So ends yet another Monday.
My left shoulder is busted up... again. I suspect it's a mix of sleeping badly, and possibly twisting it one too many times when moving my [heavy] backpack between the front and back carrying orientations. I can lift my arm normally, but trying to reach my back is where the pain kicks in and causes me grief.
Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day [for this busted up arm].
------
Yesterday was the second time that I was playing Aurelia at PPCC as part of the music ministry during the worship service. It was still a pleasant experience. I am starting to get used to the hymnal repertoire. Part of the difficulty that I was facing was that the lead sheets were often written with STAB-chorale in mind, which meant that the soprano and alto parts, though still in the treble clef, tended to cluster near the lower ledger lines.
For a flautist, that's quite an unnatural thing to look at, considering that we were more used to staring at stuff on the upper ledger lines. I obviously cannot play all those low notes (only the clarinettists can pull that off), but instead just played it an octave higher. So many of the cock-ups from me came about when I misread a low B as something else.
Generally though, it was easy to avoid the cock-ups by practising enough, pencilling notes at the problematic areas, and actually paying attention when playing.
Slowly I will be part of the regular crew playing the worship music. But we'll let time take care of that.
------
I recently bought quite a few items from both Amazon Singapore and regular Amazon. It matters little in terms of what I ordered, but it does bother me a little in terms of how they got delivered.
The long story short is that the Ninja Van lived up to its name of being a ninja---delivering the packagess at the door step, before disappearing almost immediately the way a ninja supposedly operates. It's not bad per se, but it's still a little annoying that they don't at least ring the bell to indicate that they had stopped by.
------
And that's about it for now. I'm dead tired---the wave of psychic damage hasn't quite completed yet. Till the next update.
Monday, May 29, 2023
Wednesday, May 24, 2023
Empathy is in Short Supply---Psychopaths Abound
So I just finished reading How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber, & Elaine Mazlish. And a thought came to me.
If such techniques of acknowledging the feelings of a child can help them not ``act out'', why can't these techniques be applicable to the adult in the real world? After all, we do have many adults who ``act out'' in various [often times destructive] ways when their feelings are somehow wounded/unacknowledged.
Then I realised that most people, once they get beyond a certain group size, will tend to prefer treating everyone else in a transactional manner as opposed to a relational one. And that comes about because of a side effect of the preferred manner of thinking---keeping things transactional as opposed to relational short circuits the types of thinking that needs to be done to achieve the same [short-term] results.
After all, that is the very definition of transactional---our relationship is only as good as it needs to get whatever [short-term] results we require, your feelings be damned; after all, feelings are irrational, and therefore unscientific (i.e. 不科ĺ¦), and thus have no place in any of the calculus involved.
Transactional relationships make extremely large groups of people function in a manner that is more efficient (in terms of getting results) than one that is more relational in nature. Each time one adds another person to the group that currently has N members, there is an increase of N − 1 interactions to take note of---this means that the number of interactions to worry about in a relational manner of treating people requires the ability to reason about O(N2) interactions.
Compare this to the transactional one, where it is strictly linear in the number of transactions to be performed.
This is perhaps a type of uncodified natural law that can explain why there exists a life cycle of sorts for the formation of groups: they start off with aggregation of the like-minded, and then when they hit some critical size, end up splitting up into smaller groups due to schisms, after which the aggregative phase begins anew for each of the smaller groups.
This critical size is probably really small, as my arm-chair first-principles type analysis suggests, but it gets artificially amplified when the soapbox of social media comes into play, leading to people who happily(?) mouth and ape all that they heard, without necessarily stopping to think about the consequences those things they said might do with the relationships with other people.
Think ``cancel culture''. Think of the rise in extremism from both the left and right. Think of unmitigated political correctness that is basically sycophancy.
That's about what I have. Sorry if it is incoherent. Till the next update then.
If such techniques of acknowledging the feelings of a child can help them not ``act out'', why can't these techniques be applicable to the adult in the real world? After all, we do have many adults who ``act out'' in various [often times destructive] ways when their feelings are somehow wounded/unacknowledged.
Then I realised that most people, once they get beyond a certain group size, will tend to prefer treating everyone else in a transactional manner as opposed to a relational one. And that comes about because of a side effect of the preferred manner of thinking---keeping things transactional as opposed to relational short circuits the types of thinking that needs to be done to achieve the same [short-term] results.
