I'm dreamless right now.
It wasn't like this in the past, of course. I've had sweet dreams, bad dreams, crazy dreams, crushed dreams, faded dreams, fulfilled dreams, broken dreams, and torn dreams. Maybe more than I could've handled back then, but I dealt with what I had without going completely insane.
...........................and it's gone. I'm dreamless now.
I suppose I can't blame anyone but myself for it - I closed the door on it myself. 5 years of yearning (maybe more). Poof, just out the window like that. Never even knew it existed.
Except that only now I realize that nothing else existed as a replacement. Well, sure, you'd say; that's obvious, isn't it? No one comes up with replacement dreams. Hell, what's a replacement dream anyway? The next best alternative forgone in selecting the optimal choice? Was there ever an opportunity cost to dreams and dreaming? A cost to a pretty much non-monetary thing that we try, ever so hard, to monetize?
But it's empty. An empty freedom. Expected emptiness, of course - work and believe that long with the belief that you'll make it through to the light at the end of the tunnel for so long and you'd find the darkness looming all around when you finally realize that the light came from the roof; that you tricked yourself into thinking that you could just walk your way out of the damn tunnel, staring into the mirror directed upwards. The goddamn light ten stories up that you could always stare at but never reach.
I've had a supportive parent that prides himself with telling everyone that I've gotten into a respectable course at a prestigious university and immediately tells me the moment their backs are turned that he had nothing to support me with on this journey. Played around with me for two years every fucking week mindfucking me while fetching me to camp. Screaming at me for half an hour and sending an sms saying he loves me and wants me to get into the best uni I could get myself into. Then blaming me for not praying because "if I placed all this in God's hands everything would settle itself" because obviously praying by himself didn't get him far enough. Then telling me the family's financial situation after coming off for the past ten years as if he actually had money in the bank instead of wrecking his paycheck month after month after month. Then asking me of what value it was to send me to this course overseas and downplaying it one year after you boasted me off to his own fucking bosses about me. Monetizing my dream and trying his best to destroy it once it was no longer of value to him.
The part I hated the most is that I still had the choice of going. I could - I would just wreck the life savings of the saner half of the pair that made me. The one that made sense and reason. The one that made less yet would give more. And that's what the cost came down to - my dream or her future.
And so I'm dreamless. It's the worst feeling there is and I did it to myself. Of course that's not so bad. The whole thing just reeks of first-world fucking immaturity and foolishness, the goddamn elite kid whining about not getting into the stupid school he wants to get into because it's just too fucking expensive and he's complaining because he has no grasp on money. When it won't fucking matter in a few years time when he's out looking for a job, competing with those who made the assumption that going overseas would make you more attractive on the resume, that piece of paper that just sells you as a product to the world (hopefully at the best price, as far away from "competitive" as possible).
Sure they're right. It won't matter then. But fuck if the feeling I have right now is insignificant and childish and immature. That's me. I apologize for having subscribed to the ideal that somewhere out there across the ocean education exists that couldn't be described by the words "大开眼界". I apologize for feeling like a frog in a well compared to my peers in secondary school and believing that surely amongst the best universities I could once again find and learn from such people as my peers. I apologize for being a mediocre man amongst the elite. The elite mediocre. I apologize for believing that exposing myself to the best could allow me to slowly yet surely learn to be like them.
Life obviously never fucking worked that way. It's hilarious, really - the lack of direction I have now.
I remember a story a friend of mine wrote. Its title - Any Dream Will Do. You can't get "any dream" unless you abandon "your dream" - but what dream remains amongst the broken pieces that can make up the "any dream"s that you hold on to; the paper mache of broken dreams glued and sewn up like a monstrosity of its former self? The shine broken apart, the shards dulled, the mediocrity at its purest.
It's crying over spilt milk. Because there's nothing else in the wasteland once the milk seeps in.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Friday, May 04, 2012
The price of a dream
What is the price of a dream?
Is it your life? Your hopes? Your time? Your ambition? Six years as an employee of an organization you couldn't care less about; your chance at living a peaceful and quiet life completely blown apart and destroyed? Your prospects and your future cast in iron contract upon a piece of paper, the black ink darker than your soul after society sucks it out, leaving whatever hollow shell there is remaining.
