Its been that long?

The date of my last post shocked me. I had not realized that it had been so long ago since I updated this wordpress page.

Life has been a roller-coaster ride for the past month. The introduction of a new platform meant brand new responsibilities to be shouldered and the corresponding events that occurred in the nation has called the above-mentioned platform into action. To date, this is the final weekend of the three that I was scheduled to expend in the comforts of a well-guarded accommodation.

There is no denying that the experience gleaned from these little excursions pack a decent punch. I recall a story read in my childhood about the unsung heroes and that feeling reverberates in me strongly. It is easy for the unknowing to take the peace for granted. The tremendous amount of effort that is put into highlight events by the administrators of this country is something that cannot be underestimated.

Greed, one of the seven, has paid me a visit in the days that have gone by. Greed taught me an important lesson this past month. Of course, with a teacher like Greed, the course fees that I parted with was dear enough. The old adage goes ” Greed consumes all” does ring through.  Seeing Greed invade the body of my acquaintances and friends to devour their souls till only a shell is left is indeed heart-wrenching. Much like the Dementor’s Kiss in Rowling’s Hogwarts, the person suffers a fate worse than death.

The days have not been kind to me.  I have aged considerably and the tidings of time have yet to cease for anyone.

In the dying days of Fall, I have used a most grievous tool to hurt my colleagues at work. Words, as it turns out, can inflict or heal the deepest wounds.  Regret washes me over as I am guilty of using it for the less noble cause. My eloquence, or lackthereof in words have hurt people that I care about.

In between work, friends, duty and all, I am scared and frightened to face up to the unpredictable future and present.

find a little hope to hang onto,

for it is like the guiding beacon that guides the lost to their rightful stations.

lose sight of it; and all that’s left is naught but haunted whispers of the ones that have drowned.

 

Remake the Old

Its a weary day in the office.

Sins

Hitting the big 20 for me has been an emotional milestone for me.  (If you’re not the type to be stimulated by a wall of words, I suggest that you move on)

It opens up to a lot of unknowns to me, and forces me to discard my pre-concieved notions of the world as I knew. I understand and respect the whole learning and unlearning process, but certain times, I’d wish that I have not learnt that much about the world.

“Blessed are the ignorant”  certainly wasn’t a phrase coined to appease the wounded souls of those who are kept in the dark. It urges them to self-protect by knowing less.

Knowledge brings absolutes into our lives.  Absolutes forces changes into our perceived landscapes. Absolutes absolve themselves from the possibility of being wrong. Absolutes causes pain.

The very same argument can be turned on itself, to argue that to know is a power itself, and with this power, it is now possible to counter the pain that absolutes bring upon us. Knowledge tells us how to change, and in what ways to change. It is essential in achieving a little thing some people like to label as “the greater good”.

Greater good was also a term that I had to come to terms with. Its often said that great leaders enact change to the others for the greater good of the entire situation. I find myself questioning the logic of the greater good more often than not. It seemed that the greater good is largely classified by the higher echelons of any society, and the same leaders that we believe to act in need of greater good often find no need to explain and clarify their actions to the lives that the people living at the change level.

Bring up these issues to your immediate superior and they’d look upon you in a condescending, almost sad way. Their subconscious minds seemed to have made the decision that you’re an idiot for opposing to the plan. What you have to say makes no sense except to yourself. Except that what you are saying directly affects the 10-15 odd person that look up to you as a leader. This world is a hypocritical joke.

Keep quiet, and man your position like a dutiful little robot and your amount of work multiplies exponentially. As a robot, you’re stripped of your talking rights. Every word you say would be recorded and used against you indiscriminately, let out a little squeak that tries to tell the world that you need a break and your boss will come down on your robotic ass so hard that you’d not even realize what’s happened.  You either overload or hover back into your own quiet corner and cry.

Have an exceptional skill? Don’t ever show it to the people that are your bosses. They are just as likely as to make use of you and force down a large number of unrealistic projects. They’d award you a little piece of paper that states your achievements and dedication. What you didn’t know that the piece of paper is in essence an IOU that letters the fact that they officially own your ass.

Money is the talking language. Nothing else matters.

What happened to the days where trust was all that mattered? That the process of getting something done was worth more than the end result? When was the days that the values and beliefs of honor, integrity, honesty? Where did our own personal pride and worth go to? Can a good in a person die overnight?

//Shadows in a heart

Devouring what’s left of light //

Monopoly

Monopoly is often defined as

• (economics) a market in which there are many buyers but only one seller; “a monopoly on silver”; “when you have a monopoly you can ask any price …
• exclusive control or possession of something; “They have no monopoly on intelligence”
• a board game in which players try to gain a monopoly on real estate as pieces advance around the board according to the throw of a die

It brings me rare pleasure to be able to use all the three definitions of monopoly in a singular day.

The Singapore Food Industries holds a monopoly over the food supplied to most major camps in Singapore. The Singapore Armed Forces have exclusive control over the time of all the Singaporean men aged from 16 – 24 for at least two years due to legislation.

And people who are stuck in camp over a long weekend can derive so much amusement from a simple game of Monopoly.

This weekend duty would be the last I would be having with the old team. One that was left for me to inherit by my upper study Mr. Alvin Leong.

The monopoly that the Armed Forces holds over my men are leaving them.

Last wednesday, a team member from that team has left. Another one has already stopped duty altogether.

The exclusivitiy of a good two years in my adult life is slowly coming to an end.

Its a good time to say goodbye. I’ve been holding an absolute control over their time in a lot of weekends.  It’s time to move on.

change is the only constant.

change hurts.

the only constant in life is hurt.

