Rewind

Growing up / lapsing into routine / consumed by work / rat race / endless pursuits

Rewind // endless hours of hanging out // trance music // simple pleasures // being carefree

Now and then, regression is a balm to a weary soul

Release

"Pain is the release of weakness from the body". That pertains to the physical front. On the mental side, October was draining but fulfilling. Looking forward to a rejuvenating November in my favorite city in Asia. 楽しみにしょう！

Veneer

She said to me tonight, "I don't like you when you are intoxicated". I sobered up with a start. This was one of the last things I expected to hear after a nice 5 course dinner and wine with friends we've both known for years. I held my tongue, and I took it in during the rest of my journey back.

Thoughts.

How much of a relationship is compromise, how much requires work, how much demands sacrifice? We are all painfully clear that nothing comes without a cost. The extroverted dreams that fiery Aries used to have, his passion and his drive, unknowingly routed by the introverted water sign Scorpio. Yet he does this willingly, for he knows that there are certain gifts that he must treasure. Even so, there are nights like these where doubt creeps in and he turns in, unsure like a wandering nomad ascertaining his bearings.

0231 a.m. 02102010

Fade

This is not how young men are supposed to go. We lose them to war, we lose them to the lure of emigration but we never expect to lose them this way. Rest in peace bro, I'm sorry I didn't keep in touch much after law school. :(

Insecurities

Sometimes we doubt ourselves.

Am I cut out for this. Am I brilliant enough. Am I talented enough. Do I have what it takes. Why am I so farking tired all the time.

A mentor said to me: "I am certain you are capable of better"

A fellow litigator and dear friend said to me: "tenacity is the most important attribute of a litigator, not how smart the person is. the ability to be organised and analyse things, and a certain gumption to stay on course even when the odds are against you. strength of character."

A doctor and confidante said to me: "your health is important"


At 2 a.m. not knowing the answers to the multitude of issues - No one said it was going to be easy, but roll over and die i will NOT.

Defiance

Over the weekend i read some articles in various magazines about chasing dreams, entrepreneurs quitting their lawyering/finance/corporate life to pursue what they feel strongly in life. I thought to myself, what happened for my passion for lomography, my obsession with the aviation industry, my love for music? Smothered. Work and family/friends have become so all-consuming that some days (or rather, early mornings after midnight) the only thing I look forward to is the bed I sleep in. Yes, everything is a choice, and I chose many moons ago to do this, but time and again I have to remind myself why I am here doing this when i can be anywhere else in the world doing what I love. No grudges, just an undeniable need to justify, mostly to myself, that this is worth it.

Lights

I sense a calling, but I give myself [. ] amount of time to consider it.

Intervention

How many times was I ready to throw it all away, and to give it all up, before divine intervention came at the last minute to rescue me from myself, my propensity to let it go to waste and slip away

Fruits

"只问耕耘、 不问收获的你、终于建立了自己的信誉、总算没有白费多日来的努力。"

London

London holds a special significance for a man of Christian faith, a boy fed on a diet of English literature and a student of the British common-law model. Coming here is like being able to put a face to a name, a substance to a form, and a manifestation to a belief.

Nostalgia

She remembered fragments of myself that I have left behind, like how I broke chopsticks for her and poured creamer into MOS Burger Iced Tea on her behalf. She asked me why we didn't date, and I thought to myself, 10 years ago, I was just too unsure of myself.

Dreams

The Straits Times featured an article today on the dreams and aspirations of today's Singaporeans. It was not surprising that the same dreams that we had as a nation in the 90's: the 5Cs: Cash, Credit Card, Car, Condominium and Country Club membership were used as the benchmark for comparison. In the 90's I was a mere student, and the 5Cs were just obscure concepts that we knew and poked fun at.

Fast forward a decade. As a young working professional, this "5Cs" concept triggers an involuntary self-reflection. Is this what I am working so damn hard for? Being tied down to a lifetime of mortgages in an economy where the flavour of the decade shifts from manufacturing to health sciences to financial services to.. [insert new industry here]. Yes, I know the effects of the above are somewhat mitigated in my industry but it does not stop one from thinking, even dreading, the almost certain eventuality of being obsolete in a world that does not cease to change.

We spoke about this. Yes, I do dream about a life like this. However, on days like these, it hits me that I cannot just continue doing what I am doing without reflection because time just slips by as we drone on in our mundane lives. Case in point, 3 months have already slipped by, just like that. As I leave my green & blue the end of this month, I need to satisfy myself that if I have already voluntarily clipped my wings, I cannot have any regrets being housed in a cage.

Whataya

Yeah, its plain to see
That baby youre beautiful
And theres nothing wrong with you
Its me
Im a freak
But thanks for loving me
Cause youre doing it perfectly

Reminder

Sometimes we need to be reminded why we do what we do, even why we love the people we love. Today is one such day, where I am reminded why i made a certain decision one night in February way back in 2004.