After all, that is the very definition of transactional---our relationship is only as good as it needs to get whatever [short-term] results we require, your feelings be damned; after all, feelings are irrational, and therefore unscientific (i.e. 不科ĺ¦), and thus have no place in any of the calculus involved.
Transactional relationships make extremely large groups of people function in a manner that is more efficient (in terms of getting results) than one that is more relational in nature. Each time one adds another person to the group that currently has N members, there is an increase of N − 1 interactions to take note of---this means that the number of interactions to worry about in a relational manner of treating people requires the ability to reason about O(N2) interactions.
Compare this to the transactional one, where it is strictly linear in the number of transactions to be performed.
This is perhaps a type of uncodified natural law that can explain why there exists a life cycle of sorts for the formation of groups: they start off with aggregation of the like-minded, and then when they hit some critical size, end up splitting up into smaller groups due to schisms, after which the aggregative phase begins anew for each of the smaller groups.
This critical size is probably really small, as my arm-chair first-principles type analysis suggests, but it gets artificially amplified when the soapbox of social media comes into play, leading to people who happily(?) mouth and ape all that they heard, without necessarily stopping to think about the consequences those things they said might do with the relationships with other people.
Think ``cancel culture''. Think of the rise in extremism from both the left and right. Think of unmitigated political correctness that is basically sycophancy.
That's about what I have. Sorry if it is incoherent. Till the next update then.
Saturday, May 20, 2023
Psychic Damage
Caveat: This was not written near when this was posted.
This week was rough. Too many ``psychic damage'' that came in, and it overwhelmed me a little---not enough to put me out of commission, but enough to numb me hard.
I would love to write about all the stuff that happened, but the unfortunate thing is that they all involve people other than just me.
In all the circumstances, I act as the sponge, listening to what has happened, nodding my head in solidarity and understanding, and then feeling the pain/sorrow that transpired.
And now, I need a way to wick it all away. I can't keep bad juju like this internally.
And unfortunately for me, I don't have an escape valve for these things; the best that I can do is to have it slowly diffuse out over time as I process it internally.
------
In other news, I finally claimed a victory for Angel of Shotgunnery (AoSh) on Hard difficulty level for Jupiter Hell. The Jackhammer and the duramesh scout armour made a whole lot of difference, especially under the power of the old-reliable that is the Army of Darkness mastery.
I need to remember the following:
I don't think I've ever talked about Nova Drift, so here it is. It's a rogue-like Asteroids re-think, mostly through bringing in more active enemy waves, combined with a levelling system that allowed various ``mods'' to be applied to the player character to change behaviour.
I've always been a sucker for space-shooting games, and Nova Drift scratches the itch at the right places. I'm only wondering if they will introduce some kind of adaptation of the enemies the way Warning Forever does it for its boss rush gameplay.
That would be a whole new level of insane gameplay though.
And that's about it for now. Till the next update, even as I try to diffuse away the ``psychic damage'' that I took over the week.
This week was rough. Too many ``psychic damage'' that came in, and it overwhelmed me a little---not enough to put me out of commission, but enough to numb me hard.
I would love to write about all the stuff that happened, but the unfortunate thing is that they all involve people other than just me.
In all the circumstances, I act as the sponge, listening to what has happened, nodding my head in solidarity and understanding, and then feeling the pain/sorrow that transpired.
And now, I need a way to wick it all away. I can't keep bad juju like this internally.
And unfortunately for me, I don't have an escape valve for these things; the best that I can do is to have it slowly diffuse out over time as I process it internally.
------
In other news, I finally claimed a victory for Angel of Shotgunnery (AoSh) on Hard difficulty level for Jupiter Hell. The Jackhammer and the duramesh scout armour made a whole lot of difference, especially under the power of the old-reliable that is the Army of Darkness mastery.
I need to remember the following:
- Dodge + movement speed is king;
- The damage type order is pierce > plasma > impact, with slash only being good for unarmoured biological beings;
- Each transition point to the next ``episode'' location has new sub-bosses; and
- AoSh converts all ammo to 12Ga shells.
I don't think I've ever talked about Nova Drift, so here it is. It's a rogue-like Asteroids re-think, mostly through bringing in more active enemy waves, combined with a levelling system that allowed various ``mods'' to be applied to the player character to change behaviour.
