Out of your system

It's 1am, and I'm staring down my FYP, willing it to take the next step in its evolution.

Finally produced the 1st draft for my first story for the competition, but I'm rather unhappy with it. I let the characterization get derailed along the way. Its so easy for emotions to cloud one's view of what is interesting and impacting to another human being.

I feel myself regaining my sense of linguistic object recognition. Oooh. Linguistic object recognition. Command of vocabulary is slowly returning as well. Rejuvenating. Reviving. Restoring. Words resonate with each other and becomes easier to recall them the more they are used. Recall. Recollect.

Got a couple more bright ideas for this season. But ideas remain ideas until they are inked. Glad I have a few less f***ing friends and a lot more spare time on my hands. There's always a bright side to everything, I guess.

I really can't believe how much I love and hate this existence at the same time. It's confusing and bipolar and bi-something. "A man goes far to find out what he is."... A man goes far indeed. I know what I can love doing in the future, but I still have no idea what kind of job I can live with, or how I'm going to get it. My social skills are still shot to hell, though I guess I'm not entirely unhappy about that. Besides, I guess I can compensate with the smooth complexion and gentlemanly manner God gave me, at least till I figure out how to be effective in conversation again.

And just as importantly as the problems above, I don't know how I'm going to effectively court/jio the woman of my dreams. It's sinking in that she might like me to command a salary with some manhood-affirming number of 0's behind it, and that my pretty boy charm and incessant ironic chatter might not be enough to seal the deal. Need/want money, and a few of the more important things that tend to come along with money.

Argh. Why don't they tell us these things in secondary school.

Longwinded

"You should know by now that Grandma's like Mom. Don't bother replying, and just try to quietly figure out where they're coming from." -My rather wise younger brother, paraphrased

Today we visited Grandma together, and as usual she started talking about Mom. She recounted the days when Mom was young and still dating my Dad, and told us that my Mom always kept to herself and stared down at the ground wherever she went. At one point in her story she said something that caught me offguard. She said that my Mom was very 'jiao ao', very proud and unwilling to give people recognition by looking at them and saying hello.

My first reaction to this was surprise, not because I entirely disagreed, but because I didn't expect her to link pride to behavior that seemed so clearly to me to be rooted in shyness or low self-esteem. I thought to myself that some people were simply quiet while others were loud (though that does put aside issues of how much pride one possesses). It was only later that I realized that she felt this way because, according to her value system, seeming indifferent to others and not greeting them suggested an arrogant disposition.

It was a timely reminder for me. Have been getting too unsociable because of my refusal to break out of a slump. Must be more friendly. Smile at people. Make conversation. Activate brain cells. Alright.

It got me thinking though, about whether Grandma's opinion made more sense than I gave it credit for. I've been pretty distant myself lately, trying to keep away from people because I'm uncomfortable with my place in the world now (and thus uncomfortable with conversation). People could interpret this in any number of ways. One of them might be to see it as an inflated sense of self-worth... Max Weber, if he were alive today, would say that we never truly understand any outward action until we have gained insight into the intentions and assumed meanings behind it. I think that that was a very valuable statement he made for sociology, but in this case, it's also true that in some cases, there is a certain kind of pride in shyness. When we're reluctant to touch base with others, it could be for any number of reasons. We might be picky about how comfortable we want to feel with a person before talking with them. We might be afraid of getting hurt somehow.

Sometimes, it's because we're afraid to reveal more of who we are, because deep down we think we're worthless, and we only want others to see the good stuff or nothing at all. But that's pride as well (albeit a gentler self), a love of the self that keeps you from doing what's healthy for yourself and pleasing for others, that tells you that you need to achieve and be on par or higher before you show your face in public, that tells you that you can and should control all of it so that you can control whether or not people will love you... Pride, the obsession/preoccupation with the self- in its most glaring form, it is obnoxious and nauseating and outrageous. Other times it is seductive and blinding to others and blinded to itself (think Lelouch from Code Geass and Allan Shore from Boston Legal) At its most subtle, it begins in a very human place- the part of us that wants to be loved, to avoid being hurt, to be better so we can be worthy of love, deserving even.

Its endeavors do not end well. At least, not for me. Heh. And perhaps it's presumptuous for me to use the words like 'end' or 'ended'. There's a part of us that never wants to stop trying, trying to get things under control. It's hard not being in control. It's hard to find yourself spiraling (upwards or downwards), with no direction to call your own. Not knowing at a glance how things are working out, how things will end... When we come to truly treasure something or someone, we will realize that we don't really know how things will work out, or how careful we will have to be in guarding them. When I think of it like that, it reminds me of the people who I thought I treasured in my life but who have left it. There were ups and downs, chances at reconciliation and redemption... There were critical moments (prepare your whole lifetime for them, because hitting them on the mark can revolutionize relationships. I've never found that to be more true than with my youngest brother) , some hit and some missed... I never once put on the mindset of being careful, delicate with my words and actions. I was just so happy that we were okay again, and that's where my thoughts ended. Never said to myself that I will be more careful, more considerate or measured/adapted in my actions from now on. Never said to myself that I will learn to recognize where those treasured people were sensitive in their hearts.

