trisected

Tag: thoughts

  • September Updates

    I just turned 36, two days ago. I might have updated sooner, but I’ve been struggling more than ever on where my thoughts ought to go in the interwebs. I can’t decide either between all my different journals where I want to place my ideas, my emotions, and the other 50 million things that run through my head.

    So today’s post is really just to get my focus back, in part.

    Clarice asked me about my reflections about being 36, or turning 36 for that matter. I don’t really have much to reflect about, but I have realised how much I really appreciated being a dad. I think I’ve learnt a whole bunch about myself, and also about Clarice.

    Key things that I’ve learnt about myself:

    1. I have limited energy (it might be age related)
    2. I have a tendency to get short when I have not enough sleep, or food. (also might be age related)
    3. I lose track of things, because I tend to do too many at one time. Multitasking doesn’t work as well as I would want it to.
    4. I attempt efficiency, but it doesn’t work out as well I want it to.
    5. I also have understood the lack of control one has in the world, and how sometimes talking and discussing leads to better results than trying to do things myself.
      • Maybe these are two separate points.

    I don’t think everyone ought to be a certain way, or think a certain way. I just think that we can have a range of understanding, because everyone is taking turns to be right and wrong when you’re a majority or a minority.

    Unfortunately for me, I am both at the same time. I am brown skinned, but I am Chinese. In Singapore, I visually look like a minority, but I am technically a majority. After 36 years, I have realised how much emphasis people put on externals, and how much emphasis people put on character and behavior. The answer is a lot on externals and the perception of one’s first appearance, and the second is a lot on character and behavior – we expect people to behave a certain way to show if they’re “respectable” or not. That leaves me with a lot of smiling to do, so that no matter the color of my skin, I would be generally pleasing to most first impressions.

    But that brings the point, everyone can live their way, and I think I would continue to support some part of that view. As a Christian, I do think there are concepts that I view as truths, like God as the creator and judge, who will judge us as humans for how we have lived our lives. But at the same time, I understand that someone might not come to that same worldview as me. Will I judge them for it? Of course not, if I believe my worldview, then I believe God will judge everyone, including me. I’m not anyone’s judge. But I’ll do my part to make sure I am both loving and kind, so that if I am judged by the God I believe in, I’m seen doing the right things by him.

    Because at the end of the day, whether someone views me rightly, or with prejudices, I will treat them in a way I think God would want me to treat them, which would be to let them deal with life their own way.

    (I’ve been thinking a lot about major religions and the twists and turns of minorties and majorities in social scenarios in the past few weeks. Don’t mind me if this has not been your cup of tea.)

    Anyway, just done reading the Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, and I am just really thinking hard about people, societies, and wartime. It’s really a lot to take in.

    I recommend reading the book for sure, it’s worth it!

  • Middle of July

    I’ve been thinking where some of these posts should go. I’ve been writing, just not publishing anything much. Some part of me is afraid of how I would be seen and understood. Another part just wants to say something because I can. I might just keep writing things and I’ll see where I end up in the whole landscape of the interwebs after everything is over.

    I had chanced upon this video talking about how Franz Kafka wrote so much, and no one ever saw the work he had done when he was alive. The people around him weren’t impressed with what he had done, and told him to just stick to what he was already doing then – insurance. So he did, and he burnt his work. But after his death, a friend had picked up his work, and published it. That’s really crazy, because Kafka’s thoughts are so bizzare and strange, and the world would have not understood absurdity in the way he had placed it. I can’t imagine not having read Kafka as a younger person.

    So because of that, I felt the need to keep on writing. Maybe not for anyone else but myself. And that’s okay. Maybe someone reads it, maybe no one reads it. It’s still okay. If I’m dead and famous, it won’t get to my head, because I’ll be dead already. And if I’m not famous, it wouldn’t bring me down, because I’ll be dead already too.

    Parenting life has made me think harder and harder about what I want to emphasize my time and efforts on. Funny enough, it’s actually getting easier to sleep because baby sleeps better now. But instead, I’m sleeping less because I’m staying up thinking about things, watching shows or playing games. It doesn’t make sense, how the modern day really just moves you in some strange unknown way. I wonder if I could ever put my finger on it. I would love to, because I’m so annoyed that I have so much trouble putting my phone down to stop watching reels.

    But life goes on, and I can’t write as much as I’d like to, it’s just one step at a time. But I want to, and I should, so I should really start again.

    Starting with this post at least.

  • My compulsion to buy new stuff

    I keep loading up things to buy but I honestly have no need to. I’ve got an iPhone and a MacBook but I’m looking at PCs or some cheap android when I’ve already spent a lot more than any of those items. I don’t know why I keep doing this, and I have things that are worth so much more than what I’m looking at. But my brain tells me life would be a little better if I had those things. It’s so strange because I know my life won’t be, and instead I have many more things o could do on what I have but I still start searching over and over again.

    I tell myself things like having a dedicated device would move me to do more intentionally. But if would also increase the hurdle to get things published. And that’s not the hurdle I wanted to make.

    So instead of searching some more, I’m writing this, as a directed action to make more. Instead of doom scrolling and watching more tech reviews about boosted productivity, I should just be productive. Then there would be no need for me to actually search. It would be like when I was in school again, where my time was focused on getting my work out, in the least likely of situations.

    I was reading Atomic Habits like all other 30 something year olds, and I remembered a good number of things about myself and the goals I had set out for myself to do. They’re not difficult things to achieve, but I do remember wanting to clear space as a whole. There are things I was hoping to get better at, like coding and building tech items on my own. But they’ve since fallen on the wayside, because it’s just a smaller bit of what I really want to do. Maybe more concretely, it’s not who I really want to be.

    Perhaps the need for my personal novelty is a big part. I feel the need to have items from the past, to retain memories one way or another. It’s fun, but it means I have a lot of random things that I could do without 80% of the time.

    I was thinking if it would be helpful to have a habit that stops me from buying things. One of the funniest moments from the keyboard phase was when I could just memorise my three credit cards, because I was so used to writing them in. (Different stores would accept different cards, so I had to try all three.)

    I feel a little more settled about me as a person, after doing some deeper reflection about why I buy when I buy. The question I am now asking myself is Who is buying it? Is it the person running away from the immediate work and decision making I ought to be doing? Or is it someone who has worked really hard and wants just a break? Or is it a spoiled brat who wants something new and novel yet again? All those questions about the person helps me a lot more. I don’t have the time to waste, pretending to be someone else, or feeding the spoiled brat who isn’t growing up to match the actual person I am. I will learn how better to embrace myself in the things and the material wants.

    In the latest episode of Diggnation, Kevin Rose shared about how he lost everything when his house burned down in the Californian fires. The things he wanted to keep the most were the cards from his kids, the woodwork his dad made for him when he was growing up, things that were relational. He was ok-ish about the comic books that were burned, the wine collection, the tech. His conclusion was he might have gone too far in buying and keeping stuff, which made his decision making in the current rebuild a lot more steady. He knew what items he had barely touched, and maybe those things did not deserve another purchase. He could do without it.

    I would like to think about material possessions that way, without a fire burning down my house. There are definitely things I have not touched in forever, and all the projects I wanted to do some day. But time’s running out on things in some way or another. I need space for my baby girl to grow up and own her own stuff. There’s a lot that I could give up, if put to the Fire Test. But I still hold on to them.

    I will aim to start working on them in the current year, and to start, I will actually tell stories about them here. It gives me reason to write, and also I can say goodbye to some items, one at a time.

    Some simple resolutions, as we start the second month of the year.

  • A Busy Weekend

    This weekend had really passed in a blur, starting with Clarice’s birthday on Friday. We had gone to the beach again, in our current birthday fashion, and spent the time chilling and having a nice time relaxing. I got sunburnt, and we took a nap in the shade. We were also trying to catch the supermoon, but it was hidden behind the clouds.

    On Saturday, Clarice’s aunt came to stay with us. She’s the lady we stay with when we go to Melbourne, so it was a nice treat for her to stay with us finally. I think she also enjoyed the coziness of our house, I hope. My dad helped with the driving around, but he left us to have dinner with Clarice’s family.

    On Sunday, I had lunch with two of my friends, but also came back to have dinner with Clarice’s aunt.

    Today, I made coffee for both Clarice’s aunt and myself, and then I headed to work for an early meeting, a lunch meeting, and an afternoon meeting. We had dinner with Aunt, and then she headed off to the airport for her night flight.

    Between all this, I was tidying the house, finishing up emails and texts needing to be sent. It was quite a hectic weekend. For the first time in a long time as well, I purchased a mini PC. It’s been awhile since I’ve had a PC, but this little PC has been really fun to play with.

    Also this marks the 100th post in my 100 post challenge. I am sure I missed a few days here and there, especially in the last week. I don’t know if I will keep up another challenge like this, but I’ve been thinking hard about writing physically, and maybe keying it up here.

    I’ve also been thinking about writing stories more intentionally, starting with my own. It’s on Bird by Bird, a book about writing by Annie Lamott. It’s great.

    I’ve also got some books to finish, hopefully by this year end and I’ll try to get as close to 100 as possible. Next year’s reading goal is definitely 100, and I hope to hit it early!

  • Last Minute Writing

    This is really insane, because yesterday, I was overfilling with ideas of what to write about for the blog, and today I totally lost track of my time and now I’m rushing for a post just before the day ends.

    This really goes to show how time slips away from you, even if you have ideas. It’s whether the work was done or not, by the time ends.

    Take it literally, take it figuratively. If the work’s not done and not published with your name on it, it’s just the same dream you woke up from last night. Literally nothing was done even if there were a million thoughts worth a million dollars each.

    It also goes to remind me how I ought to work on my ideas early. Even if it doesn’t “fit into my rhythm” or system. I just need to get my ideas and posts out.

    Hopefully I do it tomorrow.

  • Doomscrolling

    I really don’t like the way I feel after doomscrolling my day or night away. It gets me extremely agitated because I feel like I’ve spent my time so irresponsibly, and if only I had read a book, or even watched a TV show, I would have felt my time was better spent.

    Last night I slept so late, laughing away at the little jokes done by creators and their hopes to get viral. Is it worth it? It’s disruptive but what’s the point thereafter?

    I have been continually planning some of these thoughts in my head, about the failure of modern education, or the post industrial post capitalist world, and what these things mean for the young people growing up today. I have these mini manifestos running in my mind, and the philosophical theory is growing and developing.

    But then I get stuck into the Instagram loop, or the TikTok black hole, or the YouTube Autoplay, and then I find myself crawling out of it two hours later with my mind drained.

    I hate how it feels. I started my writing challenge here to combat against it myself, giving myself something to do.

    But at the end of the day, it’s just something I slip so easily back into.

    There are probably other things to worry about, but this is really high up there in my list of daily frustrations.

  • No Real Review

    A slightly early post today, but this came to me while I was doing some artwork, and I realised some things linked.

    In Bible School (where they train Christian pastors and theologians), there’s this understanding that you only get corrected for your sermons and teachings then. There are very few people who would come up to you after a church service and tell you how well or badly you did in your sermon, and where you could improve on. Most people would tell you everything was great, and they would try to make sense of it for themselves. The benefit of the doubt would be given for the pastor or bible teacher, because thye knew better. But in any case, very few people would correct you. Therefore, it was key to learn as much as you can in bible school, testing things out, being willing to be corrected, because there might not be another time after.

    I find a similar situation in art, but in reverse.

    In art, you go through a bunch of training, and personally for me, I was told art school was the best time to fail. Because after art school, if you failed it would just lose a lot of money and contracts. And the opposite effect it would have on people: everyone would tell you where you could improve on. Everyone would tell you what sucks, and what more could be done where, and honestly, not many even went to art school. But they would still dispense information freely.

    Therefore, in art school, you might get critiqued, but at least your teacher is hoping you could improve in certain ways.

    Be kind to the artists, please.

  • Moving writing

    Writing this post on the move because it’s late and I think by the time I get back I would be too tired to write in time.

    I used to write on the train to work. It was a nice way to get some creative words out of me in the morning. I’d write about transit in Singapore, and my feelings about it.

    I probably wouldn’t be able to write about things the same way again. I feel like my writing needs to have a point of learning or something. Like this post is about how I learnt that I wanted a bit more meaning in my posts.

    On my way to work today, I heard the sound of beeping, and I honestly thought it was a bomb about to go off. No one else in the whole train even flinched. I kept glancing all over and no one even cared. It was wild.

    Nothing in Singapore really excites Singaporeans. Maybe a sale, a long queue, food, or financial injustice.

    But a bomb? Nah, it must be an alarm of some sort.

    I don’t think that’s right, especially after National Day. Our independence was hard earned, and I sincerely agree with that nationalistic sentiment.

    So when the beeping was going off, I angled myself, prime to move to be Clarice’s cover on either side. I gotta protect the people I love and especially if Clarice is next to me.

    Gotta be ready to move.

  • Passing Phases

    Yesterday’s frustration has fizzled a bit. I was really angry at myself for missing out details, because I’ve been thinking about my work pace and my attention to details, or there lack of. At times, I’m highly OCD. I have things that I am looking at intentionally, and the things need to be exact. I’ve lived that to a fault, and in recent years, I have taken efforts to relax, or to just not worry too much about it, because I could spend days looking at it.

    Instead, now I just aim to make something, whatever it might be. And a number of times, it turns out I needed to pay a bit more attention to the details. It might be the language I use, or the fine details between two different things. I just learn to apologise for it now, but last night, I paid 400 bucks for that lesson in details.

    It’s not the worst thing in the world to happen, but nothing was going right. I really wanted to snap at anything.

    But the moment is over, and I am now using it for content for daiy writing. The Anger passed.

    Another thought running in the back of my head is this great need for minimalism. I love it, and I can’t do it. I love having things too much, and I just have so many things around. If you gave me a blank room, I would fill it in half an hour with just the things from my backpack (most of the time). When I travel, the hotel rooms look as if I’ve stayed there for a month or two. It’s such a big thing.

    But it’s the minimalism I crave. I keep imagining this perfect blank phone screen with nothing inside; or this tiny shoebox apartment with only a bed and a laptop somewhere for working. I can’t even have the laptop only set up because sometimes I even carry my keyboards with me.

    And as I processed this today, I thought: what if I embraced the mess better? I do want my stuff, and a lot of the time, its because I want to feel inspired or motivated. I have my thoughts running in multiple directions, and having the right tools directing me to think harder is always key.

    I was looking at the YouTube videos talking about Smart Dumb phones, but in the heart of it, I want my attention to be drained sometimes. It doesn’t make sense to have to complicate my life, in order to make it simple. I should approach my life’s growing complications with a nice simple approach instead.

    So phone home screen is constantly cluttered, and I have widgets I intentionally have to change. This gets my distracted brain focused, because I need to update. Like watering the plants, but the garden is my phone screen. And instead of plants, it’s making sure my little attention suckers are growing in the right direction.

    But like my lack of attention, I don’t stop to think if these posts make sense or not. My aim is just to produce, to make things. So hopefully I made you think.

  • My Observations on Life: not so smart devices

    I’ve been listening to an audio bible in the mornings as I commute to work. As I travel, I realise that the entire train cabin is looking at their phones. This has happened so many times, to the point where I find it surprising if someone is not looking at their phone. I stand there listening to a really dramatic reading of Psalms (a book of poetry and song), and observe the bowed heads of everyone just in their own little worlds, in the palm of their hands.

    Because of that, I wanted to intentionally not use my phone on the train, but instead to do something else. It became a little awkward to stare at people’s demeanors as they blocked their way on our MRTs in Singapore, so I just read, or play games on my handheld emulators.

    In some ways, its not that different. I am still looking at a screen. I am still in a world of my own too. But in other ways, its the most different thing in the world because its so disconnected from everyone else.

    Palm sized smart phones bring us and connect us to our work, our travel, our life goals and dreams maybe. But an e-ink device is just not. It’s still a book, but in a digital form. The same goes for the handheld emulators. It’s something else. Its an old game, remembering the times before. Digital too, but just disconnected.

    During one of the rides, someone actually stopped me and asked me what was I playing. I thought they meant the game, so I said, Pokemon Jupiter. The person said, “No, I meant the device” I told him about my own device, the Ambernic RG 35XX, and the other device that one could find, the Miyoo Mini. I also directed the person towards AliExpress, where I got mine at a good discount.

    So maybe the disconnected do connect people, but in an old fashioned way of just talking face to face.

  • Where am I now: a mental comparison to my friends

    As part of my work, and also for my own creative development, I read a lot on creativity as a whole. Maybe trying to find the words for the approaches I take towards my art and stuff.

    But nothing ever talks about the feelings you get when you see your friends get famous.

    But you know it’s not jealousy because you’re super happy for your friends. The feeling of jealousy is more when fame steals your friends time away from you, then you’re jealous of fame because your friend was your friend first.

    Being jealous about being famous isn’t really it either; terming it as envy might be a better term, but it is still not the feeling.

    Creative books talk about how everyone’s definition of success is different, and sure, whatever, but at the heart of it the success your friend gets is the one that everyone knows and agrees that it’s definitely called success. There’s no way of redefining this one.

    Let me try to put some words to my feelings:

    You are happy that your friend has made it. You know the struggles involved, and the tough life the person had earlier on. You know the pain, the blood, sweat, and tears. At those times, you’re there wishing, “if only this person could catch a break”

    And they catch that break.

    Maybe they caught it too hard.

    And then their life turns around, they start winning, they get into the best groups of people, and yet they still have enough of a contact with other people that you know.

    Then they really succeed. People who you barely know ask you things about the person. They are literally world famous.

    And then you wonder: maybe I should have used that wish on me.

    But you’re really happy for the friend. You wanted the best for them, and the best really came along. They really slogged out life for it. They had broken hearts, they had pain, and they made it out.

    But you’re still you. You didn’t have the hardships and pain. You had your own simple life, and it was rolling along in its own slow way. Maybe some heartaches and pain, but nothing at the level your friends had hit.

    Life was just normal, in most ways.

    What’s the name of this feeling?

    PERSONAL NOTE:

    Just in case you’re my famous friends and you’re reading this, I love you guys tremendously and you know I am always there supporting you guys. But at the end of the day, I’m the neurotic dude who over thinks too many things, and has a million and five thousand hobbies, and I’m probably going to text you about something crazy I had learnt or read about.

    Maybe it’s my lack of focus, or the lack of drive, and I guess it’s something I have been thinking hard about. Thank you for letting me see a glimpse of your life, and letting me a part of it somehow. I’ll still be here, being a friend, and also I’ll probably write about this sometime in the next decade.

    And if you’re not sure, you know, YOU KNOW, that I am super down to talk about this. But honestly, it’s too many of you that hit some fame on some level. So this is just my general thoughts and my general feelings. I want to interview you all for a podcast and talk about your journeys because I think its the coolest thing in the world. And knowing me, the podcast probably won’t be published, because its just not me to do that.

    I love you guys, and keep doing what you’re doing.

    Also I have been reading Vonnegut, so my brain is a bit weird LOL.

  • What should I take seriously?

    It might very well be a point in my life, but it’s a point nonetheless. How does one decide how seriously to take something?

    There are many downsides to taking things too seriously. For one, I might be extremely easily offended. Imagine if I took my wardrobe seriously, and someone mentions in a passing statement how it looks normal. The stylist, who imagined the best things in the world, would only hear the disappointing realization that it did not work out. That would be a serious implication of someone’s passing statement.

    What if I took all my educational exams too seriously? My gauge and self worth would be pegged to how well I was able to score. My practical competencies would be totally questionable, if I did not do well. But if I took the studies seriously, then perhaps I might not have done well for the exam, considering the exam focusing on specific portions of the field of study. Esoteric information might speak out more than the mass of information, and perhaps in taking it seriously, the fringe ideas gave better shape and understanding.

    But maybe most importantly, what if we took our relationships too seriously? Would it mean devoting all our time, space, and efforts, to just building our friendships? To what end?

    But I definitely ask all these things, because I definitely do not take things too seriously. It’s a struggle. But that’s life for me now, huh.

    Don’t take this post too seriously too though. Because I don’t.

  • Rethinking “Process”

    I’ve been reading a bunch of books about publishing and being an artist and all that, and the whole point about sharing the process and being present online is great. But honestly, its so hard to just be present there all the time. Even being present here on my own blog is something I struggle with. It feels like I’m reporting on myself, and it turns me off from recording my process.

    But I hear the points, I understand it. It’s just hard to make space for in my day to day. I also see the many who do make space for recording their process, and it works out really well for them. They get noticed, they get famous, and more people want to get behind them.

    Good for them. But I just really, really find it hard to do that.

    So I need to figure out what process really looks like for me. And what part of that process can I make easier for myself to approach, for me to avoid the feeling of reporting on myself.

    Because for the many that already publish their process well, there are probably another 90% of them who don’t, and if I can find that niche, maybe it can help them too.

  • Creative Self Help Galore

    I’ve been reading a bunch of creative self help books, for work and personal curiosity. Emailing lists are apparently the best way to capture an audience, and it’s also a great way to inform someone who actually wants to know about your work. Something like securing your 1000 true fans the right way.

    I used to do an email, back in the day. I had time to write it and mull over the different things, then decidedly update everyone about what I was thinking and doing. But now, it feels a bit of a pain to set everything up. Should I do it on Substack or Mailchimp? Maybe I could just create a BCC and work it out from there directly.

    Then content wise, what do I write about? And how much can I really capture on my own creative journey? I already feel like I have way too many things to do, and to put another camera up just to catch things happening, maybe that’s a little too much for me.

    But then again, it’s the recommended things to do for creatives, to get people involved in your work.

    Funny enough, I’ve also been reading about society at large, through the lens of different people. One book is about commodity traders, and how they buy the world. The other is about poverty and sharing finances in any way possible. Yet another as an observation about technological changes and its impact on the world.

    So what does an artist do? Or how should a creative behave? To create more and get more eyes on?

    I was really stuck at how weird it is to live in the current times, and I wrote about it on Medium. I don’t know what more I can contribute to the world, other than my thoughts and my opinions. It feels silly, because everything has been said already, and if not, said better than what I can say. And yet, we’re advised to put more process out, more content out for more eyes to see.

    I don’t know how to feel about that, so I did my Joel thing, and wrote in my journal about how I was stuck, and then decided to write a Medium article about it too. And here I am today, writing about it on my blog.

    Maybe the creative self help advice should be to dig and explore as much as we can, until there’s nothing left to uncover. I think that would be more interesting sometimes.

  • Pre Flight Nerves

    Whenever I’m about to fly, I always get slightly nervous. I’m not too sure what about, but its just a range of things. The thing is, I don’t really have anything to be nervous about a lot of the time. It’s this sense of just not knowing what’s going to happen, even though I already know what’s going to happen. It’s really strange, and yet it happens every time before I go for a trip.

    I try to do a few things to mitigate my nerves: I have my packing list gone through multiple times; I look through my packed things a few times just to double and triple check what I have; I even assure myself I can buy the things I might need easily, and there’s no real reason to worry.

    I go through my itinerary a few times, and I have my PDFs of all my travel documents accessible and ready to go. Documentation is another cause for concern but there’s actually nothing really to be afraid about because it’s all cleared too.

    I think about my absence and if there’s any need to prepare colleagues or team mates about anything, but they’re all settled, and I’m contactable most of the way through.

    I project expenses, and everything is budgeted perfectly. I also usually have contacts on ground, just in case money goes missing, or if anything perilous happens to me. Not that I’m expecting anything to, but I know things are covered.

    And yet, I still have this weird fear of a trip, any trip.

    As a Christian, I actually pray out loud for a bit. I know there are many things out of my control, but it does help me to know I’ve gotten this far safely already because of God’s providence, and I just pray that He continues to take care of me in the time ahead. It might sound silly, but some things are really not in our hands. It is good to know who’s hands it’s in. (Thankfully not mine)

    I write this just to note how human I am right now, just feeling a bit out of place. Excited, afraid, and a few other things. Happy too for sure. Just a bit out of it.

  • Human Emotions

    I’ve been reading and watching a lot of media where the end of the world is at hand, or the world and society is twisted in some way. And human emotion is the subject in focus. It brings this sense of “everyone is suffering together, so let’s stop the suffering somehow”.

    But I don’t know if this emotional push is right. I don’t know if talking about suffering helps as much as giving hope for the future. and I don’t know if hope for the future needs to talk about suffering. I am slightly confused.

    I say this because, it feels like after I watch these shows, my distrust for humans grow. It outweighs the hopefulness.

    Instead, media with triumph, success, and a focus on the win: that gives me a lot more hope. I end the shows thinking, man, maybe I could work towards a success somehow. Then I ask myself what success is, but that’s another post for another day.

    Human emotions are so strange, and that’s the most human part about it.

    Strange huh.

    I’m thinking what story I should tell of my youth, and maybe I should share about how I have successfully figured out that I have not figured things out. Would it be focusing on success? I hope I stress it enough.

  • Purpose of this Blog

    Every now and then, I actually ask myself why do I write here. And “every now and then” is actually maybe once a month. But why?

    Every blog has some reason for people to come by and visit. There’s something to learn, there’s a takeaway from a new perspective, or maybe it’s just a travel experience of sorts and people enjoy that kind of thing.

    My conclusions after thinking through are: my blog is for you the reader to experience my brain, or portions of it through time.

    I don’t think I have huge takeaways springing into a new philosophy. I don’t think you would necessarily learn every time you do a catch up read, or even if you follow every post I make. But I think you can experience the sporadic brain of creative buzzing whenever I get into something.

    Perhaps I don’t even track my creativity properly, and guess what, that’s a part of me too. Which makes this blog, my trisected blog, incredibly boring or just too piecemeal. I think some of my friends do experience that about me, because I disappear from the face of the earth, only to be seen all over the place in another corner of obscurity.

    Maybe I’m just another bug underneath the rock, and I scatter when found. Most probably.

    Anyway, solidifying my purpose here, I think I have a better sense of what I want to write about here too. Have a great 15th May!

  • Making it count

    But what is it?

    I just started reading The Alchemist by Paul Coelho, and there’s this whole universal mission and plan that The Boy sets off to do. I feel like the world has told me that much of my life growing up, and honestly what does it really mean at the end of the day? Maybe the book answers it later, but today I write a little post as I question the world around me.

    I did a lot today. I drew, I talked, I made sense of my work to a friend, and I think I made some impact on the world around me. But what does it mean to make it count, when all I feel like doing tomorrow is to stay in bed and play games?

    I won’t actually, I think I am unable to. My mind and my body physically cannot handle being inactive or unthinking for too long, and I end up writing a post, or just doing something somehow.

    But what makes it count? I don’t think its the amount of things I’ve done, and what success it leads to tomorrow or in the future, or for any universal goal I am directed to accomplish.

    I think sometimes I find aligning myself as a Christian and the goals of the Christian God in His story represented in the Bible is literally the only thing I can agree with in a moral direction of life. It is the only logical thing I can end up anchoring on again and again.

    Making it count only counts for the afterlife, not this current one because someone will just do better than me later on. Making it count in this present life is just not good enough sometimes, and we all know it.

    But maybe the book will share some answer. For now, I just keep the biblical answer as my reference point. Again.

  • Possibilities are endless

    If you knew that you had the chance to have something in your hands, would you grab it? Hold on to it? Like it could actually be there in your grasp, and its just a matter of whether you chose to do it or not.

    Like when you’re at McDonald’s, and there’s the whole menu list of items, and you’ve got money in your hands. What’s actually stopping you from ordering the entire list of burgers, fries, and sides? Your appetite probably never stopped before.

    I feel that moment a lot of the time. I don’t know if anything other than actual cash in my hands stops me from trying something that I want to do. I don’t mean making money, because I think money is false in any case. I don’t mean owning property, or driving some fancy car. I actually mean building something with my own hands, so that I can say that I had made something myself. A part of me wants to learn how to melt metal down, so that I can learn how to make my own engine, and from there, weld out something that might run as a motorcar.

    It’s a weird part of my brain that says “the possibilities are endless! You just need to try it today.” Perhaps blame lies in the millennial education, where we’re told constantly that we’re special and the world can change because of our actions. If the world could change, then the world would have also collapsed with the lack of my homework in secondary school.

    In any case, I rebuilt one of my old keyboards today, after not touching it for quite a good many months. Why? Because I could I guess. I knew how to get something going, and to make something again, man, it feels good. It feels great. That might have been why I really latched onto keyboard building. It just makes life feel really different. Maybe that’s why I’m very happy doing art, because I’m actually making something, instead of buying it over from someone else. I’m making something special, or so I tell myself.

    It’s quite a nice night tonight, and I’m glad I sat down to rebuild my keyboard.

  • April

    Of all the months to really just speed past, April has sped past the fastest so far. After the slow grind of January to March, the culmination of the Open Fields, and of my interns time with me, time has kicked into third or fourth gear. In a flash, April is about to end soon, and it feels like there’s no time to think, no time to do anything.

    Once again, I’ve been trying to figure out what to put here in my own blog. I’ve been doing my journals, and I’ve put one or two articles on my Medium side of things. But what do I put here? I used to have a lot more process things, but right now it feels like I don’t have much left to process.

    As a whole, April was just a lot of catching up, and realigning of schedules and relationships. It wasn’t the hardest month, but at the same time, I don’t think it was a walk in the park. I needed to clear work, and there was honestly a lot of mental processing that I needed to do. The internal readjustments were what I needed to do the most.

    And maybe that’s why there’s nothing I need to put here because I’ve done the work already. I’ve figured out what my brain needed to do, and I just went ahead to do it. That’s led me to finish typing emails, sorting out meeting dates and team directions. Now it’s a matter of getting actual work done.

    I am a little apprehensive of what it means to publish work, and what it means to publish for other people too. It feels very all encompassing, like something very serious, very severe. It’s weird, and anxiety inducing. It feels like a huge weight on my shoulders, but at the same time, it’s just a small step. I think I have less fear of the stage, than to produce, and to create and add to industry. It’s much easier to just present concepts, and to share ideas. But to make something, to put money down and making something come out of it – that’s a bit harder.

