Rekindling…

At least for once, I didn’t really feel tired of life when I had my last mounting. That itself speaks volumes of my platoon life. At least I don’t feel begrudging about dreading duty. This profound positivity came at the right moment too — the new year. A fresh start (and it has to happen in camp too…but at least I could pin a memory to new  this year. I spent it with my friends and we watched fireworks going off at Marina Bay from the wharf) and renewal of hopes.

Of course I faced so much disappointments and jadedness. Admittedly this had been a little limiting. So much has changed over the course of days, with the vagaries of our  attitudes emotions, our expectations and twist in circumstances. And such is life. For one, recently, I’ve felt quite settled on a jolly light-hearted mood, veering towards happy-go-lucky. Amidst the drama that will never cease to be, somehow taking the backseat amongst all these have been the better choice, and being in the limelight when the time warrants us to.

I did look into my life in 2011 again. Knowing it wasn’t easy, it wasn’t all the bitter too.  I could do a lot better in attaining more of personal accomplishments though. Nevertheless, I attained something else that I have came to value unexpectedly.

Courage.

Mustering this wasn’t easy (and I mean acting in calculated courage and not spur of the moment bravados). No matter how virulent or venomous the circumstances may seem, no matter how much my self-consciousness peaks with the awareness of people talking, I amassed the willpower to go with guts. In many avenues actually: being able to express my sentiments, trumping over my ego to reconnect with someone I’ve been emotionally distanced, finding the gut to challenge the ‘dogma’, feeling unhindered by insecurities and being able to take criticism in my own stride and carry on, giving my fair share of my criticism towards the ones closest to me, and being able to pursue my best interests without interference of self-imposed skepticism, and it goes on…

The ability to embrace melancholia.

Sometimes its hard, but being able to tell myself that wallowing into sheer sadness isn’t wrong will be easy if I choose to go with the flow without over-analysing my emotions. Especially when I pinned so much hopes and the trajectory of my life didn’t go in my favour. Perhaps it is the effect of ego to repel my honest emotions and deem it as unnecessary and immature (due to irrationality of our raw emotions). Likewise, the ability to express my rage at the right moments. I realised while certain emotions should be wisely monitored, letting go may also be the best option. At least popular opinion was with me.

Still, I built walls. I hate to admit it. I tried to stop myself from doing so but it just happens.

And this is because of sheer fear. Admittedly, I was scared of falling in love  (again).  Because every such episodes, I belittle myself by calling myself foolish, being stupid and immersed in shame. I hate backlashes but there are certain things that are beyond any control unfortunately. So as much as I hate to admit it, I was numb to personal affection and the walls erected like a bionic automated machine. Of late, I was desperate to feel pain from love. That is how insulated I felt. Increasingly this hollow void becomes the innate reason for me to meet new people without shyness.  Perhaps from receiving love, I want so much of acceptance, adoration, affection —  the very sentiments I lack towards my own self.

Change has been good. Regardless whether it has been in my favour or not. It sweeps my life off the rut and stagnancy. As long I’ve exposed to more, I learn and grow.

It was indeed a nice way to usher in the new year.

A year.

2011 is yet another year. A number. It was not quite the life I expected to be in all honesty.

I specifically remembered the time I wanted to be in control of my life. Also, to regain the zeal of seeing the light of every dawn. The jollity of each forthcoming day. The subtlety of every midnight hours. Being able to sleep regular hours. Inadvertently, the more I wanted to be in control, the more out of control my life went. I lose sight of things but in some ways it wasn’t as damaging as I thought it would be. If it were that easy to let certain ideals and passion slip through me just like grains of sands through my fingers, perhaps it was worthed letting go after all.

And then, death. Seeing my mom crumble at the sight of my grandma onto her deathbed was quite a life-altering experience. I didn’t know whether my tears were of regrets or of sheer sadness. Watching death lingering around the corner wasn’t an easy experience. I had to handle the distance of being in camp. In some senses, this gave me this profound sense of hope. Through a resilience and awareness of the fragility of life that gnaws at every soul each day, we amass a courage that spurs the need to live life back to normalcy. I could tell it wasn’t easy for my mom but it means that it won’t be easy too seeing my mom go when I make it at her age.

There are episodes that reveals me as a character that I would despise myself. It sucks really, that certain events that would shape me as an adult are the very experiences that has damaged me inexplicably. Was this what people meant when I hold on too much to a some values I live by? I want to be in comfort of who I am, and in the comfort of how people feel at ease of who I am. Things weren’t as easy as I thought. I am not growing any younger. In my defense, I am less bitter than what I could have been. Very much, less. Too much I appear happy to conceal, but I believe, this was the more convenient alternative.

