What a difference, a day makes....

...Twenty four, little hours...

"Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The world belongs to the energetic." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Each day is a precious gift. Find time every day to celebrate.


"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. "- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Also, sleep early, eat well, and exercise regularly.

Quarter-Life Crisis

"The Quarter-Life Crisis

It is when you stop going along with the crowd. You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones." -Some acquaintance I have on Facebook.

I understand the sentiment, but I just think you shouldn't go around blaming others when you've lost confidence in yourself.

That said, do try wiki-ing the Quarter-Life crisis on Wikipedia. It's quite interesting.

"If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I bought a hundred dollars worth of books today for a single module, somewhat accidentally. I wonder if the term free-fall of faith would stick for this situation.

It's always been easiest for me to measure my happiness by two things: How often I am second guessing myself, and how open I feel to people. Interaction with the world around you is at its most enjoyable when you're not having second or third thoughts about your actions. Being able to feel that you can trust others (and by implication, yourself) fills you with a powerful energy which no one should live without.

But there are those times when you can't help but feel that everyone is going to let you down, that you're going to let them down.

Not much seems to have been going right lately. A lot of good things happened in the past few months, but a lot of bad things did too, and I just can't seem to stop thinking about them... Half-victories and cut losses...

I went back to school today and met some old friends. I wasn't sure of what to say at times though, and in those moments of hesitation and indecision, I had a glimpse of what it could lead to. And I knew immediately that it was not acceptable.

Sometimes we come to a point when all we can perceive is the feeling that we are sinking, or regressing to an old self we're not proud of... I think that no matter how much we want our friends to pull us up or for circumstances to turn around, there are going to be times when we have to pull ourselves up, and rediscover a hunger for life.

Being confident in yourself and opening your heart to others and the world may be conditions for happiness, but the thought that truly sticks with me the most, the lesson that the good friends I have met in these past few years have taught me is, "Smile more." Their brightness and the inner warmth that they exuded leaves an impression on my mind that does not fade. And I think, remembering them, and remembering the times we shared reminds me that trying times always come to an end,
and that we will be laughing about them soon after.

Plots and Plans, Pots and Pans

"The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatness, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

With equal parts self-deprecation and veiled narcissism, I often like to say that the only thing I consider myself truly good at is gaming. I come out on top in almost every game I play, regardless of who I'm with. I got every single soul available in Castlevania. I beat every special mission in Ninja Gaiden Black on Master Ninja mode. I've placed in almost every competition I've entered. I beat Starcaft 2 on... Normal mode. Lolz.

I'm well-versed with the many strategies utilizing aggression, passivity, and passive aggression; I pursued their learning with aggressive passion. I know that this will sound a bit comical given the subject matter, but the control feels good. I don't know if the root of this feeling of control is desperate escapism or/and plain addiction, but it was no problem in the past for me to go 12 hours a day playing. And apparently it still isn't a problem.

Chris, Aaron, Kei Seen, Alex... Together we've done the most ridiculous, overboard things, and we've jacked each other time and time again in-game, be it with rocket launchers, lightsabers, or a flight of backdooring mutalisks. Seriously, it gets freakin' ridonkulous at times. Haha.

If it was just that, it would be fine. But when you light a spark over a pile of dead branches, a fire starts. I think that's what it's like with me. It only takes a spark to get a fire going, lolz. I can cut myself out, but once I start up again, I'll feel myself burning to win and to improve and then win again... Playing 12 hours a day isn't a problem for me during these periods.

In itself, that doesn't bother so much. But I've come to a point where I've realized that, for myself (and perhaps most people), there's really only room inside for one pile of firewood, and one fire. Right now, I only have two big dreams in my life that I want to pursue, but every time I play, I find that afterwards, there's nothing left in me to burn for these dreams. For a while, I pursued them with all my being, and the hunger, the fire I felt then, was all-consuming. It burned in my belly and in my bones and in my mind. To this day, I have never experienced a time where I was more fulfilled, more overjoyed, more in-sync with the whole f***in' universe, than I was then. No man can serve two masters; he will either hate one or love the other, and a double-minded man is unstable in all he does.

At the end of the day though, my mind is not on the control. My mind is on what is far more important and precious than that. My mind is on what I hope will always stay the same even though circumstances may change, for that is what these things are, circumstances that brought together what is now bound together by a force greater than mere circumstance.

Storms; Freedom

I just slept for 14 hours, from 7pm to 7am. I remember having had at least two dreams, one involving some kind of secret operation and the other involving my uni friends. I may have had more, but I'm not sure now. 14 hours of real-time is a lot of time in dreamland, according to Inception.

“And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. when you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” ~ Haruki Murakami

I've been dreaming a lot lately, and it feels like my anxieties have been trickling out a little through those dreams. The past few months have been filled with uneasy sleep, guilt, and constant worry and self-doubt, all because I tried to accomplish more than I knew how (or was able).

I had tried to deal with a false dichotomy; I had believed that you have to choose between pleasing people and achieving bigger goals some times, so I did what was not natural to me, and it made me feel lost and directionless inside. But in reality, such a division does not exist. You can still respect people while trying to achieve goals that may not please everyone at first. You can still wait and listen to people (including your self) while you figure out the best way to accomplish something that's best for everyone involved.

Ultimately, goals are about people. They are about the people who benefit from their accomplishment. They are about the team that executes them, the spirit and the motivation that the people inside it have. They are not abstractions that you should make blind sacrifices for.

Comical

Sometimes it's easy to forget that... Friendship may just be a game we're playing to pass the time.


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When giving out compliments, imagine that you're giving out a slice of cake. Would the recipient most enjoy something light and fluffy, or something thick and oozing with rich sweetness? If he/she is worried that he'll get fat, then sometimes the best cake is no cake at all. An abstract cake is best in such circumstances.

"Everybody likes cake." Something to remember.

Also, don't let yourself get caught if the cake is a lie.