    I think finishing Atlas Shrugged definitely pushed me in that direction. But I also remember one of Steve Job’s presentation where he asks the crowd about being manufacturers. Because the manufacturers knew what he was going through, but not the marketing people. Not the people who just talk. But he wanted the people who actually made something.

    Making really takes something out of you through. I totally understand the difficulty, and I relate completely to it. It’s just not easy.

    Anyway, one step at a time, and one month at a time maybe for me.

  • Managing my expectations

    I expect myself to not succeed sometimes.

    I think that there are many other people who have worked harder than me, and they’ve produced a lot better than mine. But at the same time, I’ve gotten access through friends and other social networks. Other times, I’ve been told that my work is good, and I receive praise for it.

    But I receive it badly, I am shy, and I thank them, but I also turn them to the faults I see in my work.

    Then two or three years pass, and I look at my old work, and I wonder how I managed to create something that looks that good. I wonder if I could ever make that work again, and I understand that my work was indeed good.

    I need to manage my expectations for success, and to allow myself to succeed more often.

  • Growing older

    One of the perks of growing older is deciding to say no to a lot more things than before. I’ve said yes to many opportunities in my twenties. I’ve tried and tested out many things, joined many committees and working groups, talked with people of different ages, backgrounds, and professions. And my take away is learning how to focus on what I’m supposed to be doing.

    But I guess it took all those opportunities to figure out what I wanted to focus on too. I don’t think I came to it easily, although every time I was doing something, I wanted to try my 100%. It was tough, mundane sometimes, or just difficult.

    And now I’m finally at a place where I think I can stop saying yes to things, and to start figuring out how to say no more often. It’s more about treasuring the time I have, and making the best out of it.

    But there are days where I feel like I should have said yes to more, just for the companionship to hang out with other people. It’s fun to be around people sometimes.

    As I write this, a kid is screaming in the playground downstairs, and maybe I take back what I said about people.

  • Why 35

    My sleep deprived brain decided to write this post about why I chose this year to start doing this. I have a range of answers.

    First,

    I think it was Casey Neistat who started doing his vlog when he hit 35. I did actually think about vlogging, but then I thought about all the editing I’d need to do, and I decided to say no.

    Second,

    I really wanted to create something, to write something down. Like making my own mark on the timeline of humanity. I guess at the end of the day, there would be this version of the things I make this year to be a super zine of some sort. Sustaining the momentum of the creation would not be the consideration, but just a theme to center me for the year.

    Third,

    Taylor swift had her Eras tour this year. She’s my age. She definitely feels it too. Nuf said.

    Fourth,

    Along with creating something, a part of me really wants to sync the things I have together. Like it should be that simple, and it kinda is. But why is it so hard for me to pull the different strings of my different hobbies in the same direction?

    I thought I should try to do it at least once, and I have no idea how it’ll work out, but I’ll try it.

    That’s all for today, I hope to survive Open Fields well, and hopefully we get by safely today.

  • Creative Woes

    I don’t think I’ve felt so nervous presenting new work for some time. The current sensing is pretty okay, from the people that I’ve showed my work to. It’s a whole range of things actually, but the ideas running in my mind are a lot more personal. It feels like I’m a lot more exposed, and I’m trying a lot more than I used to.

    It’s also another set of things to keep thinking about my work work in Through The Roof. I’ve got incomplete work there, and I don’t really have a good idea of what to finish it with. But the coordinating is by far the most challenging, because it takes so many people to put it together.

    I think in my head, I’ve been comparing across the different artists and the different booth types across the scene. It feels like I’m not the same, even though I know it would probably end up looking very much the same. It doesn’t equate to confidence. The feeling of producing work that is uncommon makes me unsure if the people around me would feel the same way about the work. Or that it would be well received. It doesn’t have to be right?

    I don’t know, perhaps doing tables and presenting work this way makes me think a little too much about my work, and maybe I should just do the work, and get someone to manage my booths as a whole. Perhaps that would work in my favour.

  • Anxious: More thoughts on new work

    There’s this sense of anxiety when I think about making something new.

    Being able do a sequel, a repeat, a part two, it all seems a lot more manageable, but at the same time I can imagine being extremely bored.

    But starting afresh makes me feel sick inside. The same way that I have performance anxiety; the same way that I get stage fright. It makes me feel so uncomfortable. But I know the work needs to get out of me somehow.

    Writing helps me think about it, and I thought about writing it in my journal, but I wanted to just put it out here: it is not easy to produce new work. Mentally, it really takes a toll on me.

  • Life updates: Third week of 2024

    Life updates: Third week of 2024

    It’s such a mind boggling thing sometimes, when life turns out in a direction you’ve never expected. Somewhere last year, I told Clarice that I was so sure I have something wrong with my thyroids, and that’s why I have a lump under my chin. Clarice laughed, and I searched and it seems like it was just being fat. But I was still not persuaded.

    But now, after 3 weeks of running 4 times a week again, as I did when I was much younger, I feel the lump going away slowly. So okay, maybe it was just fat.

    It’s also really funny that when I wrote about Q, from the previous post, within a week, they messaged me. I don’t think Q bothers about me enough to search out my site and read my thoughts, but in any case, I received a text to try and reconcile. I was honestly surprised, so I did take that as a step to do something good, and positive.

    I have also been drawing again, and inside, I swear, I think my creativity is going somewhere strange. It’s not that it doesn’t exist anymore, it’s just that I produce work in a way that I don’t totally comprehend right now. And if the work comes out most visually through sketches and sketch walks, I have to be ready and okay for it. I think I am, but I’m honestly a little over it. But I do feel a simple good push by doing a sketchwalk. At least I have some work, instead of putting myself down just to do work that I think would break boundaries or rethink society. I can be happy with just having some work.

    So I’m really back to drawing, one page, one location at a time. I do admit, seeing a completed sketchbook is a nice feeling. Even if the pictures are bad, it’s still good. In some sense.

    I had plans, and I am having plans of creating a page just of all my sketchbooks too. I will aim to have this up by March. It’s just the process of taking photos that’s tough: laying all the sketchbooks as flat as possible, with the most correct color accuracy. It’s a real process.

    I have also gotten through 4 books in the year already, and it’s not even past the third week. This means that I’m pretty ahead of my reading schedule, and I’m still chasing it down. I’m reading this book called “People of the Book”, and it’s not exactly my cup of tea. But it hit a good portion today, so I managed to crawl through the narrative a bit better. Exposure is the hardest part of trying to clear books to read, because it’s really easy to just keep reading the same type of mystery-murder-spy type of books.

    I’m a little scared of attempting Murakami again, as I had planned to, but maybe I should. Because that would give me another framework to think about words once more. The murder mystery types don’t really bank heavy on phrasing, but really a lot more on the smart tricks and the incredulous action.

    I am also severely allergic to cats and dogs right now. I think the lack of a cat or dog in my past year has lowered my threshold to allergies so much. I am just in constant tears and sneezing fits. I sneezed so much this week that my eye lids were sore from having to squeeze and tear. I had about two nights with animals this week, and it was just horrendous for my nasal passage. But it felt really good though, to have pets. Now it will just be limited to enjoying pets in the homes of family and friends.

    That’s about all the updates I have. I’ll be flying around a lot this year, and hopefully I learn how to manage my time a lot better. Prayerfully.

    Peace.

  • the new year: obligations away?

    I was having some trouble with my back end, so this look of the site is back again. I’ll probably edit it somewhere along the week, just for a fresh-er start. But back to this for now.

    It’s the first year I didn’t wish Q happy birthday. For the past eight to nine years, I’ve been wishing Q on their birthday because of a few reasons.

    • One: they don’t have that many friends, or at least not to my knowledge.
    • Two: I wanted to care because I honestly feel quite strongly that I should be someone who cares for people. It’s something I’m learning to deal with, especially after Brene Brown’s “Gifts of Imperfection” and I understand more about what I expect out of myself.
    • Three: It’s nice to celebrate someone’s birthday, and also to catch up with them for a short bit. It could extend into a full conversation, but a small start is great.

    But in the year end, there was no wishing.

    We had a falling out of sorts, Q and I. It was getting tiring having to work through differing opinions, and Q is not an easy person to talk to. To me at least. In our talks, I always felt like there were many defenses to work through, and it drained me to think through how I was saying things, because of how they would perceive it.

    In any case, the last time I texted Q, it was left unanswered, and I decided I would not want to wish them happy birthday this year.

    These are the two responses I am personally working through.

    • Why are you, Joel, being so petty about things like this? Just let it go and wish them happy birthday, and maybe that would ease the relationship again
    • Finally, you are letting go of these relationship obligations that no one holds you to. Good on you for not forcing yourself on other people.

    Both responses are part of me, and yet, I’m leaning towards the latter one still. I’m usually responding the first way, trying to be the nice guy, and looking past the frustrations, and I’ll just suck up my own pride and just talk through things. But another part of me is just very exhausted having to have Q and people like Q at the back of my head whenever I’m talking or interacting with people.

    Relationships, friendships, they take a lot of effort to maintain, and it doesn’t feel that great to be the only one maintaining it. Sure, it’s about committing to a friendship, but I think one of the key learning I had the year past was how important it is to draw some boundaries in accepting different kinds of people in their different ways. Especially for me, accepting Q means accepting that they would want me in their life, one way or another. I need to be okay with that, and accept the truth, really, that I’m usually the one to start the conversation or to find out things. It’s a painful truth to deal with, but I guess I’m learning how to be okay with that.

    It’s also a time for me to know that I’m no one’s savior. I do have a savior complex, feeling as if I can really be the one to solve the world’s problems. But that’s not true, at all. I’m just another guy, just doing my own thing. I can’t be the one to save Q, and I definitely am too far removed to make anything of that happen. It’s just how life works.

    At the same time, there’s always a part of me that feels like Q shits on my achievements because they either don’t care, or don’t understand the value of what I do. It’s humbling for sure, but more severely, it limits what I hope and expect of myself. It feels sad that nothing is ever good enough, including Q’s own work and their own successes. Q’s view of the world is objectively skewed different because of the mental health issues that they go through. I try to remind myself not to accept their lens of the world, because it is not healthy, but it still affects me anyway. Maybe I should have started with that explanation about Q to begin with.

    Anyway, just wanted to get all that off my chest, because it’s been weighing on me since December. Learning how to be myself, and not lose who I ought to be. And I should reclaim this space of the relationship to intentionally care for someone else, or to do work that I’m personally proud of.

  • Sorting things out.

    I think it’s been awhile since I’ve done a full site refresh, and I think of all the things to do at the end of the year, this is really one of them. I was looking through other sites and other artists and how they laid out their work, and I think I’d like to try something new.

    But I’ve also been reading pretty fun things about comparison, and the creative self. And I guess this really has been running as part of how I think about the things around me.

    There’s always that tension to manage: “how do I want things to be”, contending against “how I need people to understand me”. It’s been one of the hardest things for me to think through because of how blur that line is. Or perhaps, how far away things are from each other. Maybe how I want things to be will never be well understood by anyone.

    In any case, I’m just going to try rearrange and sort out my site, so that I can share more of my work in a way that more people can understand, without me losing myself in this process. Hopefully.

  • Options and Choices: an overload of gaming options.

    I’ve been really stuck deciding where I should publish my thoughts, and if they should even be published at all. But I find this as my safest place, because it is, after all, my blog. I don’t have to worry about the theme, or the direction, or anything else in specific because I have total say in what I think I ought to be publishing here.

    That being said, I still think about the visibility, and how it might be read or perceived, but statistically, the site monitoring says that there’s so little people reading this and it shouldn’t matter at all. So it’s cool, and I’m alright.

    I’ve been thinking about the range of consoles and devices that I have around me. I am playing a lot of them, but the rotation of games, and the lack of free time I’ve been having has really limited the amount of gameplay I get. I could definitely squeeze in a game during travel, or just playing a lot more, but I do need my breathing space. I need my down times to think, and sometimes having a game to take up that thinking space really makes it less enjoyable.

    At the same time, which game do I play? Should I finish all my games to 100%, or should I work on those that have been in the library for decade (literally for some games)? Should I play something popular, or should I replay an older game that I’ve always replayed because I just enjoy it that much more?

    I’m still deciding the priority, and honestly I’m wasting more time on the indecision. I should just sit down to play a game, and at those times, I end up replaying games a lot more.

    Does that mean that I should just stop buying new games and just playing old games until they’re settled? I am uncertain. Sometimes a game that I have wanted to play goes on cheap all of a sudden. I buy it, and then I have another game that is unplayed for another period of time. Perhaps I should really just finish older games before I get new ones!

    These thoughts have affected the way that I think about the rest of the things I have. I do collect a lot of stuff, and because of the type of things I get, they don’t necessarily break apart. More than that, I actually maintain things quite well so they do last longer than they’re supposed to.

    I enjoy retail therapy as well, and that leads me to spending a lot on things that I don’t really need, but I want to have at some point. I don’t think it’s the best thing to do, especially with limited resources, but sometimes I feel like I can’t help myself. With the help of my wife, I’m slowly unwinding from this, although I feel it’s taking a bit longer than I would have wanted to.

    Anyway, I’m writing all this, because I’ve got a few devices around me right now, and I can’t decide what I should do next. This is really the effects of the sin of overbuying and indecision. What a complication we have let ourselves go through in this process…

  • Misinformed Opinions and Choices.

    Today I went to a mall in an attempt to get some new art materials. I actually looked up the store online, and I checked Google Maps to make sure I got all the timings right. But lo and behold, the entire mall was under construction. Worst part is that I was just at this same mall a few weeks back, and for some reason, it never occurred to me that there was definitely going to be renovations because a few shops had moved away.

    I had to walk to another mall down the road, to look for the same type of art materials.

    On the train, the station displays on the train were off. They were supposed to light up when you get to each stop, but instead, the whole map was just off. Thank goodness I knew Singapore well enough to get out at the right stop with or without the station display lights.

    Sometimes, they even announce the wrong stop.

    Singapore has such a strange relationship with technology and convenience to the point that a lot of people don’t even check it. But if this happened anywhere else in the world, a Singaporean would be completely upset.

    Thus the relationship of Singaporeans and misinformed opinions and choices.

  • Planning the day away

    Sometimes I forget what I need to do, and I end up spending a lot of time thinking and working around things instead of doing the actual things that I need to do.

    Sometimes, I don’t even make the lists of what I need to do, and instead, I end up sitting down with no list, and a huge bunch of tasks in my head.

    But today, I sat down on the train, put my task list on paper, and when I got home, I started to actually do the work that I needed to do.

    I still have things to do, and I wished I planned a little bit less, but at least I did some parts today.

    That’s a good enough start for me, and I’m writing this post because my break from work got more and more distracting and I just needed to do something instead of just scrolling through nothing all over again.

  • Talking about the thing that I am struggling to talk about

    It’s day three of trying to draw or create, or be creative in some aspect or another. Honestly, did not do anything creative today, other than just think a whole lot, and I wrote a whole lot too. I guess I will end today with a lot of writing just to get myself going. and MAYbe that would help me get focused on my creative juices just a little bit.

    I’m also doing this to psyche myself up for the coming Inktober. I have so much apprehension and a part of me just wants to curl up and pretend that creativity can shoot out of my butt when I need to perform. But I know that I need to put in a lot of hard work to make sure it happens. Like a lot of hard work. I’m thinking of spending a few days this week just to brainstorm and prep for the days coming up. It’ll start on Sunday, and boy, I barely feel ready for this.

    My hopes were also to run in into the Through The Roof things, and hopefully, somehow we can get a group going. Like having a running group, just that this one is for creative drawing. It’s gonna be some challenge for real, figuring out mentally how I’m planning to approach the creative daily discipline.

    But one night at a time I guess. Maybe I’ll end tonight with some random thoughts of the world that I want to create.

  • I tried to draw today

    I sketched a bit in church today, and there’s just something else about sketching in real life. I don’t know if its the same as when I’m just doodling about and just trying to think, but I do feel like it might not be the same as a daily drawing discipline. Or maybe it is. Kurt Wallander’s father would draw the same scene over and over again, but sometimes he might include little elements. Otherwise it was the exact same thing.

    I don’t think my sketching has the idea of the same repeated scene, but I am trying to achieve some amount of ink on a single page. I hope I was approaching that today, but I was just trying to draw the scene. I don’t think that’s wrong either, but I don’t feel that creative burst. Maybe feeling it isn’t the point.

    I did consider a lot about writing something special. I had this stock of newsprint paper that just came in and I really want to do some drawing and printing on it, but I can’t seem to find my ink roller. That makes it really challenging because I have no idea how consistent the ink would be over my printing block. Also I need to test it out soon because I’ve got quite a few things to produce in the coming weeks.

    I guess a question I have is: I don’t know how much I should think or not think about the work that I do. And I should learn what the line is to do it for myself or not.

  • Understanding myself: Moving past anger

    A range of things I have been wanting to figure out is who I am as a whole, and what makes me “me”. There’s a lot of ways of figuring this out, but most of the time, I just enjoy writing a journal, or keeping track of myself somewhere, somehow.

    A few years ago, I went to see a counselor. One big reason was because of rage issues. I’ve got a deep sense of frustration that boils over suddenly. It affects everyone around me, especially loved ones, like Clarice and my parents. I realised at that time how important it was to communicate how I was feeling, and most importantly not to give in to the rage, because it would literally feed on itself. An angry person just gets more and more angry, and I say that from real experience.

    While seeing the counselor, there were also other things that I started to think about, and it also led me to think harder about what I was feeling. One of those key feelings was my sense of control. I did not know, but I needed to be in control most of the time. Manifestations of this would be the need for the house to be in a certain way before I felt comfortable enough to relax, the need for things to be placed somewhere, and if it wasn’t I would feel deeply frustrated. Understanding that helped me to figure out also where I was willing to try and grow, and to change the way that I saw myself and saw the situation.

    After a few sessions with the counselor, my job changed its pace, and eventually I also changed jobs. These changes were somewhat good for me, but one of key moments of learning was when I had my last rage incident. I got very very very upset, and in those moments, Clarice had to leave me alone for her own safety. I was not rational at all, and through that time, I had to really figure out who I wanted to become. Would I want to be this angry dude, or do I really want to be someone different?

    I cooled down a lot after that session, and went to talk to a bunch of people about what I was feeling and what happened. Clarice also talked with me about it, and we worked through a lot of the hurts that I was thinking and feeling, and the hurts that I ended up putting on her too.

    At the same time, it gave me a different perspective of Clarice, and how she was really trying so hard on so many other levels. She was working hard at work, she was trying to be as good a wife as she knew how to, and still I was being such a brat. It was quite crazy how big a change that was, because for some reason prior to that, I really don’t think I understood Clarice as well as I do now. I had to learn how to tell her what I was thinking, and ask her for actual help at the parts where I was struggling with. Through that, I think I learnt to also trust other people, starting with Clarice, because as part of the sense of control, I felt that I couldn’t trust myself to lean on her.

    What a strange process I’ve placed myself through, over and over again, to find out that I need to depend and trust other people. There’s absolutely no way I would find out who I am on my own, and learning how to trust other people is really part of this process.

    It’s been quite a while since my last blow up, and I’m quite confident I am a different person. It’s not the same person who was angry, and didn’t know how to control his anger. Now I have learnt my best superpower, which is to depend on someone else for all my frustrations and hurts. I mean I’ve definitely learned to lean on God, but also to lean on the people he provides in my life.

    So a long about way to say how I’m learning to understand myself, is to say that I’m learning how much I need to depend on other people. Truly, a conundrum of life.

  • maybe it’s just that easy: understanding a next gen person

    There’s been a lot of talk and discussion about how to reach the next generation, or how will the young people come into the midst of the older ones, or how will we work with gen z’s and gen alpha’s in the years to come.

    Today, I’ve had a good prolonged interaction with a gen alpha, and guess what, they’re a human being just like us.

    I think it’s really strange sometimes the amount of labels we place on each other and analyze over and over again. Maybe it’s the fault of targeted marketing, and the way that the capitalist world has given specific markers for the existing markets, and now they don’t know how to produce something that this market would like.

    But guess what, they don’t either, because they’re kids still.

    When I was a kid, I would change my interests every other week maybe.

    Based on today’s marketing angles, can you imagine, the marketeers changing their plans every 2 weeks to fit the trends of young people? But that’s the consistent frantic speed that everyone is working towards now. And we keep thinking we don’t know how to talk to them, but the truth of it is: they’re as much of kids as we were. Just because they have the means of social media, doesn’t mean mental clarity to dictate what exactly they want to do. It doesn’t mean they know who they are, and that their identity is set in stone. Things change, and they will too.

    But what is hard is if the adults keep changing just to cater to their whims and fancies. From what I understand now, there’s so much a young person can push by saying or suggesting things. Talking about power to the people. Just a tiktok trend in a few people could start a whole new Shopee ad campaign. If someone starts watching a new TV show and shares about it, it spirals into a whole set of ideologies that YouTube picks up for more things.

    But at the heart of it, its just kids having fun. I remember having fun and doing these exact things, but without the medium of social media to boost this to the rest of the observing advertising eyes.

    So maybe the real deal is just to back off, and let kids be kids and have fun. These questions, these labels, and the ways and methods we think would “help us understand them better”, it’s just how we understand ourselves as humans better. We’re all the same, and I was definitely there once.

    my two cents worth. If you’re a gen z or a gen alpha, am I getting you wrong? are you not just having fun growing up? please let me know.

  • another cold rainy day

    Actually the last few cold rainy days were quite some time away. But there’s always a certain dread in the cold rainy days. It’s hard to get out of the house cause you’ll most definitely get wet along the way. It’s hard to will yourself to get out of bed because it’s just so nice and warm and cosy.

    But then again, I was remembering that I used to really embrace the cold days when I stayed at Jalan Minyak. It was a moment today when I had to peel off my old address and to stick on the new one, to state that I would officially find my place of residence here in Bukit Batok instead.

    I remembered that I would find myself in pajamas even though I had no air conditioning. I would also be snuggled into bed, with dim lighting, and maybe playing a vinyl or two. There was just something really special about having life that way, and it was good on the cold rainy days.

    But now it’s really just another cold rainy day again.

    The dread to do work, because it’s so cosy. I say that, but I literally cleared so much work today. It was kinda nuts. Maybe it was because unlike before, now my work from home situation is quite well equipped to handle a whole range of things to do. I also find myself being quite happy to sit at my table and figure out what’s the next thing coming up.

    Cold and rainy, but maybe there could be a new routine to develop.

    I’m sitting in my pajamas now, and just typing away to end the busy day. I think I’ve done quite well today, and I’m happy if tomorrow would be similar. Maybe this would start a routine of it’s own, in this new place, in a new cold rainy day.

  • An Old Routine: A Keyboard A Day

    Today I woke up and remembered something that I had forgotten quite some time back. There was a time where I would put a new keyboard together before I started work. At that time, I think I was going through many things mentally, and this past week, I felt some of that old anxiety creeping back in. Building a keyboard everyday for myself was a real way for me to deal with that anxiety, by having something I could control, and it would distract me for at least half an hour before I would start my work.

    Assembling a keyboard daily isn’t a task that everyone could do, or afford to do. In hindsight, I know that what I was doing was something almost completely unnecessary, and there were probably a million other ways for me to destress and get ready for the day. It was just that at that time, keyboard building was the sweet spot for me. I was also filming so much of my keyboard builds, and I think I really enjoyed the processes of making all that happen. It provided this means of escape, if just a little.

    The deeper question to ask is about the anxiety I face. A lot of it had to do with the lack of control, despite being tasked to do something. I think I’ve transferred that action sometimes to my wife, by asking her to do something, but then completely limiting her on how to do it. It has to be done how I want it to be done. While sounding completely stupid, it makes sense sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes. Like how to fry and egg. Or how to wipe a table down. It’s pretty dumb then, but I can get really picky and annoying about things like that.

    But when it’s something a bit more vague and ambiguous, like to achieve a goal, or to perform in a certain way, there’s a lot of ways to get something done. When there are many ways to get something done, the buy in from everyone else needs to be there. And sometimes, in getting the buy in, compromises have to be made. But what gave me the most anxiety is when my work of hitting a specific goal, was tasked to me almost to the dot, and that gave me a lot of pressure, because I simply wasn’t being me.

    Thankfully, my current work now embraces me as a person, and incorporates who I am into the workflow. It allows for the company to grow, and for me to also learn more comfortably about other people. But the anxiety that I felt was triggered a lot from the past, and I am glad to be reminded that I don’t have to work that way anymore.

    In all this learning, I think the key point is to really let my wife do her own thing. 🙂

  • Learning from Sadness and Pain

    Today I spent some time with my friend, and just listening to him and how he is working through a really rough patch in life. I won’t share about his problems for sure, but I will share about what I learnt when I went through my own times of grieving and sadness.

    There is always something to learn about yourself as you suffer.

    I think I’ve gone through a lot of sadness, and in different forms. I’ve experienced grief from the passing of a loved one, the heartache of breaking up, the loss of a pet, moving and the change of where home is, alienation and exclusion, and the list goes on. It’s not a bad of honour, but it’s just the amount of things I was forced to learn at each of those times. I hated every moment of it, but I learnt the softness of my heart. I learnt how I can’t handle separation very well. It hurts for me to go through disunity. And I can’t stand the feeling of losing a pet.

    One of the key things I end up asking myself is how I could have avoided the situation. How could I not feel sad? Is there a way to avoid it? What do I need to do to make sure I can avoid this feeling? In this whole portion, I also found out how avoidant I am about sadness, and the length I would go to to make sure that I don’t feel too sad. But with things like death, I don’t have much of a choice. I have learnt to accept death, though extremely painful.

    There is always something to learn about the world around you.

    The world is not a great place, and as much as a lot of people like to say that everyone in the world is just trying to make the world a better place, they’re just trying to make the world better for them, and it’s always at someone’s expense one way or another. That itself is a sad situation.

    But directly dealing with things like grief and loss, I have learnt that it is actually common in the world. We are all sad creatures that are dealing with loss in one way or another. In fact, we’re losing time as I type this and as you read it. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to cry about it, but at the same time, I’m not really happy that I’m losing time. But I will cry about losing a friend, about losing a friend to death, and about losing animals to death too.

    The way the person dies is almost irrelevant, I will feel sad the same way. It is the absence of the person. The distance of eternity of living and dead, and I can never speak with the person this exact same way ever again. Death is the worst because I just cannot do anything to link back up with the person ever again. There is no more connection. It hurts the most.

    There is something to place about God at a time of loss.

    Perhaps God isn’t your term for this. But there’s this entity, after all your shouting and screaming, beyond the other sad people. There’s this person that you ask “Why did you take this away from me?”

    This question to this entity, I call God, and I know as God. I ask Him often (I attribute male because I am male, but I assume gender as a human thing, not a divine thing), why do you allow humans to take away from each other? To murder, to steal, to take emotions away.

    My answer from Him is usually because they can choose to give as well. As much as I am grieving from loss, I am also glad when receiving something. I am glad to to give sometimes, not all the time, because when I choose to give, I’m choosing to part with something.

    This portion gets a bit more Christian, but bear with me, I’m just sharing what I learnt about God through my sadness.

    This frames as well my idea of Jesus as a saviour, as God’s gift to mankind. It’s an imagery of God parting with Jesus. It is sad, it is hard. It is painful and difficult. But he gives Jesus to us for the sake of our futures. It is good to receive Jesus because I can later have a solving of a lot other brokenness because what having Jesus means.

    It is painful, but God relates. It is separation. God relates.

    Why, God? Because there’s something to learn from it.

    It might never feel good, but I am learning from it.

    I don’t know how to cheer people up very well, as you can tell. All I can ever say is, I know your pain, and I will cry with you. I am crying with you tonight my buddy. I hope it cheers you up a bit to know that.

    Why, God? What do we have to learn today?

  • 10 minute post

    Started to write this at 1141PM on 2 Sep:

    Today was a super long day. We spent the day at a wedding, and then Clarice and I both went to Artcade and Open Fields markets. These were pretty different markets, and I enjoyed myself there in a big way! By big, I mean that I spent a lot of money on a lot of things. Lol.

    One of the realisations I had at these markets was the type of merch made, and the amount that was made. There was a LOT of things, like I think if you combined all the created work together, there would easily be over a hundred thousand types of artwork made. There was just so many things. Some things looked similar, but otherwise, there was really just so many. This overwhelming amount of things really made me feel like I had too many things to choose from, and maybe I chose quite randomly at the end of it all. The ones at Artcade were a lot more similar than the ones at Open Fields, in my opinion. Both had super different types of work, but really, there was just a lot of work produced.

    Another realisation was the type of work I would like to produce. I don’t think I can produce at that quantity, and at that type of merchandising. There was just too many different types of things made, and I think some were smart, but some were just made to sell. It works if selling is the aim, but I think I place myself too idealistically, and I don’t want to just make things to sell. I want to make things that tell a story, and unfortunately, at markets, the feeling isn’t really to hear stories that much. I think the spot to tell stories would be at art galleries, but then there’s not much buying there I guess.

    In any case, these two thoughts were going through my head, and I think they will direct the type of things that I make in the next few months, in the zines that I’m approaching to make. I hope to change the way I sell and the way I tell stories, and to also find a spot that makes the most sense for me, as trisected, as joel.

    My thoughts weren’t meant to offend anyone, or to judge or critique. Just my thoughts for my own work and my own journey, shared on my own blog to express for how I thought through these things.

    All in 10 mins!

  • A return to Jalan Minyak for a minute

    Today we ran around a bit; I had forgotten to update my residential address, and ended up having to go to Jalan Minyak once again to do my voting. I saw my ex-neighbour’s son, the neighbours were in the hospital, because Uncle had some medical issues.