Of distances and spaces. Its not really sad if you are distanced to people who were once your confidante, your talk-cock kakis, and having to see who was once your secret-keeper moving to some other individual. Emotional distancing. This is a fact of life and honestly, its easy to re-patch if you know the means to (and do it like a mature individual while at it–afterall, you’ve shared the worst of times). What is really sad is the internal emotional distancing of myself. This is usually fazed by the worst choices I made. It’s really sad when you don’t identify how things makes you feel. What was once the core of my jollity has been rendered to spaces in parenthesis; sidelined and sometimes forgotten. Perhaps this is loneliness speaking, making everything inside me devoid of sensation.

Of late, she asked me this which made me doubt my personal affection towards her. “Do people fall in love or do people fall for the notion of being in love?” Is there really a dichotomy? Being devoid of it inadvertently spurs the heart to fill the void, telling the mind that we need (or want) to be in love. Why do we see the need  compartmentalize things? How could we investigate the genuity of love anyway when the thought of it only doubts the individual in question.

Of course, it wasn’t all bad this year. But the bad has made me feel sick of things. It made me a more scared soul behind all this facade. I want to return to life of normalcy, the ones that I’ve always been used to. But my mind is telling me its not worthed it. Again, is it worth going forth with things in life that would distance me from my usual self? Is it comfortable being someone new that you wouldn’t know?

A year it has been.

Transitions

Transitions
Fikri Iskandar

The lull of windy spaces,
assimilating time and
distance into nondescript entities.
Lush with memories and longing, solace taken in
these concrete corners, stale bunks and classrooms
bereft.

Footprints of the rain imprinted and smudged,
like identities
shifting in and out from
sheer remembrance and oblivion,
obsequious to the forces of shallow-moving time,
blurring away whats left behind and beyond..

I see my facsimile lingering around, in naive blithe
silly stares, and faces of sly smirks
sometimes, undaunted by inexplicable changes ahead
that is immutable. By unexamined sentiments amidst
the vagary of the virulent stirring in the backdrop. And you too,
were happy…relishing
in the sheer certainty
of this emphatic friendship.
The rain pours evermore heavier
before it fades away drizzling into a subtle dance
of gentleness we last seen.

Wrinkles and scars we don, for these little moments
that shapes us and of which we fond.
New dawn, new dusk. Shallow goodbyes. Like dandelions, we are
departing,
dispersing,
drifting into purple lands
settling

for a new lease of …

A poem written sometime early this year.

Caught offguard

My sleep cycle is screwed up.

But anyway chanced upon these photos. Miss those days….

Everyone’s grown up now.

Only when I imagine less…

I know people may look at me neurotic when I came to a conclusion that I may have over-romanticised my life in NS before I really got a real taste of it. 11 months into it.

Oh judge me.

 

I would really like to record down certain memories for posterity sake, especially the ugly ones, so that I could take a trail down memory lane and laugh at it and feeling amused by all this stupidity. I would have. After a while of thinking, I guess it is really not worth the pursuit.

Of discourse over ‘mirror neurons’

The following dialogue between Jian Wei and myself was a very interesting one over sms (yes, sms) given my very mundane mounting. I have nothing better to do than to post this for remembrance and novelty.

Anyway watching this may help understand some context in this debate.

Me: Btw, there is some theory that could possibly refute moral relativism…and this includes the presence of mirror neurons.

Jian Wei (JW): But even if we all have mirror neurons, that doesn’t mean that the neurons will give us all the same degree of moral feel. Just like how we all have pain receptors but people have varying degrees of pain tolerance. I suspect the mere presence of mirror neurons alone do not determine our sense of morality. So there might still be hope for moral relativism.

Me: I’m not saying that the essence of relativism is blanketed out on such grounds. At least it allows a glimmer of possibility that there are universal  truths that shouldn’t be bound by custom.. I.e. Killing the innocents are wrong. Albeit imposing judgments on customs is a different story as it reek of moral imperialism like the colonials in the past.

While people cannot experience the same degree of emphatic ability, the basic idea is that there is the perception of polarities.

JW: Hmm, even if our mirror neurons tell us something is wrong, does that really make it wrong?

Me:  The essential point is that it underwrites the ability to recognize what pleases or distresses others, what helps or harms them based upon deduction, a conclusion reached by tests all around the world. This means that the ultimate basis of moral judgment is hardwired and most likely universal, anomalies aside. This means that fundamental morality on human life is similar, despite customs.

–Heh, and then we experimented another intellectual discourse by shifting sides (or perhaps degree in the relativism-universalism continuum) –

Me: But my philosophical standing is one that agrees more with moral relativism though. I am just inspiring debate out of boredom….Sigh NS life =/

JW: I think I’m half-half. I feel that everybody’s opinion vary to varying extents for each of the many moral questions we face. There are consensus, but there are somehow deep disagreement for some.

Me: But your whole argument take the side of moral relativist, since it is precisely the view that there are no right and wrong, but rather what counts as such in each different society as determined by their paradigm.

Btw, watch the graphic lecture ‘The emphatic civilisation’ on youtube!!

