iThink...thereFore, iAm

This blog has lain fallow for a long long while, with nothing much going up - only random thoughts and little snippets of my mind. I once wanted to keep writing articles, keep putting something of thought up everyday, like one of the blogs i read most regularly and still enjoy reading on a daily basis, written by someone i deeply respect.

I’ve grown adverse to putting things up on the internet - struck by the comment in “Easy A”, that our generation has “a tendency to announce all [our] thoughts”, and “I assure you, not all of them are diamonds”. Perhaps i’m just reluctant to get back into the crowd of so many people i’ve since unfollowed, who proclaim their experiences as the norm, insist on their perspectives as the ideal, and subtly demand through their “i don’t know, but”s and other seemingly harmless phrases that we subscribe to their beliefs. Maybe life can be simple for them, but life doesn’t always treat all of us well, and i hate to say it but sometimes it’s not as simple as saying “just leave it to God”.

And yet with this adversity i have the need to put things down somewhere - and this blog has been my journal for some time already, and i’m reluctant to leave it fallow for long. I sometimes grow envious of people who have exciting and happening lives and always have something to put up, though i also don’t wish to be one of the internet celebrities.

The point of this post? There is no point. That is all there is to it.

Hey, it’s my blog after all. :P

Because we don’t notice it when it’s there, but only when it’s gone.

Because we don’t motivate and reinforce positive behaviour, and wish we did after it’s been taken from us.

Because it happens so often we think it’s going to happen anyway, until it doesn’t.

Because we’ve gotten used to it being there that it no longer catches out attention, until it’s gone.

Because we don’t thank others for the small things, but feel negatively when the small things are absent.

Because we think about our cost when it’s gone, but don’t appreciate the cost of another when it’s constantly there.

Because we can only see what we see and feel, and often miss out what goes on in another’s life or mind.

Because we assume or expect that’s the way things are supposed to be, until we realize that it takes an effort to get them done or it came at someone else’s cost.

How to not take things for granted? For every thing that was given to you, give one right back. Understand the giver’s position. Reciprocate. Make things clear - what you expect, what you want, what you need, what you desire. Talk things out. Try to never forget the small things - it was just a straw that broke the camel’s back. Use the thought “that’s the way it’s supposed to be” to alert you to something that you might be missing out giving thanks for. Use your expectations to warn you of something that you might just be taking for granted. Remember that what you think is supposed to be the right thing isn’t necessarily always right - you and I aren’t always right, and it can only benefit us to hear another opinion to refine our own.

Remember we are all imperfect.

“…I try to be my best.”

Echo, Dollhouse

Respond. React. Rationalize. Irrationalize.

Negativity and lack of energy is like a gravity well - it pulls people around into it as well.

What is right? What is wrong? What is loving? What to do?

The shouts of defense and accusations ring and echo long after the voices have turned too sore to pronounce them, and they drain energy from each and every heart that they pass over.

An uneasy feeling stirs inside me yet again - and I become confused and ask for direction. I must. I cannot be lost, not now.

Questions swirl again, and the silver hairs are evidence that the gears are turning inside.

All I need is a word.

In every situation there will always be a person who gets the losing end. Very often we’ll notice that it’s usually the same person. This guy, i’ve noticed, just stands silent amidst it all, taking in the mockery, the shame, the ridicule and the pain. He/she doesn’t fight back, and just accepts whatever comes to him/her.

In our world, very often this kind of person is taken advantage of. And we don’t even know we taking advantage of the person because we assume that they’re fine with it. But we forget that not everything is said in public, and so there are underlying things going on in that mind. We don’t see it as taking advantage of the person because we assume that “it’s their job and if it’s not they can voice up to it” but we forget that they can either be too nice to say no, or recognize that they can make your life easier by doing what you asked, even though it’s at personal cost to them.

I’ll call this person the “mouse”, for obvious reasons, and we are the “cats”. 

Now, “mice” are often seen as timid and quiet and running away at every opportunity and sign of danger. What we don’t know is where they run to and why they run - it could well be that the running away is part of a preplanned sequence of defense/attack, or it could be that they retreat to recover and gather their own strength.  The world perceives these non-reactionary people, the “mice”, as weak, indecisive people who do not contribute much. After all, the “cats” are the ones who are showing themselves in the forefront, getting the limelight and attention.

The “cats” will be the ones who have the chance to show the resilience expected of them, given the dangers that they put themselves into. Some of it will be necessary, and it is not to say that the “cats” are all bad or are all rash. But simply by the nature of the “cats” they will naturally be the ones to shine and gain publicity first.

What then of the “mice”? They will be the ones eating the scraps for long enough. But the warning then lies here: push a mouse into a corner and when he/she has to fight, the pent up strength is more than enough to repel a cat.