Is it their lives? Their hopes? Their time? Their ambition? The car they hoped for, or that long holiday after years and years of slaving. Their very savings swept off by the wind into another country; another land. Their very life reduced to a pittance just to uphold the nobility of your dream.
The dream coexists with the life, hopes, time and ambition, some would say. It's obvious, isn't it? They work towards it. Yours do, at least. The rest get trampled down in the mud and dust, a pathetic state that couldn't even evoke any mockery from the very connoisseurs of schadenfreude.
What IS this dream, anyway? A culmination of all the hopes and ideals placed onto a single object/location/status/profession? That you must have/be/go/experience it? Do you even have the certainty that this is truly what you want? That you can go through it, say to yourself that you're truly "living the dream" as of this moment up to this moment, and when it's finally over (if it ever does) heave a sigh of relief and say "that changed my life and I will never regret this"?
It's a projection. That's the problem. That's what the dream is - an attempt to foresee yourself in the future. A prediction - or dare I even say it, a calculation - that you, the apparently predictable self that you are, under this circumstance of obtaining said dream, will act in this particular manner and end up in a certain state that could not have been obtained otherwise. This "particular manner" and "state" that you envision, are they even remotely close to the truth that will come your way in the future? Let's say it doesn't. What then? Do you say "Oh dear, I'm sorry. The thing I always worked towards obtaining happened to be useless and pointless for me. I felt nothing about, toward, and from it. It made no difference to my life. I apologize for trampling on things you held dear to you just to attain this utterly pointless thing just because I held it dear to me."
I like to feel it's an obvious answer. I almost certainly know it isn't nearly as obvious just because I haven't been in this scenario myself yet. Even if you trust circumstances to dictate themselves in a certain way, you realize it's difficult to predict how you react in such a circumstance - it's almost paradoxical to predict your future actions while espousing the virtues of free will. You could of course technically predict with absolute certainty, except that would technically be dictatorial prediction. It's pretty much foul play to predict someone's death in the next hour while hiding a knife behind your back.
Say it does. Can you be certain that this state and manner of self come as a result of attaining said dream? Can you be certain that this isn't something that could've been reproduced elsewhere? It's a depressing state to feel this, but dreams aren't unique. People share dreams. Two million people out there dream of being the president - who knows whether you'll even have a hundred who truly appreciate and feel gratitude to have such an honour. Who knows how many who wish to be a billionaire would waste their money and lives away in a mere decade? Dreams come by the dozens. They're cheap. The price to pay for them aren't.
I suppose that's the crux of it all. Attaining your dreams may be priceless, but the act of it rarely is. If yours is, be thankful - your dream is either a marvelous gem or worthless trash. Pray it is the former.
For the rest of us, the experience is not so much a noble journey to the destination of legends but a cold transaction between yourself and the tangible forces of society or the intangible forces of nature around. Your life for this. Forty grand for that. A pound of flesh for your vengeance. His blood for your undoing. And all that you can do is pray that for all it cost, it was worth it.
Is it?
Is it your life? Your hopes? Your time? Your ambition? Six years as an employee of an organization you couldn't care less about; your chance at living a peaceful and quiet life completely blown apart and destroyed? Your prospects and your future cast in iron contract upon a piece of paper, the black ink darker than your soul after society sucks it out, leaving whatever hollow shell there is remaining.
Is it their lives? Their hopes? Their time? Their ambition? The car they hoped for, or that long holiday after years and years of slaving. Their very savings swept off by the wind into another country; another land. Their very life reduced to a pittance just to uphold the nobility of your dream.
The dream coexists with the life, hopes, time and ambition, some would say. It's obvious, isn't it? They work towards it. Yours do, at least. The rest get trampled down in the mud and dust, a pathetic state that couldn't even evoke any mockery from the very connoisseurs of schadenfreude.
What IS this dream, anyway? A culmination of all the hopes and ideals placed onto a single object/location/status/profession? That you must have/be/go/experience it? Do you even have the certainty that this is truly what you want? That you can go through it, say to yourself that you're truly "living the dream" as of this moment up to this moment, and when it's finally over (if it ever does) heave a sigh of relief and say "that changed my life and I will never regret this"?