JW: I was arguing that mirror neurons alone may not  determine our sense of morality. Perhaps for some issues the neurons give us the same feelings, hence moral consensus and perhaps sometimes our neurons give different polarities of feelings to different people, hence moral disagreement. I was really just disputing the role of mirror neurons and the assertion that having them allows us to reach the same moral conclusions. Moreover, moral dilemmas can confuse our mirror neurons, making it highly difficult to feel a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ out of them. Couple with the possible variations of moral sense that mirror neurons give to different people, we can reach different conclusions. But for simple moral questions like whether we should murder for fun, I think there’s almost animity for those.

But I don’t subscribe to pure relativism or universalism. I think the answer lies in between. Oh yes, I’m gonna eat dinner now; sorry if i don’t reply swiftly in the next half hour.

Me: Haha, But yours seems to inclines towards relativism on the basis of having no universal moral truths with a refinement made being that there are some fundamental moral claims that could be conclusive upon consensus. Just a clarification though, mirror neurons activates an emphatic experience and whether it feel its right or wrong is based upon rational judgement. Which is suggested in the term “mirror” – to reflect the same qualities (of experience). I think whether or not moral dilemmas confuse mirror neurons is tangential at this juncture.

In fact, while I am tempted to take your standing, i remain a traditional relativist (wow a new term) due to the fact that your standing gives more entitlement to moralise others while mine allows for communal morals to be protected by external axioms.

JW: I don’t believe in the idea of moral truths that exist independently of human beings (i.e. if there are no human beings around, I don’t think there can be such a  thing as morality.) But I believe that there can be some universal moral claims that are widely shared, and which are as much of a truth as medical knowledge  (which, similarly cannot exist independently of humans). Anyway, the idea that our mirror neurons might differ in moral opinions is a possible explanation, albeit a speculative one; for why we might differ in moral opinions even with mirror neurons (much like how we can get distracted from a feeling whereas some don’t even when we share the same sensory neurons). So its not simply tangential; its crucial.

But I concede that independent moral truths can exist in the indirect sense that even without human beings, the laws of nature dictate if there are to be creatures that are just humans, with mirror neurons, they will share some universal moral views.

Me: I can concede to the inconclusive yet plausible link between varied sensory thresholds thereby differ moral perception. But I didn’t say that morality exists independently of humans; rather I would not like to allow others to impose their moral reasoning in my life against my own.

This is the problem of a moral universal claim. It is based upon collective axioms and should not be dealt on the same standards as scientific facts which is bound to falsification by scientific hypothetical investigation and processes. Thereby truth of medical knowledge has to be dealt in another realm.

JW: Hmm, ok fair enough on that point.

Me: Haha, yeah so wassup in your life…[...]

YES, upon hindsight, this is a very weird and long-winded conversational starter that tries to ease into a conversation about our daily affairs =/

Imagine the bills I accumulated just for this over SMS.

Rant.

“Happy. Confident. Not afraid of anything. That guy was you before this year”

These are the silent mumblings of my mind for the past few days. It reminded me who I was and this somewhat reminded me of the spirit the way I live my life. Carpe Diem. Seize the day. I had a zest for life, for friends and all the people around me. I would walk down the classrooms beaming with sheer confidence and full of excitement; no matter whether it was the exams or just an ordinary day in school. Sure I had my stressful days and being sick but there were people to reassure me. I never really absorb myself in self-pity and there was no legitimate reason to. I never understood why people immerse themselves in misery where there is more to life than that.

I know I should not look back to see the person I was just because its familiar and comforting given that the circumstances has changed. Furthermore, I think that the excuse of “This is just NS” is a really bad one. It has been a while since I’m feeling really close and comfortable with people. If I could remember taking the personality test 2 months ago, perhaps I am really an introvert. A huge contrast to my extroverted-ness last year; and it was of no exaggeration when I mean I was too full of myself that could strike a few nerves.

I hate to see myself in this state. I’ve assumed this weird quiet personality. I should allow myself to express myself more without fear that what I may say may sound awkward. I should feel less self-conscious. I should stop feeling repressed and even self-repressed.  I don’t care sounding smart again, even if it means having other’s feeling put down and inferior (cause honestly  – thats their problem — even if they play the “jc/poly” card). Their innate parochialism of polarising individuals into dichotomous caricatures of JC vs. Poly is in bad taste. Compartmentalizing people only serves to hinder you from getting to know people better, duh. As I don’t have to change my nature just to suit to other’s pleasure, I live for myself. Why did I limit and shortchange myself sometimes? It’s so stupid.

Mortified.

By how I look back then, in 2007.

Because I cannot say it any simpler.

Reblogged via @becktan
Swaggering to Hide a Limp

Some people swagger to hide a limp;
Some speak loudly because they are afraid of silence or of what others might say;
Some make fun of how others look to get over their insecurity over their physical appearances;
Some are the life of the party because they don’t want to be seen as a loner;
Some are “players” because they need to know that they are needed;
Some always intellectualize issues to avoid getting emotional about them;
Some are constantly discussing others and their lives so as to avoid conversations about themselves.

Superiority complexes are often symptoms of a deep-seated inferiority complex.