iThink...thereFore, iAm

It’s been a while since i posted up here anything of personal value or meaningful thoughts and so much has happened since then. So here i am, redrafting my supposed New Year’s post while i desperately browse through readings for an idea to start research with again (which i desperately need) and eating what’s left of a Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough pint.

Making that statement makes me think back of all the things i used to look at, i used to want to be when i was a kid.

I wanted to be famous, and have people ask for my autograph, or make appearances in public with recognition. If “famous” didn’t work for me I told myself I’d settle for being “recognized”. This never happened - whatever dreams i had of being extremely talented were swiftly diminished by people who constantly took stabs at my ego and self-esteem and i never could work up the courage to play something on stage for myself even till today. Ironic how i have to play gigs that only allow me to be shrouded in darkness so that no one can see my face, despite wanting to be known.

I wanted people to want to take photos of me and hang around me because i was cool. This too, was quickly smothered - it turned out people who looked better or had more money or had more resources thanks to their parents became the most popular of the lot as they could offer more to their friends and all i had to offer was true genuine friendship.

I wanted to be known, respected, esteemed, perhaps even revered, and it didn’t even matter for what. It could have been on the cover of Forbes or Time or GadgetGeek or just on a website, but i wanted to be known for something and not just fade into another statistic. 

Tastes mature, and over time people looked for different things. I’ve come to realize that i do what i wish, regardless of it’s popularity rating. I danced when it was a wussy thing to do and learned a guitar long before my peers even touched one. I learnt craft and art before people looked to comics and writing as forms of validation. By the time all was cool, i’d be beyond the group of people who were looking to learn it to be cool. Unfortunately everyone thought it was only cool to be learning it and i couldn’t be bothered to lower myself to the level they were starting out at - it’s not a snobbish thing to do; which of you would redo elementary school just to look cool?

Where i am now, what i am now is totally different. I still have some of the things that i wanted to be but by and large i am very very different from what i initially aspired to be. And there are things that i am that i never thought i would be doing:

I never thought i’d be doing a PhD in mechanical engineering - and people constantly remind me how much they thought I am the arts, which is a compliment on the coolness scale, considering peoples’ stereotype here. But where I am now, typically most post grads are cool :P

I never thought i’d be sought out for help or advice for matters ranging from technical to academic to emotional - of course i’m also seeking advice from people and the more i give the more i realize what i don’t know, but at a higher level than what i give out.

I never thought i had to deal with so much - and in the process to discover how childish, naive and immature i am, and it sickens me to see it the way i see it. It reminds me how much i have to grow and at the same time how far i’ve already come.

In these years, I have grown closer and more distant, learnt and forgotten. I have hit and been hurt, blessed and cursed, played and worked, become more ambitious and more simple. I have laughed till I cried and cried till i laughed, hated and loved, been nonchalant and oversensitive, and as always introspective. Some things i wish i could rewind and redo, other things to rewind and replay.

2012 is here. And i intend to do all the things above all over again in 2012. For otherwise, what is life? So my wish for you, all my friends, is that you live. Not merely watch the days go by without meaning, succumbed to the humdrum of the world, but to experience every feeling, as much as you can hope to bear (and not more), so that you will know what it is to laugh at the storm and cry at the sunrises, to lie awake in bed and fall asleep at work, to play with the pains and to work with the joys, and every single paradoxical thing.

May you do three things in 2012: live, think and feel.