    Going back to Jalan Minyak, it really hit me how much I missed this area and the joys of living in a smaller place, with less luxury. We had no air con, no heated water, namely because it just didn’t make sense to install the things with the idea that we were moving soon. But still it gave some reference to how the rest of our neighbours lived. At least we had space, which was also another luxury. Less space than what we have now, but still more space the people around us.

    It sounds horrible, and it doesn’t make sense why I would miss any of it, but it was a quite a uniting thought to know that the people next to you weren’t in the best state and everyone was just trying to get by. It’s quite something when humans live through tough times together, due to whatever circumstances we’ve been put through. I don’t have that same uniting point with my neighbours currently. It doesn’t feel like we’re in hardship, other than just being absolutely far from the city center. We are united in that, and yet, no one talks on the train or the bus on the way to work.

    But I remember the strolls from the supermarket back home with the aunties in the evening. I’d have my hands full of food for the dinner soon to be made, and the aunties also with their trolleys. I’d offer to help carry, but they would just shoo me away, and ask me to just walk with them and to let them carry it. We would walk up the hill step by step, and talk about life, talk about the next few days, maybe share tips about what we would cook for dinner and why.

    I don’t have that here, maybe not yet.

    Today’s consumption: Playing tons of Nier Automata, but also a lot of talking with parents. F1 weekend too, so that’s what’s going on in the background, along with the presidential election sample count.

  • Modern Times

    Perhaps I should return to blogging everyday, because that really gave me a consistency of some sort. Along the lines of drawing weekly. That consistent discipline really made me develop in ways that I never really thought would happen. But it’s hard when I’m running around being busy all the time. I guess that’s no excuse, but hey, it’s real.

    There’s something I’m thinking very hard about these days, and that’s the approach to society as a whole right now. Society’s such a big word, but is it really who we are? In the social media era, where diversity is celebrated, is it really a society that currently exists?

    The current view of culture places emphasis of some above others. It’s not wrong, but it’s wrong to call it equal. I’m not referring to groups, but just the general approach that we’re taking. I’m not trying to make a stand for or against, but I’m just thinking about how we see the world now and the term of society that might need to be redefined.

    I’m just thinking, and I’m trying to find the best words for it, but I’m just thinking still.

    And that’s what’s on my mind in these modern times.

  • Busy Busy Busy

    I don’t think I’ve ever thought I would have gotten this busy this year.

    I’m in the middle of setting up three collab zine groups, and maybe even getting a fourth. I think at the start of the year, I didn’t even expect one to exist. And all this development was definitely not because I had the best ideas or because I had the best drive in the world, but I really think it was such a big series of incidents that I have to call it a divine action of God in my life.

    I don’t shy away from the idea of miracles, because I do think the everyday life we see is largely dependent on that idea. It’s a miracle I get to wake up, considering the foods and liquids I’ve put into my body. It’s an even bigger miracle, considering the hard work I put it through whenever I try to work out when I’m clearly sick.

    But when it comes to work, this work of having people coming together, I didn’t really think so well of it. I thought no one would come along, and I thought that it would have taken me a lot more time to develop one group, let alone three, and maybe four. I step back, and I do acknowledge that to be a clear moment where I personally see God’s hand in my life, orchestrating the people, and the situations in ways that I could not have had imagined. It’s pretty darn mindblowing, and it’s really not like I deserve it. It’s really not as if I was working so hard on my own, but I was really just doing what I think I was always doing, and God’s led many things to be put together.

    Sure this busyness comes at a cost of what other work I could do; I’ve written a lot less here, and maybe sketched and drew even less. But the actual talking, and the actual people I get to meet make my lack of regular creative output a lot more worth it.

    I don’t know what exactly to make of it. I know that I still make my YouTube videos every now and then. There’s a large part of me that really wants to produce things, and I have a crap ton of drafts hiding out in my room. The other day, my creative itch got so bad that I really just started painting with nothing in mind. That’s when i know something’s going to change drastically, creatively.

    I wish I could have enough time and energy to handle the mental hurdles I have to go through, and still produce artwork at the same time. There’s a certain place my mind has to be, for me to really find my place creatively. It’s that tap that’s just leaking water at a slowish rate, but the moment you put pressure at the opening, it spurts out. It’s the same water rate, but the pressure makes everything come out so much faster.

    If you have a hose, and angle it, you might even get a rainbow.

    I think that’s what I’m trying to do: to get my creative rainbow after I put some pressure on myself.

    But maybe busy is good for now, and whether I like it or not, it’s putting the pressure on, and it’ll make the creative rainbow come out somehow.

  • Biographies and Legacy

    I spent the weekend watching two documentary/biography pieces. One was Anthony Bourdain’s Roadrunner, and the other was Bohemian Rhapsody, covering Queen’s rise to fame. The Queen one definitely had Freddie Mercury as the main character. Both shows had some very interesting themes about the human condition and where one finds themselves as a creative.

    The loneliness that one faces at the height of fame was something both men had faced. The fame gave them this public image that society was so unwilling to leave aside. In essence, that really becomes the irony of fame: everyone knows you, but yet no one knows you at the same time.

    How lonely that must feel, to have sought after acclaim of excellence, only to find yourself unable to be the person you would like to be, or to be loved by the people you hoped to be loved by. The fame that was sought after at the start consumes, or it seemed to have changed the person so much.

    Which makes you really question the place of fame and that success that many seek after. Is it really worth it at the end of the day? That hope and sense of excellence, does it really exist?

    Another thing that Anthony Bourdain had shared about was this sense of deep sadness inside. Personally, I understand that in so many ways. I feel the frustrations of the world, and this sense that the world does not fulfill itself in any way. Maybe it’s the system, or there lack of. It’s people, it’s the sinful nature of the world, it’s the brokenness. It’s sadness, it’s dissatisfaction, it’s just a mess.

    I don’t know if I’ll ever stop feeling the sense of it, but I know that for me, the only way it will ever move past is with my focus on other people, and definitely on God. And it has to be the Christian God, because of the place and purpose of where God and Human beings come together. The key relationship between both that is so well explained in the bible, is really one of God and creation, and it makes the most sense for me.

    It’s not about finding rights, or justifying your emotions, but it is about the journey of reliance, and being very well aware of the overall creator. I find that my place in that story is where it should be. It makes even more sense when you tie it to the issue of fame that was just mentioned. If fame was the toxic drug that takes away so much from life, then it’s best that only one person receives this very hard and difficult gift. It should remain with and be with the only who deserves it because he can handle the position of it.

    I don’t think I seek fame, but I think I seek a legacy of some sort. I seek to have messages and stories to tell after I’m gone. I think that might be the only reason I keep on leaving this blog on, and coming back to it every now and then to write posts. Maybe these posts would be best understood in the context of my life. Maybe I should try to do an autobiography so that I could also understand myself in my own process.

    Maybe one day.

    and maybe I would also find out the place of writing in my life, in its most appropriate form. Perhaps at that point, the book, a book, would come out too.

  • Talking, talking, talking

    Interestingly enough, in my church, I’m not widely known for my art and design anymore. That’s not a bad thing to me, because sometimes I don’t know if I could match the tastes of my church’s preferences. Instead, for the past few years, I’ve been doing a lot of talking and relationship building work. I’ve had to do talks on how people think and how they communicate, and funny enough, I learnt a lot of it from the visual communication topics that I’ve had to do in school, and things around that.

    I guess at the heart of it, it’s almost always how we respond to each other that counts the most. The relational part of life trumps a lot successes.

    But that doesn’t mean that I give up my art and my design experiences either. It’s just a lot of balancing of what I actually do and what I am competent with. That line is difficult to tread. But maybe just like my sketching work that grew over the years, I might be able to do art a lot more than what I would expect of myself right now.

  • The competing thoughts

    I’ve been reading a lot, and there’s a common thread that has been coming up. It’s about the things that one collects, and ends up hoarding over time. The value is definitely in the eye of the beholder, but at the same time, there’s a real issue because of the amount of baggage stuck behind as someone thinks about the things they have, and they never seem to know where to start.

    I think I’m definitely facing some, or a lot, of that.

    I think it’s come to a point where I read about the character in the book, and I resonate with the frustration of the person. I even picture myself as that person, because of the exact words used. Things like “this is an archive”, or “this is meant for a project”. I’ve had so many projects that have really not taken the shape or form that I’d have expected.

    And yet I still get more things.

    It goes beyond; it goes to the way that I think of money and the things that I do with it. It’s not really about spending the money, but what do I do with the things that I have after I’ve gotten them? I am happier for that time, but in all truth, I just have more things to deal with too. That’s another set of challenges that I pile on.

    I’m really thinking also of the ways that I need to plan ahead, and the things I would hope to have. “If only I had some space…” That’s answered simply by throwing things away. But I get stuck at the decision fatigue, and I think about resorting back to the KonMarie method, and to just do some deep decluttering.

    The competing thought to all this is really: what is my art about? What is my artist message?

    These things are not me, but at the same time, they are the expressions of what I like in the world. And what I like in the world is also part of what I like to express.

    That’s my current competing thought, but maybe this whole thing in itself is part of my artist message.

    And maybe that’s what I want to express.

  • Who is the Audience?

    I’ve been hiding away from my writing here for some time because I think I have started to lose the answer to this question right now. This is not specific to my blog, but more for my creative self as a whole. I think I am questioning the purpose of why I make, especially as I start to plan and prepare for more. Along with that, I’m also thinking about the audience: will anyone like my work? Will it sell?

    I’ve really only had to think of that since doing the fair. It feels like the times before this when I was just drawing for fun, and putting it on instagram as my personal small gallery, those times were really just a distant dream. I guess there’s always a space and time to do things like this. It’s easier managing a brand, or something where is clearly made to sell. But when it’s me, then who am I selling it to? Am I even selling?

    That’s really where my mind is at right now. I have ideas of expansion on the coffee bag zines. I could plan them for a seasonal release. But at the same time, there’s really gonna be a whole bunch of stuff that I would end up making, and I don’t really want to hold on to so many things. It would create so much stock at home.

    I also really just wanna make things for fun, not to sell them, or to have some sort of art career. Maybe that’s the art career I want, the one that allows me to do all the disciplines that I find interesting and attractive, and that’s the one that I think I should work towards.

    Maybe at the end of the day, I’m the real audience. Some what, slightly, completely self serving. But if I don’t make the work that I think is interesting, or that represents me at some core level, then how would I approach the later times when I’ll really need to apply myself as an artist to the world around me.

    But the honest question that I asked myself before still remains: how do I show and bring hope through the art that I do. Is it even possible to?

    I think I’ll try my best to approach it with hope, even though hope really seems so far away sometimes.

  • Change

    Making a change on where this blog would be placed on the site really affects the way I think about updating it. Previously, I’d just be faced with it straight up, and I’ll be thinking of blogging every day. But now that I’m tucking it away under a blog tab, it’s really something else to think through.

    I guess another good thing to consider is the rest of the site, and the pages on it. I will be aiming to give it some life, and to change things up a bit there. It’s something I should be developing for sure, and constantly updating.

    Change is hard when its on things that have become familiar. Like the placement of this blog, I was familiar with it. Now that I’m not, it’s hard to get back to it. I changed my schedule this week too, to start running, and making some headway into my physical training and health again. It’s taken a lot out of me to wake up earlier everyday, but at least I know that I’m making some progress onto it.

    Change is easy when there’s less effort involved. Not doing something is easier than doing something. Worse still when not doing something allows you to enter into an extremely comfortable state. I find myself so easily slipping into lazy routines, and just making my own state of being extremely relaxed.

    But I guess I will write here all the more for myself, and my own actions of change. Hopefully this would help my own self think through my own things, and maybe that would lead to some positive change for the things i have to do.

  • Leading by example

    I don’t think it’s super easy to describe what happens when you step into a role of leadership. Or how it is when you have to gather a group of people and convince them that you’re doing it right, and they should be listening to you.

    Let me attempt to describe it:

    It is impossible. Most of the time.

    I’m usually found in a place of leadership. Not because I want to, but because I am talking too much, and people either like what I am saying, or they don’t like it, and they want me to be in front so that others can also disagree with me publicly. The trouble to this is that I am usually unafraid of speaking in front, and more often, I am convinced that my thoughts would win more people over from my presented thoughts and opinions.

    I don’t think this always equates to being a leader, but it is not hard thereafter to tell everyone that they ought to follow what I’m saying, because I’m there talking about it.

    In that sense, I think I can lead.

    But in other forms of the word: I often think of leadership as the man in front of the army, commanding a thousand men behind him to rush the enemies in front. I think of the presidents, and ministers, saying things that they might not have a clear idea about, but still presenting it in hope to rally the people.

    That sense of leadership is somewhat hard for me to grasp, because I don’t necessarily agree with an organised group to the extent of a government. It’s not that I don’t agree with the government, its more like I question the need and the purpose of it. But that being said, I can’t imagine being that kind of leader. Perhaps because the need and purpose question is not something I have worked out.

    So I am trying my best, in the places where I am at, to lead by example.

  • some changes

    So I started do some adjusting around the site as a whole, kinda to get myself a bit more visibility in the right areas, or so I hope. The blog will still be a blog, and I’ve got a clear link for it now.

    But instead, all other areas are a bit more defined.

    Basically I just arranged my front page in a certain way so that it wouldn’t assail you with my thoughts and emotions from the get go. I actually did all this because of something that I’ve been thinking hard about: how much hard work am I putting in?

    I honestly feel like I’ve been trying to cruise at what I’m pretty good at. Like writing, or just coming up with ideas. I can do that all day, almost without any effort. That also means that I can afford to “not feel like it” most of the day. Because I could crash something out really fast.

    But having to work at web design (which I can do but I suck at), or design as a whole (which I enjoy, but I can’t do well), these things take a bit more out of me. I also don’t mind making friends with strangers, but having to sell them something I don’t completely understand also feels strange to me. Which is why I rework my art programs looking for perfection, but honestly it’s just a bit too much to keep on at it without actually starting something going.

    So I’m working on the site, in hope that I direct myself to something more feasible. It also makes me work harder, which I haven’t done in a long time.

    Maybe actually for years…

    But yeah, it feels good, and you’re getting to see parts of the result of it, like on the website.

    It feels great!

  • Keeping it up

    There’s always so much work that could be done, and sometimes getting started is difficult, but I always think that maintaining is the hardest. Here are some thoughts I am having, as I try to motivate myself through my own afternoon humps.

    Motivations

    Digging deep to find why I’m doing something is always helpful. It makes me think harder about why I’m doing something, and I try to develop a bit more value to the task at hand. It needs to outweigh the value of the distraction, which is usually quite easily discarded as distractions.

    Breaks

    But sometimes the distractions help you to find the value of the task at hand. Like having some mediocre coffee always reminds me that there’s better coffee elsewhere. That gives me some energy to try and wake up earlier the next day so that I can actually make better coffee.

    Similarly for work, sometimes the breaks are seen and perceived as a waste of time. This might work positively, because I wouldn’t want to waste my time would I? Instead, I might want to focus more on the work I have, and making that more valuable.

    Friends and Workmates

    The social aspect to work is always key. I find that days when my colleagues are also working hard, it is easier to remind myself to keep on at it. But on other days, especially after big meals, everyone might distract each other not to work. So the friends around also play a part on how we feel about doing the work.

    Most of the time, having someone around that is willing to work, and to keep with the work, that makes for a good experience of working. I also find it a bit more motivating when there’s a clear time of play after. For example, sometimes I would go work with friends, and we would go bouldering after that. I would intentionally try to finish my work quicker, or with a lot more focus, so that the play later is more stress free.

    The Audience

    Close to motivations; I find that meeting the people who would be receiving my work is always a good reason to keep my focus on the work. Sometimes it might be a client, other times it might be students or people I am mentoring. Meeting them straight would also give me a bit more alignment, and even help with my own ideas and how I generate them.

    The To Do List

    This one always works. Breaking down the day into small tasks that I can mark off as the day goes on. For some reason, having clear indicators of what I am doing and what is done helps me to get more work done faster. Psychological maybe.

    Just a short post today, with some short points. I’m just really distracted with my own work and decided to make something positive out of my distractions. Clearing off my daily blog post 🙂

  • on contentedness

    I have this there where I like getting new things. I mean that in every way, just brand new items, fresh out of the box. Going for new experiences not so much, but items and objects that are new are definitely up my alley.

    At the same time, I really like things that are ages old. Like it took me years to throw away my math text books from my secondary school days (14-16 years old). I keep and collect things that can’t be found anymore, because I just like the rarity of things.

    But when it comes to having more things, sometimes I have to ask myself, do I really need it? What’s wrong with what I have right now, and am I content with these things?

    All the minimalism stories on YouTube would explain these things in much better ways, but I would suggest somewhat of an alternative.

    No I am not content.

    I don’t think anyone will ever be. There’s something about humanity and about humans, and we want to do things, make things, have things. I remember when I was getting into mechanical keyboards, there were nights where all I heard were the sounds of typing and switches being activated. In branding, marketing, advertising, the whole premise is to help other companies get more and more. Influencers are telling us that the lifestyles they have are achievable if we try this and that.

    So why bother pretending that we’re ok with what we have, when actually sometimes we’re not even content with how content we are?

    It’s a fine line of being a complete neophile (person who loves new things, not dead people), and the other end to be a hoarder stuck in the past. But even the hoarder is not content, that’s the whole point of why they hoard. They don’t think they’ll ever have enough, and so they keep as much as possible.

    I am ok to admit that I’m not content, because honestly there’s a lot of things that I want more of, or that I’m looking forward to. Sometimes these things are improvements, sometimes they are alternatives.

    But I can be happy with or without what I have

    I’m not ungrateful for the opportunities and the things that I’ve received. I’ve lived a great life so far, from all my sharing and comparison with friends. I’ve definitely been blessed beyond measure, and I would attribute that to God. These items or these new things that I’m looking for, they are just a small part of life.

    I don’t think having things are key to my happiness, and I think contentedness is also not linked to happiness. It could affect it a bit, but it’s not the basis of my happiness for sure. I would say contentedness affects my willpower, or my drive for what I want.

    Some of these thoughts were from the Vietnam trip for sure, seeing the distinct old and new. I observed this want for new things, and the keeping of old at the same time. It made the city look haphazard almost, but still producing a local charm. I do think most of us would be able to find a similar personal charm while balancing our wants and needs. But I do think we lose it when we try to live our lives to some inhumane standard of life that no one really can live by. Some idealistic worldview that produces a non-consumer; but in essence, we’re definitely consumers as humans. Might as well embrace that part of us, and learn the other parts of ourselves too.

  • productivity on F1 days

    Today’s a specific topic, just to give myself a bit more time to think about what I want to say about my Vietnam holiday. It’s actually F1 race season, and last weekend at this time, I was watching some of the craziest practice races on the Baku circuit. On Sunday, after arriving in Vietnam, I actually burst my data roaming watching the Grand Prix. Despite the consistently crazy practice races, and the sprint race as well, the actual race had no red flags. This means that through the entire race, there was no stop because of a crash or another. The teams were hoping that there would be a crash of some sort, but nothing happened, and instead, two teams reached the end of the race before sending their cars in for the required pit stop by FIA.

    This week in Miami looks completely different, in terms of the circuit itself. It looks super fun and relaxing, and maybe it is, but I finally understand that Miami colorway that so many keyboards have applied on their colors.

    But I digress. The point of today’s blog is about how I keep myself productive, while being glued to the screen, watching every single lap that the sports channel gives me. I actually don’t do anything else but watch F1 for the hour or so. It’s one of my most focused times, and I find myself being having laser focus throughout. It’s exciting and I enjoy it.

    After the race is over, I become this sort of super productive person. I feel like every second matters, because I’ve just watched multi million dollars worth of automobiles circle laps for literally milliseconds off each other’s timing. If that doesn’t teach you the value of money, I don’t know what else would.

    As I say this, I’m also aware of the amount of time I do waste. I’ve been having mornings scrolling through social media, just browsing, and in the name of researching trends and culture. My strategy to record things fall through, and for those moments, I just drop off for a bit. I come back to my work with this distracted mind, and sometimes I don’t come back. I end up whiling hours away, watching something on YouTube (recently NewJeans), or Netflix (recently Blacklist).

    Perhaps my research needs to actually come to some limits, and perhaps like an F1 race, I ought to give myself some very strict rules, so that every second counts. Because that’s the truth of it: every second does actually count.

  • More thoughts on TikTok TED Talk

    One of the more interesting points that Shou Chew from TikTok expressed on the talk was about how the platform rewards those with talents.

    Initially, I thought this quite a lot of nonsense, especially because the kind of videos that get recommended to me for things like keyboards and the like, can actually be quite simple, and not very special. Or at least I struggle to see where the talent is.

    After some thinking through, I do think this is quite real. It does take quite a lot of video editing talent, to chop the videos up in an interesting enough way. I personally don’t have the skill or patience to edit videos in such a specific way. Most of my videos are as simple as possible, and made as quickly as I can. This follows the YouTube type of algorithm, where the consistency is key.

    But if TikTok does give value to the style of video editing, I think there really could be a lot done there. It does mean that I need to up my skills at video editing, and there’s a lot of work that goes in to listening to audio, or just finding the right amount of footage to make it work.

    I think that’s talent there, and maybe, just someday, I would have the talent to do the video editing that way. Maybe.

  • Decision Fatigue

    When I woke up today, I was really spoiled for choice on which of my many hobbies I wanted to work on!

    There was a part of me that wanted to work on my keyboard, because I had just gotten the Cherry Nixie Switches. I thought to put them in a board and do a whole stock sound test, recording that to put it in a video soon.

    Another part of me really wanted to go climbing, as I had been for the past few Saturday mornings. But my climbing friends weren’t climbing today, and I would be climbing alone.

    I also considered going for a run, having done a few runs in the week so far. The good sunny weather would always be a great draw, a great reason to run in the morning.

    I wanted to pack some creative work along for my coming holiday. I would be flying away tomorrow morning, and I had some ideas of what to bring, but I wasn’t sure how much I would bring.

    In the end, after all those thoughts, I spent about an hour in bed just flipping through social media.

    Sometimes when there’s too many options, the easiest option is always the one you subconsciously revert to.

    But I did go climbing in the end. I probably shouldn’t have though, because my work out from last night really added some good ache to my shoulders and my arms. I’ll need to do a bit more massage and relaxing, and hopefully I don’t stress out too much during the holiday.

    One of my key thoughts this week: What’s my time worth?

    Are my hobbies worth the time I spend on it? Or the different people I get to meet?

    Still haven’t really gotten to a good answer for myself.

  • Tick Tock TikTok?

    Tick Tock TikTok?

    I just watched the TED Talk with the TikTok CEO, and it’s quite an interesting set of things he brings up. He talked about how the app actually scans your face as you use it. I mean I should have guessed it before, considering the filters that have been on for ages. But I guess it was quite surprising.

    But I think another thing that really struck me was the high focus on creativity he kept mentioning. The company mission stands as Inspiring Creativity, and Bringing Joy. I personally enjoy that idea, but for some reason I always end up thinking of the action of getting stuck on TikTok, over the actual creation of the videos behind it. It really makes me think that I ought to try, and make something interesting for TikTok, especially with the type of content that I do.

    I also think there’s a lot that I say here, or to people on stream, or just talk about, but it’s not publicised the same way that I do the rest of my content. It doesn’t get the same views and pull I guess.

    But nonetheless, still very inspired to try something new on, especially for TikTok. That’s really something else to work on.

  • Revisiting Purpose

    It’s been some time since I’ve written here, and today I was reminded why. I’ve lost the purpose of why I started writing here, and I am quite sure now why I would like to start writing again.

    I want to write here to explain why and what I think about when I do the work that I do. This blog is a place for me to give the behind the scenes of my everyday life, including my everyday thoughts and things that direct the decisions I make and take on.

    If anything, this gives an explanation to the work that I produce, or the content that I express. Perhaps that’s the key too, that I could intentionally develop content both on here and Medium again.

    But yes, I will use this blog daily again, and to explain the things I am thinking about.

    I shall also start making things again, extremely motivated to do more after a great meeting amongst other creatives today. It is really a good place to be when other people are spurring each other on with ideal and pure ideas.

  • Questions about keyboards that I still have today – Mar 2023

    There are some things that I’ve been thinking really hard about, especially in the past few months of work, and with keyboards:

    When people were in the keyboard hobby in the 90’s, how did they stick around interested for so long?

    I am really learning so much about perseverance through this hobby, and learning how to be content with what I have. I also have learnt what I like and don’t like to do. But I can’t imagine being one of the OG’s in the custom scene, and how they would meet up to talk about the few switches, and they did this for years. Props to them for really keeping up the hobby over all this time.

    How often should one change a board?

    One of the buddies on the YouTube channel asked me to do a trisected thought about rebuilds, and I think it’s a worthy topic to explore. I still ask myself, should i change it after using the keyboard hardcore for a week alone? Or after a few months of use? I’m not sure of the exact amount of time. Also because I have so many boards, it takes some effort to remember which I’ve done where.

    Currently I actually track what I’ve set up before based on my YouTube channel, because I honestly can’t remember.

    How intense should my mobile setup be?

    I don’t really agree with carrying too many things around whenever I go to work. This means that during a busy period when I’m not going to be in office a lot, I actually take home my keyboards and just work with my MacBook keyboard directly. But I recall a time where I would bring a 40 along to a cafe, especially if I need to hammer out an article or a letter.

    But now, I’m just thinking of the additional weight I carry, and if it’s worth that little bump of typing experience. I’m still undecided. I tried bringing my hhkb around for some time, but it just fits into a weird space in my backpack. Maybe I should try again some time soon, and find out what I’m happy with.

    Ortholinear keyboards.

    I can deal with my reviung, the lilypro and the corne. but my planck… I don’t know man. The knob added a fun dimension to it, but coming down to quick practicality, it’s not the easiest to get used to. Some people really still swear by it, but I don’t know if that’s me.

    Maybe I should try again just to see… I can’t even remember how I managed to do a plateless set up for it, and I did that one time amazingly. I shall attempt another go or two at it.

    What are some questions and thoughts you still have about your keyboards?

  • Back to Basics

    I’m typing on a mechanical keyboard once again.

    It took some time, but finally, finally, back to some 3-4mm travel. No more flat laptop keyboards to survive through the day.

    I was wondering why this matters so much to me, and I think it comes down to some basic things that I tend to live by.

    The Importance of the Experience

    I think my life has been filled with so many opportunities and experiences that every one needs to count in some way. Maybe that’s an extremely privileged way of thinking, but I personally think times of suffering and pain are essential as well. So it is not that I am looking for the top of the world type of situations, but I would like my experiences in life to count for something.

    That means that I’m completely fine if my life looks different from my friends around me, but I am happy with how it is going. To me, that matters more.

    Because of that as well, I find that I get stuck in certain situations longer than I expect. I am struggling with efficiency, to live as much as possible, and the quality of how well I live.

    Which is the next point

    The Expressions

    I have not sketched for ages. Sketching, over the past few years, had given me moments of respite. My brain was allowed to rest, and I could just observe and appreciate the moment. Currently, I’ve not really had time to just draw. It’s been some time since I’ve drawn, but I think the routine of drawing is something I miss as well.

    I also realised that I miss expressing myself in certain ways. It’s a funny feeling that I get when I listen to something like The Strokes, or Blink 182. There’s that youthful charm of plain dumb lyrics and jumping around. The expression of youth has not left me, but it is stuck and is jumping inside. I want to jump along, and I want to just make as I see fit. I hope to bring that part of me back once again.

    I’ll be working on writing here every day again. I will redo my content calendar for myself, but my hope is really to get back into writing and creating once more. I hope, but I will just have to actually do it!

  • Growing up Part 982345897234

    I don’t think anyone ever prepares you for the multiple times that you have to go through different changes, learning different things and different parts of your life. I guess some people warn you, like your parents, or family members who are concerned enough to say something. But it’s not like we actually listen to what they’re saying, we just think that they’re raining on our parade.

    I’m not going through any bad patch right now, but I was just thinking about the things we’re told to look out for when we’re growing up. In Singapore, we’re always told to make sure that we eat right, that we take care of our money well, and to be careful whenever we move around. That’s the simple stuff. The harder and more intimate ones are about how we need to look out for people who are trying to make buck out of us, to remember to care for our parents and family members, or maybe just to learn how to be a human being.

    I’m going to receive my BTO keys tomorrow. For those who are not from Singapore, these are the Built To Order housing units. Most Singaporeans live in a HDB Apartment, standing for Housing Development Board. It’s public housing, but because of how it’s made, it’s the standard form of living for us. A BTO would mean that I’ve got to put a downpayment of a certain amount of money, and then wait for the apartment buildings to be built. Considering it’s public housing, we’re encouraged to use our government reserved money, and that is under the care of the CPF — Central Provident Fund. This basically takes a portion of our pay, and places it into a government owned banking system. Every citizen has their CPF, as employers need to also pay a certain amount into their employees CPF.

    So after all the acronyms, what basically happens is that they will take our CPF to pay for our HDB apartment BTO. I don’t physically have to pay a cent, but instead the government sorts out the money on their end, based on these amounts that are transacted into the different funds. Thus, public housing.

    It takes an average of about 2-3 years to build a BTO apartment, but because of the pandemic, we’re hitting the 3-5 year mark for some apartment buildings. I had signed the downpayment in 2019, and now we’re at the 2022 mark, which gives us about three years of waiting so far. I’ve grown quite accustomed to where I currently live, because it’s really central, and there will definitely be another range of posts about moving away from where I live. After all, all my keyboard videos and this entire journey started from this room, in this space.

    But yeah, moving, leaving spaces, owning my own space, that’s really part of growing up nothing can really prepare you for. I feel just at a weird state of uncertainty that I’m quite cautious about, not fearful, just sad to leave.

