| something sensible |
[18 Jul 2008|09:08pm] |
one wish: to feel something, and to know - with certainty - that the feeling is beautiful and true. but we are getting too old for wishes, too old for petty angst. we will learn to make do with what we have, which will give us more than we ever expected but less than what we imagined.
I used to love growing up, and would wonder why adults had such quasitaboos about age. I guess I understand a little now.. 2008 will be remembered as the year I glimpsed mortality.
everything's changing these days. jc never really ended for me, it just seemed like I was on a very extended school break.. but next month the lucky ones are flying off for uni, and the notion that some people are simply no longer around - though I don't see them very often - does draw things to a formal close. and I guess that things move on even for the army people - it isn't just henta kaki all the way. our training is ending soon, and there will be more free time to shape some semblance of a life. At the end of these two years I hope to be proud of how I've spent my time.
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| no witty, vague, or cadenced line today |
[13 Jul 2008|09:04pm] |
Was just looking through my entries for this year: my god I was/am so angsty. Last few weeks have been better though, my latest posting is quite decent, and I've been less reclusive on weekends. And I am finally letting go (or learning to live with) my delusions of grandeur...
3 movies in 3 weeks; quick reviews: 21 - decent I guess. I got to see the Boston area, felt a certain nostalgia and sadness at probably not being able to go back.. Hancock - retarded. Red Cliff - very retarded. the effects were, as they like to say, wankery. v large sets, hundreds of ships and soldiers, but the fighting was seriously unrealistic and took up most of the movie time. hardly any plotline. And when there was dialogue, half of it was (intentionally) comically absurd, which kind of clashed with the whole chinese historical drama style.. Ok la maybe the director/scriptwriter was trying to experiment with new styles, so maybe I should excuse the unrealism and weird dialogue, but still it lacked any real storyline. what is it with blockbusters these days.. maybe I'll go watch some old classic stuff next week
Installed Fedora 9 last week. My first time using Linux; my previous attempt 3? years ago failed because I could not find a driver for my obscure usb modem, thankfully ethernet routers don't have this sort of problem. Takes a while to get used to though. Am wasting much time trying to get various things installed and working.
Aside from looking smart and sounding intelligent over (invariably iced) coffee, I need a better social skill. It's not very versatile.
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| randomangst |
[23 Jun 2008|12:12am] |
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it's all been done before, and it's been done better. :( so why do we even bother adding mediocre crap to the pile
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| smile at somebody you don't know today; it will fuck with their mind |
[27 May 2008|09:45pm] |
Innocence is also open-mindedness. We want kids to be innocent so they can continue to learn. Paradoxical as it sounds, there are some kinds of knowledge that get in the way of other kinds of knowledge. If you're going to learn that the world is a brutal place full of people trying to take advantage of one another, you're better off learning it last. Otherwise you won't bother learning much more.
Very smart adults often seem unusually innocent, and I don't think this is a coincidence. I think they've deliberately avoided learning about certain things. Certainly I do. I used to think I wanted to know everything. Now I know I don't.
from another paul graham essay. how do some people write so well?? but hm yeah that innocence thing is an interesting thought. maybe I shouldn't beat myself up so much about my innocence.. lol
sometimes I feel like dorian gray. not that I'm malicious or (purely) hedonistic, but still.. when I feel terrible or base or simply worn to the core and I look in the mirror, there's often this 'wow' reaction.. like I didn't think my feelings could wear this face. (not when my face is covered in reddish blotches, though.) hm hm now you're going to say jez you ego bastard
the way people write: some people write about warm fuzzy things, but they leave it looking fuzzy, never really illustrating why it is warmish to them. I had a meaningful experience today with winning/losing/people/identities blah blah blah. then there are those people who write about cold bright shiny things like analysing situations or math/computer stuff. then there are those people who write with dry, spliterish wood: today I did this la dee dum, or today I feel miserable but I am unable to see how my misery fits in the grand scheme of things, it is but a small and miserable kind of misery. very unimpressive don't you think. well I wish I could write more entries in the first two styles but more often it ends up like the third. tangentially I wonder if the warmish entries of my friendspage will always look like this, or will they evolve significantly in style as we grow older? won't we get tired of finding everything warm and fuzzy after a while?
