winning entry available here
- 3 pieces of compositions/rearrangements posted here
That's an average of 0.134 pieces of writing a day, compared to 0.038 last year. Considering all that had happened to me, I would call this a rather dramatic increase. That natural progression that I talked about as life started to fall into a discernible pattern had been badly disrupted.
In stark contrast to 2019, after hitting the new high with what I can do on my 笛子 and concert flute, and the increased closeness that Chara and I had after she had rebased herself in Singapore, I found myself unable to perform with my instruments for most of the year, and my heart shattered into a thousand pieces when she broke up with me. If there was anything to blame, it would be that of the winds of change from COVID-19 that robbed almost everyone of their sense of normality, a little like the random restarts that one would perform on an optimisation problem after applying the Monte Carlo Markov Chain algorithm.
After about sixteen months of working at the medium enterprise, I have decided to call it quits to re-centre myself and to work through what is meaningful for me.
The emergent health issue that I had referred to at the start of 2020 had been resolved---thank God for that. And coincidentally, I became the trailblazer to assist in handling other emergent health issues in the family; the experience that I gained through my own ordeal served as a good source of information for the rest of my family who ended up taking turns with their own emergent health issues.
As I am writing this summary, I found my past self rather prescient. Here is the relevant chunk:
2020 is going to be a tough year. ... Apart from that, at a personal level, there are many other things that are happening that I do not necessarily have control over. I cannot even see past the March 2020 horizon for some reason---that is how myopic I feel at times.Only God knew that I would prophesy for myself like that.
And I suppose that is the one good thing that came out of the dumpster fire that was 2020, and that is I have found salvation by acknowledging that Jesus Christ is my personal saviour, and that the Bible is the inerrant word of God Himself. When everything changes, God Himself does not. Which brings me back to the last big thing that I was talking about in an earlier paragraph---I had quit my job. Everyone that had learnt about it expressed confusion, and they all asked the same question: why did I do so?
The answer is the same: it is time for me to go. Specifically, God has laid it upon my heart to know that it is time for me to leave this job. It was not a decision that was made in haste, nor was it made in anger. It was one that was conceived in faith, supported with hard rational evidence, and calculated to happen when it did with a little serendipity from the Lord. While there were obviously going to be systematic issues that contributed to ``pushing'' me out, there was also an overall sense that there was still a mission that I needed to do that could not be done where I was. There are some who think me as being foolhardy for leaving without having a job lined up, but I begged to differ---there was no point staying for the money if the heart was no longer into it. The things that I was doing at work felt increasingly meaningless, both in terms of my training/interest, and in terms of matching the actual vision/impact.
In short, I was not doing something that would glorify God. And it is a no-no. Let whoever reads what I had written here draw their own conclusions---it is a retrospective, not an argumentative essay meant to sway any views.
With the ending of that long relationship with Chara, I no longer feel comfortable with beginning another one---I don't know if this will change, and if it will, when it will change. My meaning of life prior to 2020 was to raise a family and live in bliss with my spouse; now that is over, and with it, the meaning is lost. Work never had any meaning more than just putting food on the table.
So what is next for me? I honestly do not know, and that's why I had to quit when I did. To take time off to re-think about things, to pray to God to show a path that He would want me to follow, so that I can follow it, achieving glory for God through the talents and opportunities that He has set me up for.
2021 will be a pivot point for my life. Years on, I would look back upon this year and either stroke my chin meaningfully, or slap my forehead in exasperation. I cannot see anything beyond the March 2021 horizon again, so I suppose there is something large that will be happening then. I don't know what it will be, but I know that God is there, and that my life is in His hands. He is my rock and anchor, and my faith is built upon that rock.
He will not deny me of the ultimate salvation, but He may still allow me to suffer if it is of His will to do so.
Amen.
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