Thirst

So, quite a few people asked me why I didn’t go for graduation. I told them I didn’t want to wear that stupid outfit. Of course, that is merely part of the story. I suppose the real reason is that I no longer have any attachment to it. The bitter-sweet moment I realized I had graduated was upon receiving the final results of my last semester. From that point forth, I no longer felt like I had any connection to Ngee Ann Polytechnic. I didn’t feel like returning to a place where I don’t feel I belong, nor to face the people who will ask me questions I prefer not to answer.

After all this time, I have begun to feel a thirst. And whenever this thirst comes, fear emerges as well. I suppose this is not the first time I have felt it, but each time is a new experience. I am definitely not suitable for staying put, no more how comfortable I feel doing so. There’s just a voice calling out to me, and placing tantalizing dreams in front of my eyes. Knowing that my body is relatively healthy through the NS pre-enlistment checkup was a great thing, getting PES A was not. In any case, I have decided to place upon a more stringent schedule for training for myself. I’ve taken my own sweet time to do things, but this lack of discipline is disturbing me. I realize the usefulness of rules set by organizations now – quite a lot of humans don’t really have rules for themselves. And I now fondly recall the rules Kenny set for himself in Shanghai. Burger once a week, gaming only on Friday night and weekends. =P

I have a lot left undone. As a matter of fact, I still have no idea what I am going to do with my life. What I really hope is that the important people who have come into my life have been influenced by me to change for the better, in one way or another. And that I can continue to do so for others. At the end of my life, I hope that my life would have been one of meaning to my friends and family. To continue to serve in this capacity though, I have to raise my own skills, abilities, and character.

Sometimes, I wonder what impact my appearance in the lives of my friends have been.

Thoughts

I’ve decided to post more often. Cool stuff, no? =P

Even if my parents might disagree, I am not particularly a fan of doing nothing. In fact, throughout most of my life, I have always been doing “something”. Always. Take my internship with Just Media after my O levels for example, I pre-arranged that way in advance. Doing “nothing” though, is turning out to be quite an experience. Just as an experiment, I tried doing some things I normally wouldn’t do. Case in point – different is not always better, nor always good, but different helps you to discover more about yourself.

I can’t even explain how frustrating it is at times to force myself to do nothing. I’ve had so many ideas, so many projects I wanted to try. But despite all the wonders that action taking might bring, pondering over some issues in life are actually just as important. My own values, for instance, could easily cause future problems that can affect the people I care about, beyond just myself. The life I feel I want to lead, versus the life I really want to lead, was actually a very different thing, upon my reflections. One could argue that I fear failure, and I could easily wonder if one can understand the role fear plays in our lives.

For example, to a person who has generally been hardworking, and used to working with datelines… Throw him or her into a situation with no datelines, and I can guarantee that person will be in a state of fear that might surpass his or her imagination. It sounds dumb, but the truth is that we just stick to the circumstances we are familiar with, and attempt to feel superior based on our understanding of how to deal with the situation. Society might define a certain convention as better, and it might seem so on the surface, or even be the truth. Even so, these truths can hide away something precious to all of us – understanding.

Maybe my friends reading might feel that having pretty much nothing to do is making me think too much – and I can’t argue that it might be true. At the same time though, I feel that I have gained more insight with regard to my understanding of the world, people, and largely myself. The three main influences in my life for these past few months are firstly, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Benjamin Franklin, and Games. From Ayn Rand, I learned how shallow my own thoughts can be, and it led me to some other insights. One that has especially struck me is this – for anything I deem precious, I should never assume that I have gained it, and instead should always be working to gain it. Because humans treasure that which they don’t have, but want to have. From Benjamin Franklin, I discovered the brilliance I was searching for. A man whose tracks I might not be able to follow, but undoubtedly a path blazed that is an inspiration. And finally, playing games. I never understood the nay-sayers of games, and even now I still do not. Simulations allow me to test both my number crunching skills and instincts, as well as observe the flaws in my train of thought, in addition to testing preparedness against artificial intelligence. For goodness sake, if a human cannot outmaneuveur A.I., then what chance does one have against a human who can observe, adapt, and plan a campaign over mere tactical advantages that the A.I. might come up with? I’ve learned more from monopoly tycoon in the same time it took for me to attend a lecture.

Oh well, inspired by Kelvin’s post, I shall post a tiny reflection upon my graduation as well. Year 1 was plain arrogance, believing that I could pull off that which people said I could not. Come to think of it, I might have been able to do it, but I definitely did not put in the proper efforts. The most severe mistake I allowed myself to make was to take into account the level of the people around me – it might seem arrogant for me to say that, but do bear with me. My point is simple, and that is that I should have placed in my best efforts for whatever I had decided I want to do, instead of being complacent about being able to do better than most of the people I knew. This attitude unfortunately crushed me, as I would come to know all too well. I believe of course, that not everything was negative. I loved the time I spent with the subcom project despite the negativities at its end, and I loved the adrenaline of being actively involved all over. Deep down though, my instincts were warning me that the seeds of destruction were being sown. I did not heed it. Still, this year did make me realize the importance of being amiable. I hope that my drastic EQ did improve.

Year 2 was a time where I messed up my priorities. I dropped off most of my CCAs, and did not really do much on the whole. Why? Could be complacency once more. In a sense, I wasn’t the same person I was anymore. My energy level had seem to sap, and I was content with observation, with withdrawing from my ideals. I simply lacked the drive, moving into a more support role in whatever I did. After I met Miss Koh in the second semester though, some kind of fire did ignite in me. I recalled once more the fascination I had with brilliance, and was reminded of how far from my goals I had drifted. Ironically, in terms of academic performance, that was the most lacklustre. I have no regrets though; no pain, no gain. I am forever in debt to Miss Koh.

