Rainy Rain Rain

Been raining constantly for the past week and all the gloomy skies have a tendency to push me towards melancholy. Emo baby. Haha.

Been busy lately running around getting my orders filled in for the month. Now I've got a short break before work starts again next month. I wish I had bigger contracts or something...so I don't have to be so taxed for time. Big paychecks are always good for the bank account. And I had better do something about all the modules in school. It's week 2 in a blink of the eye and I have a feeling that school-induced madness will settle in very quickly.

While walking to lunch (I seem to do quite a fair bit of introspection during lunch time), I asked myself why I'm working so damn hard, trying to balance so many things in life. The short answer was that because I can. And if I can, I should strive to do as many things as possible because opportunities happen when you least expect it.

Had a short but interesting conversation with the other half yesterday. We compared our lives, about serendipity. Her life is constantly filled with random one-off events that changes her life completely. Things just happen and good people appear in life with lots of guidance and help.

I, on the other hand, appear to be constantly fighting. Good things seldom happen, and when they do, I had to go through lots of hard work for them. I've since developed a certain hard-as-nails appearance. You know, the indomitable spirit, the one who can carry the weight of the entire world on his shoulders while standing on one leg. We wondered if it was either divine intervention or our personalities that causes these phenomena to happen.

Then again, I just finished Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Black Swans where he rambled on about these sort of random events. Things that fall out of our bell curves, lies that academics feed into our young impressionable brains. They have no precedent, no reason and they just happen. You can't predict them, you can only make the best use of it. There's no use in anticipation because they would just happen and you're totally fucked if you're not prepared for it. Well, maybe something drastic will happen and I end up dead/rich/poor/jailed...and that would change the entire course of the autobiography that I'm writing.

I don't do very well in school, I'm not making shitloads of money (which most people assume that I am). I'm lost and confused. A little frightened. I wake up not knowing where I am, not knowing where I am heading. Everyday is packed. And I wonder, why am I still standing? Why am I still braving it all? I haven't lost hope...I just need a little direction, a little divine help, a little helping hand. Am I just afraid to ask for help sometimes?

[Funny that Hooverphonic's Sad Song started playing halfway through this]

Now it's time to move to the next level
Sore wet eyes that look at the devil
Tell me please that it's time to leave

On the train I lost my intelligence
Found my love with good intentions
But it's still time to leave

(chorus)
I recorded the sound of your heart
I recorded the sound of your eyes
And I converted them into this sad song
That modulated these mysterious lights

Fear

So it's the second week of school and I'm not really seeing much of the year fours around. How time flies... We were just fresh-faced freshmen 3 years ago and now, we are facing impending graduation and the grind of the job hunt. It seems to me that we all live in a climate of fear. Fear of not getting a good job, fear of not finding something we might enjoy, fear of the economy's bad performance.

Then I realized that we have all been living in some forms of fear since we were growing up. We're like scared little white mice in a giant social experiment lab test. The government wants us to ensure that we continue making the economy prosper, procreate future generations of fear-induced mice and carry on living out our blueprinted lives.

I've been struggling with plenty of issues lately while juggling work and other stuff. School's getting staid and I wish I could really pinpoint what I want to do in a few months. It's scary to walk into the working world when you don't really know if you are even going to survive. The usual bout of confusion hits and I'm really not so sure again. I wish I was earning more now with less efforts so I'm not like perpetually tired. Top it up with trying to keep myself fit (aka The Weight Loss Program), I think I need another holiday very very soon. I hope I do decently well in school this term and sort out the stupid career move soon.

Sometimes, I envy all these people who already have their goals set...investment banking, wealth management, private banking etc, while I'm still struggling with keeping the family intact and making sure my clients pay me on time. I wonder what I would be saying three years later...perhaps burnt out from working like a cow but maybe with a bank account that's fat enough for me to relocate!

The sweetness of randomness in our lives. The future beckons.

Sweden

When I was in Bangkok, I befriended an artist from Sweden while out on my daily gallery hunt. He was a fascinating character to talk to. We talked about how time has changed things, compared Sweden and Singapore, revisited his memories o Singapore (in 1969) and he kept thinking about how the 60s was such an interesting period to live in.

My favorite part of the conversation was how he described Sweden to be like. A huge empty land, sometimes so quiet that you could hear your own heartbeat at night. And the empty towns that people used to live in. And it made me really want to visit - this vast quiet country. I just could not imagine a place so silent...and the nearest neighbor being maybe 200 km away (at certain places).

Self

Spending time alone has always been a good way for me to recharge. It was also a good opportunity for me to do some introspection and change my mindset. I think I would love to adopt the sabai mentality into my life, where everything will settle by itself without much need to worry and you know, lead a happier existence. I think I am approaching a point in life where I am constantly having to ask myself - who I really am, what I really want and where am I really heading in the future. And it's neither in an angst-filled teenage manner, nor in a fresh-grad-oh-i-need-a-job...but more like digging deep within myself for the answers.

We make our own choices in life (sober or not) and we have to deal with the consequences. People you meet, places you go. It's an endless cycle, or an infinite loop.

I want to be free.

Coming home feels like returning back to my box. Restraints, constraints, inhibitions, rules, laws.

That's why I love to travel, to get away. It is the only time that I can be me.