    How would I prepare myself to move? The emotional separations and change, not so much for the actual shifting. Those things are easy to do. It’s always the heart things that take a lot more from me that I prepared for.

    It’s tough to grow up.

  • Connections

    I always wonder who comes to this site, and how you found me. If you’ve read this, just comment and let me know.

    I’ve been thinking about it because I think on this site, on this page, I’ve got such a wide range of interests and thoughts, and I have no idea what draws people to which side of things. I know that my YouTube definitely draws some people in, and then on my Instagram as well. But really, I think that it’s all over the place.

    I’ve been thinking this specifically because of my thoughts on how to develop my web presence. I don’t have that one thing that I would like to stress less than others. A lot of the different parts of me are really working quite equally most of the time, and I feel a great need to make the best of it daily.

    That being said, I’m trying to commit to making YouTube videos as much as I can, and then also to keep posting my sketches and watercolor work more often. And then of course, to keep writing, and to keep talking about what I’m thinking about, because I think that’s really what I hope to communicate to everyone else. I don’t ever hope for my work to be taken out of context, but to always be viewed in the context of my everyday life.

    It’s always everything everywhere all at once. lol.

  • Making things up

    What a click bait title! O-M-G!

    But I think sometimes when I write here, or if I’m just talking about things that I like, sometimes it feels like I’m making things up. Not that I’m lying about things, but it feels as if there’s only that much that’s really going on. Maybe the feeling of how I feel on keyboard’s really isn’t all that detailed. Maybe that experience that I had isn’t that much to build on. Maybe it’s just a joke of some sort.

    But in so many ways, this whole culture of growing what we think ought to be shared becomes something that I end up standing by and agreeing with, as I do things like vlog, or make videos on YouTube. It’s just what we need to understand each other better.

    The opposite is if I just said, yeah you can type with any keyboard. Then there would be no fun to doing any or half of the things that I do on the channel.

    But I guess that’s the part, I’m trying to be real, and not to make up what I’m actually feeling. And that’s the part needs to be tempered every now and then. It helps to have friends that are real, to tell me if I’m being nonsensical in the things that I say. They help to balance me if I’m saying something just way too crazy, or laugh at me for being ridiculous. It’s a good break from myself so much of the time.

    Anyway, my youtube keyboard videos have been going up consistently, but a part of me really wishes I did more things for the other parts of my life. I deeply wanted to do that last month, but I just got too busy living it and chilling out. And now I’m in a new job, and things are moving on again. So it feels like its all moving along without me having a chance to try and build something.

    But we’ll see how things go. I’m keen to explore some other methods of getting footage, or editing. We’ll see how things go from there I guess.

  • My Bad

    I’ve been avoiding writing for a few days now. I have some idea why, and it’s related to why my videos go up slow on YouTube as well, and why I don’t post anything on Instagram much either.

    I think I’m dealing with my disappointments of the previous occasions.

    I don’t think I’m that good at many things. I think I’m good at thinking of ideas, but I keep thinking that I’m not good at making it happen. I keep thinking that I don’t finish it well, or execute it properly. It’s not like I’ve gotten a bad review of anything, but I’m just really not sure of what I feel about how something turns out. I feel like I can’t trust what people say, or how I feel about something, and it means that sometimes I just let things go because I feel like it.

    I don’t think that’s the way I should do it, but that’s what I feel and that’s usually what holds me back. Until a day comes along like today, where I feel like there’s too much thought going on right now in my own brain, and I need to let it go, to make sense of it all.

    So I pen this down, because I want to make more things, but my own mind is saying no. I’ll be going back to do this program that I really enjoyed a few years back called The Artist Way. It’s a 12 week course of reassessing yourself as a creative, or just as a human actually. And it’s totally private. I’m looking forward to doing it for sure, but it’s gonna be a challenge. It takes time and effort to do it, but I want to, because I’m kinda done feeling the way that I currently do. I need to get out of my own head, and let myself go and make something happen.

    All this being said, I’m gonna make edit a video and get it up for tomorrow.

    See ya, and thanks for everyone who’s been sticking around all this time. I appreciate it, and I hope to keep on at it.

  • The Boulder Problem

    There’s a pun on this; because the boulder problems are what people climb, and I have a problem with bouldering: I really like it.

    If you’ve seen my Instagram by now, you’d know that I’m really into bouldering or sport climbing for that matter. In fact, I’ve really gotten so hooked onto it that I’ve started climbing at least twice a week, for the past two weeks. My hands are aching, but getting stronger, and I’m starting to buy 10 passes into gyms that I’ve never entered in my life. It’s nuts.

    Also I’m seeing people that are a good ten years younger than me climb some really fancy routes, and all I think about is how old I’m feeling and how much I wished I had that youth of healing, to get past injuries.

    Like when I started skateboarding again, I sprained both my wrists to the point that they were soft to hold. I could squish them basically, and Clarice was really worried about it. Right now my shoulder’s gotten really achy and stiff from one of the earliest injuries – the one that I had just before my IPPT. I just hope I get over it in the next few months.

    Great Video posted last year.

    But it’s really addictive/addicting. This video puts it quite well together, although I don’t necessarily agree with the social part of it. In Singapore, it feels like another elite sport that only the rich can afford, or like there is a cash barrier to it. That makes bouldering in Singapore quite a different approach to how it is in other countries, based on what I’m seeing on the different channels. But then again, internet access to showcase what one can do in their free time already states some level of monetary privilege.

    Which brings me to another boulder problem: the economics of hobbies. Are hobbies something of privilege? That one can afford to pay for something for fun?

    As I sit in the climbing gyms, I just wonder if everyone can safely afford to climb. I’m sure some really can’t and they’re trying their best to make it. That thought makes me kinda sad, and I feel like I need to do something about it, which also makes me address my savior complex.

    In any case, before I dive even deeper into more issues and social commentary, I really just do enjoy climbing, and I think that I want to be a positive change around those in the climbing gyms. If I can find a friend who needs help, and offer them one of my multi passes, why not? It’ll be cheaper than the full prices for single entry, and it’ll be a great way to make a friend.

  • Birds of a Feather

    I have this idea that we will always meet the people that we enjoy meeting. Not because we’re actively looking out for them, but our lifestyles will make the world spin in a similar direction. The paths would cross, and we would find ourselves filtered through the different times and places. It would be a time where friendships are grown because of how similar the thoughts have been.

    There’s books like CS Lewis’ 4 loves, where he goes through a deep dive on what love means, and therefore what friendships are. I think it’s beyond just friendships.

    I think that if you were inclined to coffee on an individual level, you would naturally meet other coffee lovers. After that, when you speak about coffee and hear other people speak about coffee, the communication levels are what matter. How does this person speak about the same topic? Is it what I also agree and think with, and does this person agree and think the same things too?

    Later when it comes to forming thoughts, we think again: Do I like the person I’m forming thoughts with? At that point is where most friendships are formalized.

    This is beyond the norming storming forming that most other group management programs talk about. I’m thinking about it when there’s no main aim, and there are only interests around. In a time where there is no work to do, and what we end up with is only what we like or our preferences.

    I feel that there is a time coming soon where this social currency will count a lot. It will be the main way that we assess the world around us. Not social media, but the actual physical social interactions. And the person with the high quantity of deep quality social relationships will be the one on top.

    That’s just my thoughts on life and friendships today.

  • Sunshine and Rainbows

    Sunshine is really hot. Rainbows come after some seriously heavy or constant rain, and then the sun shines after that, then you get rainbows and tonnes of humidity in the air.

    Today is one of those days when everything is just so darn heavy, and just beats consistently on you. Like a rattly spacebar on an office keyboard that you can’t run away from. It just keeps rattling, and you sit there wondering why you didn’t just bring one of your many keyboards to said office. (obscure reference to my life/youtube channel) (like comment subscribe)

    It’s days like these that really make me think of other things to do in life. Where I run and hide to be distracted by something else but I honestly can’t because there’s too many things on my mind in the first place. And it goes on for quite a while, until I settle the things that I have to do.

    It’s not an adulting thing, it’s just a life thing. Or a personality and perspective thing. I can’t move out of it, and I’m just stuck in between. I have to do the things that I have to do. Perhaps this is the same obsessive behavior that drove me to get deep into keyboards.

    Perhaps you have a similar drive for something. Imagine that in every part of your life. That’s my brain. I have to do what I do well, and I am horrible at dealing with failure. I have to make sure I know what I’m doing and I want to do it as well as I can.

    But then again, I have some hobbies that I don’t have the time to commit to overall. That’s tough too, because I see that as my own failure to live up to my hobby. Like drawing and painting and stuff.

    I just have 3 more days to get through, and I’ll be done with this army thing. Can’t wait to be done, but then again, I’m not super looking forward to dealing with the backlog of 3 weeks of work too.

    Sunshine, and Rainbows. Nothing to look forward to in life.

  • Reliving memories

    Today feels like a day from the past. Still another day in the army, but it feels like the days from long ago. A decade even, and it feels like humans are still the same. Everyone does things in the same way and behaves the same. Little actions that get you annoyed, or small inconveniences that you wished could be done better. But it’s 10 years on, some people changed, but it still feels horrible. It still feels as if the world had never understood what was going on, and we still live in a bubble of what we think works, but doesn’t really.

    I don’t even make sense I think, at this point. It feels like the tiredness of being on duty has made me a person that I didn’t enjoy being. I still don’t enjoy being that person. I’m glad that soon after this, I don’t have to make this choice anymore because I’ll be past it. It’ll be a memory of long ago.

    Maybe one day I might miss this, the person who I have to relive as today. But currently, in this moment, I don’t think I am happy.

  • Lighter Load, Heavier Heart.

    Today comes as a huge mixed bag of emotions. There are some parts today that I’m really annoyed with. There are also some parts that I wish I could have more of.

    I’m on my Reservist at this time. That’s where all the Singaporean males are called back to the National Service, our Army. We serve as soldiers, and do everything as one would normally do in the army. It’ll usually take a period of a week or two, and we would not be able to do our normal work. We wouldn’t be on leave, but we would be paid our regular salaries by the Army instead, for that period of time.

    The frustrations usually come from a range of things. One of the key frustrations is how seldom we get to work together, and just during this time for a week or two, we have to jump in and make everything work like clockwork. It would work if everyone knew exactly what they need to do, but most of the time, we take a day or two to figure it out, another day or two to actually do something that we think would work, and by the time we’ve kinda gotten it down, it’s the end of our time together, and we see each other again the next year, only to go through the same cycle over and over again.

    But at the same time, some of the joys is having go through hardship together, because of situations that we go through. Sometimes it’s because of the experiences that we have, and we can be a part of the team. We get to meet people, and have an interesting time living life together in that few weeks.

    The mixed feelings is because I’ll be on my way out of this time of service soon. It’s not easy to leave because I’ll need to say bye, or more specifically I won’t have that time together with everyone else to say bye to them. I’ll be able to see them during their parades, but otherwise, it’ll be difficult. I’m not unhappy about it, it’s just hard to have a cycle of things come to an end. It also means that I don’t have to do the work that I’ve become used to doing. Some of my identity has formed over this time period, doing this every year. It’s a lot of work that I had put in during these times, and it’s a lot of my identity as I grew up through the years. It feels weird that something I don’t look forward to every year is taken away, because now I have nothing that I don’t look forward to.

    I think I’ll work out more of my feelings on this in the weeks to come, but right now, I’m just dealing with my sadness of departure. I’ll work out how to let go over time.

  • Stretched Like Pizza

    There are days like today, where my mind is just really pulled. It’s days like this when I question if I was a good explainer, a good communicator of any sort. If communication’s basis is how well people understand what you’re saying, I feel like I failed today in some big ways.

    It felt like no one really understood what I was saying. More than that, it felt like I was really forced to tell everyone everything, because as much as I wasn’t communicating very well, neither was any one else. The entire experience today was really frustrating, and I think that really added to a lot of stress that I was having to deal with.

    It’s been some time that my mind has had to stretch this way, and man it really stretched. Now, after all the day has ended, I feel like I’m collapsing into a pile of yellow cheese goo. Thankfully, I’ve done most of the work I could do, so I can afford to collect my yellow goo brain together. And then hopefully tomorrow manages itself a little bit better, and I’ll try my best to survive it the best way I can.

  • Today’s Tough Thought

    How do you tell someone that they’re not good at something that they think they’re good at?

    An example of this is someone who thinks that they’re good at social engagements, but unfortunately, they’re actually quite socially awkward. I find this specific example very difficult to explain to people, because their perception of what made for good conversation is quite different. Their readings of other people’s physical responses to their speech is also not very accurate, which leads to more misunderstood approval.

    Perhaps I also suffer from this at times, when I misread someone’s physical cues, and I assume that everything is going well. But this is quite infrequent, and thankfully I have my wife to alert me on occasions when I do misread. But truthfully, perhaps this happens more often.

    Maybe at the end of the day, I’m actually the one that’s not very good at something that I think I’m good at. And unfortunately, that will be something I need to work through. I think keeping myself humble through all these thoughts of self glorification is something I really need to be aware about, and work towards improving in any way possible.

    But before it goes into a dark spiral of self doubt, I do think having other people to correct or to affirm you is really a good thing to look forward towards. I appreciate the times when I’m corrected, and I look forward to my own improvement. I just hope I get it more often, and in an encouraging way of course.

  • Unfinished Business

    Finish the task at hand before starting a new one.

    I think this is the line I have the most trouble with sometimes. I have a million things on hand, and I keep having to find separate times to finish different bits of it. I hate it, and I find that sometimes one of the key things I do is to sit down and finish up work that I had started.

    Worst still is the feeling of a long term task that was unfulfilled. I hate it when a project sits unfinished, and I have no means of finishing it because it links to another person’s task instead. That sits on my mind so badly, and I spend most of my time wishing I wasn’t involved in those projects in the first place.

    Like a lottery ticket that didn’t win, it’s just hopes and dreams that never became real.

    So I have to try somehow to make sense of it. To complete the work in a level that at least, I am out of the picture. It’s not perfect, but at least I’ll be done with the work that would drag for ages instead.

  • Simple Fridays

    were never really possible to begin with. Because most of the time, Fridays are spent rushing around, making sure a range of things are happening at exactly the right times. What makes it even crazier really is that today I had my intern come over to learn how to use design softwares, and I had a working lunch, where I needed to forecast things into the future.

    I do wonder if I would ever approach things in a normal way, where I do only one task a day. I remember the feeling of that vividly during the lockdown periods, and I really didn’t like it. I would still end up spending the day doing something else, and basically I would busy myself somehow.

    But I do aim for a simpler day, as an ideal or a dream. A day when I can wake up and read a book leisurely as the sun rays stream into the room. Or maybe a day where I can just relax and not think too hard about what needs to be done, and I can just exist.

    But then again, that’s not really me. Bu the search for simplicity is me. The same way that I would always strive for minimalism, and never get it, because of who I am.

    That’s okay, I’m okay to say that I’ll never hit it, as much as I try to. Not for the lack of trying, but because if I do reach that goal, I would actually not be happy. I know that, and I am willing to just keep it as a floating idea in the back of my head.

    I also thought that I should choose some of my thoughts to write into a zine. and to publish that zine as an art magazine.

    Maybe I would also start to write more intentionally here, in either a more expressive way, or with more writing finesse. I haven’t decided yet, obviously, but I will make sense of this somehow.

  • 4 Minute Post

    Time has been really tight today, and I would say it is by choice.

    I was slow in the morning, and it felt like the day really snowballed in many ways.

    One of the most surprising things today was that a cat came into our house, and was stuck under our chest of drawers. Then we fed it an egg, and a bunch of cat snacks.

    Then we had to bring it down, because we couldn’t hold at cat at home basically, and we rushed cooking dinner. It was a crazy day of getting things ready and being present.

    I love the inconsistency of today, and how it really just went against every grain of my sense of routine. But at the same time, I really wish there was a better plan of how today could have gone.

    Ohwell, here’s to another tomorrow.

  • Revisiting Memories

    Just watched The Matrix today with Clarice. It was really quite interesting to rewatch many of the sequences that I had remembered as a child. And to pair them with scenes from Matrix Resurrections, it was really something I didn’t expect to recall in specific ways.

    The Matrix does hold a special place in my heart, because of its philosophical aspects of it. More than that, I think it was a uber cool mix of computer hacking things, heavy metal music, along with super cool fight scenes.

    I really wonder what type of a child I was when I was growing up, to be so into a movie like that. Not the regular Star Wars (I was into Star Wars, but a lot more into the Matrix), and not the regular fantasy of Harry Potter, but into this cyberpunk world of fight scenes, bullet time, and all those types of things.

    Bigger ideas of the Animatrix, and the expanded universe of the Matrix franchise are really things that I enjoyed thinking about, watching, enjoying. These were really hobbies, thoughts and fascinations that I carried with me into adulthood. It framed a lot of how I saw and viewed the world, and I really enjoyed it.

    I’m thinking of my own narratives, on how the world works, and what I think I should tell to the generations after that. I really hope that I would be able to leave something behind for the rest of the world to watch, and to relate to somehow.

  • Relative Time

    It feels like today passed really quickly, and even more than that, we’re already into the second month of the year. Every day passes as if I’m on a skateboard rolling downhill. It doesn’t help that the days are filled with different types of meetings, and I’m just in the capsule of my room or my office orbiting around the worlds of meetings.

    But today’s the Lunar New Year, and we’ve gotten a chance to catch up with family.

    It was really good to see my uncle that I’ve not seen in much at all in the past year. It feels like forever since I’ve seen him, and I’m really glad that he is okay, and that he’s had time with my cousins in America. Catching up with him always comes back to the times when I’ve traveled with him, and it’s been more than 10 years since.

    That’s really life, rolling on a skateboard downhill, and it just goes faster and faster, until you realised its crashing into its end.

    And there’s no jumping off it either.

  • Chinese Reunion Dinners

    As a Chinese person, I have the luxury of celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year. Luxury of stuffing myself with a multitude of reunion dinners, where the pure aim is to eat as much food as possible, and to commend your family for their great cooking. At the same time, there’s the constant talk about how things are, and what life is about.

    The good thing would be that after the New Years dinners, you would be able to celebrate the first day of Chinese New Year with a lot of Red Packets, where money is given. Parents will give their children, and married people will give unmarried people within the family.

    Traditions aside, my goal has been to just survive the food every year. This year, I have begun to fail terribly, but I have learnt to just not eat during the day time. It works, until it doesn’t, where I have over eaten during the dinner itself.

    I hug my food baby, as Clarice and I waddle back home, and I hold myself for a bit, as I try to induce myself to poop as much as my bowels will allow.

    After the pushing, and the food baby partially exits my body, I crawl back to bed, exhausted from eating, and pooping. I sleep, and wake up, and repeat it for the next few meals.

    And that, is a Chinese New Year dinner. This goes on for at least 2-3 days. Pray for me.

  • Bad Influences

    There’s some major ideas of what is good, and what is right. And most of the world is willing to get behind most morally good things.

    But sometimes, you get some really dark and weird influences, like Filthy Frank:

    It’s mean, it’s racist, its everything, but at the same time you know its satire, and people there are really just trying to say things that are as mean as possible so that their comments would be read, or something along those lines. Ok, or possibly they’re really truly offended by what “Frank” was saying. In any case, I personally feel there’s definitely space for expression like this, no matter how disturbing and dark it gets.

    So as I pour through Joji’s old clips as Frank and stuff, I’m just really curious how and when did he decide to make the song parts of things real. And maybe even deeper, how did he even get started on Frank in the first place.

    I guess I wonder these things because I feel like there’s a Frank inside me, waiting to get out one day too.

  • Staycation Ends

    Today started out fine, but man it snowballed through. Thankfully it ended okay, but going through the hump of the middle of the day was really not easy.

    We almost couldn’t find a way to get out of the airport, the areas were all boarded up to direct the human traffic flow. But it meant that we literally could not make out of the airport. We basically ended up running to our Grab Ride, because the driver was driving in circles to try and find us.

    Exits aside, we actually had a great lunch at a Michelin Star Soba restaurant. I had a truffle shoyu soba, and Clarice had an agemono don. Really tasty stuff, and it was definitely worth the 45 bucks we spent on it.

    Before that, we had a tragic Starbucks morning. The regular brewed coffee that I go for had some sediments just floating all over it. I think the paper had broke, and basically I changed a cup for the exact same thing. Meant that the coffee was ultra dark and bitter, but hey, that’s kinda what I was asking for.

    Yesterday, we had a long day of sitting around, reading, and watching movies. We also cycled along the Jurassic Mile, from the airport towards East Coast Park. The sun was great, the wind was really great, and it was a generally easy cycle the whole way through.

    We watched Scream at night, and it was another requel – the reboot sequel, where legacy characters are brought again. It actually felt very much the same as the Matrix show we had watched the day before.

    Matrix Resurrections really felt like that too, but I enjoyed the general idea of it. A little disappointed in the story line, but for the sake of another Matrix show, I don’t mind it.

    The King’s Man, the prequel to the Kingsman Series, was really well done. I appreciated the story, and that they got Ralph Fiennes to get into it. Another classic English actor playing one of those very gentlemanly roles. Great show, and explained a lot about how I personally feel about war as well.

    I really appreciated that I could watch and read things without being bothered because of how I had scheduled my notifications. It was really great that no one could bother me, unless I intentionally made effort to look at my texts. Obviously I did not. But that was a good reminder of the amount of restraint that was needed for me to do that. It really does take an intentional step aside to make sense of that.

    I would really make effort to do those things in the months to come, and to really just go off the grid to disappear. It was a good time of rest, and I wish I could do it more often.

    An imagery that stuck with me was cycling past the Radio Controlled Club – or something along things lines. Everyone there was playing with remote controlled cars, and driving these noisy little cars with really loud engines around a small track.

    Just a bunch of older guys, sitting around a miniature racing track, and chilling out through the day. It was a good reminder of what life really should be like, and what we work so hard for.

    To just enjoy his toil. That’s God’s gift to man. Please help me enjoy my toil, God.

  • Now It’s a Holiday! (Taking leave from work amidst a pandemic)

    When taking a break from work, especially in this COVID situation, it always feels as if you’re not really off from work, or it feels as if there’s no point being away from work. But I deeply disagree with that, because there’s too much of a clash, from too many things. The compartmentalized part of my brain sees it as a constantly overflow. The box holding work and time commitments is continually being over filled, and never cleared, because there really hasn’t been a time to break properly.

    So my biggest tip for taking leave during the pandemic is to cut all notifications.

    In the most current iOS updates, there’s a Focus modes, where you can choose who can contact you, what apps can send you push notifications, and the list goes on. So I am currently completely uncontactable. I mean you could send me things, but I’m not going to see it at all.

    This is great for someone like me who has a big problem seeing that red dot on my notifications. I literally will clear all texts just to have that red button gone. Perhaps I should really reconsider how often I check my phone as well, but there are times when I’m needed to respond for time sensitive occasions, so I leave it on. But in the time to come, it will definitely be off.

    My mental work boxes are starting to clear up, I’m getting a better sense of clarity of what and how much I’ve been taken up by, and how much more I want to let go off in the coming year. I’m planning handovers, and getting the people working with me for my departure. Thankfully I have that time now to plan that, but key for me, I really need to plan for that time for me to leave more brain space open. I’m really filled too much to the brim right now.

    Side note: Finally watched Matrix Resurrections, and I’ll definitely buy the iTunes movie version of it, and watch it a million times over and over. It’s great because of the universe it keeps expanding to, but I really wish there was more backstory into the world of the machines, like how the AniMatrix went into. I’m psyched, just wish there was more.

    Gonna watch The King’s Men in a bit, will probably add that to tomorrow’s post instead.

  • A HOT day out

    Today was so hot.

    I felt my skin burning under the sun, and the moment I hit the shade, it really felt so cool. The only time I’ve felt sun this hot and scorching was when I was in Australia. It was a dry heat too, so maybe that’s why I thought of Australia too.

    It was definitely a day of a lot of conversation, and not a quiet day. I think from the start of the day, I’ve not really stopped talking, unless for time short times of travel.

    So maybe right now, I’m a little talked out. A little out of steam, from all the talking.

    Oh but I did have a hot bath too, which was really relaxing, and I enjoyed that time.

    Little thoughts, because I had expressed a lot of what I was already thinking about. Guess it was a good day!

  • Gratefulness

    I really feel handicapped at times, when I want to make or progress in a creative direction. I feel this sense of a lack of time, a lack of resources, and just don’t have the right things in hand. Then I go on this spree and buy a million things to make sure that I have everything right. Then I start to do something, only to work on it for a good month or two, and I give up.

    This process really frustrates myself, and I am the exact cause of it. I see myself needing these things, and I feel as if I can’t do it without that item, or tool.

    But the truth of it, along with some other self reflection, is that I can do it. It’ll take me longer, it’ll take more time, but I can do it. And more than that, I should do it. Because sometimes I just need to make do with what I have.

    I think it boils down to gratefulness. Am I content and grateful for what I currently have? I know I am not. I want more, and I need it to function, or so I suggest to myself.

    But I need to be, I need to learn to manage these emotions, and these desires, before they make me into a self serving person. It could very easily continue in this current way, and for me to have many things, and never producing anything that I am actually happy with. Or just not being there consistently enough to develop that skill of mastery.

    Anyway, these thoughts are happening because I’m thinking whether I could work off an iPhone 13 Pro Max, or a MacBook Pro/Air. Super different needs and purposes that would be served, but these thoughts are just in my head.

  • Anti Me

    There are days that are good, and I feel at ease,

    But right now, my days are off by quite a tangent, and I am not me.

    There seems to be a different version,

    Something maybe broken,

    but probably, its just me being anti me.

    As much as I’ve been able to write some of my thoughts here, and post some of what I think and my processes, I’m still living my life everyday. Right now, that part of my life, the everyday part that goes to work, and tries to manage things there, it feels like that part is severely out of sync. I try my best to manage it, but I think that there are too many things on, and it’s not doing well for my health and for my mind.

    I write here, in some hope that it would help me to manage, and it works in some way. I do look forward to writing here because I can type away, and be myself in some form.

    But at the heart of it, my inner being is challenged with who I am and who I have to be. My role in work requires some level of leadership, and I have to be in the front a lot. It means there are times when I have to be someone that I don’t agree with. I try my best to step out of that person, but when I allow myself to be a bit more disagreeable, I find that sorrow breeds more sorrow. To be less abstract, I feel that when I allow myself to rant and address my frustrations to any one of my co-leaders, it creates more dissatisfaction and I don’t know how to get out of it. I prefer my original self, that just either hides the frustration until it goes away. Its not that I don’t face the frustrations, its just that I face the issue first, and then I decompress my feelings after that. But right now, I actually don’t know if I have the mental space to do that.

    No harm trying though, to think myself back to how my mind prefers to hear and understand myself. And I’ll keep writing to give myself something to look forward to everyday.

  • Directions

    Where is this going?

    Is there a need for it to go a certain way?

    What are the benefits?

    Am I enjoying the present?

    These are some of the questions that I was asking myself at the start of the day, and surprisingly enough, I think I was forced to answer these questions for myself as the day went along.

    In terms of a process, I really started today with some dread. There were some things that I was really not ready to do, and I was just not looking forward to it. But time passed, and I just swallowed my frogs as the day went along.

    Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.

    Mark Twain

    There were actually other frogs along the way today, but honestly, I really cleared out some bad ones in the morning. Not necessarily horrible, but there were calls I just dreaded to make, and scenarios that I was not looking forward to dealing with.

    Sometimes, I do wonder, what’s the point of my managing my life well if other people are going to miss it up. Like is there really any benefit to trying to make life work out well? There’s always chaos around, so is there truly any benefit of making it better at the current state. I don’t seem to have a good answer to that, so there are some days where I just exist in chaos and allow the world around me to deal with it. Some days I add on to the chaos, in hope of alleviating my own frustrations in some cathartic fashion.

    All in all, I guess I still try to make things turn out in a positive light. I don’t like to deal with a negative storyline. Which direction, and how are things heading? Hopefully in an uptrend for myself as I make sense of the world around me.

  • What would you do if you weren’t you

    Strange reference, but Travis Barker is a dude that I relate to in a big way. Not because of the tatts, but just because of his attitude towards music and making things work. I wish I was half as collaborative as him.

    I think it was on Joe Rogan, where he explained how he was getting off drugs and starting to make life different. There might have been other interviews that I had watched, but it was just about his general work ethic. He really keeps on going with drums and makes as much as he can, because if he wasn’t, then he would be in a homeless bum somewhere.

    I think I relate to that the most, because if I wasn’t me now, I’d probably not be alive. There’s a lot that I attribute to God being there at times when I needed help. And in that sense, I do what I do now because of all the things that I had done then, trusting in who God claims to be, and presents himself to me as in the years past.

    Thus, I linked a YouTube video of a heavily tattooed drummer covering a very controversial musician, in reference to my life and work ethic. The irony and the way life turns out indeed.

  • Special and Sad

    I’ll do a few more posts on how sad it is to be different from people, then later I’ll see what else I can make sense of in happier ways.

    Feeling like you’re always on the outside

    I would think that everyone actually deals with this, but sometimes being the person that speaks up and makes actions to prove that one is unique, that really makes you aware of how individual one really might be. There have been a number of occasions in a group discussion where I can see eyes darting around for assurance from each other, but I’m happy to just speak my mind and be the one that is not with everyone else. It excludes me, but truthfully, everyone is also struggling with this sense of exclusion.

    Not being heard

    So this one is the one that really gets to me the most. There are times when I am disregarded because of how out of the norm I think. My expressions, though everyone might be thinking similar possibilities, are usually just considered as thoughts that don’t make sense, or that don’t match with the majority.

    This means I honestly suffer a ton when doing table top role playing games. The game masters would either appreciate my thoughts, but the group is usually struggling in the wildest ways on how to make sense of what I’ve just thrown us into.