I've always been a sucker for space-shooting games, and Nova Drift scratches the itch at the right places. I'm only wondering if they will introduce some kind of adaptation of the enemies the way Warning Forever does it for its boss rush gameplay.
That would be a whole new level of insane gameplay though.
And that's about it for now. Till the next update, even as I try to diffuse away the ``psychic damage'' that I took over the week.
Sunday, May 14, 2023
Hot AF
To say that the past few days were hot in SIN city is like saying that the Atlantic Ocean had some water.
It was too hot. It was so hot that, it created yet another new record.
I'm currently on leave for the weekend, one that started on Friday, and will extend into Monday. It was mostly for a sort of reset for me, pre-planned as part of the overall strategy of taking more frequent short-ish breaks due to the self-imposed moratorium of not travelling around the world.
So far, I'm more than half way through Suzuka, and have started on a bit of the Grim Fandango. ONE just dropped chapter 142 for the One-Punch Man original web-comic, but I think I will re-read that entire series as part of exercising Eirian-V.
I've also played a little more Jupiter Hell here and there. It's not a bad game, by any measure, but it seems to have lost a bit of the magic that was from the old DoomRL that I played a stupid amount of before. Perhaps it was the change in the community---a mass migration towards Reddit, Discord, and Steam ``forums'' over the original official ChaosForge forums.
I don't like the new Reddit/Discord/Steam ``forums''. Apart from having to create new accounts (not that big a deal, realistically), these platforms are not owned by ChaosForge, and therefore when they go, they are gone. The form factors of these new quasi-social media set ups are also terrible for actual discussions, which is one of the more practical factors that make me refuse to join them.
Oh, I had left the forums since the beginning of last year. It was depressing to be a custodian of what was basically a dead place where only the bots hung out. Chaosforge is no longer the one-man labour of love of yesteryear---it is a commercial entity that is taking real investment, and having to deliver real results. I can't be a part of that, and so I'm gone. It was a good run with them, for me.
Anyway, that's too much depressing stuff. I'll just end here for now. Wanted to make a note of the hottest recorded period/day [so far].
Till the next update.
It was too hot. It was so hot that, it created yet another new record.
I'm currently on leave for the weekend, one that started on Friday, and will extend into Monday. It was mostly for a sort of reset for me, pre-planned as part of the overall strategy of taking more frequent short-ish breaks due to the self-imposed moratorium of not travelling around the world.
So far, I'm more than half way through Suzuka, and have started on a bit of the Grim Fandango. ONE just dropped chapter 142 for the One-Punch Man original web-comic, but I think I will re-read that entire series as part of exercising Eirian-V.
I've also played a little more Jupiter Hell here and there. It's not a bad game, by any measure, but it seems to have lost a bit of the magic that was from the old DoomRL that I played a stupid amount of before. Perhaps it was the change in the community---a mass migration towards Reddit, Discord, and Steam ``forums'' over the original official ChaosForge forums.
I don't like the new Reddit/Discord/Steam ``forums''. Apart from having to create new accounts (not that big a deal, realistically), these platforms are not owned by ChaosForge, and therefore when they go, they are gone. The form factors of these new quasi-social media set ups are also terrible for actual discussions, which is one of the more practical factors that make me refuse to join them.
Oh, I had left the forums since the beginning of last year. It was depressing to be a custodian of what was basically a dead place where only the bots hung out. Chaosforge is no longer the one-man labour of love of yesteryear---it is a commercial entity that is taking real investment, and having to deliver real results. I can't be a part of that, and so I'm gone. It was a good run with them, for me.
Anyway, that's too much depressing stuff. I'll just end here for now. Wanted to make a note of the hottest recorded period/day [so far].
Till the next update.
Sunday, May 07, 2023
NieR: Automata and ESV-KJV-CUV
And here we go, Sunday once more. The week flitted on by, hardly registering more than a blip in my psyche.
Why so? Who knows...
Anyway, I finally finished NieR: Automata. It was a nice romp, a little less punishing than the likes of the Devil May Cry series, but it does leave behind that strange aftertaste of existential dread. I'll be honest, this is not the first time that I had seen the gameplay of NieR: Automata---it shows up on and off for GDQ and ESA events. Even Ina played this ``live'' without speedrunning it.
So I'm no stranger to the main storyline. But that doesn't mean that there is no effect on me.
