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Tuesday 22 November 2016

Post

I haven't written in a while, but the circumstances are too perfect.
I want to write - something poetic, and maybe I'll give it a shot later, but right now I think I'm just going to let my thoughts flow as always, about the things I wanted to say out loud maybe, to someone, but I know, or feel that here it will be lost. Here nobody will get get me. And no not the Singaporeans either - actually, I don't really think I've met someone whom I've shared much with.

I guess as our lives progress people diverge - naturally of course, until it becomes so difficult to find someone who has gone through the exact circumstances you have. That's pretty deterministic, but also empirical in my opinion. When you have social interactions with someone else - or I guess to put it more bluntly/laymen/without dramatizing - when you talk to someone else, you try to find common ground. You try to build some consensus or understanding, But this is very difficult without similar experiences or knowledge. This is why commonalities - hobbies and beliefs are so important. But outside of those things, at my core - it is difficult to say. Maybe I don't know myself what I'm 'all about' - and when would I know I've finally met someone who could empathize with me proper.

Sometimes - no scratch that, a lot of the times - I feel like I understand Steele. I wouldn't know of course, and it'd be presumptuous to believe 'I know better' in a sense. Actually, a lot of times I feel, I get a sense that I know exactly how, or think I know how someone is feeling, or going through when 'I was younger' in a sense. Maybe this is the irony - that it is precisely the belief in your ability to empathize that makes people not. I'm sure Aaron would agree with this sentiment. And another paradox - what's the point of going through experiences, the number one priority I have, if it doesn't amount to some ability to empathize?

Initially, this post was meant to be about the election but I got tired of writing it. Or maybe, like everything else atm, it's about priorities - academics, social life, personal hobbies, blogging and others kind of in that order. I wanted to write my feelings about Trump's win, which in all honesty was very shocking to me. Of course I believed Nate Silver, and I guess I believed most people would be turned off by some off his rhetoric - probably not as much as some others might, but I thought a decent chance of independents swinging his way. Of course, this vote was not about the independents, and it's also not about social decline. America has not changed, in some of its fundamentals, is what I, is what LKY believed. I do not consider his voters racists, bigots, etc. even though some of my friends do. And this is a problem. It has alerted me to my difference not just in politics but everything really.

And 'what do I know', right? I'm not even American! This is true, but actually, is anyone 'American'?, Is my liberal born-and-raised-in-city friend 'American' enough to understand the thoughts of the working rural poor and vice versa? I'm pushing back here - I think there is value in 3rd party, outsider insight. Because of those problems that I recognize though, I've always found it hard to kind of take a stand on things I don't 'play a part in' per se.

Meat just came downstairs and we had a little chat about what I was doing... well I get back to my room now, after a really cool talk.

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