    I think these are two short ones for today, I’ll write more about other things tomorrow, it does feel like I’m beating a dead horse a bit. Or maybe I’m just not in the mindset to write more today. We’ll see how things go.

  • The Pains of Peculiarity

    In line with what I was saying yesterday, there’s some very specific things to think about for one to actually be different.

    Only the expressed unique being is unique.

    It doesn’t matter whatever the internal thoughts are, because many are thinking the same things. But it’s the one who lives them out that really makes that difference into the person who is being.

    If someone says “you took the words out of my mouth”, it probably means that you had the same thought as the person, but you are the one who said it. It also makes you the specific person who changed that tone, the mood, the conversation, that point in time.

    Many people look at abstract art and say, “I could have done that myself.” The question is really, would you have? Because you could have and you did not. But the artist did and the artist becomes that unique person.

    Only the person who expressed that point is the one who holds that flair of being unique.

    The unique person is constantly misunderstood.

    Even though everyone had the same thought as you, you were the one who said it. It means that everyone else didn’t say it, and that you were the odd one out. Therefore, you are not the same as everyone else, and the common thought is “why did he/she say it?”

    This doesn’t seem to make logical sense, but humans are actually very illogical creatures. We tend to be a mix of irony and biases that lean towards our current preferences. We like something when our friends are there, but if it’s someone new and unknown saying something completely special, we take it with a bucket full of distrust. Objectively, this would not make sense, but within the context of humans being quite trapped in their daily context, we would not see otherwise as well.

    I’ll do a few more of these, because I think I can express myself here as a person who is constantly seen as weird, or special, or unique (everyone else’s words, not mine). At least I can say it here, and continue to claim my spot as a weird person.

  • Unique

    What makes me special?

    What makes anything different?

    Are we even different?

    Or is everything the same?

    From my youth, I understood that people always viewed being special as something important. At the same time, people also viewed people who didn’t fit in as weird. Special and weird were sometimes correlated, but self perceptions were always something to think through. Was I ever really someone totally different and unique? Or was I just weird?

    As an adult now, I understand my weirdness was just more acceptable than others. I also understand that I was not really as unique as I had thought, but there were just parts of me that were a lot more expressive, and that gave off the impression that I was unique. But I objectively felt the same as everyone else, or so I thought.

    I think some of the thoughts I have about life really relate to what I perceive as me being unique or not. There are many times that I see myself being very flawed. There are also times where I see myself as being extremely bold to take certain choices. Today was a day of bold choices, because honestly, I feel too constrained for too long.

    I am waiting to express, to feel, and to just be different. Whether others accept me or not, is not as important as myself becoming completely unalike from the people around me. An extreme ideal, but I think it would be a fun challenge.

    Perhaps I would elaborate on this more tomorrow, and that would be a better way to rest my tired mind.

  • How much does one diversify? I honestly think that there’s a lot that I think about that I don’t really express too much. That’s really because I have so many thoughts on so many things. I think many people are like this too, and sometimes, we dismiss thoughts that might not match our character.

    But I tend to accept both sides of me, the dualism that exists, and I’m okay for that. I’m okay to have parts of me in complete disagreement, and for me to exist as such. This gives me a middle ground that I end up living out sometimes. Most of the time it turns out in extremes, but I think it’s quite a funny scene.

    One of these is minimalism and hoarding multiples of the same one item. I only choose one, but I will have as many of that one as possible. I have at least 20 Black T-Shirts right now. I think I wrote about it – trisected.com/the-non-minimalistic-life/

    Another one is with the idea of money and value, where I see the need to spend wisely, for value, and not for the purpose of saving money. I might have very little money, but I have a good number of items that are of good value. Maybe one day they would be items of great value, but right now they’re just doing okay.

    Aside from owning things, I think one key area I struggle to decide is with my creative output. There’s many things that I could do, and yet, I struggle to decide which to publish.

    I do have my interests, and my niches. I really enjoy talks about tech, health, longevity and productivity. These are different from things like Christianity, philosophy, and arts. Even more distant is hip hop, literature, and cooking. I guess it looks like things that I’m throwing up at random, but I do think I have quite an idea of what these different things are for me.

    When it comes to publishing what I’m thinking about, I toggle through these different interests and the thinking patterns each one has. I decide which one makes the most sense for it. It works sometimes, but the internal struggle is hard to push against. Routine like this daily blog is something that fights for it. I force the flow, and force my brain from stopping me, like I’ve expressed before.

    I think a part of me really wants to make more, and I think I just will go ahead for it. Maybe it’ll do well, and maybe it won’t. But much like this blog, I don’t think I do this for anyone else, other than me.

  • Planned Processes

    So here’s my balance to yesterday’s creative meanderings:

    There’s definitely a part of me that over plans everything.

    I think way too much over too many small things and I am always almost all over the place because of those thoughts. I’m either all over the place, or very prepared, because I’ve thought of the worst case scenarios.

    I’ve also thought through many strategies on what would work and what wouldn’t work on different channels, and honestly, that’s really one of the biggest hindrances to my creativity. I tell myself that plan A won’t work because it’s not in this or that. Or plan B needs more refinement in this and that areas, so I shouldn’t publish. I should just focus on sharpening it more and more and more.

    But what ends up is that I have nothing to show for all my thoughts.

    That’s where this blog came in. I wanted a space to show that I had thought. I have been mulling about many ideas for some time. And this space is proof that I have. It’s not really cohesive. I mean from here, you’ll definitely not understand anything about keyboards. You also won’t understand anything about art.

    But if you look through, you’ll see me. And that’s more important for me I guess. Perhaps that’s a good thing for me to do: to categorize my thoughts here into the different interests and you can then understand those portions better.

    I’ll probably do that now.

    In any case, one of the best creative breaks I’ve ever given myself was during the time that I did the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I started to see myself in a new light, and to see my creativity in a new light as well. It was really a breath of fresh air, and I think I will try my best to work towards that direction again. I need that space to breathe, and to create. But it takes time, that I need to commit to. That commitment entails some early waking up, which I haven’t been as consistent as I used to be with.

    Perhaps that should be something I should begin to restart now.

    For tomorrow’s Joel to work out!

  • Creative Late Night Posting

    Man! Doing a daily post is really something I found difficult last time, and now, its still something I need to put some effort into to get it right. Almost missed today’s post and I had a lot of good thoughts that I wanted to place here but the day is almost over and I have forgotten quite a bit of it.

    I’ve been able to do creative things today – helped a friend out with a wall mural. It’s probably going to be finished in the next few days, but I don’t have any more slots to help her out with.

    Being able to do something creative isn’t the whole magical shebang that you would imagine. Or at least, I don’t think that’s what I glean from my creatives sessions. I see it as a time where my hands are working, and my mind is thinking. My hands are not really being controlled, other than to match what I’ve set out to do – like painting, drawing, calligraphy. My mind is wandering because I’m seeing the space in many different ways, and I don’t really need to think of how to interact with it. It just interacts.

    This “mindless interaction” is something that I really look forward to. My mind is usually at work, solving things, thinking and planning. But in my art, in my expression, it just goes. I don’t control, or at least I’ve learnt not to control. This gives me a lot more joy, as compared to previous experiences when I had a lot more of a controlled experience. Not to say that those controlled experiences weren’t wrong, but just to address my own current creative space that I look forward to.

    I don’t need it to be defined, and I feel like defining these moments would spoil the fun of it. So I just do whatever creative pursuits pop up, and the aimlessness of it makes it interesting.

    Then the planning side of me comes up, and I get very annoyed with myself. But to be smart, I shall save that story for tomorrow: How I combat my creative brain.

  • Momentum

    What do you do on the days when you don’t feel like doing any work?

    It’s not that we’ve been lazy (yes, I dragged you into this), but maybe we’ve just done enough. There’s no more need to do any more.

    The cool weather, with a nice touch of sun to light up the home, and thoughts of lazing in bed before the galore of responsibilities crash like a delivery driver on an electric scooter. Just smacking your straight on, with loud euro trash electro, and flashing lights. Saw it a mile away, and yet, we tried our best to savor the peace and quiet of the moment as long as we could.

    An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

    Newton’s First Law of Physics

    Was Newton not describing me today, sitting on my chair, lazing in my sofa, lying in bed, napping away?

    Life is really when science and art meet.

    End note: so much for the progress that I was working on for the past few days. The irony of it is that I’m still maintaining that sense of work, just that I don’t want to do it.

  • Reset

    2 days of not blogging makes me think harder about what I want to blog when I blog. I don’t know if it should be as daily logging, or just a place to put my thoughts. Personally, I think it might need to be something like a mix of both. But the journal aspect of it is what would make these posts stand out better for myself. Like a clearer stamp in time.

    Also, I’m thinking about how to approach when I blog. Should it be at a time when it’s comfortable for me? Or should I schedule a time in the day everyday to write? I know there are benefits to both, and at the same time, I really feel like if this is for me, then maybe I should do a schedule. Something consistent to keep my brain space somewhere.

    Maybe I should even go back to waking up at 6 or 7 and getting work done at that time. It’s really hard, but I do know that my waking hours are the best used then. I looked forward to it then, but at the end of the day, it’s hard to keep to when the night meetings go long, or when I sleep late.

    I gotta see what would work out eventually. Tough call, needs some determination.

    Slightly related, is that I’m thinking of whether this should be well planned content, something like what I drank/ate/did today, and then from there everyday has a consistent look to things. Either that, or to do a check in of sorts at the start of the blog, and to re-use that template.

    This also leads to YouTube, and what kind of content I like, versus what kind of content I can produce. A part of me wants to try talking to the camera and explaining things out, but another part of me also wants to try a full story board, and making a real movie/video. That would be a crazy way to think about it, and to make the whole scene happen. I think it’s worth a shot for me to try both, and I can try sooner than later.

  • Aims and Purposes

    Whenever I have a meeting, or start a discussion of some sort, there’s always that question of what the point of the meeting is. Or maybe what do we hope to get out of it, after the meeting. After some time, one of the most ironic things that I’ve realised, is that the meetings with an aim that is too clear usually has someone directing the meeting specifically. On a rare occasion does that meeting leader actually utilise the meeting for it’s proper purpose: to meet with others.

    It doesn’t mean that meetings are useless, but sometimes the over directed aim becomes over bearing. A meeting would be one where everyone gives their views and contributes to that sense of where the group is planning to go towards. But a Briefing, on the other hand, is one that is planned already, and everyone is briefed on what to do instead.

    I think for the sake of my sanity, and for a lot of others, we should call more meetings briefings. Especially when the leaders of the meetings have already planned everything. If not, sometimes I really come into a meeting with ideas, and plans, only to be told that the plans were already decided.

    I wonder why I’m explaining meetings on my blog, but I guess it’s something that I’m constantly going through. Maybe one day I’ll be able to write a nice book about how to handle yourself through meetings. It would most probably include how to have multiple tabs on for shopping websites. Buying things during meetings means that when the meeting ends, you have a present for yourself for sitting through the meeting. What a good reward. Sitting still for the past three hours truly deserves some level of reward.

    In a side note, and specific to today: I have a couple of Work With Me videos on my YouTube now. So if you wanna try working with a nice keyboard typing nearby you, hit up my YouTube.

    Also, this might be one of my most boring posts ever. Talking about meetings, what a bore.

  • Coffee on Hot Days

    Why do I do these things to myself? I just wrote a (fake) 10 things to do to survive hot Singapore, and yet the next morning when I wake up I make a hot cup of coffee. The amount of sweat that I keep giving out is intense, and I really just can’t deal with this.

    There’s also this thought that having a warm drink on a warm day will make the hot weather feel cooler. But honestly, it really doesn’t. I feel myself getting sweaty, just pouring out sweat from all my pores. I just keep showering most of the time, and it’s making me feel too damp most of the time.

    Quick review of Blue Bottle Bold Coffee beans: I rate it 3/5 Coffee beans. It’s strong especially on pour over, that I normally do it on. It reminds me of the Starbucks and Coffee bean brewed coffee kinda flavours. It’s not horrible, but its not great either. Meh. Maybe it’ll taste better on Aeropress. Better and more detailed review soon.

    Is it because the familiar taste of hot coffee overpowers the heat sensors within the body? Or maybe it’s because the idea of routine and what makes up the routine is more important the actual heat that I face through the process of the routine.

    It also asks the question of the routine: was the routine meant for the person, or the person for the routine? I think it’s a big question that demands a flexible change for when you need to do something. At some point, the decision of why you had planned something in the first place might have changed. So a new routine needs to be made, to match the current time’s needs.

    One of the key things that I’ll need to adjust for in my routines is to deal with the current heat wave, and I think having time to cool down daily is a good thing to plan for. I’m trying to figure out a cool drink or a cooling posture to have. Maybe sitting down in front of somewhere, or just in a cooling place in the home.

    I’ll update back about this soon, I hope, if I don’t forget.

  • Thresholds & Credibility

    These are the two learning points today. What are the limits and thresholds to what I am willing to go through as a human being, and the other is the credibility of myself as a human being.

    On Thresholds

    After at certain point of going through some sort of difficult encounter, I need to ask myself, was it worth all this effort? If it was, then I find myself broadening my limits. If I find that it was not worth my effort, then I actually pull back my limits. I stop myself from going any where close to that previous line, because I found it so repelling (if I did).

    That being said, I’m thinking of these thresholds because I’m honestly so sick and tired of the heat in Singapore. And I’m hitting another level of heat tolerances, because of that. It’s not by choice, but in a sense, I’m choosing to stay in Singapore. But because I have no immediate choice to change things now, I’m planning for things in the future. I’m remembering how hot I am feeling and I really want to get aircon for my entire house later.

    That’s horrible because it plays against the environment and stuff, but honestly, I don’t know how to will myself to do anything when the weather is so hot. Maybe that’s why in South East Asia, there’s actually no need to do work and we can just chill and enjoy the great scenery that we have without worrying about freezing to death. It’s a great reason.

    On Credibility

    Who am I to say what I am saying? Do I need to prove myself in order to be heard or understood as a person? The actual answer that a lot of the philosophical world was moving towards was no: you don’t need to have experience to prove yourself. You just need to come to your logical reasoning and understanding.

    That being said, the current postmodern world has reverted. And instead, we are usually share our points of view based on really relative personal experiences.

    While that is not good, it’s also not entirely incorrect.

    But I’m who I am saying what I am saying, because I have read, understood, thought through, and experienced the things that I am talking about.

    In any case, I am not the horse back riding teacher who has never ridden the horse. I have ridden the horse, though not literally.

    More thoughts tomorrow, I’m honestly really full and sleepy right now.

  • Off Day Post Day

    Still writing without my pinky. Honestly it’s really not that easy, because I do use my left pinky to hit a lot of the letters. I’m trying to make up for it by using my right pinky to type more instead.

    Today is a pretty good day to try different things. Clarice and I have travelled to a particular Starbucks that we’ve always gone past but never really entered. We’ve seen in from the bus passing by, or just after a day out, we would chance upon it and say, hey we should really try this Starbucks out.

    There’s something fun about going out to try something new, and at the same time, there’s something very comforting about staying at home to rest and laze in bed. Sometimes I feel like I wish both could happen at the same time, and that’s when a staycation happens. This is unique to this time of the world of course.

    Maybe sometime soon I’ll post something from the corner of Paris. Maybe Italy. But most probably not, because I’d much rather go to a few other countries before I go towards Europe again.

    Off days are for things like this, to muse randomly on plans that would most probably not happen that quickly.

  • The Littlest One

    I had no idea how much I really needed my pinky for, until yesterday and today, when I’ve sliced it. Strangely enough, I was watching a video from Reddit, where a guy makes a whole new hand for himself, after the insurance companies deemed that it was not essential for him to have fingers. Anyway, he made a whole hand, and today, I feel like I need that again. I would like to have my pinky back please.

    • The bandages do come off tomorrow, but for the sake of keeping things safe, I honestly feel like leaving them on for another day. Knowing me, I’ll probably hurt myself somehow somewhere. Or bump into my pinky in some way.

    That’s also where my mind is at right now. How do I consider the “weakest part” of my hands? Am I aware of what is affecting it, and do I do anything to help it get better in anyway?

    In that same sense, where in the current scheme of the world, we care a lot for the under privileged, and we want to help the poor. But while we are doing all this, it feels like there are other parts of society that are breaking down in a big way. There are other things that have taken priority, and it feels like we should really take some time to rethink how we are doing what we are doing. We’re not really caring for the smallest, littlest guys around.

    Which also means we need to take a reassessment of what the smallest and weakest things are right now.

    Maybe that should be a zine that I should write about sometime soon.

  • A little earlier!

    I have some time literally set aside right now, to get things sorted out a bit. It’s great, that I can write, and that I have a good half hour or so, just to start things going. But it doesn’t really mean that I can type endlessly for a straight half hour.

    I usually take a 5-10 minutes to write these things out. I don’t really spend too much time writing, because I could write for too long. Also I end up writing for a few too many topics at one time. That makes it really hard to understand what I’m trying to say. At least with this, you have some space to try and make sense of things for yourself, as you read these different posts. It’s the overcooked food idea, when the work gets over done, and it just becomes a whole bunch of misunderstood nonsense. That really makes things hard to understand.

    But this idea that spending 10 minutes a day is difficult is actually something that works as a warning sign of sorts. It’s 10 minutes. Some YouTube videos are a good 20 minutes, and its just someone downloading their information to us. In 10 minutes, I am forced to think aloud, I would need to process information, and think through different things to make sense of it. 10 minutes is also time that could be spent having a good conversation, or sending a note to loved ones.

    I always end up thinking how important time is for me, and this is really one of the key things that I hold true for myself as long as I can. Which also means I get quite frustrated when I don’t spend my 10 minutes wisely. It’s time I can’t get back. Of course, I shouldn’t waste even more time being upset about wasting 10 minutes. The irony of that action would lead to even more time wasted. Instead, I am now making it a productive point by writing about the pointlessness of it. It’s supposed to be a big brain move, and I actually think it’s quite funny.

    In any case, this is my earlier post. I hope I get back to writing these in the morning. I do enjoy them being earlier, because I do get a better sense of the day after that. Also it’s a lot more relaxing, instead of rushing around for last minute requests.

    Have a good weekend!

  • Success

    I think if I define my blog into different areas, and start to build specifically on some topics, it’ll become one of those really typical self help blogs that I honestly don’t always agree with. But I can’t help myself, I really do think about these topics, and they do mean a lot to me. Especially today.

    One of my buddies growing up just won the world’s best restaurant. I’m honestly happy for him inside, but at the same time, parts of me are just wondering why I’m not there with him in some way. Why I’m not there with him at the top of the world. That’s something I really struggle with internally. Why is it that some of my friends, or peers of my age group are able to hit the top? And instead, I’m a few far steps behind.

    It spirals into a blame game of sorts as well; why didn’t this teacher or that give us an opportunity to do better? Why didn’t my parents let me go overseas? The list really grows. The worst part of this is the lack of effort on my part to actually take ownership of the current state of events, and to blame everyone else for what is happening now. The pure nurture argument can really say that everyone else is the reason why you’re not standing there at the top.

    But in the same way, if it flips and you are at the top, the success you hold isn’t your own, and its everyone’s effort that led you there. And that’s something that people don’t want to accept as well. I don’t know if I accept it for sure, because I think I had to go against the odds. Or at least that would be the story I tell myself.

    So it’s not about how everyone else helped, or didn’t help you get there. It’s about the game that we’re all playing. Unfortunately, “the world’s best” is something that we all get fooled into. Even the word “best” or “top” is something of a lie. How long does that stay on top for? Is there a need for it to be that way? I struggle with these terms.

    I definitely think that the people we are with will make us think this way. The teams that I am working with now are struggling with these terms in their own way, and they are finding their path on what success is determined by. But then again, this adds that people are to blame. So there’s definitely a thought process to why this happens the way it does. I think people contribute to how much I can grow, but I can’t blame people for my lack of efforts to try harder and to get past the groups that don’t help.

    At the same time, I am quite willing to not play in the same game that everyone is playing with. Changing the game from the top or the best, to something that either I can win at, or that has no winning in the first place. I just want to enjoy the moment, without a sense of win or lose. That’s really the key to what I’m trying to think.

    But for my friend, who’s now at the top, I wish you all the best. I really knew you could do it, all the way when we were fourteen. I wish I was around your life more, and I am happy for you. I hope you keep being the top, and that you keep changing the world with the food you make.

  • Today’s almost done…

    And I almost didn’t post! It’s been a whirlwind of a day today. I really feel it.

    I’m writing in bed, because I decided to bring the iPad in bed, and just writing away on the HHKB because I miss typing on this thing. Every now and then I forget where my fingers are supposed to go to when I’m typing, and my right thumb gets really sore. Apparently you’re supposed to press your space bar with your left hand rather than your right. And also Y is pressed with the right hand, not the left. Just some side notes about typing techniques.

    Long days like this can really mess up routines sometimes. Especially month long routines like writing in the morning. I did well most of the month plus, and today is just later a bit. But it’s a close shave. I really feel the edge of the day coming close.

    I guess that’s my learning point for you to know today. When you come close to almost losing a daily streak in blogging, you just gotta write something nonsensical to close the day. At least something’s up right?

    I don’t know. Honestly, I’m just happy to type right now. That’s good enough for me.

  • Old Stuff Part 2

    Talking about things that age well, keyboards fall into this range too. Most keyboards get smoother over time, as you use them more and more. But some others, like the one I am typing on right now, is just really old, and some of the keys don’t register the same as the others.

    Like the Letter “O“ in this case, needs a bit of a hard press, if not a very specific angle that it takes the action of pressing a bit better. That being said, the keyboard is from 1999, and the fact that it even works is a pretty rad thing.

    But therein lies the irony of these hobbies that I like. Things that age well, but I buy brand new. There’s a part of me that really likes to make a mark for myself, to own it. I think there’s a part like that for everyone, but some feel it a lot more than others.

    I remember growing up, and how a lot of my stuff would have a sticker of mine. Not that I would label every single thing, I’ve seen friends who did that. But I would still mark it out in my own way. I think it was mark making, and that became in some ways how I viewed graphic design and the arts.

    But that’s also still consumption, when I buy something new that ages well. The fact that it ages well doesn’t change the point that I still needed to buy it. It might be actually worse, cause it can’t be simply discarded.

    At the end of the day, I just need to really watch my purchases, and to be happy with what I have. Why shouldn’t I, especially when everything that I’ve gotten so far are really special things that make me really excited and happy to see?

  • Waves of Life

    There’s times when I’m really quite disciplined to get things done consistently through the day or week. And there are times when I just don’t feel like doing anything for another range of time. I think I mask this quite well by being competent at most things, but otherwise, it’s actually really quite a bummer.

    I wish that I was able to keep on at things all the time. The inner Jocko Willink in me says “Just do, don’t think.“ That works out, sometimes. Actually it works out a lot more often than I would like to admit. It’s just a pain to be an asshole to yourself, as you do the work that you need to do, day after day. There are definitely times when you want to just take a break and call it a day. Or just to have an off day. Jocko’s premise is that the enemy might always strike, but honestly I don’t have an enemy that I need to strike at this time.

    Another part of me lies with the Artist’s and their impulsive driven creativity. I don’t necessarily agree with this, but I agree with the expressions in the Artist Way. Julia Cameron says “Don’t be too hard on yourself, and just accept all the work you produce.“ That works out for me, but there are days when I really don’t like the work that I do either. I just don’t want to do work, I just want to lie down and look at the world passing me by

    I guess it would be wise to observe that a part of me now really enjoys that. I have learnt from Clarice some of the arts of lying down to just pause and not do anything. It is incredibly difficult for me, but I am trying to develop space for myself to just observe the world around me. It’s weird because there’s always the do, do, do. But there’s an aspect of doing that’s just to sit there and stop, and pause, and appreciate the moment.

    I’m thinking about painting again, but I’m honestly scared. Scared that I can’t make sense of my drawings, or that the liberal part of me would accept any nonsense I produce. In that fear, I run to keyboards again, I run to YouTube and Netflix and Disneyplus. I just haven’t dared to paint. But I know I need to, I just need to get it done.

    I’ll aim to do it this weekend, but God help me. I really need some deep internal motivation, that really hasn’t been around for the longest time.

  • Which comes first? The Chicken, or the Egg?

    Or in my case, does the keycaps come first, or is it the keyboard?

    I’m legit stuck on which keycaps I should get, and honestly I wish there were other ways around it. I don’t want to get any more keyboards because I’ve already got a ton. But some of the keycap options are just so much cheaper because of the keyboard that comes with it. It’s kinda annoying, and I wish there were other ways to work around these things, but unfortunately for this keyboard hobby, it’s really not that simple to work around.

    I have some time to decide, but its not like there’s a real rush for it in the first place. Only the thought that if I don’t get this sorted now, its going to cost a lot more in a few more months. Or weeks.

    At least I’m staying far away from getting in debt again. I’m keeping everything in the black, and it’s really working out quite well.

    Or maybe I should get my IPPT done again and get some money there. And get fit too.

    In any case, the egg came first, in my opinion. lol.

  • Blast from the Past

    If you didn’t realise by now, there’s actually tweaked paragraph spacing between the paragraphs in this site’s reading. It’s because I was going through it the other day, and I saw how close everything was and I really didn’t like it. It was too tight, and I know too much about typography to leave it be.

    Which brings me to my key point for today: It still surprises me how much I remember things from my youth. I had learnt how to do HTML coding when I was in primary school, and it kinda stuck with me through the years. It’s a skill that I never knew was going to be so important, but it helped me in my understanding of design programs, and learning logic flows.

    There are other things that I still do often now, that I had learnt from my younger days. Things like learning how to take things apart and put them together. I’m a lot stronger now, and I’ve also understood more things, so I’m definitely better than how I used to be, but there’s still a lot that I know I’m recalling from my youth.

    Because of these things, I’ll definitely encourage my children in the future to learn as much as they can growing up. They might not be great at it straightaway, but some of the basics can be improved on as they get older. Kids just need a chance to try something, and that can give them a shot in picking up things that will stick with them for life.

  • Another Hot Day

    There are days like today, where I just sit there and feel the heat pour over me. I just showered to get myself going, and to just feel a bit more fresh. But I just feel damp after. It just feels like the sun is covering me with a thick hot wet blanket, sucking away my energy.

    It doesn’t help that I thought today would turn out a bit more chill, so I had made a hot cup of coffee instead of going for one of the cold teas that I had prepped from before.

    Days like these are also days when I feel just fat, for some reason. I just feel as if I’m wearing a fat suit, and its just making me get even hotter. I feel frustrated with everyone and everything, and it just keeps on going. The heat, the irritation.

    It feels like today would be a good day for burger and fries, and a nice cold milkshake. A nice vanilla milkshake, with chocolate chips or something. I think I know what I’m having for lunch, and at least I can look forward to that.

    I’ve been watching a lot of Emma Chamberlain recently, just seeing what had made her so famous, and just understanding who she is as a person. She reminds me of Casey Neistat, and that era of vlogging. It’s actually one of the motivations for me to start writing here a lot more often, and a lot more personally. I don’t really want to appear on camera, and to have to do all the video editing after that, so I feel like this works out for me in a good way.

    I don’t need my site to “take off” or to “go big”; to be honest, I don’t need my YouTube to do that either. I just want to be me, and I can be that right now. I don’t have to try, I don’t have to push things aside, I’m just enjoying my own little existence on the interwebs, and I exist as myself, without sponsors, without an audience, just being me.

    I like this, and I hope whoever reads this will also appreciate who they are and be happy with their current state of life.

  • Bubble Boys

    I shall coin a new term, and I’m not going to research it right now. I thought just to put my idea out here straight away, and just to define what I think, and later I might read an article or two or three about what I’m talking about here.

    Bubble Boys

    Definition: Men, of different ages, but who experienced the Tech Bubble of the 90’s and early 00’s. Experienced either as a 1st hand participant: working for companies of the Tech bubble era, or as a 2nd hand observer: studying university and applying for jobs within that era.

    I find that the Bubble boys, much like every other group of people labelled by their era, find themselves in a weird struggle today. Against the millennials that have risen up in their companies, or against the current flow of Gen Z’s, the daily demands of what life should be looks entirely different.

    Success in itself is also lived differently. For example, I would think that the way a Bubble boy considers what a successful job would be one that allows the freedom to leave the job as and when, but at the same time, giving a great salary with great perks. Something like a win-win-win situation. I think of the Patrick Bateman of American Psycho and the Yuppie era. The Bubble boys are the same, hoping for these different perks. However, few are willing to leave the bubble and to venture into true jobless freedom. Many still hold fast to what they think they ought to keep to, to make their job appear legitimate to the previous generation stakeholders: the Baby Boomers.

    The Gen Z and Millennials (G&M), on the other hand, are so comfortable not doing anything, and truly willing to be fired for standing up for what they believe in. This creates risk for the Bubble boys, as they see their next generations floating away from them bit by bit.

    Thus arrives the flexible hours, and the extremely well stocked pantries and staff canteen in the major tech companies. Both Bubble boys and G&M’s like the same type of food, of course with the health nut and vegan options too. This becomes a point where the Bubble boys see as a possibility to have common ground, to share that life is indeed good, if you keep working for us.

    But after that, the mindsets approaching issues are so different. Where the Bubble boy saw success with tech taking over the world, revenge of the Nerds and the like, the G&M’s saw success as having an enclave, a small group to belong to. The size might not matter as much as the deep quality of the friendships, the relationships that came with it. Authenticity as the main trade value. This was very difficult for both sides to process, and other products of similar thought came along the way.

    I have a few more observations, but being a Millennial myself, I shall just end here because I have better things to do than to write more about the Bubble boys.

    Just a side note: there are no Bubble girls, because the Bubble boys didn’t know how to play proper with girls. lulz. Reference: Gamergate.