Longing

All I need is you. Come back soon.

Battles

The biggest battles in life are those where you have to fight yourself (in more than one sense of the word)

Infatuation

"Before the beloved's own characteristics can affect them, these misguided souls smother the true person in an imaginary charm drawn from their own inexhaustible source. Then, as they become closer, they see their darling not as they are but as they have made them and, while believing they take delight in their loved one, they are simply delighting in their own conceptions. One fine day, however, weary of doing all the work, they discover that the object of their adoration is not returning the ball; the infatuation drops away and the blow to their self esteem makes them unjust towards the person they once idolized."

Stendhal on Love, translated from the French language

Geomancy

I know its a load of bull, but it makes good reading:

(1) wrt current squeeze

知什么叫做“火星撞地球”，必定要看这一对组合了，两个火爆型的人在一起要谈一次恋爱，的确需要大量“军火”。而且天蝎座很多事都放在心上不表现出来，一旦有情变，他的报复性极强，达五星!!!白羊座很容易会被天蝎座的神秘魅力吸引，而将羊头撞过去，结果一撞出事，皆因两个人都是权力至上的人。试想如此情况之下，哪有可能不是由早吵到晚的一对？


(2) wrt previous squeeze

非常适合一起的一对组合，但可能要象赌博一样博一博。因为你俩的人生态度很接近，对任何事物都有象小孩子一般的热情和好奇，彼此很容日易沟通起来。要留意的就是白羊座的人缺乏耐性和持久力，而水瓶座的人变化多端，有时候连自己需要什么也不知道，两个人在一起，一定要找到解决这个问题的药方

Choices

I asked her why did she have her ex-crush's photo on her handphone's wallpaper, to which she replied, "I will be getting married (to another guy) in two weeks' time, and after that I will never be able to have his photo on my wallpaper ever again".

That was in 2004, and they have been happily married and living overseas since. They have a kid now, but the memory of the wallpaper incident never fails to remind me that in life, as with most things, it's all about the choices we make and how we choose to make things work.

Wishes

Happy Birthday Meiling. You should be 25 now. What would you have been doing? Would you have married? Would we still be arguing over the smallest things? Would you still be the same? Would WE still be the same?

I miss you terribly. One day when my chores are done here I will see you again. One day.

Hopeless

There's some law that states that expenditure is directly proportional to income. Am drooling after a weekend of car showroom viewing... Why are my toys getting more and more expensive?!

Weaving

Yet even as the audience is drawn into a tale, we must pause to ask: who is the story-teller? How far can we believe and trust the story? After all, a storyteller may entral, educate, entertain - or deceive - and sometimes all at the same time. Whose reality can we trust?

Inspiration

Sometimes, getting a break gives us time to reflect on the things we do and why we do them, and sometimes inspiration comes in different forms. Tonight, it was in the form of a late night DVD marathon of "Damages: Season 2".

I WANT to do this. I just need to keep myself motivated.

Work

"Our work will at least have distracted us, it will have provided a perfect bubble in which to invest our hopes for perfection, it will have focused our immeasurable anxieties on a few relatively small scale and achievable goals, it will have given us a sense of mastery, it will have made us respectably tired, it will have put food on the table. It will have kept us out of greater trouble."

Alain de Botton, "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work"

I will take on a new role in my career, as in-house counsel, starting this week. This will be the pleasurable distraction that I was seeking.

Adieu

In this place, not everyone in a leadership position leads by example, the men are lazy and unmotivated, and those who give a damn find themselves shouldering more and more of the burden that everyone else tries to avoid. This is obviously not the place I want to belong to, and I am more than glad to say "adieu" after this two week sojourn.

Eulogy

Grief subsides over time, but I carry on with me the things that you have taught me, and I live my life to the fullest, because I know that is how you would have wanted me to. My only fear, is that I may one day forget the memory of your presence.

Imprint

Metaphors used to describe the human mind have ranged from "fertile ground" to "half filled glasses". If I may add one more, it would be "photographic negative".

Watched "Case 39", a horror movie starring Renee Zellwegger on my camp mate's laptop this evening and went to shower after that. Upon closing my eyes as the water hit my face, I saw the hideousity that was the face of the monster from the movie.

What does that say about the human mind? That it is but a reflection or product of our experiences?

Which brings me to the question, what were those people thinking when they attacked the churches (6 hit so far, and counting) after a Malaysian Court ruling allowing the word "Allah" to be used to refer to the Christian God in the Malay language, a common practice in the middle east and neighbouring Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country on earth. Whatever justifications they can think of, including such indefensible ones like "Muslims will be confused, and this will promote conversion to Christianity", or even more ridiculous "Malaysia is different, so what applies in Indonesia and the middle east cannot apply here". Fine. Even if I choose not to attack the intellectual reasoning behind these, surely it cannot be right to attack churches just to display discontent. If Malaysia is serious about racial and religious harmony and the preservation of the freedom to worship, more has to be done to prevent this from escalating.