Why is there no component of “hope” in The Armour Of God?

…is that it cannot exist until a first step is taken in its name.

If that step is not taken, it cannot exist. Yet if we were to take that step, it would be prior to its specific existence.

The very characteristic of trust is that we do not know if it is justified. It can be proven otherwise, and it is because it can be proven otherwise that it is valued when it is proven positive.

The irony of trust is that it cannot be verified unless it is first thought to exist.

ineffable |inˈefəbəl|
adjective

• too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words : the ineffable natural beauty of the Everglades.

• not to be uttered : the ineffable Hebrew name that gentiles write as Jehovah.

DERIVATIVES
ineffability |-efəˈbilitē| noun
ineffably |-blē| adverb

ORIGIN
late Middle English : from Old French, or from Latin ineffabilis, from in- ‘not’ + effabilis (see effable ).

There is no need to lie or change stories to impress. Not even to omit information or skew accounts to sound better. It is far more impressive to be blantantly honest, than to pretend or selectively choose what to reveal in order to package self nicely.

What are the implications of the commonly used teenage term “whatever” on the psychological state and maturity (when read in context of the situation)?

Who was the person who started the plucking of flower petals to determine “she loves me” or “she loves me not”?

You’d be surprised at the sacrifices a boy would make in the name of love
- Remy LeBeau a.k.a. Gambit

Life brings us through patches of ups and downs, goods and bads, and it eventually shapes who we are, so aptly illustrated by the movie “Butterfly Effect”.

Recently as I’ve been talking a little deeper with people closer to me I realized that. And we all have the different times in our lives that we go through.

We have the tough times, times of hair-tearing and tears, times where you, like the biblical Job, may even curse the day you were born. The dark times of a lost love, demise of someone close, a position relinquished, a skill sacrificed, a job loss, financial woes or the death of dreams. These are the times where the brightest sparks you can see fade away before you can reach out to them, leaving you in pitch darkness that even Riddick would fear to tread.

And then there are the times where you are on the top of the world. Times where everything goes right, when those you love are close and warm, where a dream or ambition is fulfilled beyond what you dared to envision. These are the times in our life that we crave so much that we would even care to be a part of it in another’s life, a trait that Disney and Hollywood have been quick to pick up and play on your heartstrings to make you smile whilst watching the big screen. Yet often you smile because as you watch the projection on the screen, it remains just that - a projection that is so dim a light compared to the solar giant that is part of your reality that has happened. Nothing Disney or Hollywood or any author can do will ever match that firsthand feeling that you experience at that point of time, though I dare say some have managed to come close to it with a viewer/reader with as vivid an imagination as I.

I often wonder - when people look at me, what do they see (sorry mrbrown, “le kua simi” just doesn’t make it here ;P) ?

Do they see someone who works hard to acheive what he does, perhaps silently behind the scenes? Or someone who skives, getting away with doing as little as he can and reaping things he doesn’t really deserve?

Do they see someone with a lot of talent? Not fulfilling his potential? Or doing what he can to fulfill it with the limited means that he has? Or do they not see any talent at all, that he is just bumbling along through life, not really thinking through things and yet somehow life gets on for him, rather Mr McGoo-ish?

Do they see someone who thinks about all these things? Or thinks too much about everything and is oversensitive? Or someone who is cold toward others and shows little sympathy and empathy? Or someone who sees things but just doesn’t care because it’s beneath him to do something about it? Or perhaps it’s beyond his ability and he wants to do something but he can’t?

Do they see someone of passion? Or of nonchalance? Of greed or generosity? Of tenderness or of trouble, of harshness or gentleness, of peace and patience or cruelty?

Or do they see all these things?

Because at any one point of time, i might have been one of them - my life, as a whole, would have seen something like the entire above mix together.

“I’m not a good guy” “You are, you just don’t know it yet.”

That line from Terminator 3 has stuck with me for a long time. Maybe I hope one day that what others see in me sounds like that, and that part overshadows everything else.

I think that i cannot separate the ups or downs of my life. They each create a part of me, lessons learnt, pains felt, exhilaration exhorted, smiles traded, memories kept. All a part of me that make me who i am, and who i will be. Remove an hour or two of my life in the past and i might have been very very different today - i might be happier or i might be sadder. I am both, and i cannot and should not distinguish the two for separation because each smile i remember is marred with tears, but each tear is lined with the warmth and light of smiles, creating a mobius circle which never ends.

When you look into my heart, what do you see?
The blackness of pain, or the light of the free?

For some people, brushing teeth early after dinner is a sure way to keep them from eating anything later in the night.

For me, it’s a sure way to know that i have to brush my teeth again. =\