  • Old Habits…

    I always end up buying things, or I end up doing things in a certain way that I might not necessarily think is the most effective or efficient. That doesn’t mean that they’re bad, but the mind or the body reverts to something that they’re used to. I don’t think it’s always a fair statement to say that they’re bad habits, but I think that a lot of the time, its just how we make sense of the things that we do instead. Maybe, there’s just a simpler way to approach things, and perhaps that’s an ideal approach. Then we learn that approach but after some time, it fades, and we go back to what we’re familiar with.

    The idea of getting better really comes from a Christian place, in my opinion. We have this idea of the hope of Christ, and the new creation that we become through our faith. But at the same time, we deal with the inner man and how he used to think and how he used to be. There’s a sense of freedom of that for sure. And then the ideal to work ahead for the new person, for a better, more heavenly kingdom mindset.

    But this mindset might not necessarily be what the rest of society thinks or expects. Society in itself is unsure of what it ought to be many times, but currently, I would say that I would much rather assume the bible as truth, than to revert to my regular person, or towards what society deems as ideal. An ideal society would be the one that I read about, not my dreamy ideas of peace, or my humanly warped sense of justice.

    And yet, these are things that I revert to sometimes…

  • The Comfort of Strangers

    Yesterday I had two occasions where I saw myself comforting strangers in two extremely different circumstances.

    The Man

    A man boarded the train that I was on, and stood near the doors, leaning on the side. When he boarded, there was a whiff of alcohol that came in with him, and after some time, it was clear that he was intoxicated on some level. This is during the bright 2PM afternoon that we have. I have no issue with drinking midday, but I think being drunk midday is another issue on its own. In any case, a drunk man on the afternoon train.

    I was sitting in a row with no one next to me, because it was the afternoon train, no one was really out. So quite naturally, he moved slowly towards the seats next to me and decided to sit down.

    This would normally have been alright, actually it was totally fine. I’ve definitely been the drunk guy on many nights in the train and towards my friends, and its cool to try to be sober as you aim yourself to seat your butt on the seat. He sat next to me in this manner, and proceeded to watch or listen to his shows on YouTube.

    What happened after was slightly comical, he fell asleep a few times, dropping his phone into his bag. He was leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees, hands holding, or not holding, his phone. This happened a few times, but what really was not comical, was that he started to drool.

    How I knew he was drooling was because he took off his mask, wiped his drool, and then sneezed or breathed real heavy a few times, splattering spit all over the MRT floor. At that point, I felt greatly disturbed. Like really grossed out. Like what the hell man. But it was a drunk dude, and we don’t know what happened and why he’s drunk in the middle of the day, maybe it was a bad day or something. So I tried my best to reserve judgement, and to let him be, and just sleep it off.

    But what continued on was that then he started to lean on me. To which I decided was a good time for me to indicate “okay, sure lean on me, but I will tap you because you are unmasked“ type of tap. I did this like three times, but I could not see his eyes actually registering that He even knew what was going on. This made me just really not want to sit there anymore. So that’s what I did, I stopped sitting there. I got up, got my bag, and walked out of the cabin at the next stop, and then I hopped into another cabin a few doors down.

    The Baby

    The baby is a little more complicated. I have met the baby before, once actually, about 5 months ago. The crazy part is that the baby’s face changed over time, and that made for a very interesting situation. I knew the baby but at the same time, I really didn’t. That was just not what exactly I had in mind when coming to meet the baby for this second time.

    So what happened was that I was really then given a chance to meet this baby anew. At the same time, the last time I saw the baby, he was just not in a time for me to hold him. He just cried away, and almost never stopped crying. That made for a very difficult first meet.

    But this time, the baby wasn’t crying. His mom (my friend) and me, walked together from a stop light, and made our way over to the house, and we sat down together to look at the baby and just talk with the baby.

    The baby lay flat on his tummy. This made for a very interesting looking scenario, and I decided that I will stroke the baby’s head, if that would be helpful. Honestly, I was thinking of my family’s dog that I just visited, and not that a baby is a dog in any case, just that my most recent form of care within that past few hours was my family’s dog. I just saw that coming together that way.

    I stroked the baby’s head, slowly and really just gently, as much as I could. He was pretty chill about it, and then started to rest his feet on my arms, he was curled up like a little prawn, with his feet coming near to his face. At that point also, he was just drooling all over his shirt, and he had a little bib on that he just continuously chewed on. He also chewed on his shirt buttons, and just yanked them around.

    I was resting my other hand on his tummy, to pat him, and his hands somehow caught a grasp of my hands. Then he pulled my hands towards his hands, and decided to start biting on my thumb. That was fine, I didn’t really mind that. But what was really strange was that he started to really chew on it. Like hard, with the back of his teeth. He went on like this for a good ten minutes, and then he decided to move on to my other fingers, one by one. I think he ate on my hand for a good half an hour or more.

    His mom had to go take a phone call at some point, and he was just with me alone. He decided to break out in tears completely and just freak out. I just held him, as he cried, and just felt his helplessness, and just resonated with it.

    Later, he needed to get distracted, as he was putting his tiny shirt on after his shower. I decided to try and give him my knuckle to chew on, and he grabbed it really quick, and just straight up chewed away.

    Both incidents were pretty gross, and kinda disturbing. But the baby’s one was okay. But the man’s one was not okay. I would think that at some point, we actually hope and think that our men would grow up and not be babies. But the truth of it really is that both are in need of comfort.

    If there was a hygienic way for me to have helped the man, I think I would really like to find out, and to just try. I would appreciate comfort like that any day, especially from the ones I love, but even from a stranger, that would be just fine.

  • The False Impression of Choice

    Sometimes, it really doesn’t make sense if we think about the idea of choice. Do we really have it? Do you really have a choice to make the decisions that you do make? Or more precisely, is there really a choice?

    For example, having options to choose between what foods to eat at a food court. You might not have every single choice in the world, in fact, you are limited by the food court and whatever they choose to provide for you. That in itself is a lack of choice, and we don’t really have a choice. We just have to eat whatever is provided.

    One of the biggest choice questions is one of naming. We are given our name, much like how we are given the body that we have. We have no choice in these things, and we are just dealing with what we have.

    I think the illusion of choice is what we have come to think that is enough for ourselves. More than that, maybe we assume this should be the norm for everything that we go through, when honestly maybe it really shouldn’t be the case. We have to realise at some point that we could pretend that we have choice, but what benefit would that bring?

    So what is the actual choice that we have, when we do exercise our choosing actions? We choose between presented options, and sometimes we try to have other options that might or not might exist just yet. Perhaps you would like to have sushi at said food court, that does not serve sushi. Maybe the immediate choice of having sushi is not present, but the possibility of a future choice of sushi is there, through appropriate feedback channels. But perhaps the sushi shop being present is impossible because of the lack of temperature controls within the food court stand. That then proves that choice is indeed not present, and it is just impossible.

    This is the same principle that goes for career choices and study, especially in Singapore. The basis for studying as hard as you can is to open up as many options as possible. The less academic ability you show, the less chances for you to receive a job or a career in your choice.

    But at the same time, one must understand one’s own preferences beyond the simple idea of opening up one’s options. For example, should a person realise that he or she enjoys building and construction, and not the planning of blueprints, the route to actual construction work might not require that much academic study. It would be useful to have spare information, but at the same time, does it help the construction work itself? Should a construction worker understand biology, or have an in depth knowledge on literary arts? It would be interesting for his life, but perhaps not for his career. At this point, the unnecessary illusion of choice creates more distractions, instead of focusing one’s choice and ability.

    While this might seem like a small example, it spreads further into other ideas that we might have. The international city is one that gives us a multitude of choices. But we are often plagued with the daily “What should we eat today?” which also becomes “Where should I work in next?” and later “How should we be thinking about these issues?” This development is one that triggers our mindsets, and then, much like the unnecessary addition of academics within a choice range, we are given distractions to our main goals.

    So therefore, what is the choice of our mindset, or our philosophy? Is it happiness? Is it peace? That aim within our minds is our choice, or at least we hope it to be. The larger question also is, does one choose to be happy? Is that possible? Some strive for this, at the expense of other people’s happiness, but at the same time, at least their happiness is achieved. Is that worth it? Perhaps.

    But at the end of the day, that one person’s happiness at the risk of others not being happy, is usually deemed as selfish, or dictator like even. There will be added stress and frustration, as one attempts to reach his or her own happiness, because of the others that are around. They would feel less happy, if the one pursuing happiness was pursuing it at their expense. The one with that happiness, upon reflection, might come to a conclusion that he or she is not actually happy with the current state of events, and thus losing his or her happiness that was so carefully sought after. That leaves no one happy at the end of the day.

    Therefore, there is really no choice, even in mindset. We might hope and attempt for it, unless achieved in group or herd, there might be a possibility, but eventually, the individuals within the group might start to fray, and question their own sense of happiness, beyond the group. The illusion of choice is dark, and becomes a gluttonous hole of emotion and effort. It would be, therefore, easier, if one takes reference from another to form the idea of choices and options, for feeling, for thought, or even for food.

  • One thought away

    Maybe its yesterday’s long post on Steve Jobs that is making me think this, but I am currently thinking: Some of the world’s best ideas are just one thought away. It’s not that far. It’s just another step and we have to hit that step somehow.

    Daily blogging mixed in with typing on a RealForce board has really become a sort of therapy for me. I really enjoy typing, and it’s something I should embrace properly. I can have fun with it, and I should. I feel as if my thoughts are stuck with how my keyboard life ought to be, and the need to do things a certain way just to be part of the keyboard community. But it’s definitely not true, and I look forward to these daily occasions to type away, and just feel the keyboard underneath my fingers.

    Me being me, I keep looking at more and more options, which doesn’t really work out that well for my wallet. I keep looking more variations to test and play around on these things. It’s really quite an exciting process, expensive process.

    Maybe one day, these thoughts would be that thought that helps to change things up. And just maybe, I could track that on one of these many keyboards that I have right now.

  • Presence

    Presence as existence. As one is a being, existing. I am here, I am being. The current form of which as human. The formation of matter and will to be present. Having breath, having life, having a mind and intelligence. There is a space I take up within this current time space universe, and I require it.

    Not present as the lack of existence. Ceasing to remain, being a void, and not having a will anymore. There is nothing, and there will be nothing, because of the lack of presence. Like the air in a vacuum, the emptiness filling, the gaseous matter sucked out. There is nothing and there can be nothing.

    I am present today, and I choose to be. But is it really my choice to exist? What is the existence that we think we deserve?

    I am present today, because God has chosen. Or the form of God that I attribute the ultimate creative power to, forming out of nothing.

    I am present, as God’s presence exists. It is presence that I am filled by, through breath, through my emotions, through my existence itself.

    Why do people live as if there is no presence in their lives? They live as if they are a void, sucking the air out. They are a vacuuming, taking in and never giving out. They stand in the way, blocking literally the flow of traffic. They ask questions that suck away the space, and make you question your own existence. They are without will, they are without direction and form. They are not present

    Do I live in the present, the here and now? Or am I without presence?

    I will always choose to be present, no matter the circumstance. I am grateful for my existence and I will claim my moment of existence gratefully. Appreciating it by living it out as largely as I can.

    Maybe one day even to the Moon.

    Watching Ad Astra right now, or at least some quarter way through it. Brad Pitt can really play such a good range of roles. I really like his acting.

  • The beauty that the Artists draws from 

    How do you get inspiration, and how does this propel you to do better work? 

    — — —

    Wow so I wrote this post in 2017, July. I can’t remember what exactly I was aiming for, but this gist is something that I find so hard even now to think about. I mean like, how does one get inspiration? That is a fine and hard question.

    I’m not sure how much of this makes sense, but I think each day has it’s moments. I’ve learnt how to be a lot more forgiving on myself, if I can’t produce something that I had hoped to initially. There’s really no forcing it.

    I think it’s a range of learning as well. What am I looking for in the motivation, in the inspiration? I think when I first thought of this draft 5 years ago, I was probably being a lot more direct and immediate into art itself. But from how things are going now, and how things will continue to go: I think daily life needs motivations too.

    I haven’t touched my art materials for a very long time. I don’t know if I can do much, or if anything at all. I’ll have to dust off a lot of mental inertia to get started again. Is there beauty? Yes. But the question now has become, what do I really need to capture? Is it worth me capturing? And somehow, the answer needs to be yes.

    What is beauty at the end of the day? What am I really thinking about when I think of how to draw from the beauty of this world? Why did I think such hard questions then???

    If i am asking myself that today, it goes back to how I see each day’s individual moments. There are a number of things that I’ve seen that are incredibly powerful everyday. It’s not easy, but it’s not difficult either. It needs me to stop, and to pause. I find trouble in doing that a lot of the time. The captured moments need a good time of reflecting on how things even got to where they are right now.

    Maybe I should revisit this in 5 years, and my answers would change by then. Like the Billie Eilish interviews, I might grow to find myself annoying. Perhaps.

  • How Time Flies

    It doesn’t really fly, but it moves so quickly and it’s as if I’m sitting in a time machine every day. It’s moving at the pace of one second a second, but every moment just moving on and on as we drift through space on this planet.

    Nostalgia and regret; the two biggest enemies on this fight against time. Future and Patience are other enemies too, but I think the ones that cause me a lot of pain are the ones of things that I could have done better.

    It’s because of how I think about the past that affects the way I think about the future. I know that for sure, and maybe I’ve even mentioned that here a few times. But at the end of it, where am I really?

    What is the present, if not a time for immediate action? And why do I think and reflect, only to lose more time later?

    So to make sense of all these thoughts, I think this daily blogging here is good for me, because my reflections are immediately shared, and then I can re-do my thoughts later. Maybe it would work for the current time, and maybe, just maybe time would stand still for a moment.

    But it won’t, and you would have spent time just to read this.

    So spend time wisely, because it flies. Really really quickly it flies. Can’t ever catch it back, and can’t ever earn it back.

  • The Relaxed Position

    Today was a day that I really wanted to try something new: I wanted to try to be as relaxed as I possibly could. I wanted to just be a teenager again, and watch TV shows as I ate leftovers from the fridge. I wanted to just chill and take naps where I felt like it.

    But this is really one of the hardest things for me to do. Most of the time, I really feel like I need to be doing something. So I actually catered a space today. I made space to make my YouTube videos, and now there’s a huge backlog. I have so many descriptions to write, and so many thumbnails to make. But at least I have a really fun space that I carved out to relax in.

    I watched TV shows, and just made myself feel really comfortable. I enjoyed it. I might try it again tomorrow, and get other work done in a similar way. Tomorrow’s a work day again after all.

    When I’m in that chill state, even if I’m doing a ton of work, it feels easier. It’s that gear on my mind that it’s just in the zone, but not really in the zone. It’s a glide, it’s cruising. I’m not really pushing, I’m just enjoying the flow of things.

    Daily blogging is helping me with that; the range of reflection tools I placed in for my wind down routines also help. It’s a way for myself to enjoy my keep active, without the added stress that I put on myself. I really need to develop a formula, because there are many days when I wish this would happen more often. I end up missing the forest for the trees, and everything just ends up in a mess of sorts. I don’t enjoy the day, and there’s no work done. I’m unhappy, unfulfilled, and honestly, I’ll end up behind on the work I have to do.

    So my hope is that tomorrow, I’ll work from that cruising state. I’ll try my best to, but I’ll also try not to put pressure on myself for that to happen.

    And two songs to motivate myself, and to keep myself in that mood:

    Negative Thinking by The Death Set, and Let’s Daba Daba by Polysics

  • Finding a Personal Space

    I think it’s always something that I struggle with. While I might be friendly, sometimes I find it hard to share what is really on my mind. I think I lean towards different people’s preferences a lot of the time.

    Today we had a time of reflection, as part of work. During that time, I realised how much I’ve been keeping on my own mind, and not sharing it properly to the people around me. It takes a bit of effort, but I find that I am quite overloaded with my own thoughts. I don’t speak much of what I am really feeling, and at the end of the day, I am still quite alone.

    Maybe this is a reason why I don’t have a normal YouTube Channel, and I’m quite happy with just showcasing the typing tests, as my own reference point.

    Actually, maybe other than this blog, I don’t really share myself on the Internet as a whole. So I guess if you’re reading this, you do get to see a glimpse of me that I don’t really show anywhere else. I just find that it’s not the right space to share myself, on Instagram, on YouTube. But this place is quite an appropriate place. So I’m fine with this.

    Here’s a song/album I’m really into now, and it keeps playing in my head: Holiday / No Surprise / Mystery / T.L.C. (TURNSTILE LOVE CONNECTION)

  • Mango’s on an Apple Tree

    There’s always this saying that you can’t expect an apple tree to grow mangos, and in that same way, we shouldn’t not expect something unnatural out of someone.

    As much as we think that, we also keep asking people to get out of their comfort zones. Isn’t that similar, or at least asking an apple tree to try to become like a mango-like apple? Like an attempt at becoming something that they might not necessarily be.

    I find that in my own experiences, I’d rather be the best tasting apple tree ever, than to be a mango + apple + whatever other fruit type of tree. That’s what I would rather, but I know that I’m often asked to become a different type of tree to fit the different needs of people who ask for my help.

    We say such silly things, in order to convince ourselves either to not do work, or to do even more work. We’re really just weird trees walking around, thinking that we ought to tell other trees what to do. Maybe we should just settle down, and grow big, and be whatever tree we can be, the best that we can grow. That would be good, great maybe.

  • Being Absolutely Trivial

    It really makes me happy to have something new in my hands. Something so strange about it. I just enjoy it, and I look forward to it.

    I love the things that I materially have in my hands, and there’s a part of me that gets more and more bonded to the things I use. I honestly believe that materialism is that literal bonding of yourself as a person to the things around oneself, and that scares me a bit. I never really think of it that deep, and no one is forcing me to.

    But man, it really feels so silly sometimes. And at the same time, I feel like I rely on it for some sort of stress relief.

    Does that make me a godless person that runs after material items? Maybe. But I hope my faith is not shaken just because I enjoy items. I just can’t live for them. I might be right now, and maybe that’s something that I need to work on somewhere.

    Clear electronic looking items just get to me, it’s that designed look to things. I really need to work these feelings and attachments properly. I might be able to make something better for myself than the things that I’m getting.

    Just for the pure fun of it.

  • If not for me, then who?

    There’s this phrase thrown around whenever I go back for reservist, or I find myself in a situation where obligations are placed: “If it’s not me, then who?”

    The idea is that if the person doesn’t do that job, or take up that role or appointment, then who will do it? And it will end up with a bad situation, and everyone will suffer because of that loss of that one person.

    But another way to think about it is: if it’s not for me, that I’m doing this task for, then who am I doing this task for?

    I found myself listening to a conversation where the people in it kept complaining about their different situations that they were dealing with. They were just going on and on about why they were in a bad place, and why they should not be there. But if it’s not for themselves that they were doing this for, then who were they doing this for?

    In a situation where one needs to think of the big picture, responsibility goes really high. Above personal agenda. When when accepts the idea of a divine responsibility, then there’s a definite sense of purpose and fulfillment. But if someone doesn’t even understand their own place in the world, then what’s the point of trying to fight against an obligation or responsibility? It’s not like they’d have anything better to do.

    And to me, that is the reason why the human race will never go beyond a certain point. We’re just outrightly too selfish. God save our souls.

  • What happens after?

    I think one of the most frightful things that we’ve put ourselves through is making something end. I think that’s the main reason why TV shows last forever, we enjoy that stability, that continuation of everything, and maintaining things. Sometimes that’s the reason why we like to just get stuck in many things, and take a really long time to let go of things.

    I think I struggle with that a lot. I think it’s really hard to let go of the things that I have, and I find myself very happy to stay stuck in a situation. But at the same time, I resent it like crazy. I think it’s the biggest waste of my time, and I sleep annoyed with why I didn’t try harder, or do more to get out of the situation.

    One of the biggest things I wish I had done earlier was to get out of Singapore. Not because I hate Singapore, but because I think that the space for growth here is limited, or at least it’s curated in it’s own way. I really enjoy the space of Singapore that I have, and the way I can leave my things around just knowing that it won’t get stolen: that safety is really great.

    But at the same time the appetite for failure is so low, because risk taking is not advised in many ways. I mean for a thief to think he’ll probably not be able to steal, that’s a pretty adverse risk ratio. The thief would rather start up a business and try to earn money the right way in Singapore. If not, he would just do small jobs to get enough pay to get by.

    Back to the main point, where do we find ourselves when something is finished? I think that when I finished my army, and I had a chance to grow and try a school far away, or to expand my design abilities, I decided not to, because I was happy with how things were. Now that I’m older, I wish I had thought against that. I wish I had pushed myself a bit more, and maybe challenged the way I thought.

    I’m also realizing that I needed those times to help me think of where I am now, and what choices I want to make today. It’s not something easy, where like all association to things of the past are now gone. It’s still there, and that general sense of lethargy to have difficult conversations about change are there too. I think hard about where I am going towards, and where I hope to be after that time.

    Maybe my risk adversity is slowly lowering, and I’m more willing to take bigger risks. What’s the worst that could really happen? And if I’m willing to deal with that, maybe I should just take the plunge. But if I’m not willing to deal with that, am I willing to deal with the compromise?

    Heavy topics aside, I’ve really been into the budget audiophile niche of MX500 earphones, after the VE Monk Plus. Basically they look like cheap earbuds, but they’re tuned to sound super great. It feels like I have a nice good audiophile level of earbuds, but at a much cheaper cost point. Maybe not audiophile per se, but very nice audio quality. I’ve ordered the FAAEAL, KBear, and other weird sounding names, and I am very excited to try something weird and new all over again. Also trying to figure out what music I enjoy the most on the earbuds, and what level of needing out I wanna get into. It’s really quite fun!

  • How do you combine interests?

    I’ve been thinking for a long time, how do I make sense of the many interests that I have? There’s so many things to do, and so little time in a day. How do I decide what to do each day, and how do I decide which one takes more priority over the other?

    One of strangest things that might amuse any one who has known me for some time, is actually my avid awareness of Minimalism in my life. Inside me somewhere, is this person who actually wants to have nothing inside my house, and to have only the same set of clothes over and over and over again. It’s a dream. Realistically, this will never happen. Not because I don’t want to, but in that Spark Joy theory from Kon Mari, I find that there too many collections of mine that spark joy. I can be brought back to exact moments where I had gotten something and then it finds a renewed place in my heart.

    But this minimalism framework is one of those preceding the rest. Do I get something that I like for the sake of it? Why do I like what I am getting? Am I getting something purely for the uniqueness, or because I truly like and enjoy it.

    This does mean that I have 3-5 of the same black t-shirt, and maybe about 5-7 kinds of black t-shirts. They range in thickness, in length, in quality, in shade of black, the sleeve length, the neck width. You get the picture.

    But I have also specific unique items that only have one of each. For example, I only have one green khaki pants. I have one light tan khaki, and then I have regular black slacks. These are for occasions that I have to be absolutely formal in, and I’d rather have one pair that I have worn for the past 10 years, than to buy a new pair of pants every time I need it for a formal event. Then to resell, or loan those out after that.

    I think the COVID period has been especially hard, because I have a limited amount of places to wear these items to, and therefore the place of “I will use them when I am in the appropriate place” is missing. Technically, the minimalist during this COVID period would throw away most of not all clothes, because there is no need for travel, and therefore, there is only need for a few things. Shorts might be the most common, because of the amount of time spent at home. Which is also what I have gotten more of in the past year. Two pairs of the same type of shorts, in different colors. But they are very nice and stretchy, and I am enjoying them.

    Time based hobbies start next: What will take the most or the least of my time? And because of time, it is also: Which hobbies can I stack together at the same time? So sometimes I watch a number of shows that I really like, as I fix up keyboards. Sometimes, it’s listening to a podcast as I run, because I love to learn now things.

    Because time is so limited, gaming is something that has really dropped so much in the past few years. I really like gaming, and I wish there were more ways to game. It’s so hard, because it takes time, and it’s a single activity. I can’t stack it, as much as I would like to. But recently, because of Clarice’s involvement in streaming and gaming, I’ve began to start gaming a bit more, and using that single time as a specific time to start relaxing it. Although the game itself might not be relaxing, I am forcing myself to just allocate specific time to one thing, instead of stacking. It is a hard effort, but I think it’s needed as I learn how to rest better.

    All this aside, I try to track my days, and my time. It doesn’t always work out how I think it would, but I do make some attempts to. A lot of the time, things get pushed around. But then I write posts like this, and remind myself not to be so hypocritical. Then I restart some hobbies, or I give more focused time. And that works out for me really great in the end.

    I gotta get started reading again!! Personal reminder for myself as I sign off for now.

  • Free

    There was a time when I was considering writing as a side gig, like maybe a possible thing that I could get into. Not so much income, but just another skillet to develop for possible business? Like for fun, the same way I do drawings and things like that. That thought was put through the reins when I was writing a lot on Medium, because I thought that would be a good place where I could get random people to read my posts, and I could get some side money from it. Either that or I could maybe just curate myself better on the go.

    Also at that time, this site was in a huge question mark. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with this, and it just felt like I was holding the website for the sake of it. WordPress’ layouts were also kinda boring then. I mean now that I’m here, it’s clear that I can deal with this, but it’s not perfect either, but at least it’s somewhere.

    But over time, I realized I didn’t like writing with other writers on Medium. It felt like I couldn’t really express myself as me, and I had to form myself into a shape that others could understand, something like YouTube. The content needs to be what the rest would be willing to watch.

    That’s not me. I’m not really good with dealing with everyone else. I can do work, and I can be friends with people, but having to write creatively for someone else is not something I enjoyed. I found that I also don’t know how to feel about taking drawing commissions to be honest. It felt like there were things that I didn’t want to do, but I had to make do.

    But because of that, I realized I like writing here, for myself. I honestly don’t care too much if people read it or not, the same way when I had written for others when I was younger, I wrote specifically expressing myself to them. It was good, and I really enjoyed it. It was who I was, and what I wanted to be.

    So now back to this particular site, and for me to write as freely as I would want to, it makes me happy. I am very happy with it indeed. I wish there were more ways for me to express it, but time will tell. I will continue to write here often, and I will continue to share what I learn about myself in this whole time.

    If you’re here and this is the first thing you’re getting to read, please just have fun and see where my mind has been on this site. It’s just a peak, but I promise I’ll explain more about how I think in the time to come.

    All that being said, I’m really keen on having my keyboard that I’m typing with to sound and feel a certain way. But apparently it’ll just be time that will get me there. That’s tough, because I’m honestly not the most patient person in the world. Also because of that, I feel like I might want to get another keyboard just to wear in now, before I want to use it later on as well.

    I really get into way too many hobbies interests that take too much of my time, and I really don’t have that much time. Time to get started again.

    https://youtu.be/XOnCffYzGXo this is the sound of said keyboard. My own video of this will be coming up here real soon. 🙂

  • Produced Productivity

    I find myself always thinking about what I should be doing, and how much more of it. It stems from the idea of being as productive as possible, and how I wish I could maximize my time in the best ways possible. We should be doing as much as we can, as often as we can… right?

    But I find myself so annoyed with myself. There is only one main stressor: Me.

    That’s when I stop my productivity tools, and put them aside, just to find some sense of peace for my own head. I actually put down tools and tasks, and then I just don’t do anything for quite a long period of time. And just when I’m about done feeling sorry for my annoyed self, I get started again, and start doing work.

    It really doesn’t help when YouTube sends me productivity videos to watch real often. It doesn’t help that I’ve subscribed to these things on my feed, and that I’ve got newsletter after newsletter on how I can really be living the best life if I’ve whittled out my philosophies. How I can be more disciplined, how I can be more in tuned with the goals I have for my life.

    So I’m here now, because I was really excited to get started on a few projects, I started to do some of them, but then I got really disillusioned by my own over productivity lifestyle. I was literally just like not sure which thought should go into which bullet journal, or which notion template, or which Trello board. I was just so confused with myself.

    I stopped doing everything for the past few days, stacked with the side effects from the second dose of Pfizer Vaccine. And the break has been good, I think. I couldn’t do anything, and I really didn’t want to. I had no need to feel bad about it, because all I could do was lie in bed.

    Today I got back on track a little bit, started some work. But man, some days are really so much harder than others.

    Current thought: I should just do whatever I wanna do, and write whatever notes I feel like writing in that day. I can sort later, but the work needs to be done, the ideas need to come out of my body.

  • General Updates #1

    I think it would be good to do a certain sense of consistency back again in these thoughts that I place here on this side of things. And this might mean coming up with somewhat of a template to go along. So I’ll begin by introducing some of the things that I’ve been watching, or reading, or listening to. After that I’ll try to introduce you to an idea that I’ve been thinking about. And lastly I’ll make sense of what the world is like to me now, as a creative expression not meant to be taken too seriously.

    Disclaimer

    This is also a time for me to state a disclaimer that these views that I present are my own, not representing the country I’m from (Singapore), neither the organizations that I work with, nor the friends that I socialize with. They are just my views of the world, and my observations with my own biases. My biases are based on my experiences so far, so if it is flawed, it is flawed indeed, because I think that is part of what human life is about.

    With all that aside, let’s get going!

    What I have been struggling to finish:

    I’ve been listening to the recorded lectures on philosophy: Great Ideas in Philosophy, by Dr Daniel Robinson.

    The lectures are 30min monologues, where Dr Daniel presents different philosophies. They’re really quite eye opening, and I try my best to write a short summary after every lecture. This does mean that I’m taking a lot longer than I would for an audio book, but I’m trying to capture as many things as I can. I am aiming to learn for free, in a sense. I did pay for this through audible credits a few years ago, and I am finding the benefits of my previous purchase choices.

    My current thoughts is that it’s a lot less fluff than a podcast, and something more historical. I don’t think I’ll pick up a philosophy textbook, but I am keen to read the original documents, in the range of translations. This would probably take another few years for me to put to actual action, but hey, everyone’s got a side hobby somewhere right.

