Last Working Day of 2024

Ah, the last working day of 2024 for me has finally come, and gone.

And how do I feel?

Tired. That's just the only word I have left to say---tired.

It has been a long year. Everything started to come to a head for work, and this did not include the turnover of some folks. I got more involved as a manager, and then there are things where my other hat of being a technical leader came into play. I had my Ls, I had my Ws.

What I did not have, was parts of my sanity.

I was increasingly irascible, though tempered with profound use of profanity both minced and explicit, as well as a healthy amount of jadedness that comes with advancing age. I disliked people even more, clawing hard at the time that I have to spend alone in my room, the door closed, the blinds down, with my thoughts to myself, and with a book (or Wikipedia) opened in front of me as a companion.

I fell sick ever so often, with headaches and sore throats being the prime causes. Sleep was fading away, even as I struggled to derive more meaning in my life through engaging in new activities even as old ones start to run stale and gradually losing their meaning.

Yet the core problem remained: there were people, always there were people. I didn't hate any of them individually, but as a whole, I despised them. I despised the shallow nature of people who pretended to be nice, to seemingly want to learn more about me, when there is little left to learn from what is currently a husk of a man that I am. I despised the shared elitism and knowingness that they had, as they were more deeply integrated in worlds that I am merely a sojourner to. I despised the ever-increasing one-upmanship that was ever so implicitly demonstrated, through no fault of their own, but as a result of the world that they were embedded in.

I love them individually, yet hate them all as a whole.

I sit in a corner, and cry softly to myself about the apparent paradox.

The paradox hits me even in places where I was not expected to put up a public front. I would love to be with someone who cares for me in a way that I would care for her, yet I hate all of them who make hating men the socially acceptable norm. I want to be with that special someone forever, but know that the odds are ever-increasingly stacked against me even as I fast approach the start of the fourth decade of my life. I want to meet new people who may be that special someone, but fear the inevitable betrayal that is common to those who are brought up in an environment where only material gains are revered while hard work is disdained.

And so here I am, sitting here in the soothing darkness of my room once more, lamenting about world with a temporary sense of self-pity, even as the year races on to its end.

``MT, the fuck you want?''

Good question: no answer.

What do I want?

Maybe to be happy again. I think I was truly happy when I was in love---I said nothing about it, but apparently those around me could see it.

I think I was fairly content when I was In The Zone, be it programming a computer, writing a new piece of music, writing some story, or working through a new music with one of the many instruments I play. I think I was quietly content whenever I had fancy aburi nigiri sushi at my favourite sushi place, or when I had successfully pulled off yet another music performance.

But I think I was truly happy when I was in love, and sadly, I don't think that I can ever be in love again.

Time is running short (as is the shrinking pool) to truly know someone, and then there's that trauma (oh I hate this word so!) of getting my heart wrenched out eventually once more.

Each time a relationship was done, I lost a bit more of myself, and it took me longer and longer to recover. I simply do not feel safe enough to want to put myself in that position again.

Naturally, me in this state also means that anyone who is then introduced to me with that as a general direction would be placed under some tremendous implicit pressure, something that I do not feel comfortable having anyone else to experience.

And yet if I do not take that step out, I will end up regretting through inaction.

``MT, man the fuck up and go out there!''

Ah, that ``toxic masculinity'' that society likes to toss out at woe-be-me menfolk. Everyone likes to think about what a man can bring into a relationship with a woman, with the implicit assumption of traditional gender roles as the man being the provider.

I'd like to think myself as a fairly clean and acceptable man, and so my question is then: what can a woman bring into a relationship with me? Why must I demean myself like some toy to some woman just for the chance of some ``relationship''? I'm not looking for a master; I'm not looking for a slave either.

I'm looking for a partner, someone who complements my strengths through filling out my weakness, who sees me not as some cash machine, but as another intellectual being, and are willing to think together with me to take on the world to make it a better place for us.

I do not need her, she should not need me---but together, we are stronger, and we treasure that synergistic resonance between us.

If this ``criterion'' is too much to ask, I suppose it is better to just go it alone instead of settling for something else for the sake of being in a relationship.

The biblical concept of ``unequally yoked'' has made me do a lot of thinking about it. And what I understood of it is quite jarring in the Bayesian way of looking at this whole relation-date-ship thing.

``Unequally yoked'' is traditionally stated as the difference between believer and the non-believer, and how that will end up becoming the point of friction because the values of the two are not the same.

My take on it is that while all believers are saved, not all believers are ``equal''. Some are so steeped and holy that they are walking saints, while there are those of us who are new and are still finding our way to Christ-likeness. So just because two people are believers is of no bearing if they can be compatible in a relationship---where they are on their journey in their discipleship with Christ makes a big difference too.

And since all disciples are still sinners (we still need to repent our sins daily), the comparison of where one is compared to another in terms of saintliness is unavoidable, which leads to the whole ``unequally yoked'' situation.

And perhaps my recent interactions with too many people as a whole have demonstrated this to me time and time again. We may be playing in the same music-making group, but due to where we are in our development of our music, we will never be equals, and the gap is one of those that just isn't going to magically disappear.

``MT, what's your point? Are you rationalising why you are a loser?''

First off, I'm not a loser. I don't harp on my past achievements, but I am actually living fairly comfortably---not rich, but at least I have enough freedom to do what I want, when I want. And since I'm not a loser, I'm not rationalising anything of that sort, but am just merely making a trite observation, and wondering how it may be relevant to my current situation. Since I believe that my fate is with God, I do not take ``patterns'' lightly---there has to be some meaning behind it that I need to understand.

Or if you'd prefer a secular argument, similar situations with similar outcomes suggest that I am doing something similar in reaction, and if I do not like the outcome, it behooves me to re-examine my actions critically to identify what it is that is causing all these outcomes in the first place, with the intention of altering it.

Perhaps the lesson to learn here for me is to not worry about fitting in, and just enjoy being the interloper. I have my skills and my thoughts that may not match up with the norms, but so what? No one said that I had to be a part of that world. As long as I am harming no one, and not blaspheming God, there isn't anything inherently wrong with that.

There are, of course, consequences for any and all actions I choose to take, but that is par for the course and should not be feared.

And with that, I realise that I have said too much for this one entry, and will stop here before the monologue starts veering even more into the land of the nonsense.

Till the next update.