'I think', 'I might', perhaps, maybe, conditionally... All these words were the staples of my vocabulary when I was younger. They facilitated clear and rational thought, and they still do. Sociology and a number of other social sciences encourages their ample, frequent use.

But I will learn to treasure my friendships and my life more. I will. And that's all there is to it. That's all there ever was, just that some of us take longer to understand.

Grandma said it best. "Not having friends is painful. Having friends is joyful" (not that that's the only dimension to life, but still...). She asked me if I had any friends in university, and she said that those who didn't must be terrible people to live with... I had to pause before answering her. I had to pause because of all the friends I lost through galling behavior and a stiff and proud upper lip. I had to pause to think of all the friends who remain, who make life there bearable. If we are honest with ourselves, I think most of us will find that regardless of the strength of our ideals, it is difficult to be hated by people at large, unbearable to be rejected by those who are close... I told her I had friends. In relation to the context it was half the truth, but it made things easier.

I'm a looker. I can be very charming and gentleman-like anything I feel like it, and I come across in a very non-threatening way that works well for many girls and enough guys. I can easily carry on for years going out of my way to do helpful things for people (so they like me) because I was raised by parents for whom doing things (acts of service) for others is a complete non-issue. When I open up to people I think they enjoy it because it's very warm, and I know that warmth does come from a real place- adoration for the people I adore and admire.

But when I get insecure, when people show the slightest hints of getting bored with me... When there are harsh words or lengthy silences... I start to lose my cool; it slips away and eventually I go ballistic. And when conflict came, I couldn't resolve it properly because there was much that I did not see about these people I loved, and because I lacked wisdom which could've filled that gap. There were a lot of mistakes made but I think the biggest and simplest one was that I was too proud to go and say hello, too proud and too afraid to face rejection.

(If you're of a different faith and don't feel comfortable reading the next part, you can just give it a miss =j )

Being loved in spite of your flaws... Being loved so that you can find the strength to accept them and improve on those parts of your life... Receiving something, just receiving it, no conditions attached... It defies logic completely. Completely and utterly. Logic would say then that such a thing is too irrational to truly exist in any sense of the word.

I don't have anything smart to say to that, except that logic has been wrong too many times for me to put much faith in it, and that logic only speaks for those things which do not defy it. More importantly than that, I think that I would say that in the past year, God has never failed me when it mattered most.

So I don't know how to deal with the fact that I am called to love and follow the one who first loved me. God loved us so much that he sent his Son to die for us while we were yet sinners. To those who sought salvation, his condition was that we accept and believe in the sacrifice of the man (God's son who came to Earth), Jesus Christ. To believe in that sacrifice that cleanses us and makes us righteous is to believe and accept into our lives a love that changes everything. We who are loved are called to love God, love each other, and have faith in Him that enables us to live according to his Word. And that life according to his Word is a life that allows us to prosper (not necessarily in material terms), and it is yet another gift to us even as it exists as a command/condition. We must be prepared to give up everything to follow him... The things of this world make it difficult for us to do so... He does not insist that we lose everything, but that we should be prepared to give those things up...

Spilt Milk, Cracked Eggs

I was drowning in despair, dreading what the day would bring... But that soon changed after reading this week's Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. Who would've thought that one man's mental illness could bring this much humor and happiness into the world?

Nonetheless, I am still going to try to write this emo entry, hoping that it will sound really cool and poignant somehow.

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If you spend a few days in the kitchen (which I haven't, but that's what we have imaginations for), there's bound to be waste. Maybe you'll fail to chop your onions regularly or spill yolk over the kitchen sink. Making a meal means creating something nourishing and delicious, but it also means filling a wastepaper basket full of mishandled ingredients and raw food. It doesn't bother a lot of cooks though. They keep slicing and dicing till dinner gets served.

I wonder sometimes if we'd get along better in life if we could look at our failures in the same way. It makes me think though, that to look at failures so objectively would mean looking at the cherished things in our lives with some amount of dispassion as well, as if our dreams and our relationships were nothing more than eggs in a basket... And I guess that that really is the case. Eggs in a basket. That's all they are. And we only have so many eggs in a kitchen and one chance to make something of them. No one egg is irreplaceable, but all of them are important. If handled well, they could turn into something life-giving and nutritious for a human being. Food is precious, and we have to handle it carefully and take a pass on the mourning phase if you're still in the middle of things. That's the only lesson to learn, to me at least. The dichotomy between dreamers and pragmatists may be a false one. If you want to cook, you'll cook, and you'll concentrate on the things in your hands now without discounting the importance of what you threw away.

And if you reach for the basket and find that there are no eggs inside it, then I guess there's not much to be done by that point. You close shop and you wash up without making a meal. Then you head home and start reading some cook books to get a little less incompetent at the process. Or you go around asking for someone to spare you some food. Maybe you beg at times.