    It’s really helpful for me to use to engage in a lot of the conversations that we have in modern day. I think that we lack the intellectual depth in our conversations currently. We tend to use very poor logic and weak arguments in how we converse with each other. It becomes quite a mess when we discuss things, and no one understands each other any better. This gives me a chance to understand someone better, and also a chance for a new way of thinking for me to consider; a new philosophy. Maybe one day, our current thoughts would lead us to a new philosophy entirely. Which brings me to…

    A New Philosophy

    What does philosophy look like in modern day? Right now with traditional news mediums in a constant change, and our reliance of social media over news sources, the idea of truth is in constant competition. What is truth in the first place? I think we have been digressing for so long, and we have given into relative truth for an extremely long time. Relative truth being what is real to me, and what exists for me, that becomes my truth.

    But there are many universal truths that we reject because of this. What can be defined as truth needs to have it’s reality set in the world that we experience, that’s for sure. But some of these things apply across all cultures, even more so because of the digital age that we live in.

    The digital age gives way to an international culture, that exists beyond where we have come from. It is like when we traded spices across countries and cultures. We would need to come at a marketplace, at a place of sharing and value is almost uncertain. But common terms need to be defined.

    Right now, with relative moral rights, we are going to and fro countries bringing moral rights as our items of value. Our cultures are adjusting for things like mental health, human rights, and strangely enough, the abstract meme in it’s contextual misappropriation. These values and cultural challenges are seen different by those who are not actively on that forefront trading culture on the Internet. But the world is moving fast, and even the front line cultural traders are barely able to catch up.

    The Reset?

    I think that there should be a reset somewhere. Not total anarchy, although it might approach that bump for sure. I don’t think that we could reach an agreement simply in these days, but with COVID 19, I think that we’ve found a common place to start with. Hopefully we could get to common terms somewhere. But just to put an idea out that there should be a reset somewhere.

    Mechanical Keyboards have been that reset for me. Something that I don’t need to consider my background or culture in. I’ve made friends across the world, people who engage in a non political topic, and just enjoying or discussing our experiences typing. There are preferences for sure, and everyone has certain hot topics within keyboards, but overall, we tend to enjoy the hobby in the nerdiest ways possible.

    Much like how we have seen the motorcar change over the decades, and we found this idea of horsepower and individual movement over a physical plane, I think that Mechanical Keyboards will eventually be that flex of a person’s understanding and status, as one engages with the digital age. The mechanical keyboard is supposed to for a very long time for sure, and with this idea of nostalgia, and humanizing tech, I think this is a very physical engagement of the virtual space. We enjoy the typing experiences, the sounds and feel, and this adds to our “movement”. We have a premium experience of the digital interfaces because of this.

    I’ll probably change my thoughts some time soon, so that would be another disclaimer too. But in case I don’t, this stands as a moment for me to reflect on retrospectively.

    If I do change them, it is a sign of a human, and that would be good. I hope these thoughts mature over time.

  • Hello?

    Does anyone even read these posts anymore? I think one of the worst things that I have installed into my site is the back end stats management. It just sits there telling me that no one is coming in.

    But I’m not really looking for people to come in right? I’m trying to make my space for myself, and to just express freely what I think about the things I’m thinking about.

    For instance, what is the place of my pinky in typing? Does anyone really need to know that? I guess they don’t but it’s a thought that’s open my head and that I might really want to talk about it for some reason. I don’t know how often I’m supposed to use it, but it feels like I really ought to more for some reason.

    I guess if no one reads silly thoughts like these it’s really alright? Or the fact that I tried to place a question in the start of every paragraph. Also, as you might guess, I’m still running off the new keyboard energy, getting myself all hyped up and typing as much as I can.

    What on earth am I really doing this for? Who knows 😉

  • Typing in Bed

    This sounds absolutely ludicrous, but after years, I am finally typing in bed again.

    It’s a thing because when I was much younger, say about 17, 18 years old, I used to love typing in bed, and just spilling my thoughts out. I would write an email newsletter to a range of friends and acquaintances. I would write on LiveJournal, this old blogsite that a lot of us had used back in the day. All these written on my white MacBook, and just rattling away on the built in keyboard.

    It was that where I really enjoyed the idea of typing, and soon after I purchased my Apple Magic Keyboard, so that I could type more and more. I would type from a distance, because I could. And this kept up through my army days as well. I would write on the weekends, and every now and then, just type away on my bed as I thought through things before I slept. It was a really relaxing way to end the day.

    There’s an imagery and scene in my head: view of the street below, with the orange yellow street lights that glowed through the rain trees. The flashes of the zebra crossing, and the cars driving past in sporadic intervals. And then of course, the white glow of the Apple Logo, mirrored against the window glass. Because I would be sitting there typing away, and hoping to make sense of my brain as I put it on an email. Or a post.

    I’m back writing in bed again, after over 10 years.

    Ok, that’s a dramatic statement.

    I’m back writing in bed again, after some time, because I’ve got a keyboard that fits nicely on my lap, and I’m writing on my iPad, as part of WordPress apps that allow it. I couldn’t do this for the past few years, because my white MacBook from my teens, became way too slow. My MacBook Pro from 2014 has also slowed down dramatically, but more because of a faulty battery that I cant deal with so much. And the iMacs that I have cant be carried to bed to type.

    But now, those technical difficulties are put away. More than that, I have a keyboard that is really of such an enjoyable quality, that I am encouraged to type more and more. Thus, this very long post about how I have a new keyboard. The night owl Joel, who loves to write and talk, has been reawakened!

    Stay tuned for a lot more consistent posts… I hope.

  • A Post Written in a Blur

    Today, I cleared my IPPT.

    It is the Individual Physical Proficiency Test, which all Singaporean Males, or those serving our National Service need to take annually. This test’s window is within birthday to birthday, and man, I am so tired out from it.

    Today, I also did my work, needing to speak at a session.

    As part of my tasks in my job, I need to speak, and moderate a session, in a sense. For those who know what I actually do, I’m making it as objective as possible because I think that this makes more sense in my monologue here.

    Today, I attended a training the trainers session.

    Also within my job scope, I have to attend some meetings that involve training, and today’s session was a training the trainers session. Which means, it was a lot more in depth than I would have preferred, but I still learnt a lot.

    Today, I had cooked my meals, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And my wife cooked some for me too.

    Cooking is a lot of management, and simultaneous management at that. Everything might boil over if you don’t watch it right. Or burn. Or both.

    Today, I thought to make a keyboard to try and stay awake too.

    Just some simple cleaning, wiping things down, swapping out some switches, that I’m typing on now. It’s a sweet typing experience. Can’t hear anything though, because they’re silent tactile switches (Boba U4).

    and now, I decided to write a short post, just to remind myself never to pack my day so heavily ever again. Just say no to some things. It’ll help.

  • After Some Time…

    After some time, we get used to things. We become familiar, and we understand how or why something goes a certain way. After some time, emotions and excitement fades. We take things for granted, and we take that as the norm, how things should be.

    After some time, it’s good to take a moment to reflect. Is my life today something special? What’s special about today, and how have I gotten to this point? It’s a moment to be grateful, and to take stock of how we are so far.

    But in through all this, time is key.

    Instead of waiting for today to remember to be grateful, or for us to realise that certain ideas or thoughts have faded, what if we could control the when? What I mean is, if we do check ins periodically, would we ever lose that excitement, or would we ever forget to be grateful? Perhaps gratefulness would just be part of who we are, and every moment is cherished.

    Or maybe it would become another system that we take for granted again, and this idea of when is just one that the human mind cannot fathom in the best way. Maybe having this up and down of remembering and forgetting is something that we just can’t really deal with, if its constant all the time. Something would just need to give way around this circle of life’s priorities.

    When? After some time, that’s when.

  • Decompressing Time

    I’ve been picking up running again, and it’s really been some time since I’ve done any long runs. I’ve been doing runs every now and then, but nothing consistently, and the past two weeks have been me trying my best to get these runs in.

    Because of that, my heels are just dead. I’ve got blisters on blisters and they’re just so sore at times, that its hard to move my feet.

    But I still run, and it gets me into a very interesting place mentally. I’m running and keeping a good stride, and it feels like every step I take pushes the ground beneath my feet. My breath is full in my chest, and I push on, and see either the sun set, or the sun rising.

    And then, some cyclist with no lights rides by really close, with no ringing, and I get this shock of sorts, bringing me down immediately to the earth.

    I hope I either find the best time to run without newbie cyclists, or I get a new route, that I can avoid these people with.

    I need the run to decompress. There are many things that are stored in my head, and especially through a long day, I find myself not letting them out. I need my head for other things, like how to be nice to people, and how to manage things as a whole. But if I don’t decompress, it just stays there.

    There’s probably a deeper scientific reason behind why this is so, and I would like to direct you there one day, but maybe for just today, run longer than you would imagine was possible for you. Maybe you’ve only run 2.4km because it was needed of you to run in school. Go longer than that. Not because you need to hit the distance, but run because you need to decompress too. It’s not about how well you run either, because sometimes when you put so much pressure on that, you run with more stress. Instead, think of moving one foot in front of each other in the simplest way possible.

    Soon, you might be 10km in, and you’ll be enjoying your run a lot more than you had imagined. That’s where I found myself at, at least.

  • Constantly Communicating

    I feel it, deep inside. This constant communication that we are linked to in the modern day.

    Can you imagine years ago, when the Telephone was first being invented? At that time, the ability to call into your friend’s home must have seemed like a huge invention. And over time, it became a hassle when someone would call you, and you would need to answer, if not the ringing wouldn’t stop.

    And then the emails came along, where we could send a letter, without the need to actually post mail. There would be no post man, and everything would be immediate. What an age! You could share your thoughts, and someone could reply you after that, without you having to wait. But then came along the need to reply, and work emails that we try to hide from as much as we can. Or view receipts, that you turn to to see if your friend or colleague had viewed your mail.

    Two words: Instant Message. That was the end of it. No longer just an email, where there would be some what of a title, and a template to fill. Instead, just straight up what a phone call would be. Your friends live in your pocket. Good or bad? No one really knows, and the self help side of the bookstores lean more on the No than Yes.

    That’s where we are today, with our instant messaging, with our constant communication. I feel it, deep inside me.

    It’s not the pings from my friends that I feel. It’s a mix bag of emotions. I feel as if time runs out whenever I take too long to reply someone. I feel as if I did not think hard enough if I pressed enter too quickly. I feel as if the world needs to know and doesn’t really want to know all at once. But I need to share, to make sure they know, right? I need to use my Mechanical Keyboard, to type a message quickly enough, so that they are aware, and that they Do know.

    Also because typing messages with a mechanical keyboard is Oh So Satisfying. What could go wrong?

    But this constant communication that I feel inside me, makes me feel exposed, dried out. I feel too much, because I keep on going and going.

    And I’m typing this post, so that I’m not offloading this to just one person, or a group of friends, but at least to somewhere constructive, where my verbal rants would matter somehow. Somehow placed into a series of paragraphs that would egg on my constant communication.

    And I guess now, I’m about ready to stop communicating. I hope you would communicate with me, whoever you are, reading this. Just say hi, just because you can. 😀

  • My 2nd Anniversary

    In case you did not know, I am married. Married for two years at that. It’s something that I am extremely proud about, because I think making a marriage work for two years is a lot of effort. There were many times when I feel like just throwing everything away and just calling it quits. There were fierce fights, and real debates about how things ought to be done. And it feels silly, especially when you look back at it. Worse still, it feels silly if you hear someone telling you, “Oh when you’re getting ready for marriage, remember to be chill about dish washing.” I will honestly say that dish washing has caused a lot more pain than I expected. It’s so strange, because I think the love that we see from our parents, or some old couple walking along the street, it’s just not that easy. It’s a lot of friction, and it can really hurt.

    But I’m proud because I think Clarice and I have really had that friction and grown past that in huge ways. We’re really not the same people that we had fell in love with. Some parts have remained, but others have grown. I have grown. I am really a different person. I don’t dislike it in any way, I just know that I am really in a good place now, and it took a lot of effort to get here. I am proud, really proud, of our partnership.

    I hope one day I’ll read this post again, and be reminded of how happy and proud I am of my marriage. It is truly a beautiful thing.

  • The Haunting Past

    Every now and then, I sit down and look through the things that I have done before. I don’t usually plan these sessions. I don’t think anyone intentionally goes through a heart wrenching time to reflect on the things that are totally shameful internally. I might be cleaning my room, and I stumble on a box of letters, or a random picture reminding me of a time before, or worse still, chancing on an old picture of a person or myself even.

    If your memory is bad, you might just look at it and even wonder how that photo was taken. But if your memory is pretty solid, you get this huge roller-coaster of anxiety, emotion, nostalgia. Regret becomes one of the biggest things you end up with in your hands. Looking back at the person you were, and really regretting being that guy.

    I don’t think I was ever proud of who I was. I might be really quite happy with who I am today, but it was shaped from a lot of frustration, and a lot of failed attempts at trying to be someone I’m not. On Reddit, the relevant thread is “r/blunderyears“. I was indeed a huge blunder, and it’s really hard to come to terms with what I did as a teenager navigating social spaces. I used to text girls randomly, trying to just go out on dates, and failing horribly. I had emails and letters from ex-girlfriends, who I cheated on, because I had no idea how to deal with relationships and time apart. There were notes where I had tried to be cool in front of other guys, only to find out that I had not been cool at all.

    There were really so many things that I was struggling with in my own head, that I took out on the people around me. They watched me make a mess of so many things, and some of them still stuck around. Some of them became my best men at my wedding. My family also watched me struggle through these things, and they were there, loving me still, and encouraging me to do the right things.

    All this really changes the way that I care for people now. It’s silly, if I were shown so much love and grace, for me not to pay it forward. Then I really wouldn’t have learnt much. It would be just a sad older person, doing the same silly things, and not changing. I learnt how to care, how to stick around, even if someone was not doing the best or ideal thing in their lives. I learnt how to listen, the same way friends had listened to me. That’s definitely shaped who I am today, and who I hope to grow to become more and more. I can be better, because I’ve been shown how to be a better person. It’s the regret in my hands, that restrains me from behaving badly again.

    So when you stumble across items from the past, remember who you were, and embrace it. Remember that that was you, and not who you are today. But at the same time, remember the people that were around you then, and thank them. They stuck around when they really didn’t need to, when you didn’t deserve it. They helped you out when you really didn’t help yourself. That’s grace, and that’s love. Remember to be better today.

  • Missing the Thrill

    When I started looking at keyboard videos, I was really keen on watching this guy:

    I mean Japanese, with really aesthetic videos, and that sweet keyboard sound? What’s not to like? And every time I watched his videos, I imagined that would be me some day, getting to type on a really nice keyboard, and having a really nice video to prove for it.

    And I’ve gotten there! Thankfully. I’m happy with all the different switches that I have, and the kinds of keyboards I’ve gotten to play with. And of course, I’ve got almost the same kinds of keyboards Wabi Sabi has. Or at least that one that I was really excited about .

    But now that I’m here, and looking back, I miss that feeling. I was waiting for keyboards, I was eager and learning. Now I feel stuffed. I feel over satiated. Full of information, full of knowledge and experience. I miss being hungry and waiting for the keyboards. It was an eagerness, and every day I felt I was one day closer to getting something really special; I was really looking forward to it.

    I guess that’s something that I will always remember about that time. The days going to sleep, hearing typing noises, wondering if I ordered the best switches or not. That’s a huge part of the appeal for keyboards, a self perpetuating hype train that will never come back to the train station. Now my keyboard dreams are in another realm of excitement, or maybe it is just level to my other interests. Whatever it is, I’m really glad I had that time to be excited about, to grow through. I wouldn’t have been half the keyboard nerd I am without those videos.

    Thank you to Wabi Sabi, for your Vids.

  • OUTPUT BEFORE INPUT

    I’m a sucker for Tom Sachs, and for Morning Routines. So this one is really up my alley in the weirdest way possible. I haven’t been good at restraining myself with social media before I start my work and my thoughts, but this is really a great reminder for me to think more, to produce more, to just do more.

    It hits you really differently when you do more. In the Artist Way (12 week programme in creatively resetting), there’s a week where you are not allowed to have any input. No movies, no videos, just your own thoughts and your own writing. In that week, I learnt so much about how much content I take in, and I take in tonnes of content.

    My usual day has me starting out with Reddit, and seeing what’s the latest things trending in the Internet world. After which, I’d play a video whilst I brush my teeth or shower, continuing as I change and get to my table. Then I would check through the range of YouTube things, or flip through my Instagram notifications, and then when I get really tired of all of it, then I might look at my notebooks and consider writing. This is all within the first hour of me waking from sleep.

    That’s not a good place to be, and its because I feel like a content slob. Just taking in all this content, without really processing, without really working it out. My thoughts are not lean and toned thoughts anymore, they’re heavy and all over the place. My mind is not trained the way it used to be. I actually feel the need to be sharpening up. And this post is me taking some action to getting there. I decided to write this morning, to get myself doing something so that my mind has a workout.

    Or at least a stretch, for today.

    I’ll be back, tomorrow. I hope. For a longer mental workout, or just to have a better sense of a healthy morning routine.

  • Internalized Thoughts

    There’s different layers that I think we often hide behind as humans. There’s a certain front that I hope people would perceive from interacting with me, there’s a facade of sorts. It’s not bad, but the facade’s usually there because there’s other things that we’re thinking about.

    Maybe it’s the food we ate that we are trying to figure out was healthy or not. Maybe it’s the choice of what we are planning to say next to appear intelligent, or to just allow the person we’re conversing with to talk some more. Maybe it’s the fear of death that looms over our heads, worried of a sudden freak accident.

    The thoughts I have, as I sit behind my keyboards, are not easy to deal with. They’re raw, they’re frustration. They’re sad, they’re just inconsolable. They are happy and just excited to be alive. But the outside doesn’t want to have the emotions outside. Externally, it’s the thoughts can’t exist and have their space to grow, or to finesse themselves. They stay internal for some time.

    Maybe some of the thoughts, and emotions around the thoughts, become well finessed and are expressed in words. The words might appear as a text to a loved one, or a firm command of “Let’s just eat the burger, it’ll be fine.” Some of the thoughts with less shape, but still larger form, pop themselves out as anger, rage, physically manifesting. These would die quickly outside, because they’re not well put together. And the person learns from all this.

    I keep some thoughts to myself, because I don’t think they’re fit for the outside. I keep the facade up, as I choose which to express, and try to finesse the thoughts properly. But because of the experiences from the past, not all the thoughts come out, and some stay internal a lot longer than others.

    And this in itself, is one of my internalized thoughts, now coming to the daylight (or cyberspace).

  • Feedback

    The last post had a bunch of typos, and sounds so weird, but I only knew that with feedback from my wife. Thanks to her, I now know that it sounds like I wrote it drunk.

    And I think that’s something I wish more people told me more often. Do I sound drunk all the time? Is there a way to make sense of myself? Can I improve? Can I become better? I yearn for correction, because I feel like I’m not good enough to discern.

    My balance for what I think ought to be can be easily laid out when thinking for someone else. But for myself, I really struggle to think about what I could do better, and how I could have done it better. I think that I don’t give myself excuses, and that leads me to this weird path of super high self expectations. I don’t think it’s healthy, but I don’t have a better option. So I keep pushing and pushing, until some parts of my ego and thoughts break.

    But that’s where I look for feedback. I am listening to what people are saying to me, and about me, and I try to fix those things. I know that it’s not perfect, but I think I ought to try from there. If not, myself as my master, will lead to utter destruction of my own ego.

    So feedback helps me, and I learn from it.

    It’s not like feedback is easy to listen to. I already struggle to hear my own feedback, I end up going into this mode to fix myself as much as possible. Hearing it from others can be really hurtful, if I take it the wrong way. It’s not to give people an excuse to hurl insults at me, and then adjust to hear the good of what they’re saying. But it’s just simple things like “Could be better”, or “Maybe not like this”. In an overly sensitive state, I could really take that line badly.

    But again, if its for improvement, I really need to think hard about why it was said, and what I could really learn from it. I don’t want to listen only to myself, or only to the good, or only to the worst things ever. I want to hear balanced feedback, so that I could be a better person. Maybe not today, but hopefully soon. That’s really the heart of what I’m considering.

    So if you’re reading this, and I have not heard your feedback properly, please let me know. Tell me. I will be willing to listen, because I hope to improve. Likewise, I hope that you are telling me, so that I can improve. If you give me the space, I will also tell you how to improve as well, through constructive feedback.

  • One Day

    One day, life would be a lot easier the others.

    One day, we would be able to have good ideas, and no one would shit on them, because they would have other good ideas too.

    One day, we would be able to be ourselves, expressing ourselves, our thoughts and our feelings, and everyone else would be able to accept us wholeheartedly. Not because they agreed with us, but because they were also expressing themselves.

    One day, we would live away from our ideals, because there’s might be a lot more joy in helping other people. And that joy from being self sacrificing is an ideal in itself.

    But it’s so hard to do that, and some day, maybe one day, we would be.

    Perhaps.

    One day.

  • A Piece of My Mind

    What should be the medium of things on YouTube? The other day I had watched a video on the way cinematography is done on YouTube, and there’s this idea of having things done in presentation style.

    I thought it was really interesting, because I’ve always liked Casey Neistat videos, and I never really knew or understood properly why so. Casey’s videos tend to go through an array of YouTuber Presentation Style, and then some really cinematographic movie style on other shots and angles. Peter McKinnon really makes blows this up, especially with his hardcore B-Roll footage.

    I mean these are two really big YouTubers, and they both present and film footage in similar but not ways. Which makes me really rethink: what exactly is YouTube footage? What makes a YouTube Video a YouTube Video? Must I follow these rules to make a YouTube Channel? What about algorithms and things like that? How do those thoughts play into the video and the channel?

    As you might know, I’ve been watching a ton of keyboard videos. Like really a lot of keyboard stuff. I expect keyboard videos to look a certain way, have certain information that I’m really trying to look out for, and a few other things like that. But when the keyboard video doesn’t have that, I’m quite frustrated, or I might not actually watch the whole video.

    So I guess a question is: What do I hope to achieve in my production of typing videos? What do I want people to go away thinking? Must it look a certain way? I know it currently does, but I’m thinking of title slides, I’m thinking of intro sounds, music, end credits, all sorts of things.

    And at the same time, I’m thinking of really artistic and relaxing videos. Things that appear on minimalism videos, or even just lifestyle videos. Is that possible? Keyboards as a lifestyle? Sketching as a lifestyle?

    I want to try that: I want to announce myself as a lifestyle. I want to share how I think and why I think how I think. But I want it to be appreciated, not studied. I want it to be enjoyed, not mimicked. I don’t know if things like this would turn out that way, and I guess many people have these aims in their heads. But I hope one day, that it would work out that way in the videos I hope to make. (I haven’t even started story boarding them yet lol)

    Also, there are many questions that I’m asking in this post. It’s not directed to anyone, but I just wanted to put all these thoughts out there, because I hope one day to track back and to read how I thought through all these things. And hopefully, my future self will be answering my present self one day.

    What a time to be alive, really.

  • A Bit of a Break

    When someone does something like Pomodoro Timers, or one of the productivity hacks, there’s always this encouragement to take a break as you need it. I like that idea, but I find it so hard to do that. It’s not easy to stop when you’re in the Zone. It’s also not easy to stop when you haven’t got anything started, and procrastination has been your work mate for the past hour, or two. But when you actually stop, get out of your seat and take a break, there’s a relief. Or so they say.

    I find myself struggling with taking breaks because I don’t know what makes up a break time. Is it a walk? But isn’t walking doing something too? Is it getting out of your seat to make coffee? Isn’t that also something work-like as well? What about stretching? Perhaps that would be a break but I know my stretch times feel like a real workout, especially when I need to take out a yoga mat, and a foam roller, to get a proper stretch in the way.

    My personal question for taking breaks is: what constitutes a break? How can this break be the most effective?

    I find my best breaks happen when I choose not to do anything related to that topic for a day. None of that particular action or activity or task. Nothing related in any way to it. It’s the most relaxing, and my mind learns something new in that break day. I can watch any video I want, I can learn a new language, I can go for walks, for marathons. Just nothing of that particular work.

    But it means my work time, with its distractions, are allowed to take the whole day. I will force myself to sit there and accomplish the task when I have set myself the day to do it. No breaks other than going to pee and eat. But pure forced on will power. Am I happy? No. But do I get work done? Yes, 100% yes!

    So just give yourself a break every now and then. Not just the tiny ones that no one knows how to quantify. But just an unrelated day. Don’t do anything related to whatever you were supposed to do. And you might really find yourself in better efficiency. I find myself there at least!

  • Clout Chasing

    I don’t think I’ve ever considered myself someone that chases clout. This idea of a person that is driven to make a name for himself or herself, by a show of power, or by some heavy handed way. This idea of influence by means of material ownership, or to flex in what they have, and pretending to be someone they’re not.

    But maybe that’s what life seems to be like the more invested I am in the hobbies I have. I seem to have hobbies that focus on very material things. But I don’t think I’m doing it specifically for anyone’s attention other than my own vested interest in the range of things. I think actually that I am quite happy to just dive into my own world of items and just hoping that no one else will have what I have.

    But sadly, that’s not the case. Instead, unintentionally, I am chasing the clout. I want to get that hard-to-get keyboard, I like that my sneakers can’t be simply bought locally, I like the range of items that I have procured, and I hope to hang on to this for as long as I can.

    And that might just be for another day. All things considered in this world. Is it worth it? Who knows? Probably not. Probably wasn’t worth it in the first place. The Lord knows I can’t take this with me when I die.

    So just for tonight, just for now, but I know, it’s all going to pass away one day, whether I like it or not. Like all other clout chasers in history.

  • The Daily Grind

    Everyday, just waking up, being alive, and being a human being that breathes.

    Unlike human beings that don’t of course.

    Everyday, the work load to clear, or to think through, or just to be responsible about so that the people around me can live life too.

    I live life too of course, just that I think I can balance it pretty well.

    Everyday, needing some coffee, some caffeine, some sugars, some carbs.

    Balanced meals are for balanced people, that we are of course.

    Everyday, steps ahead, one at a time, until finally we are home.

    To restart everything once more for the next. And one day, it’ll all be done. No more new days, just a perpetual one. No more time, because time exists only for the human being who does. No more frustrations, no more responsibilities, no more hunger, no more pain, no more grinding, no more droning on and on about egos and people and everything else that humanity carries in its baggage of existence.

    Just being, and in my case, with God.

    The daily grind, to a halt, with God.

  • Thirty-Two Year Old Soldier

    In Singapore, we have to serve National Service. That’s for about two years, my own time of service was about a year and ten months. It’s part of Singapore’s conscription, because of our really small population. All boys at the age of eighteen are required to serve our National Service to our country, and after that, continue to be operationally ready for the next ten years. That time means that as we start our graduate studies, or enter the workforce, we’re practicing the things that we have learnt in those two years.

    We practice shooting, also known as marksmanship. We also practice attacking and defending, as an army. These things are widely known, so I don’t think I’m saying anything I’m not supposed to be saying. Our operationally ready force would assist our regular army force in times of war, and that makes up Singapore Armed Forces (SAF).

    Every year, my army mates and me are literally drained. We are worn out from the military work that we need to do. We need to be fit, in both our mental and physical capabilities. This period of time is also known as a Reservist period. We are re-servicing ourselves as military men, and ensuring that we’re on tip top form.

    It sounds possible, but honestly, hitting thirty-two this year, I’m feeling it more. Not so much during the actual time that I’m in camp, but the time getting back out to normal everyday life. Every day life is slower, there are less immediate stressors, and you know that technically you could quit at any time. But in the army, there’s no quitting. There’s only doing, and completing the tasks at the time that they’re needed to be done by. It’s a non negotiable. The worst part is that it feels completely irrelevant. It’s in its own bubble and completely not a part of the normalcy that we think of in “living life everyday”. “Seize the day” as a phrase isn’t commonly associated with grabbing your helmet and gear, jumping into a truck, and fighting an imaginary enemy in the jungle. But that’s what we need to do.

    If you suck at being in the military, all you have to do is to imagine a war taking place, and not being able to stop any aggressive enemy. All Singaporean men, whether they like it or not, can do this. There is a certainty of this. But whether they can do this well is a completely different issue. And whether this will even be something tested is even harder to assume. What are the chances that it will be? And by the time we are actually at war, who will be alive to gauge the metrics of success for this conscription army plan? There are too many things at stake for us to not take it seriously enough.

    But like all things that are for our own good, but too far into an unknown future, most Singaporean men can’t imagine this happening. We don’t always appreciate the rigor of this annual military exercise. We enjoy our friends, and we enjoy getting out of work, but there’s always a much deeper reality behind it.

    Maybe it’s about learning what we want to care for and the lengths that we would go to protect it. If we have learnt how to manage finances and investments for our children, perhaps the physical land protection of Singapore is something that we truly ought to consider a lot more. That’s something of value, that money can’t buy. If we lose the country, we’ve lost it all. And I feel that pressure every time I go back to camp, that’s why my time every year is always going to be more stressful than going to work every day.

    I know I’m more of the minority of this view, but I still think it’s something to be said. It’s not a matter of being gregarious, or garang as we would call it, but to me, its a responsibility of protecting the future. A very necessary burden to carry as a male in Singapore.

    In all my examples, I mention Singaporean males, but females do enlist as well. However their enlistment is voluntary, whereas the men are required to by law.

  • What is control?

    This is something I personally need to discuss. Control is something that I find really hard to define, and really hard to express.

    Is it the idea that I can do something? Wouldn’t that be competence? What about the idea of making someone do something that I want them to do? That would sound more like ordering or dictating. What if I nudged them to do it slowly? I guess that would be influence instead.