This cuts way too close to home. Surely we can choose to believe in what we believe without violence, right?

Lost

What kills the desire to write? Contentment, inertia, and a lifestyle numbed by the clockwork of work, deadlines and living up to expectations. What inspires writing? Accumulated feelings of being torn and a general sense of being very, very lost. Tonight, as I sit typing at Chills Cafe at Stamford House sometime after midnight, this post will be dedicated to a day less ordinary.

Book-out day. Endured hunger so that I may have dinner with someone who I have not met for quite awhile. She was supposed to knock off at 10 pm, so I hung around and amused myself until then, when I found out from her boss that she left at 9 and was uncontactable by phone. In summary, hunger and abandonment does not make me a happy man.

So I sat, stunned and absolutely lost by the Clarke Quay riverside steps, and imagined myself to be by the Thames, the Danube, or the Seine (yes, I am a hopeless dreamer) while gazing thoughtlessly at the night scene. I had wanted to share some good news with her tonight. Be that as it may, I told myself, half an hour to wallow before I snap out of this ridiculous emotional state, and I tried my best to make myself happy by laughing at the morons taking the GMAX reverse bungy. I must have looked pretty pathetic sitting there by myself on a Saturday night because this bubbly girl (by which I mean below the legal age to smoke) came up to me and said hi.

Hold your (wayward) thoughts.

"Hi, I am.. erm.. conducting a survey, can I have a few minutes of your time", she ventured, in heavily accented English.

"Yes, how can I help?", said needy, emotional me, who would, at that time be glad to speak to a multi-level marketer or a zealous seventh day aventist, so long as it was a human voice.

"I am conducting a survey on the current market conditions and job opportunities", she continued.

I laughed silently (yes it is possible). So now I look like a jobless loafer stoning by the riverside. I replied, "wo hui jiang hua yu" (translation: I can speak Chinese), to which she gladly switched to Malaysian accented Chinese. Aha! Bingo. I pinpointed the source.

So the conversation continued, and she came to the "Expected Salary in these uncertain times" question. I told her honestly that I was extremely greedy and wanted as much renumeration as possible and asked her to tick the box at the bottom. Out of curiousity, I asked her what the box read. ">$5,000". Hmmmmmmmmm. Somehow that piqued my interest and I asked her what would her answer be. She replied "$1,700, for poly students like me after graduation", and she confessed that it may not be enough as she liked to buy tons of stuff, and after which we ended up talking for what may be more than an hour.

Incidentally, I read a book today titled "Nowhere to Run", a true story about a woman abused and left homeless by her loveless parents only to be abused and raped by her abusive husband. This, coupled with my conversation with survey girl and my general feeling of being lost and abandoned somehow amalgamated and crystallised into a thought. I will not be noting this thought down, but may this post jog the memory of tonight and the abovementioned thought to myself as I read this again in the future. Be content, be content, Jared.

A Chinese New Year medley that I heard today contained the lyrics "Don't waste youth". Tonight, I have not wasted mine, despite waiting 6 hours for someone who I will try to love a little less from today onwards.

Decisions

"For I know the plans I have for you", declares the Lord. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Jeremiah 29:11 NIV

So even though I have already made my personal choice in the face of two major options, I stand guided by His plans, which never fail to surprise me.

Overtures

I undeniably prefer night, wherein I am free from the shackles of responsibility and labour, and given the opportunity to ponder the day that passed, as well as life and its deeper callings. Today's was "judge less, give more". Equity is but a concept invented by us to smooth out the inescapable inequities inherent in our daily lives. Today, I have learnt how to be more flexible on my beliefs of what fairness and justice entails. On another note, the pink clouds rolling across the dark sky inexplicably led me to recall a dear friend new year's greeting a week ago that I may find "what I am looking for" this year. Another rainy day has come and gone away, and I daresay I don't think I have come any closer to finding out what that is, and it is innately a terrifying thought. What if, given my propensity to indulge in inertia, I have this same question, just that I will be a graying old man and still an emotional aimless vagrant. Push and Pull, it's all about Push and Pull factors.

Now playing: "Home" by Michael Buble. No, I am not homesick, but I do want a home, wherever that will be.

Mediocrity

"Mediocrity, I discovered, was the great camouflage, the great protective colouring. Those boys who did not fail, yet did not excel, were left alone, free from the demands of the master who might wish to groom them for glory and of the school bully who might make them his scapegoat. That simple fact was the first great discovery of my life."

Alan Bradley, "The sweetness at the bottom of the pie".

Abovementioned quote to be used mercillessly during my two week army reservist stint. Ah, the pleasures and woes of wearing green.