If no one spares you any, you go home and lie in your bed hungry, and if this isn't the first day that you've gone hungry, you close your eyes hoping that they'll open again the next morning, or maybe that they won't at all. But if you do wake up, you will in all likeliness find yourself in possession of better cooking skills than the ones you had yesterday, as well as a craving for omelette.

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Okay that ending was not great but please feel free to be uplifted.

Damn I just realized how common this metaphor is. But that's okay. Because it's just like a common dish that's well done. Like an omelette. Yes.

17 days to go and my story is literally in shambles. Darn tootin'.

All this whatever

For the past few weeks I've been thinking and rethinking my story from various versions and perspectives, and after shedding several outer layers and evolving a few times, it has finally unfolded to reveal- absolutely nothing.

I was so obsessed about writing about a mute boy who is loved by his family, but at the end of the day I realized that his muteness simply added no weight or flavor beyond the extremely heartwarming and tear-jerking scene I had kept planned for the end. Craptastic. Just don't have enough angst inside left to force it out convincingly. Damn you, contentment. Damn you, satisfaction.

It's so much easier to write when you're burning with something. And it's so much easier to burn on anger or pain or the unintuitive substance of inner emptiness. Darkness is the quickest route to power. Or something like that. Argh. Suffering. Madness.

DAMN YOU TRONDHEIM. CURSES! MALADY! BARRGH.

Flow; Stretch

It troubles me that sometimes, I feel completely at a loss for words. There's just so much tension and stress bunched up inside my head that lying down and imagining something just for fun is difficult. It doesn't help that I'm not playing for the whole of this month, either. There's no time to take my mind off things, to simply drift.

I've been trying to understand the flow of short stories, of how authors stretch out a plot over 5000 words. Jennifer Crawford's advice and methods seem to really come in handy here. But the more I think about what kind of length makes sense, the harder it becomes to imagine anything just for fun. Everything has to fit into the flow. Everything has to make sense.

The fact that Golden Point is so prestigious is another problem. I want so badly to win it that I can't relax and really get a feel of what I'm writing. It's just like FYP- when you're scared or desperate enough, you become willing to turn a blind eye to things so you can believe that it'll work out. The more you obsess over it, the harder it gets.

I want it so badly, this chance to make a mark and to receive a sign that tells me that maybe, this is something I can do somewhere down the road, sometime. I'm not sure whether it's that I've never desired it more, or if I've never feared not having it more than now. Can't feel the difference. Always feeling the itch to write things in short, gasping sentences without an 'I'.

I wanna win so badly. I want to write something that could burn 'Trondheim' alive, roast it over a fire. A part of me wants that emotion because it's easy to think that that emotion will drive me to completely crush the competition, regardless of the quality of their works. But that's not how I feel now, and in some ways that's better, in other ways worse.

After the events of the past few months, I feel like I want to write a warmer kind of story, about love received rather than love chased. Funny that that's what's most on my mind, given everything that took place. But there it is. I do miss my friends in school, the ones I no longer talk to, the ones I don't talk to as frequently... Yet as much as I hope that I'll get to talk them again someday, I no longer yearn for it with that desperation of a person fearing death or total collapse. Something's changed. Indelibly. Irrevocably. Incredibly. Something's changed, and now I find I can stand, even when everything precious to me was scattered to ruins. I want to share it, but I don't know how. Making the leap to writing controlled, 5000 word (or less) stories was/is hard. Trying to write something that is not infused with emo/cynical/indifferent/jaded/ambivalent/hesitant/bewildered feelings, even more so. And to top it off, the temptation to douse one's work with ample amounts of nationalism and conflicted Singaporean identity is always weighing on me, clamoring to be heard.

Ambition without accomplishment. Dreams without desire. Half-existence of a soul without substance. The nightmare that can't be felt. Nor seen, nor heard, nor tasted or smelled.

Boiling blood and a fire burning within the bones. A hunger in the core of a soul I'd never bothered to know. I want to be filled with that blazing vitality I felt during HZ101, so that I wouldn't have to feel that I'm struggling through this, never knowing how it will end. And I know that that fire comes from being filled, filled by the works of others and the sight of their ambition and their swelling pride and their perverse, ravenous hunger for the prize.

Some people write for beauty, others for their idea of what a cultivated beauty means. Me? I gravitate easiest towards writing for glory, for the transfixing of hearts and minds. Yet something's telling me that that's not enough. I have to hunger without hungering, desire without coveting... Or something like that. I think I understand now that there is an optimum point/situation that every person has, where they can function as flawlessly and fervently as is possible for them. It's about knowing where our strengths and weaknesses lie, or something like that. Something like that. Sometimes it's all I can think of, to fill my writing and my FYP full of 'Somethings like that'. Cliches squeezed out like the shallow breaths of a dying, gasping man.

Breathe. Sleep.

Universe juice. Want.

Plots and Plans, Pots and Pans