Days of Our Lives

Its a memory that surprised me in the dark alleys of remebrance.

Back in the days when my age still began with the lonely number 1, there was a show that started airing in the whee hours of the morning, slightly before the Majulah Singapura at 0600hrs daily on Channel 5. Young and unknowing I was, that particular memory of the show’s name I could remember cleary. It was Days of Our Lives.

Now, this could have all been due to some sort of associative memory that came from the fact that Digimon Season 1 reruns often came after the national anthem, the oldness of the show struck a particular chord in me. There was this giant hourglass that preludes the beginning, and the different episodes seemed to have a singular boring way of bringing the viewers into the story;  the de-focusing of a singular candle flame that reveals the whole room.

Days of Our Lives. I didn’t give much thought to the show’s title then.

What do we do with the Days in Our Lives?

I’ve experienced plenty of days when I’d sit at home and stare blankly into the horizon, thinking to do something about my life, but was just too lazy to move off to do it.

My long standing issue with fearing death would have become an open secret to anyone who bothers to read the lines by now. Death sometimes becomes a motivating factor for me to move my butt off the chair/bed to go out and see the world and smell what it has to offer. Other times, different desires get the better of me and I wander off doing different things.

The days in our lives are limited to a set amount. We can always count on tomorrow to be here. What if certain elements in the tomorrow we expected changes? How could it have changed us and what are the consequences?

Seize the day.  and still

Ce’est La Vive

I wander down death’s lonely road.

With no friends, no enemies.

He has claimed them all.

Seek

What are we all seeking at the end of the day?

I’d be inclined to believe that it is the communal approval of the people around you. A clear, distinct and obvious sign or gesture that shows that the people around you appreciate you for what you are doing. Somewhere in John C. Maxwell’s leadership self-help books, he’d quoted that people can live on a positive comment for two weeks. I thought that it was more of the self-help/self- thing that can be resolved in a person’s mental state with slightly more discipline and a slightly tougher grit.

At the very core, it’s the most basic of human desires. On top and above of our usual physiological urges of lust and hunger, fear and esctasy, humans look for acceptance. Religions or relationships expound on acceptance as a pivot point for the masses. Acceptance sets people in a more positive mood to accomplish things. Its sometimes more powerful than the urges for monetary / physical satisfaction.

In searching for acceptance to the community around us, it drives people to do insane things. We perform outlandish social norms that borders on stereotypes of certain groups. Isolation after failure to gain acceptance is common and we all take for granted the power of words to inflict harm upon people. The old saying that ” Sticks and stones may hurt my bones but words will never hurt me” have been proved time and again false and misguided.

So we flounder on the journey for the object of our desires. We seek a goal that’s immaterial.

But never stop seeking.

for the way will present itself in the darkest night in the form of the brightest light.

seek;

a day of simple joys

a day of simple joys.

of the blue that seemed never-ending,

of the hues of freedom.

There isn’t a cloud out of place.

Everything forms and fits into a landscape that seems unearthly.

Birds flying home.

Chattering of friends fill the air.

Trees move to the groove of a gentle breeze.

Silent humming of engines

A half-moon rises into the waning light,

making itself known and seen.

A jet makes drawings in the skies.

The cranes stop moving. To catch a breather, some rest.

Roads are becoming quieter. Sounds stealthily fade out.

The river presents its mystic qualities as lights of buildings dance in its reflection.

Night approaches.

A day of simple joys.

-zhonghao. dated sometime back.

Untitled

I sit on the edge and watch the world.

It is still. Peaceful, serene.

The green waves as the breeze blows in my face.

There is a silence that lies undisturbed.

I like that silence.

I used to dabble in the workings of the world.

I wanted to make the world a better place.

Now, I have learnt that some cruel words make the most sense.

Like a certain Joker once said, I’d now rather watch the world burn.

I’m not invulnerable to the flames.

It’s those days that you are convinced that from the ashes, a phoneix will arise to cure the scourge of the world.

Let it burn, and take me with it.

Let nature be our guardian once more, and let it lead us to the next brink of evolution.

Counting Down

We count down to a lot of things. There are now count-down parties to end the year with a bang, count-down to various events, and of course, the counting down to the day they ORD for NSFs.

Isn’t it strange that we need to look forward so feverently to the end of something with such zest that we have a timer that reminds us every other second that a certain experience or day is coming to an end? Is it that hard for us to appreciate the moment for what it truly is, to savour the experience it takes for us to go through before coming to the ending point?

Perhaps we have all been taught that as important as the process is, the end product and its results are far more important and looked at. You are judged with that end product. Maybe that’s the reason why we count down. To look at the end product that we have produced.

What have we lost in this process?

Reflection

Look at me
You may think you see
Who I really am
But you’ll never know me
Everyday, it’s as if I play a partNow I see, if I wear a mask
I can fool the world
But I cannot fool my heart

Chorus:
Who is that girl I see,
Staring straight back at me?
When will my reflection show
Who I am inside?

I am now
In a world where I have to hide my heart,
And what I believe in
But somehow, I will show the world,
What’s inside my heart,
And be loved for who I am

Chorus:
Who is that girl I see,
Staring straight back at me?
Why is my reflection someone I dont know?
Must I pretend that I’m
Someone else for all time?
When will my reflection show who I am inside?

There’s a heart that must be free to fly,
That burns with the need to know the reason why

Why must we all conceal,
What we think, how we feel?
Must there be a secret me I’m forced to hide?
I won’t pretend that I’m someone else for all time
When will my reflection show
Who I am inside?

When will my reflection show
Who I am inside?