I think I had one more thing to say but it's slipped my mind for now. gotta book back in: day 167 tomorrow
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| and it's morning AGAIN |
[18 May 2008|01:16am] |
what is the use of booking out early when you sleep till sunday morning anyway -.-
and goodness me my sleep was angsty like wtf. I can't remember what I was dreaming about but I know it was upsetting. good lord give me a break already. and then I wake up and run into my mother whose prodding never ceases to irritate me immensely. I suppose I should get used to her manner after all these years but it never ceases to irk me :/ I am trying trying trying argh
thinking of organizing some movie screening at my place this weekend. ghost in the shell, or some other movie that is purportedly interesting. any takers? (all you bored, lost isparkie souls?)
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| I'm wide awake [and] it's morning |
[11 May 2008|06:49am] |
fucking gut pain kept me up all night. not bad enough to kill but not mild enough to allow sleep.
why do the thoughts in my head all evaporate when I attempt to write? ok they don't evaporate in entirety but they leave behind some ugly skeleton which I have to artificially dress up. what I mean is: I talk to myself fluidly most of the time, but when I try to type it here there seems to be some subconscious censoring going on, my original thoughts are presented to the Conscious Mind for evaluation, and It painfully extracts their skeletal meanings and rewrites it in its own, ugly words. that sucks
stream of consciousness writing (properly done) is so pretty. like jonathan foer and zoe trope and someone's blog. I wonder if I can ever write something pretty enough to be satisfied with. and I don't just mean in that style.
college college college. application seems less and less difficult. just write! am narrowing the list down, finally. found the right sources. should have done all this last year. um. would write the college names, but I don't want to embarrass myself should I fall far short of them. still have some vague sense of pride.
this is probably not the best place to ask (if there indeed is any such place) but from what you know of me, and what you know of US colleges, which ones would best suit my personality? I esp want to know about LACs (liberal arts colleges) -- I reckon that there would be a somewhat narrower culture spectrum given the small population size, so it's impt that I can mesh. however much an asian international, and a jez, can mesh. maybe when the girls go off to funland later this year more people could answer this question. wish I knew more seniors. this is not the first time I've had questions about my immediate future and no one to answer them..
despite the tone of this entry.. I'm not unhappy. and I haven't been really unhappy for almost a week. maybe I am finally learning to live in the moment. I used to think that living in the moment equated with exulting in the moment.. but I think there is more than one way to enjoy the moment. I have been trying to phrase all that in a coherent philosophy, but no real success so far. the concretizing of intuition does not matter all that much, I suppose, but I still like to have real words to hold, rather than just feelings. I was rereading my nepal entries today, the one about a conversation on the roof.. he couldn't explain it in concrete terms either, but I think I almost understood what he said. now I've taken another step. I hope it's a real step, leastways, and not just another delusion.
I need to be up by noon. ugh.
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| rhcp is ever relevant |
[03 May 2008|01:58am] |
Two interesting conversations today, pretty satisfied. Even if the last one ended kind of oddly.
I should have applied for unis last year.
Sleeping early is good for the soul
3.58pm: It is clear that I take little care of my soul. No wonder it functions so poorly these days
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| to be elaborated sometime maybe never |
[26 Apr 2008|07:14pm] |
The frequency of anger expression - can be analyzed based on instinctive speed of response and stored-up quantity of anger. Anger is a controlled lack of control. It has utility, however much I dislike admitting that.
Being driven - being crazed - might not just be a product of my depression, but something more fundamental, maybe something that is part of me (whatever me is). It would best be described as the need to throttle something.
The effect of unfinished sentences - they work their magic differently in different contexts. They tell of people who need to throttle somethings that they cannot get their hands on, they tell of people who are wandering, lost, in misty dreamlands
Anyway.
I need something for which to care (sandy why can't we look the other way okay sidetracking) but srsly I am going through the army 5-6 days a week simply not caring about the tasks we have to do. All the 'lessons' etc that I attend could just as well have been spent at the beach cupping sand into my palm and pouring it back down, rinse and repeat, the feeling would be the same. But I care somewhat about what my peers / superiors think of me and the contradiction is getting a little perturbing. Also I am getting a little annoyed with my deep uncaring, it is something that comes quite naturally to me these days but I'm not sure whether it's a good thing. But could it be any other way?
