Giving Thanks

I've just had my dinner, and am just sitting quietly in my room, looking out of the window with OpenStax College: Organisational Behaviour open next to me in SumatraPDF.

I spent the day watching some videos from Linus Tech Tips, a Youtube channel that I have heard of before, but have not really spent any measure of time looking into. Being on a sabbatical afforded me with the time to really pick up some of the videos randomly. The coverage on enterprise-level hardware was definitely very eye-opening, and I think I have learnt quite a few new things of hardware that I would not have easily known otherwise.

Of course, nothing beats studying some basic electronics engineering, and that is on my list of things to look into at some point. For now, the focus is on ``organisational behaviour'', or ``How to be a Manager 101''. I see it less of learning to be a manager and more of reminding myself what the literal textbook definition of a good manager is, as a type of rebellion against the multitude of dysfunctional management-types that I have the [mis-]fortune of having to deal with.

But the purpose of today's entry isn't about criticising what has happened. Today, I want to write about things to give thanks for.

I'm not a very expressive person---I have been told that I am ``very hardcore'', ``very intense'', ``very serious'', and other epithets that depict me more as some kind of unrelenting mechaniod faking to be a human. I don't know nor do I care too much about how true those are, but ah, I'm getting side tracked again. As I was saying, I'm not a very expressive person, and because of that, I am not one who would be ready to give thanks to the good things that happen to me.

I am, however, seemingly masochistically comfortable with acknowledging the bad that happen to me. No, I do not derive pleasure from bad things that happen to me---it's more of a situation where I am unsurprised when bad things happen to me, and not if.

Anyway, I digress once more. Giving thanks, right.

Among the deep muck that I find myself in (mentally), there are many other good things that I should be giving thanks for. Naturally, giving thanks to God is a must, but I don't think that's a big reason why anyone would continue to read this blog of mine. Among other things to give thanks for (remembering that the final attribution is always back to the Lord), are that I actually have the privilege to be in a position where I can actually be on a sabbatical in the middle of a pandemic which is happening in the middle of yet another somewhat catastrophic adjustment of the economy.

The truly poor will never have the means to ``take time to rethink things'' the way I am doing now. Remember that my nett income now is zero---I am literally not doing any paying jobs. I am still alive and somewhat angsty through the twin privilege of having jobs that paid me well enough that I could save up for rainy days (like this one), and leveraging upon the already paid-for living abode that my parents have.

That is why, despite not having a job now, I am not in a state of panic in looking for one and am relatively calm in allowing myself to actually take this sabbatical.

I am also thankful that despite all the health issues that I had/have, I still managed to get my undergraduate and Masters degree from internationally reputable universities. Maybe those degrees will prove to be less useful to me now with the heavy focus on hiring yes-men in Singapore companies, but at least it is a stamp of approval of a [superior] society that I am capable of hard work in a highly technical (yet very general) field that is computer science.

I am also thankful for the musical talents that I was given, together with the teachers and peers who have taught me many things that I needed to know to master music-making on my favoured instrument of the 笛子 and other flutes. I am also thankful for the various opportunities that I was provided to play with amazing people despite being an ungraded, and unlicensed amateur player.

I am thankful too for the companionship of those who had walked with me, either as friends, or as acquaintances. I know that not all of them will walk with me from when we first met till ``forever'', I am still thankful for the short time that we had together. To those who decided that our life paths were not well aligned to keep the friendship alive and thus move on, I am still thankful for choosing to spend their precious time with me during the times that we were still [close] friends. To those who somehow are still walking with me now, I am thankful for their steadfastness and loyalty.

Despite my frustrations at those who have questionable ethics, I am thankful that their actions made observable to me, so that I can, from their negative example, learn how not to be the person that I do not wish to be. And for those who are good role models in their specific contexts, I am thankful for them being there so that I can learn from their positive examples.

I am thankful, in general, for all who have taken up a teaching role in my life thus far, be it explicitly, or implicitly, and am thankful for the lessons that they have taught me, whether they realised it or not. In many ways, I cannot become who I am if not for all the people whom I have interacted with both directly and indirectly.

I am also thankful for all the lovely animals who had befriended me; in many ways, I think that they could sense my true nature better than anyone else can. Despite meeting them only very shortly, they have always extended a paw to me in welcome, even those whom their very owners knew not to be of the gregarious sort.

I think that's all I would like to write for today. It's time for yet another shower, and then probably more reading. Till the next update.