IVPSSC Reflections

"If it's not from the heart, it's not worth doing..."

I still don't know if I approached this with a heart. I won't deny it, I do it for more than the rest. But whatever it is that they have seen in me that they didn't in others isn't a heart. I just can't think of what it is.

It's... a kind of pride, really. I can't put it at anything apart from that.

Do people really serve because they have a heart? 'course, on my end, I'm too pessimistic and lacking in faith for humanity as a whole to believe that people serve from the heart.

When I finally put a finger on what exactly it was that I had, I suddenly got more questions than answers.

It's a kind of pride, but it's also something different. It's the belief that what action I take matters. That what I do isn't a completely vain thing, that it matters to someone, even if it is myself. That there is conviction that exists outside of the world of academia, conviction that matters.

Perhaps this is the 'heart' that people speak of - a belief that it matters. Perhaps it's always been like that - would anyone take the extra step if he felt it vain? Not a heart that wishes for world peace, nor a heart that believes it must do good, but just a heart that feels that it matters.

I had felt rather confused that time when my camp president remarked that he felt that my team was a strong one, that he knew that in the committee from last year that I was capable of doing very well. The way I saw it then I questioned myself whether he was serious or just flattering me to be diplomatic and to make me feel happy and work better with him (I have to admit such things make my day if they came with the frequency of no more than once a month >_>)

I've always felt cynical towards compliments, yet rarely towards complaints ('cept few stupid cases, but I shan't name names). Maybe it's merely insecurity. Maybe it's in reality a highly complicated subconscious mechanism to prevent complacency. But even then, my belief still stands.

Is this 'heart'? Something so simple and pure, as if reduced to its barest essence, instead of anything complicated. If something is done without this, does it make the action not worth doing? This from a thing that can be mistaken as pride?

Why pride in the first place? It shouldn't even be considered arrogance that you consider the notion that your actions matter, hence you perform them in the first place. It's a necessity, a foundation before any self-improvement is in order. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and someone who does not believe in himself will never take the first step.

Remind me to avoid English translations of Chinese proverbs in the future.

With this belief I get proven wrong infinite times on the notion that conviction is sufficient to topple those gifted with intelligence. It pretty much never will, sadly. Yet people still continue, don't they. By this point you can easily name whatever force it is that keeps pushing you up and continuing to be pride and heart at the same time. Yet any guy who isn't half an ass would realize the fundamental difference between the two.

I dunno. But anyone who ever said I did things with a heart I'd consider pretty wrong. Anyone who ever said I did things for my own pride I'd have considered pretty right. Yet I won't be able to argue that the two are different, let along mutually exclusive.

It's a queer night to be pondering over such a thought. That much I can be honest with.

IVPSSC The fucking facades

There are times where you know that the fucking show can't go on without destroying everything that makes up the objective of it all. When you know that this is a pure facade, a fake, a pathetic show to the outside world to show that he's good and money should come towards him. When you believe in the damn objectives - no matter how ideal they are to the fucking cynics - and wish that whatever you have originally set out to do will fulfill it

and there are times when the fucking show goes on anyway.

I never had an issue. I never believed it would work. It was unsustainable because we were what we were. I was aware of that in spite of the fact that fellows tried their hardest to make it work.

And now they see it fucking won't. Ideals up there. Sweet talk. Empty speech. Masks of kindness. Paper faces. The masquerade it all is.

To cry in vanity shows the utmost disappointment - conversely, the ultimate hope. And to make others cry in vanity is an utmost sin. That is my issue. The sinful smile, the wretched words, the fake facades, them all. That would you lead one to such hope and shatter it in their faces while you bear that smile and that handshake in front of all those cameras by the minister and the media.

He was right about one thing. It sure fucking teaches you what the world is like.

UnWoW

'pparently my class has had an excellent WoW trip and my regards to them. Friends from other classes I've heard also came out learning things - some of them important lessons, no doubt.
My heart goes out to them.

While some class fights typhoid, some class builds houses, some class climbs up coconut trees and stargazes into the world beyond, and some classes stare out from their windowbeds out and wonder how their friends do elsewhere, I lay in a bed in NUH.

It was, honestly, a rather painful experience. 'specially the 10+ injections.

That I was in the bed to be declared fine after scans, checks, punctures, and tests is an annoying experience. My spine will shiver in physics lessons whenever the teacher mentions anything about wavelengths and lambda, I expect.

But really, there're worse feelings out there.

It was a bittersweet feeling getting onto MSN and seeing all the faces go "Hey, Herrick, how was your WoW?". A painful feeling getting onto MSN and seeing all the nicks go "WoW was..." and the like. A knifeslice feeling knowing that people have learnt, enjoyed, made friendships and relations while I lay in bed with my pulse being measured at 4am.

It's not the most wonderful thing to talk about, really. The pain of having anesthesia fail on you while a needle jabs through into your spine. The wrenched face as you hear the nonchalant voices of the staff and their statements of iced logic and heartlessness. The completely weak and useless state - and not a soul to pray.

It would've been a reply laced with dread. And I feel that it would've been a reply better non-existent. And so it was. For now I'm somewhat glad that pretty much no one in my class knows my blog.

Edit: A dumbshit of a classmate apparently doesn't understand the idea of 'pretty much' along with the trend of learning not to talk about stuff.

It's an interesting thought how the idea that you knowing something about someone that others don't is a testament to your right to speak of it or at least of some signification of something more than that.

...perhaps it is only as interesting when you end up in hospital for that, I suppose.