The existence of the androids... was predicated upon a lie. They were supposed to be there to help win the planet back for the humans in exile from the rampaging machines, but the truth is, gur uhznaf unir orra rkgvapg sbe n srj gubhfnaq lrnef, naq gur gehr ernfba sbe gur naqebvqf' rkvfgrapr vf gb tngure rabhtu qngn gb perngr na ribyirq irefvba bs gurzfryirf va n gjvfgrq sbez bs frys-crecrghngvba. Vg vf abg vebal gung bar bs punenpgref vf anzrq Cnfpny, nsgre gur jntre gung ur znqr nobhg orggvat ba Tbq'f rkvfgrapr.
All I know is that there are things that I don't know, and if I were to strictly go with a Bayesian interpretation, then it would make more sense to bet with the majority, even for things that we do not necessarily have proof for/against, especially for outcomes that we have no way of knowing beforehand.
That's what one would normally call ``faith''.
But back to NieR: Automata. It's a fun game, though the colour scheme is kinda drab and clinical. The only places where there was more colour was in the amusement park, and even then it was still dreary. Combat was heavier on the button-mashing, and that includes dodging. I didn't like the hacking parts, since it involved playing some neutered version of a bullet-hell, but it was still alright.
And that's one more game completed. I wonder what I would like to work through next. Maybe Fallout: New Vegas before I completely lose the plot? Or perhaps something more narrative-heavy, like Disco Elysium or Grim Fandango?
Who knows?
------
In other news, I created a new monster. I took the book-summaries from NKJV, the text, footnotes, and section annotations from ESV, and combined them with the text of KJV and CUV to create a three-column ESV-KJV-CUV parallel text Bible with NKJV summaries per book.
``MT, why do you need to do this?!''
So, here's the thing. I prefer NKJV's presentation of the usual two-column with centre reference set-up. But PPCC has switched over to ESV as being the primary preaching Bible version from KJV (note that it's not the new version). ESV is fine, but the version I have is not in a nice 2-column format---I rectified this previously, and created a 2-column ESV with NKJV summaries. For some verses though, KJV presents a more poetic form, and the KJV I had was... well just see for yourself. I didn't want to cross-reference between these two documents through swapping to and fro the PDF readers, and thus decided to combine them into one, which I did through extending on my previous work.
Then of course, CUV had to come into the picture. It is the official Chinese version that PPCC uses for the Chinese congregation, and frankly, I've always felt that there were many times when the Chinese translation of something ended up being more elucidative than expected.
But doing Chinese (or CJK in general, really) in LaTeX was a pain. It involved the following:
And that's about it I suppose. I now know how to incorporate large amounts of Chinese writing into LaTeX.
And with that, I conclude this entry. Till the next update.
Why so? Who knows...
Anyway, I finally finished NieR: Automata. It was a nice romp, a little less punishing than the likes of the Devil May Cry series, but it does leave behind that strange aftertaste of existential dread. I'll be honest, this is not the first time that I had seen the gameplay of NieR: Automata---it shows up on and off for GDQ and ESA events. Even Ina played this ``live'' without speedrunning it.
So I'm no stranger to the main storyline. But that doesn't mean that there is no effect on me.
The existence of the androids... was predicated upon a lie. They were supposed to be there to help win the planet back for the humans in exile from the rampaging machines, but the truth is, gur uhznaf unir orra rkgvapg sbe n srj gubhfnaq lrnef, naq gur gehr ernfba sbe gur naqebvqf' rkvfgrapr vf gb tngure rabhtu qngn gb perngr na ribyirq irefvba bs gurzfryirf va n gjvfgrq sbez bs frys-crecrghngvba. Vg vf abg vebal gung bar bs punenpgref vf anzrq Cnfpny, nsgre gur jntre gung ur znqr nobhg orggvat ba Tbq'f rkvfgrapr.
All I know is that there are things that I don't know, and if I were to strictly go with a Bayesian interpretation, then it would make more sense to bet with the majority, even for things that we do not necessarily have proof for/against, especially for outcomes that we have no way of knowing beforehand.
That's what one would normally call ``faith''.
But back to NieR: Automata. It's a fun game, though the colour scheme is kinda drab and clinical. The only places where there was more colour was in the amusement park, and even then it was still dreary. Combat was heavier on the button-mashing, and that includes dodging. I didn't like the hacking parts, since it involved playing some neutered version of a bullet-hell, but it was still alright.
