Adieu

I don't believe I've said the proper goodbyes to you, so I'm here, perhaps for one last time, before I move on to something else.

In times of desperation, maybe this is the only place to rant. Next week is going to be the last week of school for my first year in the new school, but it feels so... empty. It's hard not to doubt yourself in a place like this, and you will try very hard to be more than who you are. Sometimes I feel like I'm trying too hard, or that despite everything that's been said, deep down I'm still as insecure about how things will work out. It's not easy to admit something like that; it's fucking difficult. Support and encouragement mean everything - take that away from a man and he might be left with nothing, even if he had the world.

I see myself in a limbo. Swimming in uncharted waters. The buoy is far away and the sky is dark. In the middle of the great big ocean I see only the distortion of the horizon.

Meaningless.

And then my body starts to sink, but my mind is afloat. Was it possible that they were separate entities after all? My mind is imagining some paradise. It must have been real; it felt so real.

Illusions?

It's stifling. In the water where we are free to roam, some people choose to attach themselves to the floating debris of someone else's vessel. Why have we let these things inhibit us?

Copy is blasphemy.

Originality and mental acuity are so underrated.

Worshipping the dogmatic. Clinging to the lifebuoy. Believing that it will save you when the waves come crashing.

The only way to escape is to swim out of the atmosphere.

I wish I could be honest with myself, but it is true honesty so bare and unashamed, that makes me afraid - afraid of what I might find beyond the darkest depths.

Jigsaw

I had my first workshop writing critique session today, and I must say it is beyond encouraging to know that it has received generally favourable responses. It has always been such an enigma to me when it comes to writing, because I always feel like I might be over-complicating things which really do not intrigue people the slightest. There are so many stories out there that have been written (and waiting to be written) by people who want nothing more than to share the imagination and magic of their minds with other people, and hope that somehow this magic fascinates another soul.

I have not been writing here as regularly as I have thought I would've, which I must say I have no excuse for. However, I find myself more observant and attuned to my senses recently, and therefore have had impulsive bursts of inspiration and literary moments at random times during the day. They sometimes come like shadows - slowly, creeping - into my mind but make home there as more than just an incorporeal entity. Other times, they come as vivid impressions and tangible visuals that I find myself taken aback by the sheer beauty of these images.

This is a paragraph from the writing I have submitted for the workshop:

I stared straight ahead through the foggy windshield and saw the lights interplaying between red and green. Through the glass they looked like magical orbs; almost iridescent, but not quite. I imagined there must be an oblivion beyond that screen, where white wasn’t just white, and black wasn’t just black. Everything that existed there would bear a tinge of grey. Grey, like the clouds hanging from above and shadowing the light of day. In that world, nothing is vivid – not the thoughts that serve as memory, not the words that were whispered to me, and not the face I last saw - before the impact sunk in brutally.

Believe it or not, this was inspired by a journey I took on the bus out of school recently. As I sat at the upper deck of the double-decker bus, zoning out to my music as usual and staring blankly ahead, I realised that the windshield (sort of, because it doesn't have a wiper) had fogged up because of the heavy rain that has just dwindled to a slight drizzle outside. Through that frosted pane I could see the traffic lights in the distance, and they displayed orb-like qualities due to the refraction caused by water droplets on the pane, and I knew immediately that this was literature material. Even then, I felt like I could never do sufficient justice to the magical moment that transpired before me.

But isn't that the beauty of it? Words, images, and music, even, can evoke but never capture the unique emotion that one feels in times like these. They can't be reconstructed, manufactured, or reproduced under any circumstances; always close enough, but never exact.

No, these moments were not lost forever. They only filled a void in our soul where they were destined to fit - piecing the jigsaw puzzle that should never be completed.

The Binge

I'm truly a pathetic creature. It is no longer appalling to me that I am a person of regrets. I would often walk about trying to seek for something fulfilling in the realms of the living but I am in fact a dead man walking. I am the epitome of the "you only know something something when you lose something something" philosophy. For umpteen times I let indulgence get the better of me and live more in the present than I would permit myself to think of the future. I have absolutely no intention to emulate James Dean (he's overrated anyway) because for someone as similarly confused about adolescence, I actually do think about my future, regardless how bleak it might be.