I had a vague feeling today that this whole demolition / rebuilding of identity has happened before. I was quite surprised because I think I would have remembered such events quite clearly, yet I did not recall anything about them until today. Up till now I'm not sure whether these things have actually happened or whether the feeling is simply one of those illusory deja vus.. I should go check my blog archives to see if anything jogs my memory. If I have the time ha. In any case I think (I hope) we are nearing the rebuilding phase now
I hope I haven't forgotten any more stray thoughts. Time to do something else now
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| the end of the beginning |
[13 Apr 2008|10:22pm] |
It was another time. Another age. Another world.
That warm, expectant summer night we thought would never end.
We were sixteen then, and we were golden.
"What do you see when you look up at the stars, Randy?"
"I see the future, one more year, and they can't hold us in here any more. And then... Then we can go out there and...
Well, we can be anything we want to be.
What about you, Joshua, what do you see?"
"I see God, and I wonder... I wonder if he can forgive the sins we tell no one. The ones that only he knows."
"Jesus, you are such a drag."
...
At sixteen, the future is an irrevocable promise, an opportunity to be our true selves.
No wasted time, no false starts or bad endings, just intimations of glory yet to come.
We would be young and beautiful forever.
And none of us would ever go down alone, in the dark.
We were sixteen then, and we were naive.
- from Rising Stars 3 by Michael Straczynski
I'm turning nineteen this week. I will be halfway through twenty before I hold my time in my own hands again. So freaking old
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| what did you say |
[05 Apr 2008|05:27pm] |
I remember those halcyon days where I was more concerned with how boring people were (yes I am nasty like that) than how boring I might be. Things change (this is going to be an overused phrase) though, in jc I learnt to grieve over how much I was missing out, and now that I am in the army the situation is both better and worse: I feel less guilty about not having interesting doings since I have less time for them, but I also feel more frustrated because I think that I am now ready to fix the situation but lack the opportunity to. Oh well what the hell. We shall take small steps at a time, find things to do over the weekends and stuff to read in camp. The only question is, what will they be?
I will probably stop doublelocking most of my angst from now on. Sorry if it clogs up your friendspages :P
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| cause I'd rather be working for a paycheck / than waiting to win the lottery |
[29 Mar 2008|02:44am] |
These days: I am learning to be a realist. I think the lack of realism has been my greatest failure to date, and I think these changes have and will continue to pay off.
Also: can anyone recommend me books / authors which give pretty / well-wrought / ornate prose? I think David Mitchell and Neal Stephenson are good examples of such authors.
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| come tomorrow there will be another number / for the one who had a name |
[24 Mar 2008|03:04am] |
finally finished packing; I am going to be so sleepdead tomorrow. Hopefully the day will be taken up by admin matters. I remember my post at the start of the break, and I am glad to say that my twelve days have proved extremely worthwhile, and I am glad for that. (Yes, ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) squishyhat is right, it's been ages since I last said I was happy. :P But things change.)
yesterday: nyps gathering. Each time we meet I think: nine years ago we were glorified as the top 1% of the nation. What has it amounted to?
Visited disconance's church today; it's been two years since I last entered a church, and almost four since I quit. But I'd spent fifteen years growing up in such places, so it was at once familiar and surreal. wish I had more time to think and elaborate but I rly don't want to die on the first day of sispec. so long and good night
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| write about a fucking idea |
[22 Mar 2008|04:15am] |
Attempting to attempt the USP essay now. Write an essay that explains why you've been intrigued by an idea, concept, or theory you have encountered. Can't fucking think of anything. What have I been intrigued by these last two years? What have I ever been intrigued by? I like to think of myself as an intellectual, but what have I really thought about? There are those people with passions in art, music, sport, and they like their field and know a hell lot about it. They may not be the best, but they enjoy what they're doing, it forms part of their identity and (I reckon) they would easily be able to talk about it in such an essay. As for me, I've done science partly out of a fascination with the pretty pictures that popular science books paint (the universe is fundamentally made out of strings, oh wow), and partly because science schoolwork (which is really boring) comes to me quite easily. But in either case my 'interest' in science does not go deep; the former interest is superficial and the latter utilitarian. And it leaves me with little to write in response to these USP-esque questions.