And that's one more game completed. I wonder what I would like to work through next. Maybe Fallout: New Vegas before I completely lose the plot? Or perhaps something more narrative-heavy, like Disco Elysium or Grim Fandango?
Who knows?
------
In other news, I created a new monster. I took the book-summaries from NKJV, the text, footnotes, and section annotations from ESV, and combined them with the text of KJV and CUV to create a three-column ESV-KJV-CUV parallel text Bible with NKJV summaries per book.
``MT, why do you need to do this?!''
So, here's the thing. I prefer NKJV's presentation of the usual two-column with centre reference set-up. But PPCC has switched over to ESV as being the primary preaching Bible version from KJV (note that it's not the new version). ESV is fine, but the version I have is not in a nice 2-column format---I rectified this previously, and created a 2-column ESV with NKJV summaries. For some verses though, KJV presents a more poetic form, and the KJV I had was... well just see for yourself. I didn't want to cross-reference between these two documents through swapping to and fro the PDF readers, and thus decided to combine them into one, which I did through extending on my previous work.
Then of course, CUV had to come into the picture. It is the official Chinese version that PPCC uses for the Chinese congregation, and frankly, I've always felt that there were many times when the Chinese translation of something ended up being more elucidative than expected.
But doing Chinese (or CJK in general, really) in LaTeX was a pain. It involved the following:
- Using the CJK LaTeX package;
- Preparing the magic environment of
\begin{CJK}{UTF8}{gkai}{...}\end{CJK}; - Realising that creating too many of those CJK environments consumes all available memory in LaTeX, causing a crash;
- Wrestling with the multicol package to create 3 parallel columns, but not letting any longer column to overflow into the next and screw everything up (I just used set up of
\begin{multicols}{3}[some_title][1.5in] ...to give enough end space to avoid this altogether).
And with that, I conclude this entry. Till the next update.
Tuesday, May 02, 2023
May Too?
I could, in theory, have taken my off-in-lieu for previous Saturday's Hari Raya Puasa some other day.
But I chose to take it today, the day immediately after Labour Day, for the sole reason that it will be a day off on a day that isn't a day off for most people.
I would have spent it at MusicGear just putsing about, but since I already did that last Saturday when I took some of my ladies (Stella, Aurelia, and Eliana) in for a look-see at WindWorks. Stella was due for her tune-up after the first month of playing, Aurelia was in for a worn out bumper for the B♭ lever, and Eliana was in for... too many clacky sounds due to worn out bumpers and imperfect regulation to begin with. And Sean has brought in something interesting that I play tested---not sure if I would buy it since it involves electronics and I'm not particularly kitted out for that, but it definitely does bring some rather interesting possibilities. The other classically trained woodwind players in the shop found that interesting thing a little tough to work with though, possibly because they operated from the absolute pitch world of music, as opposed to the relative pitch one that I worked with most of the time.
That and probably because the interesting thing used the simple system as opposed to the keyed systems that most woodwind instruments these days have.
Anyway, an additional day off, and I went cycling along the North East Riverine Loop once more. The Loop... each time I go cycle on it, it shows changes. This time round, some parts of the tarmac were converted into pure concrete, and damn it was hot when I went over it in the morning on my bicycle---I could feel the infra-red energy just blasting at me; it was not at all comfortable.
But cycling is fun. I should do more cycling. I used to cycle to my office, but thanks to all the constructions now, that is not possible any more, and so the next best thing is to actually make an effort to cycle around my side of the island.
Cycling made me think of an old acquaintance with an unusual name, and as such, I shall simply call her ``E''. I met E back when I was still active in Aikido, and she was a fun person to train and hang out with. She got married (of course), and while I don't actively chat with her, I still follow her adventures of cycling all over the world with her husband.
It's interesting because that whole cycling persona was something that she developed much later, after her short foray into Aikido, and her longer one in outdoor adventures in general.
I did muse to myself if there was some new persona that I would like to take up, not with the intention of getting hitched of course, but as a different means of living yet another type of life.
No answer to that now. I suppose one dependency on it was whether I wanted to run my own household. I'm past the age in which the government gives a crap with respect to housing, i.e. I can, if I wanted to, get ahold of some brand new one-room/two-room apartment, be chained to a multi-decade mortgage, and have all the space that I need to run all the interests that I have.