So, towards the end of Year 2, I made a decision I have regretted ever since. I came to the conclusion that in order to remember what it was like to work, in order to break free from the soft melancholy I was living in, the OIAP would be a good idea. Seeing how my friends have benefited from it, I am quite convinced that the gist of my idea wasn’t wrong. What was wrong however, was the foolishness I made in selecting the company. I do not want to blame any single individual, though there are two that still might make me seethe upon recollection, but the experience was hardly a pleasant one for me. I gave it my best, but apparently, that wasn’t enough. I am not stuck-up enough to think I was perfect, but every decision I made was in order to complete the work I was assigned in the best way I could concieve. I bore with all the crap I got – take the work assigning system for example; I had more than 7 people randomly giving me work throughout the day, and as an intern routinely stayed later in the office than the employees because they really needed it. Ok, I can take that, I didn’t want to break into a system they were used to, especially since I was a newcomer who wouldn’t stay all that long. Now, when I was blamed for not being able to accomplish tasks outside of my assigned duties, when the person who was supposed to be helping me wasn’t around, and I was flooded with work because others insisted it was more important, is utterly beyond my comprehension. I know I’ve commented on it before, but I can’t help feeling bitter about it. Oh, how about all the weekends I had to work on, even missing out on a circus performance. Or how about the fact that I was expected to perform under certain conditions that wasn’t intended? How did the 24h in advance cut down to 2-4h? And no one ever said anything when I did finish it on time. Someone certainly had a lot to say when I didn’t. I kept quiet to most people, simply because it wouldn’t have solved anything. Still, that my instincts failed me this one crucial time…

By the time I returned to Singapore, I was extremely jaded. Deep down, I know that my grades for my final semester far surpass the amount of effort I had placed in. I did my work of course, everyone expected that I would, and I can’t bring myself to mess up again after the fiasco that was IEF. Still, any drive I might have had long simmered during the OIAP period. It might be an excuse, but I was just plain tired. Tired of a stupid life that held absolutely no meaning. To summarize it, poly life degraded year after year, and by its end, I knew that it is far from a place where I belong. I’ve made a few friends through it, that’s definitely true, and I am utterly grateful for them. In so many ways. But it definitely isn’t the place for me. Towards its conclusion, I realized that my academic journey was far from over. I’ve gained nothing that I can truly put to good use from the 3 years of academic study, though poly life is of course far more than academics.

I am grateful for the experience though. Right now though, I do understand one thing – had I gone to a JC, I would undoubtedly have felt out of place there even sooner. Still, every experience we go through is just different through our choices, with none necessarily better than the others. The sweetest choice can turn sour, and the most bitter choice might hold the tastiest rewards. Who knows? To be decisive is not to make the choices quickly, or even just follow the pros and cons of each. It is to stick to one’s decision, no matter how tough it turns out.

I can only hope that I have become a better person through it. I felt I did. But who knows. I could have been so much more, done so much better. Or I could have just been the ordinary every day guy. But who I am is who I am I suppose.

Learning

The more one studies, the less one knows. This is absolutely hilarious conceptually, but is the sad truth intrinsically. Things I used to be certain about, things that once matter, seem to be nothing more than a wisp of distorted reality. By letting the education system decide a majority of my studies, I have unfortunately left out many important fields. Just the hierarchy of knowledge and how it pertains to our learning is already an important issue to consider. I count myself blessed that I have always looked beyond the curriculum, but I also realize how limited my views and training were.

I am, at a point, where I do not know what to believe anymore. No matter what we do, will we really never be free of this stupid cycle? People often ask me what I’m going to do after National Service – to be absolutely honest, it would go like eat, sleep, read, play, work, and wait for death. A monk variation would be something like eat, sleep, recite mantra, beg, housekeep, and wait for enlightenment. Sounds dumb, but that’s pretty much the truth.

Just keep on learning – I can’t stop doing that no matter how I feel. It’s probably the same for everyone. The thing is, what am I learning for? Can anything change just because I become a better person? If I were to become the strongest, smartest, etc. person in the whole world, what would that change about the eventuality of my life? We have people who say to just enjoy it, to seek maximum pleasure in this short time span that is our lives, to fulfill the wants that we have. On the other hand, we have people who advocate that suffering is unavoidable, and that to let go of our attachments is the best way to end suffering. Either way though, is just as empty. Our wants never end, it’s just perpetuating a cycle akin to that of beasts, though that we may be in truth. To let go of the concept of self on the other hand, just sounds plain crazy to me. Think of it this way, if we are born of the same matter with different qualities through our evolution, then why would we want to revert back to the matter that we once were?

Of course, no one can tell us how to live our lives. Maybe that’s what we were borned to find out. Or maybe life is just a joke being played by whatever cosmic entity who created us. Or maybe the capacity for thought was an accident of the universe. It sounds glorious to say that one died with whatever accomplishments, leaving whatever legacy behind. It may feel wonderful to be ahead of those who are average, and to gain satisfaction from one’ superiority. But where, in the end, does that lead us? Will anything change just because we chose to live our lives a certain way?

In the end, I will of course follow the path which I know best, for honestly, I know no other. Still, one can’t help but wonder – if life is as empty as it is, I certainly understand those who choose to waste it. It’s not that my choice is better, it’s just different.