Just another day
I haven't posted anything worthwhile here in the longest time, having confined myself to 140 characters on Twitter nowadays. It's a good way to skim across the surface of my thoughts, never dipping more than a toe into the murky waters, and generally staying high on idol clouds with all its glitter and sparkle dust, an endless Neverland where Peter Pan does grow old, only to be replaced by a newer model when the old one loses its shine.
I try not to think too hard now. I try not to gaze too deeply into myself. I acknowledge some things, let it be, and move on with the practical things in life. This, I suppose is adulthood. Where you lose the concept of magical thinking, where youthful optimism is ground down to gritty reality and the rat race -- through which I stroll, never troubling to exert myself beyond a shambling walk with the long limbs I was born with. Some people have purpose, a goal, a vision they seek. They dive deep, race hard, and either come up fulfilled or bitterly disappointed. I coast instead; not dreaming, not hoping, not wanting. There's a kind of Zen in an absence of a fixed desire, or desires. I do not hope for happiness, only to avoid sadness, however small a desire that is. I do not wish to want anything for myself, because that way leads to madness and broken dreams. I live and I let live, because hating someone would require effort on my part, and loving everyone in a universal sort of sense is sort of calming. You are human and I care. I would help you out if you need help. The joy of others feeds that little humanistic spark within me. I might not know what happiness means for me, but if I can help others achieve theirs, I would gladly do so. It's a peculiar kind of altruism.
I could have turned bitter instead. Sabotaged others, spread cruelty instead of occasional acts of random kindness. I am not a very good person, but I am not an intentionally bad one. If anything, I might be depressingly normal. Our parents lived in a post-industrial society; we live in a post-post-industrial one. In an advanced society like Singapore, we have become far removed from the processes which keep us alive. We work for money to pay for the necessities that keep us alive, but we no more consider the grain we eat than the paper and metal bits that change hands every day. It's all so fragile, when one stops to think about it. Our society is built on a web of promises, and when those promises collapse...well, you have Greece.
I find it difficult to devote myself to anything now. I have my idols -- where I would be without that bubbly analgesic, I cannot imagine -- and it provides an outlet for me to express emotions that I too often repress. To what purpose, I wonder? This repression of mine. But because of my idols, I can smile, laugh, and cheer. I experience a wide range of emotions from a safe distance. I enjoy being involved in something, at my own pace. I even enjoy the ability to turn up a snobby, elitist nose at people I find inferior to myself; I do not deny that my ego is considerable and that I carry my arrogance quietly...nowadays.
It comes down to one really specific thing: I cannot bring myself to care anymore. I love idols because they're transient, like a comet streaking across the sky, but the memories they leave are eternal. We forge our own Neverland with distant figures, moving them across an imaginary playboard in a Dungeons & Dragons game we never really outgrew -- at least I never did. I pay lip service with a minimum of effort, I parrot what is expected of me, and I live my life wondering if being happy is really just as simple as deciding not to be sad. Nothing actually matters, nothing is important, and I repeat this to myself to avoid forming attachments, because everyone leaves in the end. Whether they leave, or whether I leave, separation occurs, and I resign myself to being a passerby in the lives of strangers. I no longer believe, nor do I hope, that I can be anything more than a tree in the forest backdrop.
I am not a kind person, so when others are kind to me, I take it as it comes. If they are mean to me, I shrug it off as water off a duck's back. I am indifferent to both. Come what may, I remain. Call me ungrateful, or perhaps resilient? If I were to take every kindness, every cruelty, personally to myself, I would have shattered years ago. It is easier to be alone, I find. At least no one questions why.
I try not to think too hard now. I try not to gaze too deeply into myself. I acknowledge some things, let it be, and move on with the practical things in life. This, I suppose is adulthood. Where you lose the concept of magical thinking, where youthful optimism is ground down to gritty reality and the rat race -- through which I stroll, never troubling to exert myself beyond a shambling walk with the long limbs I was born with. Some people have purpose, a goal, a vision they seek. They dive deep, race hard, and either come up fulfilled or bitterly disappointed. I coast instead; not dreaming, not hoping, not wanting. There's a kind of Zen in an absence of a fixed desire, or desires. I do not hope for happiness, only to avoid sadness, however small a desire that is. I do not wish to want anything for myself, because that way leads to madness and broken dreams. I live and I let live, because hating someone would require effort on my part, and loving everyone in a universal sort of sense is sort of calming. You are human and I care. I would help you out if you need help. The joy of others feeds that little humanistic spark within me. I might not know what happiness means for me, but if I can help others achieve theirs, I would gladly do so. It's a peculiar kind of altruism.
I could have turned bitter instead. Sabotaged others, spread cruelty instead of occasional acts of random kindness. I am not a very good person, but I am not an intentionally bad one. If anything, I might be depressingly normal. Our parents lived in a post-industrial society; we live in a post-post-industrial one. In an advanced society like Singapore, we have become far removed from the processes which keep us alive. We work for money to pay for the necessities that keep us alive, but we no more consider the grain we eat than the paper and metal bits that change hands every day. It's all so fragile, when one stops to think about it. Our society is built on a web of promises, and when those promises collapse...well, you have Greece.
I find it difficult to devote myself to anything now. I have my idols -- where I would be without that bubbly analgesic, I cannot imagine -- and it provides an outlet for me to express emotions that I too often repress. To what purpose, I wonder? This repression of mine. But because of my idols, I can smile, laugh, and cheer. I experience a wide range of emotions from a safe distance. I enjoy being involved in something, at my own pace. I even enjoy the ability to turn up a snobby, elitist nose at people I find inferior to myself; I do not deny that my ego is considerable and that I carry my arrogance quietly...nowadays.
It comes down to one really specific thing: I cannot bring myself to care anymore. I love idols because they're transient, like a comet streaking across the sky, but the memories they leave are eternal. We forge our own Neverland with distant figures, moving them across an imaginary playboard in a Dungeons & Dragons game we never really outgrew -- at least I never did. I pay lip service with a minimum of effort, I parrot what is expected of me, and I live my life wondering if being happy is really just as simple as deciding not to be sad. Nothing actually matters, nothing is important, and I repeat this to myself to avoid forming attachments, because everyone leaves in the end. Whether they leave, or whether I leave, separation occurs, and I resign myself to being a passerby in the lives of strangers. I no longer believe, nor do I hope, that I can be anything more than a tree in the forest backdrop.
I am not a kind person, so when others are kind to me, I take it as it comes. If they are mean to me, I shrug it off as water off a duck's back. I am indifferent to both. Come what may, I remain. Call me ungrateful, or perhaps resilient? If I were to take every kindness, every cruelty, personally to myself, I would have shattered years ago. It is easier to be alone, I find. At least no one questions why.