But it also means that some fifteen or so years later, I will need to somehow come back to my childhood apartment to take care of matters after my parents have passed on. Not to mention my quiet worry of my parents living alone without some kind of alert observational supervision the way that I am doing now---they aren't dumb people, but sometimes they are so set in their ways that they need a proverbial bonk in the head to wake up a bit more and look at the world for what it is.
Decisions, decisions, decisions. The mark of an adult, especially when the decisions matter. And when the decisions start to matter for more than just oneself, be it family or subordinates, maaaaaaaan it starts to be Serious Business---the mark of an adult in middle age.
Anyway, that's enough for today. Tomorrow, I'm back to the office, and there are things that need to be done. Meanwhile, playthrough two of Nier: Automata awaits.
Till the next update.
But I chose to take it today, the day immediately after Labour Day, for the sole reason that it will be a day off on a day that isn't a day off for most people.
I would have spent it at MusicGear just putsing about, but since I already did that last Saturday when I took some of my ladies (Stella, Aurelia, and Eliana) in for a look-see at WindWorks. Stella was due for her tune-up after the first month of playing, Aurelia was in for a worn out bumper for the B♭ lever, and Eliana was in for... too many clacky sounds due to worn out bumpers and imperfect regulation to begin with. And Sean has brought in something interesting that I play tested---not sure if I would buy it since it involves electronics and I'm not particularly kitted out for that, but it definitely does bring some rather interesting possibilities. The other classically trained woodwind players in the shop found that interesting thing a little tough to work with though, possibly because they operated from the absolute pitch world of music, as opposed to the relative pitch one that I worked with most of the time.
That and probably because the interesting thing used the simple system as opposed to the keyed systems that most woodwind instruments these days have.
Anyway, an additional day off, and I went cycling along the North East Riverine Loop once more. The Loop... each time I go cycle on it, it shows changes. This time round, some parts of the tarmac were converted into pure concrete, and damn it was hot when I went over it in the morning on my bicycle---I could feel the infra-red energy just blasting at me; it was not at all comfortable.
But cycling is fun. I should do more cycling. I used to cycle to my office, but thanks to all the constructions now, that is not possible any more, and so the next best thing is to actually make an effort to cycle around my side of the island.
Cycling made me think of an old acquaintance with an unusual name, and as such, I shall simply call her ``E''. I met E back when I was still active in Aikido, and she was a fun person to train and hang out with. She got married (of course), and while I don't actively chat with her, I still follow her adventures of cycling all over the world with her husband.
It's interesting because that whole cycling persona was something that she developed much later, after her short foray into Aikido, and her longer one in outdoor adventures in general.
I did muse to myself if there was some new persona that I would like to take up, not with the intention of getting hitched of course, but as a different means of living yet another type of life.
No answer to that now. I suppose one dependency on it was whether I wanted to run my own household. I'm past the age in which the government gives a crap with respect to housing, i.e. I can, if I wanted to, get ahold of some brand new one-room/two-room apartment, be chained to a multi-decade mortgage, and have all the space that I need to run all the interests that I have.
But it also means that some fifteen or so years later, I will need to somehow come back to my childhood apartment to take care of matters after my parents have passed on. Not to mention my quiet worry of my parents living alone without some kind of alert observational supervision the way that I am doing now---they aren't dumb people, but sometimes they are so set in their ways that they need a proverbial bonk in the head to wake up a bit more and look at the world for what it is.
Decisions, decisions, decisions. The mark of an adult, especially when the decisions matter. And when the decisions start to matter for more than just oneself, be it family or subordinates, maaaaaaaan it starts to be Serious Business---the mark of an adult in middle age.
Anyway, that's enough for today. Tomorrow, I'm back to the office, and there are things that need to be done. Meanwhile, playthrough two of Nier: Automata awaits.
Till the next update.
Monday, May 01, 2023
Keep On Keeping On!
Ah Labour Day.
And that's all I'll say about Labour Day, because there's little I can put into words that others before me have with respect to the importance of labour, and the protection of labour against unreasonable exploitation by the capital-holding classes.
------
On three or so separate occasions, when it comes to my playing of the dizi, it has been remarked that it was a good thing, and that I should not give it up (emphasis mine).
I'm not sure why people think it necessary to highlight that I should not give up what I obviously enjoy doing (i.e. playing on the dizi). I mean, sure I can play it fine, and since it is a hobby, I'm not playing it ``for keeps'' the way professional musicians are doing, and yes, I'll admit that as a balding middle-aged man, that me being involved still in a performance art like playing the dizi is a little peculiar.