It's a projection. That's the problem. That's what the dream is - an attempt to foresee yourself in the future. A prediction - or dare I even say it, a calculation - that you, the apparently predictable self that you are, under this circumstance of obtaining said dream, will act in this particular manner and end up in a certain state that could not have been obtained otherwise. This "particular manner" and "state" that you envision, are they even remotely close to the truth that will come your way in the future? Let's say it doesn't. What then? Do you say "Oh dear, I'm sorry. The thing I always worked towards obtaining happened to be useless and pointless for me. I felt nothing about, toward, and from it. It made no difference to my life. I apologize for trampling on things you held dear to you just to attain this utterly pointless thing just because I held it dear to me."
I like to feel it's an obvious answer. I almost certainly know it isn't nearly as obvious just because I haven't been in this scenario myself yet. Even if you trust circumstances to dictate themselves in a certain way, you realize it's difficult to predict how you react in such a circumstance - it's almost paradoxical to predict your future actions while espousing the virtues of free will. You could of course technically predict with absolute certainty, except that would technically be dictatorial prediction. It's pretty much foul play to predict someone's death in the next hour while hiding a knife behind your back.
Say it does. Can you be certain that this state and manner of self come as a result of attaining said dream? Can you be certain that this isn't something that could've been reproduced elsewhere? It's a depressing state to feel this, but dreams aren't unique. People share dreams. Two million people out there dream of being the president - who knows whether you'll even have a hundred who truly appreciate and feel gratitude to have such an honour. Who knows how many who wish to be a billionaire would waste their money and lives away in a mere decade? Dreams come by the dozens. They're cheap. The price to pay for them aren't.
I suppose that's the crux of it all. Attaining your dreams may be priceless, but the act of it rarely is. If yours is, be thankful - your dream is either a marvelous gem or worthless trash. Pray it is the former.
For the rest of us, the experience is not so much a noble journey to the destination of legends but a cold transaction between yourself and the tangible forces of society or the intangible forces of nature around. Your life for this. Forty grand for that. A pound of flesh for your vengeance. His blood for your undoing. And all that you can do is pray that for all it cost, it was worth it.
Is it?
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
The tragedy of the human world around me
It depresses me to no end of the state of the human condition.
That I can find myself amidst debate (if I even dare call it that) between a guy too selfish to care and a guy too jaded to try, that such a argument even occurs over the most trivial of subject matters. That I can hear people admit the flaw of the human state and not even attempt to do anything about it. When was humankind so defeatist?
I see a friend defending an acquaintance of his against the majority and I see him turned into a martyr for it. I see him being burned at the stakes unnecessarily for trying "to be a saint" and I see that his attempt to defend his acquaintance soon deteriorates from a valiant attempt into a slur and barrage of ad hominems. It's tragic because I see my friend sinking to the level of those he was intending to strike, and I see them pointing out the hypocrisy, the irony, and making fun of him for it.
It just screams "We won; we dragged you down to our level. There is no moral high ground now - there never was, and there never will be."
I talk to a friend of mine while sitting by the roadside - he tells me that he's tired of it all. He can't keep up the goodwill anymore, he can't salvage the tear in the relationships anymore. I feel like telling him to just carry on the good fight, but I hear the parties he tries to save admit their own lack of care for other people's motivations for their actions. I wonder why he ever bothered trying to save such relationships. I wonder whether it was doomed to fail from the beginning. I wonder whether it was worth it at all.
Maybe it isn't.
I recall a drink over a small table in a jazz bar; my drinking partner commented to me that she felt no one was born evil or innately evil. That everyone was innately good and just expressed themselves wrongly, resulting in ill will instead of goodwill. I now question that thought more than three years on. Maybe people just aren't programmed to be good. Because to be nice, understanding, and reacting in the best possible way one sees fit after considering everyone's point of view is impossible for certain people - it runs counter to their very character and the idea of goodwill cannot even enter their mind without sickening their very core. They cannot be good; they can merely pretend to be good until the farce sickens them and they can no longer resist the joy of being a fucker.
It's sad that I can find people whom I am absolutely cool with in real life and get to talk cock with argue like barbarians over the internet. I find it sad that I can see a friend say "I want to stop this stupidity" and degrade himself into joining the masses in half an hour. And the worst part about this is that I can see two groups of people I enjoy the company of burn each other over the most trivial non-reasons. I cannot understand how one side can ever think of such an argument in a "I won / You lost" scenario when all along it was a "You lose, I lose" scenario to me. Honestly? You think you can win such a mudslinging argument? You can say that with a clear conscious?