Library

Library

-----------------------

I'm sitting across a girl silently doing up an EE proposal while a brainwave on how to solve
Question 5 of the Math Portfolio runs through my head. As she writes, the voice
of the new librarian (What was her name?) rings throughout the room, and cries of secondary
school students follow quickly after. The chaos fills the world around us; the desperate screams
of juniors being dragged out, the vain attempt to shush the public by student leaders, and
amidst all of the action going on she continues to do up her EE proposal for Literature. Her fingers keep flowing across the keyboard, and I just watch her.

The location has ceased to be conducive for work and the world around me hurtles but
yet time slows down around her. My head gets increasingly distracted by the rather apparent
noise pollution going on around here but across the table time flows smoothly, silently, slowly.
While everyone is screaming and shouting and running around the silent zone she continues to
type in the peace of her inner mind. I think I like her. I'd die for her.

A tornado has come in through the window and paperwork flies across the area yet the
situation is so bad that it causes no additional harm to the world around us. The apocalypse
is on its way, and while everyone around me is in hysteria I'm entranced in this truly silent
zone between the two of us, and my first thought is shit I forgot the solution thanks to staring at her I better get back to my Math Portfolio.

-----------------------

Referenced from Rosary (Pg 170, N.O.C.)

Pools of Blood

"You know it's like this giant pool of blood and everyone's dying and you can't exactly tell whose pool of blood this is since everyone's pools of blood are so big that they all overlap and we're all swimming in this giant pool and the only thing that we know is that everyone's dying inside"

Paraphrased, of course. My memory for quotes of such length does not extend to the many months from when the quote came about. What with this being a teacher's passing comment and all, it's hard to remember the quote so clearly when it's just a statement said during a break.

It's kind of the point in time where the blood has began to flow out, the wounds are deep and everyone is in their own pool of blood and yet the vessels that were cut were the veins, not the arteries. So a few months into IB (well, close to half a year now) you're beginning to wonder why the hell there's such a huge pool of blood around you and more importantly why you're not dead yet. Oh, wonderful arteries. Keeping the blood pumping and your life flowing.

When you have this really huge pool of blood around you, though, you really do begin to wonder. "Hey, what's up with my death coming so slowly? Is it going to get any faster?" "What's the purpose in my veins being cut? What's the point in this form of suicide anyway? Why's it so slow?" "That wasn't what I was expecting. But then again, what would you expect from cutting your wrists?" "Hey, look, that guy screwed up too - he's also got a big pool of blood around him and I don't see him dead." "Hey, that's my senior, let's go say H- wait, he's dead. Nevermind."

And then you start wondering how long your blood is going to trickle down drop by drop onto the gigantic pool of blood. And then your pool joins up with other people's. Then you realize that hey - that's Sir over there and Ma'am right over at that corner. Mr Connor's relaxing in that one korner (Due apologies to anyone who has heard me say this too many times one particular Friday) and so on and so forth. And then you realize that your seniors are in this too - save that their pools are just that wee bit - ok, a helluva lot bigger.

But of course time waits for no man, and the Grim Reaper isn't exactly the most patient man around when he has to deal with a Japanese citizen every 15 minutes (Statistics provided courtesy of a fellow 駄目人間, translated as worthless human being. Kinda makes you wonder about the credibility of the statistics, eh. Lies, damned lies and the like.) So he cuts your arteries too. It's really quite a subtle process - administration and bureaucracy are rather inefficient and you tend to be more concerned about such things, so it's natural that you end up lambasting the inefficient systems of blood loss. In short, everyone's not-checking.

It's hard to notice, of course, since you're busy thinking of philosophical approaches to the topic of death, finding your identity in this 2-year suicide, and generally improving your standard of intelligence while stuck in this giant pool of blood. Oh, did I mention socializing and talking to other people stuck in their own pool of blood?

But after a while, you suddenly realize at a random point of time that the blood really is oozing out like this giant fountain of beautiful crimson tears (really, just a nice way of saying fresh blood)
and you suddenly realize that death is that much quicker (and that much sooner). You try and get out of your pool of blood so you can properly panic and run around and scream AAAH I'M DYING OVER HERE SOMEBODY HELP ME - but you're stuck in this pool of completely coagulated, dried blood that really, really hinders your movement rather badly. Think of it as a rather philosophical form of quicksand death. I mean, you're getting stuck thanks to bleeding, damnit. Did you die due to your arteries draining your life out at this particularly rapid pace or is it because you got stuck in the blood that solidified while you were standing around wondering how long you were going to take to fully understand the effects of blood drain?

Really, this huge amount of blood loss would come across as a huge shock to some of you. The hypovolemic sort, of course.

Yet somewhere around the 2-year mark you suddenly see a lifesaver come in. A medic team, buncha green men and a high-ranking official walking into a particular private-owned Hill in the 119th lane - though by that time its name would probably be Bukit Merah (Maybe it would have its own monorail too, haha. Would be convenient too, and it's more comfortable to travel without feeling the ickyness of walking on solid blood). So you wonder to yourself: Hey, is that guy here to save me from the abyss?

You see the official walk towards the grim reaper, contract and featherpen in hand.

"Hey, reaper. The kids here - I mean the second year ones - how much are they worth?"
"Quite a fair bit, Mr. Lee. How much do you want to save their asses for?"
"Any amount. It's in the contract. Trust me, some things are priceless."
"All's fair, then. I'll sign this, and you get the second year kids."
"Oh, actually, I want the guys. Just set the girls free if you want, I don't really need them. Not until they can marry, at least."
"Hmm? Not that I care. Here're the guys."

You get pulled out of this giant pool of blood with the latest techno know-how and what-have-you-nots, and in but a moment's time you're sparkling clean.

You look to the official with grateful eyes. "Hey, Sir, can we go back now? To a normal way of living?"
He looks back at you and smiles. "What normal way of living?"

And enlightenment finally comes to you like a nice red brick: Oh God, he's with the government.