Actually this USP thing is a really really diluted form of US uni essays, and it explains why I didn't apply to the US last year - I had no idea what to write for those essays, either. Those unis want people who have colourful lives and who can contribute their piece to the university mosaic. In this respect, what have I done to deserve admission?
I do know what has really intrigued me all these years: success. It has been my prime interest, even before I was really conscious that I was chasing it. I quit the band in sec 1 because I didn't think it was going anywhere, and I didn't think I was going anywhere within the band, either. Who cares to be a middling saxophone player in a lousy band? (To be fair, they replaced the conductor the year after, and the band improved.) I joined the computer club next, got depressed when I realized that a good deal of the club was far better than I, that I couldn't seem to catch up with them, and so I proceeded to skip trainings and drop into the background. Discovered science quiz in sec 4 -- another opportunity for success! -- Whacked that and finally made a bit of headway. But I'm not sure I ever liked what I finally did sort of well in. And when I stopped being quite so successful in that last field, I found out that I didn't have much left. I did find some band pieces beautiful, I was delighted to create computer programs -- but I sacrificed all these interests in favour of success. But in the end glory is more transient than love.
I've always called myself a gamer, even though I suck at most computer games -- and here's why: because I rack up points, but I am never really part of what I'm doing. I have been cynically proud of it, but I'm tired of being a cynic. I suppose a gamer can distance himself from what he is playing if he believes in something greater, something 'more real' than what he is doing now. But the less time he spends on his reality, the less that reality will exist for him.. until he is left with his game, which he does not believe in, and a reality which he can no longer relate to. (I suppose there is always a balance. If playing the game pays the bills, then it is pragmatic to do so. But one should not play games just to chalk up points.)
Maybe I really should just settle for a local U, accept the fact that those who've done little deserve little. Build my life from there, do the things that really interest me, things that I would be proud to call part of my identity. I still have some life-time to spend, to do things right.
Alright, tired now. The last entry was ridiculously short, this one ridiculously long. It is quite confessional but I am glad for the catharsis.
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| park that car, drop that phone |
[22 Mar 2008|01:12am] |
Just came back from Phuket. Can't believe I slept seven hours straight; I did have sleep last night, after all. Anyway.
Spent the trip scuba diving, checking out Phuket's (ahem) nightlife and generally slacking. With kao qt grace and a bunch of grace's NJ friends. I must say it has been the most fun I've had in a long time. Without the cares of the Last Two Years, and with my taste for pleasure sharpened by three months of starvation. I should credit the people as well, they were great company.
mrr will continue this entry when I have the presence of mind to do so.
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| to possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds. |
[16 Mar 2008|01:48am] |
Greatness first, happiness second -- why did I ever choose this path?
Last year, after I lost hope of achieving the shiniest of the shiny -- the best prizes -- I about-faced and spurned that which spurned me. But there was fundamentally no change in attitude; it was greatness or nothing, nothing half-fucked. As I lamented to someone a while ago -- the shit that I've taken these last few years has hardly changed me; if anything, it has only made me more stubborn. Even now, faced with the prospect of local studies, I steel myself to take the most difficult course -- one that I'm not wholly interested in, nor particularly talented in. My pride says, make the craziest bets and fight the longest uphill battles -- that is the only way you can allow yourself to live.
But it's not making me fucking happy! I wish I could just give myself a break for once. Just do what I like, put in a comfortable number of hours of work, take joy in the little curiosities of life, in the little victories, in the little relationships.
But what about grandeur, respectability (in my own eyes, leastways), and the whole 'sheer force of human will' thing? I honestly don't know which to choose, and I'm not sure how much of a choice I really have -- the drive runs beneath my consciousness. But the conscious shapes the unconscious (and vice versa) so the line is blurred. All I know now is that I'm really tired of all this, that the pain has already gone on for very long, and I have real doubts that the suffering will be worth it.
(If I had a concrete, realistic alternative to pursuing greatness, maybe the choice wouldn't be so difficult. But I don't. Yet I grant that alternatives only become concrete when you try to build them. Unless someone hands you the stuff prefab.)
