trisected

Tag: turning 35

  • 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.

  • Reflecting on Reflections

    This post might sit better on Medium, but I’ll write it for this page first.

    I have been doing journalling practices for a very long time. Perhaps since I was a child, and the idea of a diary impressed me a lot. I might also attribute it to books I read, written in the form of a diary, and tracing someone’s life through daily thoughts, emotions, and activity seemed to resonate deep with me. So I started writing.

    But whenever I looked back on my writing, it seemed stupid. Mostly, ‘Why did I think this was a good idea to write, or to put into words?’ I struggled with this emotion, and yet, I knew there was something deeper with writing I needed to hit. I wasn’t really striking “reflection gold” just yet. So I kept on writing.

    I’ve got a stack of journals over the past 10 years, maybe a little bit longer. It’s not that I wrote every day, but I wrote often enough. Often enough might just be quarterly; I would note for myself on my journal “It has been three months since I last wrote in here.” Sounds like a stupid point to make, but it’s a point to readjust my time frames, and to give myself a little forgiveness today if I missed writing for a month or two.

    What I realised is that the journals highlight the concerns of my heart then. The more I pour what I am feeling into the journal, the more it makes sense. As I look through the past, I see that my heart was torn between what I should be doing, and what I want to do. I see the pettiness that I struggled with past colleagues, friends, or even family. I recognise points of personal change I wanted to make, and now, I might have made already. The journals have become a ruler for me to measure my own emotional height with. How much have I grown since?

    Sometimes, I hit a touch of nostalgia, missing the past. Missing what I thought were good and great times. Looking through my journals also brings some perspective to remember it wasn’t always great. The grass isn’t always greener, but it just appears to be. The present is what actually matters, because I can do something about it today.

    I feel a lot, and I think everyone feels a lot. Recording them down in my journals gives me the space to understand myself later, better. It’s silly sometimes, to see how ridiculous my priorities were. But at least now I can see it for myself. And at least now, I can learn not to be that ridiculous anymore.

    So I write.

  • 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.

  • Losing my youth: The year of turning 35

    Losing my youth: The year of turning 35

    I have been pondering around this post for some time. How should I approach the topic? With which personal touches and flavor should I furnish? I decided to go with this, long winded, self questioning style, because at the heart of it, that’s part of who I am.

    The age of youth in Singapore is 18-35. I am turning 35 this year, and thus, at the end of this range of youth. There are many events, and many people who have impacted me through the years. Some of these years were extremely lonely. Some of the years held my life changing, near death experiences, shaping the person I have become today.

    While preparing for this year, especially approaching the end of 2023, my year end review ended with me reflecting on goals I had set through the years but never really completed. Ideas and thoughts of my youth, undecided if I should bring them into “adulthood”. Predictions and hopes for the future, as they ramble uncertainly through the days of 2024.

    So this year is dedicated to losing my youth. It’s in remembrance of the person I was throughout the seventeen years so far. It’s a mixed bag of hopes and dreams, as they crashed and burned with the practical realities of life. Perhaps that’s the ideal artist statement I never dreamed of, but now I am living out because of the choices I’ve picked throughout the time.

    Funny enough, it took me so long to write this post out properly, we’re already in March. But the work has started some time ago, and it has been exploding out of me in the past two months of 2024.

    Stay tuned, to watch me reminisce, and reimagine crazy thoughts and ideas of before, and aimlessly shoot towards Mars for the future. I promise it’ll be a hoot. After all, you know me already, if you’re reading this.