It's even more depressing that I can hear people comment that such arguments are a good form of entertainment, popcorn-worthy shows. I hear the sensible people say that they would've deleted the arguments; eliminated any scent of bad will off the face of the earth. I hear the popcorn audience plea for the war to be over before the evidence is erased. I cannot even bear to point out the logical flaw and contradiction in erasing the evidence when the war was already over - wasn't the point of deleting the arguments to prevent it from breaking out in the first place?
I hate it all because it's just so tragic to witness. People are jerks. People are bastards. People are fuckers. I've come to that conclusion long ago, and I know I'm not the only one.
It's just that I invest faith in humans - faith in them that they aren't the absolute human scum that I occasionally think they are at times. It's not an investment with good rates of return, but it's a worthwhile investment and the ROI is but a secondary matter. But that faith that I invest - it bankrupts on me as if my faith was a monetary commodity worth stealing. That there are moral bankers out there robbing me of all my faith while they snicker to themselves along Wall Street, wondering what to do with all the faith in their hands. Faith I had in humanity, now in the hands of scum who sully its value with their incredulity.
Perhaps faith was worthless all along. Not just monetarily, but morally, even ethically, worthless in every aspect. Perhaps having faith in people wouldn't give you any more faith to have in others - it just gave you disillusionment in the face of vanity, pride and stubbornness. You couldn't fight the three. Stubbornness never gave up, vanity never knew when she lost and pride never acknowledged that it was your victory. Faith had nowhere to belong in the amoral.
And it appears, neither do I. Not in the grand scheme of failure that is the human condition.
That I can find myself amidst debate (if I even dare call it that) between a guy too selfish to care and a guy too jaded to try, that such a argument even occurs over the most trivial of subject matters. That I can hear people admit the flaw of the human state and not even attempt to do anything about it. When was humankind so defeatist?
I see a friend defending an acquaintance of his against the majority and I see him turned into a martyr for it. I see him being burned at the stakes unnecessarily for trying "to be a saint" and I see that his attempt to defend his acquaintance soon deteriorates from a valiant attempt into a slur and barrage of ad hominems. It's tragic because I see my friend sinking to the level of those he was intending to strike, and I see them pointing out the hypocrisy, the irony, and making fun of him for it.
It just screams "We won; we dragged you down to our level. There is no moral high ground now - there never was, and there never will be."
I talk to a friend of mine while sitting by the roadside - he tells me that he's tired of it all. He can't keep up the goodwill anymore, he can't salvage the tear in the relationships anymore. I feel like telling him to just carry on the good fight, but I hear the parties he tries to save admit their own lack of care for other people's motivations for their actions. I wonder why he ever bothered trying to save such relationships. I wonder whether it was doomed to fail from the beginning. I wonder whether it was worth it at all.
Maybe it isn't.
I recall a drink over a small table in a jazz bar; my drinking partner commented to me that she felt no one was born evil or innately evil. That everyone was innately good and just expressed themselves wrongly, resulting in ill will instead of goodwill. I now question that thought more than three years on. Maybe people just aren't programmed to be good. Because to be nice, understanding, and reacting in the best possible way one sees fit after considering everyone's point of view is impossible for certain people - it runs counter to their very character and the idea of goodwill cannot even enter their mind without sickening their very core. They cannot be good; they can merely pretend to be good until the farce sickens them and they can no longer resist the joy of being a fucker.
It's sad that I can find people whom I am absolutely cool with in real life and get to talk cock with argue like barbarians over the internet. I find it sad that I can see a friend say "I want to stop this stupidity" and degrade himself into joining the masses in half an hour. And the worst part about this is that I can see two groups of people I enjoy the company of burn each other over the most trivial non-reasons. I cannot understand how one side can ever think of such an argument in a "I won / You lost" scenario when all along it was a "You lose, I lose" scenario to me. Honestly? You think you can win such a mudslinging argument? You can say that with a clear conscious?
It's even more depressing that I can hear people comment that such arguments are a good form of entertainment, popcorn-worthy shows. I hear the sensible people say that they would've deleted the arguments; eliminated any scent of bad will off the face of the earth. I hear the popcorn audience plea for the war to be over before the evidence is erased. I cannot even bear to point out the logical flaw and contradiction in erasing the evidence when the war was already over - wasn't the point of deleting the arguments to prevent it from breaking out in the first place?