But why highlight that ``I should not give it up''? Was there some vibe that they were getting from me that I was somehow getting increasingly restless/dissatisfied with what I was doing? Granted, I've not played ``seriously'' for a concert for nearly three years now (thank you COVID-19), and I'm not going balls-out hard-core training the way I was some eight years ago when I was planning to get my ``end flute'' and was also simultaneously given access to more exciting ways of obtaining dizi and other woodwind instruments to play with, but I never had any intention of stopping.
After all, music-making has always been about the process for me than anything else. If I had wanted to scale the heights of... whatever it was relating to music, I would have gone full competitive from the get-go, chionging the whole SYF she-bang from secondary school onwards, and going all gung-ho with the various grading exams when I learnt of it in late 2006 when I was first introduced to people who were actually taking grading exams for the dizi, and/or joining the music competitions hosted by the National Arts Council since 1998.
The SNYCO was formed only in 2017, and I was too old for it, so that was not an avenue for the massive CCA-point boosting during my school days.
And the reality of it all is, had I gone down that path, I think I would not be as free as I am, since I would be a part of the system, and having to play it just to ensure that my livelihood [of being a serious musician] isn't at stake. It would be likely that I would not go down the path of messing around with flutes of all sorts, saxophones, and even the recorder---such is the type of chauvinism that comes from being within the system.
In short, there's no fear that I'll stop. I figure I'll always find something new to mess around with for music-making, whether or not if there's someone else out there to listen. I suppose there was this one period in my life where I thought I could intertwine my music-making with another person's, but since she left, I'd been rediscovering my own voice and personality once again.
Not sure what kind of fucked up conclusion it is, but that's all this post is going to have. I would have written this some time ago, but I was just too damn tired and incoherent, not that it is any coherent now. Just had to expel it from my system, and here we are.
Till the next update then.
And that's all I'll say about Labour Day, because there's little I can put into words that others before me have with respect to the importance of labour, and the protection of labour against unreasonable exploitation by the capital-holding classes.
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On three or so separate occasions, when it comes to my playing of the dizi, it has been remarked that it was a good thing, and that I should not give it up (emphasis mine).
I'm not sure why people think it necessary to highlight that I should not give up what I obviously enjoy doing (i.e. playing on the dizi). I mean, sure I can play it fine, and since it is a hobby, I'm not playing it ``for keeps'' the way professional musicians are doing, and yes, I'll admit that as a balding middle-aged man, that me being involved still in a performance art like playing the dizi is a little peculiar.
But why highlight that ``I should not give it up''? Was there some vibe that they were getting from me that I was somehow getting increasingly restless/dissatisfied with what I was doing? Granted, I've not played ``seriously'' for a concert for nearly three years now (thank you COVID-19), and I'm not going balls-out hard-core training the way I was some eight years ago when I was planning to get my ``end flute'' and was also simultaneously given access to more exciting ways of obtaining dizi and other woodwind instruments to play with, but I never had any intention of stopping.
After all, music-making has always been about the process for me than anything else. If I had wanted to scale the heights of... whatever it was relating to music, I would have gone full competitive from the get-go, chionging the whole SYF she-bang from secondary school onwards, and going all gung-ho with the various grading exams when I learnt of it in late 2006 when I was first introduced to people who were actually taking grading exams for the dizi, and/or joining the music competitions hosted by the National Arts Council since 1998.
The SNYCO was formed only in 2017, and I was too old for it, so that was not an avenue for the massive CCA-point boosting during my school days.
And the reality of it all is, had I gone down that path, I think I would not be as free as I am, since I would be a part of the system, and having to play it just to ensure that my livelihood [of being a serious musician] isn't at stake. It would be likely that I would not go down the path of messing around with flutes of all sorts, saxophones, and even the recorder---such is the type of chauvinism that comes from being within the system.
In short, there's no fear that I'll stop. I figure I'll always find something new to mess around with for music-making, whether or not if there's someone else out there to listen. I suppose there was this one period in my life where I thought I could intertwine my music-making with another person's, but since she left, I'd been rediscovering my own voice and personality once again.
Not sure what kind of fucked up conclusion it is, but that's all this post is going to have. I would have written this some time ago, but I was just too damn tired and incoherent, not that it is any coherent now. Just had to expel it from my system, and here we are.
Till the next update then.
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