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| the wolves and blizzards |
[13 Mar 2008|04:17am] |
Been thinking of my grandfather, whose wayward brilliance skipped my father's generation. Once, he showed me an aquatint of a certain Siamese temple. Don't recall it's name, but ever since a certain disciple of the Buddha preached on the spot centuries ago, every bandit king, tyrant and monarch of that kingdom has enhanced it with marble towers, scarlet arboretums, gold-leafed domes, lavished murals on its vaulted ceilings, set emeralds into the eyes of its statuettes. When the temple finally equals its counterpart in the Pure Land, so the story goes, that day humanity shall have fulfilled its purpose, and Time itself shall come to an end.
To men like Ayrs, it occurs to me, this temple is civilization. The masses, slaves, peasants and foot-soldiers exist in the cracks of its flagstones, ignorant of even their ignorance. Not so the great statesmen, scientists, artists and, most of all, the composers of the age, any age, who are civilization's architects, masons and priests. Ayrs sees our role is to make civilization ever more resplendent. My employer's profoundest, or only, wish is to create a minaret that inheritors of Progress a thousand years from now will point to and say, 'Look, there is Vyvyan Ayrs!'
How vulgar, this hankering after immortality, how vain, how false. Composers are merely scribblers of cave paintings. One writes music because winter is eternal and because if one didn't, the wolves and blizzards would be at one's throat all the sooner.
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Taken from David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas; it expresses a familiar point but with rather chiseled language and striking imagery.
Post-POP: I hope these twelve days will prove worthwhile.
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| the dilemma of talking |
[06 Feb 2008|12:47am] |
I would leave class by myself, and the desire to think about Leibniz was weaker than the need to say to someone, “That was so boring.” So I approached a girl after political philosophy and said, “That was so boring!” Next thing I knew, I was following her to a coffee shop, where I sat with her and her friends — and grew bored.
One of those "I know that feeling!" things.
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Been bumming around reading nytimes. It is a refreshing change from the army; a reminder that an interesting world is still out there for me after these two years, that most people still conduct wry, rational introspections on life in proper English, etc.
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| you know your love is the sweetest (sin) |
[05 Feb 2008|10:12pm] |
One recurring thought in the army, in the midst of all the pain -- in the long run we will look back and see that all this hardly matters. Leastways I try to convince myself of that. But there are always the doubts -- will I survive long enough to do so, will I carry mental / physical scars, etc. And I will always remember that Keynes quote: In the long run we are all dead. I don't know whether to take comfort from that one inevitability or wince that the army is taking up two years of my short time.
Pain is easy to forget but nevertheless hard to live through. Oh well.
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| If only I (still?) had art in my veins |
[02 Feb 2008|11:38pm] |
public_announcement: Anyone interested in going scuba diving sometime between 13-21 March? Plans are very tentative at the moment but it should be somewhere in Malaysia, between 3-4 days at about $200 a day (latter two details are vaguely remembered, will have to reconfirm.) So far Kao and I are going.
NS is a strange experience but I think I've developed my ways of dealing with it. Still sorting out my thoughts, though. I must say the division between military and civilian life feels quite surreal. But it feels like my life has been put on hold for two years while the rest of the world flies by.
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| so progress report: I am. |
[05 Jan 2008|11:25pm] |
I wonder why muscle aches become so much more intense while one is feverish - does the additional heat in the head do something to heighten the entire sense of touch, or only that of pain?
There is a cough epidemic going through my company, and I think it has finally come to get me. Somewhat late, actually, since tons of people were hit around three/four days ago. I am nonetheless soldiering (ha) on - I like my nights, my brain is not busted yet, and I find the feeling of the overall low-level pain interesting. But no, I'm not a literal masochist.
I was going to make some remarks about the SAF but - on second thought - I can't remember their policy re online materials, so I shall be paranoid for now.
Nevertheless my fitness is slowly but steadily increasing. My leg muscles seem to support me more effectively now - it was interesting to feel the difference in stability and control. Triceps are also growing - what with all the pushups they make you do. Still in progress: to do a proper unswinging pullup, and to grow some of the other, ah, 'for show' muscles. -- I am aware that I might sound like a muscle freak, but I'll put it this way: this is a project like any other. Like a machine to fix, like a task to perfect. And I try my best to obsess over all my projects. :P
Alright, feet have been cold for quite a while already. I suppose this machine would do best with a reasonable dose of sleep.
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