I hate it all because it's just so tragic to witness. People are jerks. People are bastards. People are fuckers. I've come to that conclusion long ago, and I know I'm not the only one.
It's just that I invest faith in humans - faith in them that they aren't the absolute human scum that I occasionally think they are at times. It's not an investment with good rates of return, but it's a worthwhile investment and the ROI is but a secondary matter. But that faith that I invest - it bankrupts on me as if my faith was a monetary commodity worth stealing. That there are moral bankers out there robbing me of all my faith while they snicker to themselves along Wall Street, wondering what to do with all the faith in their hands. Faith I had in humanity, now in the hands of scum who sully its value with their incredulity.
Perhaps faith was worthless all along. Not just monetarily, but morally, even ethically, worthless in every aspect. Perhaps having faith in people wouldn't give you any more faith to have in others - it just gave you disillusionment in the face of vanity, pride and stubbornness. You couldn't fight the three. Stubbornness never gave up, vanity never knew when she lost and pride never acknowledged that it was your victory. Faith had nowhere to belong in the amoral.
And it appears, neither do I. Not in the grand scheme of failure that is the human condition.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Seasons we Serve
963600 minutes
963000 moments so dear
963600 minutes
How do you measure, measure two years
In book-ins, in bookouts
In nights-outs, in cookhouse surveys
In meters, in clicks, in turnouts at night
In 963600 minutes
How do you measure, two years of your life?
Why must we, serve?
Why must we, serve?
Why must we, serve?
Why must we serve…
Lan lan must serve~
Lan lan must serve~
963600 minutes
963000 moments so sian
963600 minutes
How do you measure the life of commanders or of men?
In extras he signed
Or in shellscrapes he slept
In weekends confined
Or the times that he wept
Its time now to book out
Though the fucking never ends
Till we ORD
Remember that we’re just an NSF!
I don’t want to serve~
(Oh I don’t want, I don’t want I don’t want to serve~)
Don’t want to serve~
(You know that two years we all must serve~)
Don’t want to serve~
(Can serve, must serve, lan lan must serve~)
Don’t wanna serve~
(Measure, measure the time you served)
Seasons we served~
Seasons we served~
(Measure the life, measure the life you served)
---------------------------
If you're PES C it's 1051200 minutes btw
963000 moments so dear
963600 minutes
How do you measure, measure two years
In book-ins, in bookouts
In nights-outs, in cookhouse surveys
In meters, in clicks, in turnouts at night
In 963600 minutes
How do you measure, two years of your life?
Why must we, serve?
Why must we, serve?
Why must we, serve?
Why must we serve…
Lan lan must serve~
Lan lan must serve~
963600 minutes
963000 moments so sian
963600 minutes
How do you measure the life of commanders or of men?
In extras he signed
Or in shellscrapes he slept
In weekends confined
Or the times that he wept
Its time now to book out
Though the fucking never ends
Till we ORD
Remember that we’re just an NSF!
I don’t want to serve~
(Oh I don’t want, I don’t want I don’t want to serve~)
Don’t want to serve~
(You know that two years we all must serve~)
Don’t want to serve~
(Can serve, must serve, lan lan must serve~)
Don’t wanna serve~
(Measure, measure the time you served)
Seasons we served~
Seasons we served~
(Measure the life, measure the life you served)
---------------------------
If you're PES C it's 1051200 minutes btw
Friday, July 09, 2010
Rainbows in Airdrops
Sometimes, in tough and tiring times, all you need is a reminder from God that all is fine.
It's not the face that launched a thousand ships, and I don't know how our armies compare with others, but stopping commandos (albeit female ones), an NDU sergeant, and a bunch of us riggers while derigging our CDS to just stare up has to have some power in itself. It's the same feeling that Noah got when he finally reached ashore - that all is still good in the world and things are as they should be.
Jason pointed at one end of it and said there's a pot of gold there. Maybe someone airdropped it there.
It's not the face that launched a thousand ships, and I don't know how our armies compare with others, but stopping commandos (albeit female ones), an NDU sergeant, and a bunch of us riggers while derigging our CDS to just stare up has to have some power in itself. It's the same feeling that Noah got when he finally reached ashore - that all is still good in the world and things are as they should be.
Jason pointed at one end of it and said there's a pot of gold there. Maybe someone airdropped it there.
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