Part of me is excited for school to start soon; a matter in merely 2 weeks. Another part of me seems to be reluctant to forsake the abundance of time I have on my hands - enough to binge-watch 3 full TV series (that's 8 seasons for you right there). I also happen to be investing my time very liberally on a dozen of movies. Per week. Once in a while I still feel a little surreal about my situation. Considering the audacity and absurdity of throwing away a somewhat promising course of study that would apparently be "more secure" in terms of prospective employment, for something so volatile and unpredictable, I sometimes find myself in a bewilderment of my own life choices. But despite all my regrets, this is not one of them. I need no reassurance on something so charged and propelled by an inner dedication and passion. I just know; I won't be the conventional person that B&F will churn me out to be. I am ambitious, competitive, and emotive (I really don't think I'm at all intelligent haha), but to quote Amy in Suits: Money bores me. Somehow this is such a ludicrous notion to many, especially to a person educated in the "meritocratic" Singapore. I maintain that although nobody ever finds money excessive, there is always a certain amount that is a sweet balance between "counting pennies" and "filthy rich". I think I always have. I grew up counting pennies. I never experienced any semblance of financial freedom till I was about 17 years old. I rarely had the opportunity for exuberance. All these have not made me money-savvy; ironically, I tend to be rather imprudent when it comes to money. I think it's because my idea that "money should be just enough" has always made sure I wasn't short-changing myself within my means.

Reality

Today marks the end of my 6-day ICT. I dreaded going back because this really is an annual disruption to my otherwise uneventful civilian life. But I don't know why... I seem to be bewildered by my inexplicable zealousness. I have been told many many times that I'm over-committed to a purpose too fucked up for salvation, and each time my verbal denial just doesn't correspond to my actions. I'm done lying to myself or anyone, about not caring. I'm done feigning nonchalance. The truth is doing this gives me certain sense of accomplishment and I feel happy, weirdly. I'm not siao on or garang or whatever; I'm just simply someone who likes to see a nascent ecosystem evolve and grow into something I can be proud of.

It took me 15 minutes to get back home from camp, and the moment I reached home I showered and changed into home clothes - all ready to resume the daily activities of my monotonous lifestyle. It then came as an utterly obtuse juxtaposition: it was that easy and simple to assimilate back into reality from a one-week hiatus. There was chaos and crises for one entire week, and then there is just peace - a calm I have been deprived of for a week. The lack of sleep and mad rushing tired me out but it was also invigorating in a totally strange sense. I know that the only reason I survived this was because of the people that were around. It also made clear that despite of how much joy this ICT brought, it's not my life. It will always be the holiday that I deserve.

In the end, I asked myself: What is there not to love? What is there not to be proud of? What is there to hide? From now on, I shall always be excited.

Sleepless

Of all of my vile and repugnant qualities, procrastination must the the most abhorrent of them all. I only have myself to blame for putting everything till the end. I want to keep this short because I've been staring at the screen far too long to be considered healthy. There is a petulant voice inside me that keeps telling me to push all these things away, and I am very obliging to it. As I sit here munching on my early morning toast and sipping on my way-too-sweet orange juice, I am constantly reminded that ICT is less than 2 hours away. I am also suddenly assaulted by the fact that it is pouring out there and I have so many things to carry to camp. It almost feels like this journey is meant to be wet and soggy, a considerably merciful comeuppance for my major screw up in my entrusted assignment and a way of saying "Hey, you better wake up your idea!"

I feel so dreadful now with these heavy eyelids and incompatible black spectacles that I need to put on just for this period. It's not that I haven't done sleepless nights before; we do it all the time for mahjong in the past. Perhaps it's only exhausting because I am getting old, and boring, and lethargic.

Just keep me alive until I get there please.

Mornings

Waking up early morning has proved to be therapeutic for me. I'm used to sleeping without the air-con on, despite this morbid weather. Given there were a few fitful nights of discomfort as I lay in mild perspiration, I'd say the nights are generally cool enough to make me sleep like a baby till the alarm goes off at 7 in the morning. What I enjoy the most, though, is waking up to the smell of fresh air as I peek out of the window. As the rays of sunshine begin to seep in and illuminate the neighbourhood, I immersed and basked in the serenity of the moment. Then, like the sun, the people trickled into motion. There it was - the neighbourhood unfolding itself before me, like an animal sprung into motion, like a baby awoken from the sweetest dreams, and like a flower blooming into its full glory. I let the gentle breeze caress my face as I closed my eyes and take in a deep breath.

It was a moment of seraphic peace.