    But control sounds like all that. Control, as a verb, is defined as “to exercise restraint or direction over; dominate; command”, “to hold in check; curb”, “to test or verify (a scientific experiment) by a parallel experiment or other standard of comparison.”, and “to eliminate or prevent the flourishing or spread of”. The first definition is the closest to what I’m thinking of.

    To Dominate. Command.

    That’s not something we can do easily. I don’t even think we can do that at all sometimes. We can force it for sure, but we can’t control many things. Often we say that we can’t control the weather, because it’s nature. If the wind blows, we can try to control it, but how do you control wind? We divert wind, making it turn turbines. We use wind to cool us down, because we realise when the wind blows, our heat moves away from us. But then if the wind blows too strong, whatever we have might blow away. The same goes for water, the same goes for the sun, for the natural world around us. We can’t control nature.

    Then why do we think we can control other human beings? Are we not also natural? Why do we think that our thoughts and emotions should be forced onto someone else? To Dominate; Command. How could we command another human being? Are we not smarter than the wind? How does the wind carry intelligence that we do not have? And yet, we can’t control it. Is it the lack of intelligence that gives control? Perhaps control and intelligence are contradictory.

    What are the control points for humans that we try to so hard to keep to? Societal norms: you need to be like this and that in order for us to accept you in as part of society. And we conform, falling to the influence of our forebears, of whom have held up traditions from generations before. Unaware, we are controlled, we are dominated, commanded. We listen, we follow. But we are natural, and we flow. Perhaps in itself, intelligence is control. Because we understand, and we are diverted, like the wind.

    To Dominate; Command.

    But there are many times, when I want to control myself. I am the raging wind, I am the wild dog, untamed. I want to be in control because I do see the societal norms and traditions, and I want to be a part of the normalcy. My mind is quite clear on some of its expectations, but somehow my natural body does not seem to follow suit.

    My body goes against me, my emotions are not in control. I get flustered, I get upset, but these are things that I do not wish for. I am not dominated by myself, I am not in command. Instead, my emotions win over. I am dominated by my natural state, and I am overgrown internally.

    There are scenes of huge winds, crashing waves, and the turmoils of natural disasters. These happen inside me, with my emotions. I feel like a volcano, bubbling deep inside, seething. I feel angry. There are times that I feel like there has been a grey day of rain within my heart. The sadness of loss pouring a downpour, washing away all sense of hope. All constructs of control that were set up, just slipping down the hill like a landslide.

    Nature takes over my control, and I lose control to nature. I am dominated, and I am commanded by my emotions. But somehow, somewhere, there needs to be an assistance from somewhere else. I find that is the point where I find my place in religion, specifically in God.

    I let Him control me; I let God dominate, command.

    But that’s really easier as in idea than in the practical. Next week for part two I guess.

  • The Non Minimalistic Life

    There’s always this big whoop over minimalism as a lifestyle. I mean from this blog you’d think that I’d be totally into it too. The whole clean look, simple lines, nothing crazy or bright. Maybe a lot of white, a lot of Muji, whole lot of wood on the floors, the tables, the walls. Then that simple one cup. or one pen. or one book. That’s the minimalism that we really love to glamorise.

    Then the minimalist person is someone who wears a black T-shirt, denim, and white sneakers. They’re all really cleanly washed and looking really fresh. That’s the Minimalist, right?

    And maybe I might be that? I wear black T-shirts and jeans; I wear white shoes; my home has Muji furnishings, and wood; I have that one cup, or pen, or book. I guess the issue would be that I have a lot of these single items, and when I say a lot, I really do mean a lot. I have Muji things, here and there. I have a few pens that I really like. I have a favourite writing book, and I have a few of them. And I wear black T-shirts too, for sure.

    And that’s where my version of minimalism falls apart. I really have one or two types of items that I really like, and they’re multiplied. They cover everything that I like, and they’re exactly what I want it. I really enjoy having a huge amount of black T-shirts, because they’re all the type of T-shirt that I really want. That works really well for me. I also stopped buying a huge range of magazines, instead I have one particular magazine that I buy. I have been buying it for years, so I have the past few years worth of this magazine. It’s not minimalism, but it’s the kind of minimalism that I find myself into.

    I would like to classify myself as a non-minimalist. I’m by no means a maximalist, which goes into that mass extreme of many types of many things. I think my definition of myself in the way that I collect and consider things should still contain that idea that it is minimal, meaning a lot less, but I’m not at the same time, because I have many of that one option.

    If you asked me what kind of T-shirts I have, I would have to tell you that I am limited by black, and white. In recent years, I have been adding to that, because of different T-shirt offerings that I find very interesting. The other colored shirts I have were T-shirts from childhood, that I either have a strong emotional attachment to, and still “sparks joy”, or they are t-shirts that I need to have, because of work. But I do not simply join a trend and buy the hype of a Supreme or BAPE T-shirt. It’s not where I’m at. I’m a minimalist in my approach of colors that I’m choosing.

    So I hope this helps you to get out of the possible shame you might be facing in having a bunch of things. I know I felt really bad having many things, and that I should get rid of it. But after much thought, and personal reflection, I know I have nothing to be ashamed about. Instead, I can be really happy of all the black t-shirts that I have. Because they’re really the best things to wear.

  • For the sake of it

    I used to write on my old blog years ago because I love the sound of the typing I made on the laptop. It sounds stupid then, but wow, what an opposite end of that I have now reached. I’m literally typing now just for the sound of what I’m feeling.

    I’m doing this for the sound of it, I’m doing it for the feels. I’m hammering away, and thinking of what I could possibly type about, just for me to type away on a keyboard. I’m typing with Marshmallow switches by the way, which have this really interesting typing feeling. There are a few videos going through it, but I had to wait some time before getting these switches.

    Just the sound of typing, and that process of thinking, and translating them immediately into words on screen. That’s really relaxing. At the same time, I also have my own preferences in how I do this for writing by hand. And I do have my different pens, inks, and papers. I do this for everything I have. I have specific jeans that I wear for certain days, I have coffees that I drink for a certain bolt of inspiration, I have a specific black T-Shirt that I wear just for days when I feel like I’m literally grinding at work (Uniqlo U Black Round Neck short sleeve T-Shirt).

    The way life is lived matters a lot to me, I guess. There’s no such thing as just doing something “for the sake of it”, or if there is, then the obligation behind that is something that I treasure a lot. I don’t think we should live lives that are done “for the sake of it”, because in a large way, our parents didn’t have us for the sake of just having another human being born into the world. Even if they would say it that way, I would imagine there’s a much larger reason than that. I also think that our ideas of society enforce specific reasoning why we think and act in a certain way, so nothing is really done just because.

    All these thoughts spawning out of me typing because I enjoy the feeling of typing; what a win. I’ve been thinking about typing for awhile. Not because I have anything specific that I want to say. But because I miss enjoying the feeling of just doing that something. It’s an enjoyment in that process of doing it. It’s never done for the sake of it, it’s done purposefully. It’s chosen. It’s needed. It’s what I want to do. It’s what makes me happy.

    I hope you’ve done something that makes you happy today, even if it’s just wearing your socks on the right leg first, then the left. That’s not just putting on socks for the sake of it, it’s your subconscious decision to choose your right leg over your left, and that makes you happy. Try it the other way round. You really might not be that happy, but you might appreciate the way you do it regularly after that.

  • Superficial Motivation

    Just Do It, but not really. It’s hard to get started, its hard to make yourself get going. In fact, it’s down right not logical. Why would anyone want to work? It’s hard. It’s easy to lie down and just stay asleep or just stare into nothingness, because even TV dramas put you through such difficult times in their emotional ups and downs.

    So what gets me going? I think it sounds silly, but this very simple idea of superficial motivation. My clothes, the choice of food, the keyboard I use, the shoes I wear, these things add up. It sounds silly, considering that we are supposed to be working towards this sense of being really functional human being with no emotional swings, but hey, who cares about logical conclusions when your logic tells you that there’s no point working so hard just to die eventually?

    So I choose to live everyday, and to live it in the way that I am not stressed about, and instead, I have my best experience every day. I have the best experience typing, I have the best experience walking around in the shoes that I enjoy, I am able to carry a bag that I chose and packed together.

    I think that’s my current state of mind, I’m really happy to just be here and enjoy the everyday part of life. The sounds of typing motivate me in my work. I feel energised to do something productive, to make sense of my words. My increase in posts here is really because of that. I honestly don’t care if any one or no one reads, but I’m writing this because I want to, and I enjoy it.

    That’s me today. Might not be me tomorrow, but I’m good with this.

    My thoughts were after this video:

    and this one:

  • Miscommunication

    How do you talk to someone who doesn’t understand where you’re coming from? Is the point that you need to push across that important? Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t but I think many times, miscommunication is really a matter of pride and ego. Thank the stoics for their high objectivity, and their reminders of where to place the self in an argument or discussion. If one is misunderstood, where or what should one think or feel after? Should one reach compromise or settle at misunderstanding?

    My thoughts is that the one being misunderstood needs to accept his misunderstood statements, and realize that the world might not ever understand him at his face value. Does this change the way that the world responds to him? It does not. But it does mean that he has no burden to carry towards the misunderstanding. He knows and expects it. He is understanding that the world will most probably misunderstand, unless he clearly explains himself. More than that, there is a necessity to explain himself clearly all the time, because of the expected misunderstanding.

    But it doesn’t end there. He is more likely to get misunderstood all over again. Even though he is explaining more, and trying to make sense even more. That feeling and that processing is difficult, because the explanations themselves are misunderstood.

    And that is where the misunderstood person needs to accept that no one will understand him completely, and its okay. For those that do understand, that’s a great plus point, and friendships can be forged over understanding. For those who don’t understand, that’s also great, because friendships can also be forged over misunderstanding. More time can be spent to help understand people, instead of understanding points.

    This would be immensely more valuable, and honestly, it might help understanding.

  • The End is Nearing.

    Like really it is. 2020 has been a crazy year, by anyone’s measure. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been living under a rock, because at this point, I think the world is hoping that everyone does live under a rock. It would help to lower the rampant COVID numbers in the world. We had pegged so many things to this year, it was Olympics, it was having a whole range of activities, and like exciting climaxes, and yet, almost none of them took place. Where does that leave us? Are we okay, that almost nothing happened?

    One key thing that I learnt to question: Why haven’t you done whatever you had aimed to do today? Do you actually think that you have any control over tomorrow? In that vein, why do you think you have tomorrow in the first place?

    If anything I learnt, it was to work on whatever I could today. I don’t mean to say that my days were in tip top condition, that I was ultra productive. In fact, it was most probably the other way around instead. I found myself struggling to do anything because I felt that I wasn’t going to make a dent in the universe.

    But that’s also a large learning, what can you, as a single person, do to make any dent in the world at all? We can’t make sense of it, and instead, we find ourselves two weeks behind on a workout plan. Maybe it even hit a few months since you cleaned up your house.

    So why seize today if it doesn’t matter, or if it doesn’t change?

    Because it does, eventually. Whether we liked it or not, we are at the end of 2020. Time moved ahead, even though we struggled to deal with it. If you haven’t exercised, then there’s a high chance that you’re in a different shape from how you started this year as. Seize today, because it might slip, and you would find that you wouldn’t stay still. You would continue to grow, and grow into a person that you might not like all that well.

    Do something today, and not wait for tomorrow, because tomorrow might not have the same environment that today has. Don’t plan huge yearly plans that flop, but just make today count a little bit. No dents, but its that little push every day that gets the piano across the room.

    That’s what I tell myself anyway.

  • A Weekly Dose of Whachamacallit

    Some days start off real good. Some days get really funky, and you have no idea why. I think its because everyone has days when they just need a bit of that. You know? That… fizz? That… sense of excitement? It’s just unknown and yet every one knows that days can get really long and arduous without them.

    I find mine snacks, sweet or savory. That perk me up, no matter what my diet might be at that time. Sometimes its not food, because no matter how much I’ve eaten, I’m still listless. That’s when I tend to get into a new hobby. I dive deep, and find myself broke (financially) on the other side.

    Whatever you might call it, you know you need it. It’s kinda human, it’s kinda like gluttony. But its best we know what it is, so that we can give ourselves weekly doses of whatever we might call it. So that we can get ourselves going on our lives just fine.

  • Dealing with Unplanned Frustrations with People.

    Sometimes when you’re just doing your own thing and trying to cruise on in life, and then something comes along and derails your concentration and the state of peace that you’ve worked so hard to achieve. Sometimes we consider that as a small bump, but some other times, it is as if someone had wronged you from birth. What defines that differences, and how do you manage or cope with your feelings?

    I find myself struggling with that very often. How do I feel, and why do I feel so unjustly treated? There are many other things in the world that are more important, and there are a lot more things for me to feel and be involved about. Yet, if someone texts me in a vague or passive aggressive way, my heart beats as if I’m about to enter a fight. My focus is thrown off for a good half an hour or so, and I get no work done. Does the other person even mean what they say? Maybe not, maybe it was just a passing statement that should be forgotten as quickly as it was mentioned. But it just digs and digs, and the frustrations build.

    Point is: when we are struck with a frustrating situation that we can’t do much about, how do we get out of it? I’m testing some range of ways

    1. Writing about it.

    I used to write about it a lot more often. I would get bumped on the train, and I would glance at the person to just see how the person looked like, and then I start a fan fiction of this person’s life. I pretend to write prophetically, declaring death and damnation on this bump, and the person might bump me again getting out. Which leads to chapter 2.

    But growing older, the writing helps me process what my own thoughts are. What am I really feeling? Should I be feeling this way? And if I should be feeling this way, and everything is truly in the right, then I need to find a resolution with the person somehow. It might not be easy, but it is actually the next step.

    1. Talking to someone about it.

    Having another person process through thoughts with you is great. I find myself being greatly relieved when I talk to someone about what I think. I also feel better when my self-righteousness is justified muhaha.

    But jokes aside, it does help to know if your emotions were properly placed. Am I really responding or feeling correctly? If I’m not, then I better start doing something internally to change. It wouldn’t hurt, but it would improve me greatly. I could only get better out of this frustration, and it would build me as a person. This is a great point, but you would also need someone who is wise to help you talk through your thoughts and thinking. Asking a random person, or a yes man, would not help, but instead increase your own ego.

    1. Forgetting about it

    Sometimes, you just gotta let it go. It was just a bump, it was just a miscommunicated text, it’s just not worth holding on to it. Be as frustrated as you want to be, but you have to just know that there’s more to life than being affected by these things.

    It might be cleared up quickly when you actually meet the person face to face, or to talk about it on the phone. But don’t rush things, because perhaps it was really just something misunderstood.

    These thoughts are more to help myself think through my own frustrations. And it’s something I’m trying to keep as a reference to myself, so that I remember what I’m going through now. How would I advise myself back in 2 weeks time? And I think most parts of me would say that I could have used that time so much better.

    So instead of being angry, and not doing my work properly, I’ve spent an hour writing about how I feel, and how I would want to tell myself how to deal with it. It feels much better than being distracted, wasting my time. Which honestly is my personal biggest frustration with myself.

  • Isaiah 6 and Kanye West

    I have recently been learning about hermeneutics. I learnt about understanding the original message and how it translates to us today, in our modern understanding. During my classes, I was given a chance to explore a passage of my own choice, and I chose Isaiah 6 to look at.

    There is a parallel drawn between Isaiah and King Uzziah. One being a normal person, and another being a King. One claiming to be unworthy, and another claiming to be holy. One was touched by a burning coal, and became cleansed, and another touched by God and became a leper. The parallel lines draw show God’s hand in those who claim their own pride, and those who acknowledge their unworthiness before God.

    Kanye West has been a rapper on my mind for the years past. In the early years of Medium, many music writers wrote about Ye’s greatest album, greatest tracks, and what makes his music so great. By the release of The Life of Pablo, I was a fan. I knew the lyrics, and the beats, and I knew the self proclaiming message he stood behind. My question was, would he ever meet God, and what would he say then.

    Now, in 2019, Kanye West, along with Justin Bieber, and Shia Lebouf, proclaims about his faith in a loud and passionate way. The difference is that Bieber and Lebouf don’t carry the same cultural creative clout that Kanye does. In his political uncorrectness, he proudly voted for Trump in 2016. He was unfollowed by many friends, all this happening months after Kim’s kidnapping in Paris, and Kanye’s own mental breakdown after that. In this time, Kanye’s search for meaning seemed to have started.

    In his Letterman interview, on Netflix, Kanye positions himself as a Christian, or someone aware of who God was. By the release of Jesus is King, Kanye, in multiple interviews states how God is using him. He can’t plan far anymore, because “it’s up to God”. He claims he is like Nebuchadnezzar, being taken down from the height of his own greatness.

    For my link between Isaiah, and Kanye, you need to assume yourself as a creative. In my personal view of my own work, everything I have done, I feel is bad, and I feel that I would never touch it again. I might like some of it, but most of it, I dislike, and I wonder how I even came to that. Kanye, on the other hand, could perform his entire album (808’s and Heartbreak) live, and according to album sequencing, years after the album was made. His trust in his own work was sky high, and he knew it was good.

    But the “Ye” (I hate being bipolar, it’s awesome)” sits there, as an acknowledgement of his own mental instability. He’s not sure anymore, I feel. He starts Sunday Service some time after that, as a place of healing, through the lights, and through the music. A pastor is placed in, and God speaks to Kanye in this time.

    My view is this: for a self righteous artist like Kanye to admit his uncertainty in his music, is his own proclamation of his unworthiness. He does not think he deserves it. I would agree that Nebuchadnezzar would be more fitting an illustration, and Kanye himself stands behind that illustration.

    Parallel aside, what is it about Kanye that makes him familiar, likeable, or just someone to pay attention to? To me, it is his honesty in his expression. The artist who speaks to himself, and tells himself what he thinks. The voice in his own head is the one that he speaks aloud, and as people who hide what we feel, we see his actions as bold, daring, and very interesting. We are intrigued because he lives an extensive celebrity life, doing whatever he wishes, and we are wishing to do the same. Could we one day? Perhaps sooner than later, and perhaps we already are living life the way we want to. Safely, away from the public eye. God forbid we become like Kanye, having to deal with the media, and the focus.

    But that really drives the question, if the world’s cameras are on us, and tracking our Christian stories, would we be faring better or worse than Kanye? In this very specific story, God has indeed called him to fame, and called him to repentance and salvation. If he shies away from the cameras and media, would he be like the Christian who leaves his job in a bank, or as a doctor, and immediately goes to serve in the missionary service? What kind of expectations have we misinformed ourselves about the celebrities who have become Christians, in their celebrity state?

    When a Christian celebrity falls, we talk about it. We wonder why God leads people this way and that. But when a celebrity becomes a Christian, we question it. We wonder if this person even know who God is, and we doubt.

    Perhaps the Christian community could reflect on the refrain from Kanye’s song, Hands On:

    “What have you been hearin’ from the Christians?
    They’ll be the first one to judge me
    Make it feel like nobody love me”

    I’m praying for Kanye, and praying for Christians to be loving in their responses, and for the Church to be ready for God to speak to a lot more people. Let us not be the older brother in the prodigal son parable. Let’s rejoice when our brother returns.

  • The Rush to Wait

    The Rush to Wait

    Christmas rushing is always a thing for the year end. It’s so exciting running around shops, hunting for the best discounts that match your friend or family the best. I lose myself at the shelf of red tags stating a large cut from the original price, picking and repicking the items that I was looking for.

    And every year it ends, with me looking at the gift bills, and now with clarice, at least I’ve got her to consider the amounts of money with. Last night we sat down at my table just going throught the costs, and watching the rain on the end of the day and night.

     

    Does life always work on that adrenaline high, where we really rush and get something done, and then we wait for the next thing to look forward to? I know I love the rush because of events and work and stuff. I feel this need for consistency, like the daily something that I had just wrote about before this. I don’t like the drop, so I’d rather have the rush all the time. The only thing about that is that my energy would deplete really quickly.

    Let’s see how things go in the coming year, and I’ll be looking forward to just writing once a day, or just doing something every day.

  • Creative Dilemmas

    Creative Dilemmas

    24 hours in a day is too little. Yes, wildly known fact.

    But the hardest part I find is that my passion level in each interest grows or wanes everyday. For example, last week I really wanted to run. And I still kinda do.

    But today, I awoke and hey, there’s time for a run but I just didn’t feel like running. Instead I drew, and I was quite happy drawing. I watched videos, arranged and organized things, no running or exercise at all. And it was fine. Then I watched some skate videos and felt the same lack of interest.

    The funny thing is that maybe a month or more ago, it was the complete opposite. I was eating up anything skate related at all, and all my efforts were trying to get skateboarding as a priority. Sketching and watercoloring were just things to do so that I could skate around.

    So I really wonder, when and at what time will it stabilize itself? Will there always be a passion conflict for all interests? Or will it all work itself out together?

  • A daily –

    Something.

    Anything.

    After the daily challenges, of lettering and of sketching/inking, I’m feeling the laziness hit me. It’s like when I stopped running, I could feel myself still able to do a 12k run easy, but the physical toll after would be some effort recovering.

    I can draw okay, I just really need to focus. I need to see the shapes and colors and pull them out the same way I did when I did it everyday.

    I can letter okay, but to make it really pop and look professionally acceptable, I need to do it slowly or practice 100 more times than if I were doing it everyday.

    I can think okay, I can process about right. But it takes effort too. I used to write a lot better especially when presentations are due and I’ve got to be eloquent enough for people to understand.

    So something, just anything, everyday.

    Hope you’re ready, cause I’m not.

  • The Delayed Posts

    I keep forgetting to post on this blog often. It’s not really meant to be like a serious thought process, but more to let you know I’m a legit person, thinking through legit things, and the artwork that I do create comes from a place of thought and intentional developement.

     

    Some heavy influences over the past year:

    Kim Jung Gi  / Virgil Abloh / Paul Heaston / Sinix / Casey Neistat / Tony Chua / Lin Chan / Mateusz Urbanowicz / Jake Parker

    Ideas and thoughts usually come from all over the place whenever I’m thinking through, and I’m usually quite apprehensive as I approach the actual artwork and developement. I’m not that confident, and I really need the psyching up.

    Just a reflection of the time past, I’ve been stuffing myself with so much art and drawing videos. Video in the morning, some motivational stuff later in the day, and a lot of it just goes through the importance of Practice. It gets you more comfortable, your strokes get more developed and its just generally easier to start whenever you see a blank page. I’m no where near a pro level of just pen to paper and a masterpiece is there. The sponatiety of just doing something in pen straight is something I’ve always enjoyed, so there’s always a need to take some steps back to assess how I’ve drawn so far, and how much more I want to try and learn and get better. The pen kinda forces you to just do it. You need to make a mark, and that mark can’t really fail. Its just what you turn it into next, how do you draw it out, and that’s the part that makes the huge difference.

    The practice, practices, sweating under the sun, everything related to rehearsing the line, can’t just be kept as practice. it’s live every time, you’re really doing it. The more leeway you give yourself to think that it’s okay to not do that piece so well, you lose the edge that boosts you to learn and try harder. Or at least thats the mentality that I take with me on the drawings. And thats why my artwork turns out the sketchy way it does, because in my practice, I’m just going ahead with it.

    And if I bail, I just hope it looks good.

     

    I’ll talk more about influences next time. Hopefully soon, before I forget to again. lol.

  • Starting again

    I had left this title here in 2017, but I honestly can’t remember what I was starting again. But I think this is a very good tittle to still use, one way or another. I’m writing this on the 1st of August 2021.

    Every day is a chance to start again. Every time I sit down at the computer to write, every time I pick up my phone, every opportunity I get, it’s a chance to do something new. That’s a real self help kinda line to say, but I think there’s a great truth to it. I don’t think that everyone can say that confidently but I think that as humans, we have to try to make a difference somehow.

    I feel that starting again is something that a lot of people feel resistance against. It’s hard to start again, especially when everything is all weird. It’s hard, because we’re not okay with things changing often. But what if change is the constant? What if we can get used to things changing all the time?

    I’m kidding, it’s never easy. It never gets easier. In fact, I find it harder and harder every time. At some point, you’d think that you’d be more comfortable making some tough decision better, or you’d be able to think quicker or something. But it’s really not easy. I say this, thinking about the amount of times I decided not to draw, because I keep thinking that it’s so hard to just get started.

    I’ve prevented myself from trying to start again too often. And I think this time of blogging, especially spurred on with a sick keyboard, has given me a novelty kick in the butt. I feel so inspired to keep on going, to keep on starting again and again everyday, just because I can. I don’t really dislike this experience right now, but there are many other areas I wish I could just inspire myself to start again.

    Maybe that’s for tomorrow’s Joel to find out, but today’s Joel is indeed very happy to write first. Maybe it’ll be drawing Joel again tomorrow, spurred on by a new pen, or a new brush, or new ink even.

    Maybe tomorrow’s Joel will be one that starts anew with a person that I’ve been struggling to communicate with. Maybe it’ll be a project that I’ve been dragging my feet to start with. We’ll find out tomorrow.

    Today’s Joel: Very Happy writing once again. Thankfully I can pull up old titles to help me get going.

    Goodnight World.

  • The NEXT generation

    One question I don’t always ask myself is, who will continue what I’m going to do. How will it continue to the people after me, and be the next thing that people do, or pick up? It’s been a question in my mind after spending time listening to the range of entreprenuer audio books, like Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, or currently listening to Steve Jobs by Isaac Walterson.

    I found that both of them use very interesting approaches at their early years. Phil Knight, being an athlete himself, held some part of team dynamics and a dependency on the people around him from his intial years. He constantly saw the people around him as the community and the culture of what eventually became Nike. Steve Jobs, on the other hand, seemed to be quite a unique individual, who prided himself on himself. The people that was placed around him seemed to be out of obligation or need. It didn’t seem that he would have thought of having someone else around, until he saw that they could do something better than he did. Both ways, the companies now don’t have their original leader and it left me wondering, does their founders’ legacy remain? I can safely say that Nike still produces in the same vein or heart of Phil Knight’s original team of people, aiming to change the game always. But I don’t know about Jobs, as Apple seems to be declining in its innovation (Lack of an iPod or iPhone in this current generation).

    As I considered my own work and my own personality, I related more to Jobs, in my individualistic search for my own meaning in life. I feel that many times, the things I do are things that no one else would do. Remembering the times in Army where I picked up two appointments, I took that responsibility out of need. But at the same time, I knew then and I still know that I had a great team that could balance out the ambition of the bosses. I just needed to keep them in check. In that aspect I related to Phil Knight more. Maybe it was this willingness to try that makes a lot of what I do seem hard to replicate.

    I guess the all important question that would affect this post writing the most is, what is my view of God’s leadership/continuity of work? In the writings of Paul to Timothy, there’s a sense of continuing and teaching the next generation. The vision of what happens doesn’t die with Paul or Tim, neither does it die with the people after them. I would like to think that God is the one that continues that work, not the ability or skill of Paul or Timothy, though God did work through them in a mind blowing way. Referencing the older kings of Israel in the Old Testament, someone like King David did an even worse job, as his kids started a revolt against him, and yet God promised him an everlasting kingdom after that.

    Does the world we live in now have a space for a King that lasts forever? How do I deal with this concept of doing a good work that someone else can take over, and yet understand that if I choose not to, God will still raise someone to take over me?

    At the end of the day, I always feel that if God has placed something in my heart to start doing, I need to do it to the best of my abilities, and teach those near me to do the same. With that, I would have done my part, and I would continue to leave the rest to God to finish. After all, I am just human.

  • Re Reading: Mere Christianity

    In the past month, I’ve begun to re-read Mere Christianity with one of my friends. It’s a very interesting book that breaks down a lot of basic ideas that I seemed to have taken for granted. Basic principles like Good and Bad, things that we assume, and it’s something brought out clearly again.

    We’re only just finishing the first book, and starting on the second, and for some reason, I feel that the ideas address bigger issues that we’re dealing with in the world now. The timelessness of issues of moral right and wrong, and the relativism that we face in modern day, create more space for disagreements, than to create platforms of understanding. We are more aimless than before, having less of an answer that more people can agree to. The people who stand for their clear cut right and wrong end up dealing with a great deal of questions that don’t help, but delay decisions further.

    Being a part of this generation, I feel like I have to create or develop my own understanding from this. Or to make the one above clearer so that more people can understand or agree or disagree. But I’ll just leave with the promise that I will update again about it, and perhaps, just maybe, I would form a finalized idea and stand about all of this.

    p.s. I hope you can read sarcasm.

  • why?

    Having had a few blogs before and the usual attempts of trying to record my life in different ways, I find myself asking, why another blog and now on trisected.com of all places?

    And so these answers are for myself, more so, than for you, the reader.

    What does trisected mean to me?

    At random, the single word that seemed to describe the sense I get about my life. It was the equal division of three or more parts of my life. Whether they would come together wasn’t the question, but more of a decision to take them apart. And I guess at this stage, it’s a willful attempt to say that it has passed, and now my view of it is from the future.

    The splits

    Or the divisions, my head was toying with either word. But splits sounds funnier.

    The Creative

    The part of me that most people know, or recognize with. Joel the person who can design or draw or do letter things.

    The Christian

    The part of me that holds daily. Joel the guy who went to do Christian work, and is continually learning and growing. I am changed by what God has shown me about what he has done, and that makes me really consider and think through many things.

    This blog stands as that. I understand a little bit about God, and I don’t know, or I try to be as creative as I can be at the same time. These things might or might not come together, and most of the time, I feel only a small group of people do think through these different categories, trying to synthesize them. This blog becomes as a place for me to think aloud and document for myself how my thoughts change over the years.

    I don’t expect everyone to agree, but hopefully you would share your thoughts with me too, as I continue posting my different ideas and thoughts.

    Thanks for reading so far, and otherwise, do look forward to hearing more from me.