Just tired

I'm just tired. My brain is mush. Like thoughts and feelings flowing through with no rhyme or reason and it's hard for me to grasp. Perhaps a feeling of being overwhelmed, constantly rushing or feeling urgency. Some of it is made up, klishta and caffeine don't mix. I just want to be carried away, in soundless sleep, like during the liminal space of Christmas to New Year's. I want peace and quiet, but it's awkward and guilty, I wish someone understood and gave me a signal of whether it's normal. I feel the ruthlessness of tedium and everyday. I want to keep promises but the only thing I can sacrifice is my time and energy and attention. I'm addicted to this spiral of negativity but all I receive is awkward looks of helplessness and I get that. I want to watch a movie of struggle for a role model, is that sickening?

I wish she would understand her own American-ness, but how can I fault someone for being their own nationality in ignorance? It is like asking how they know the words they know go together. Or perhaps it is from my own narrow view and lack of sample size that I project stereotypes. But that makes it worse if there is no reason, just idiosyncrasy. How can I carry on with my choices if I'm in it alone? Sometimes there are so many small things, paper cuts, that it seems her preferences are far away. Sometimes it feels like we trend further and further away, and our history is looked back with new and darker lenses rather rose tinted. 

Change is the Only Constant II

"You're not a loser. You know what a loser is? A real loser is somebody that's so afraid of not winning, they don't even try." A quote from Little Miss Sunshine, which I have never watched.

I'm home early from work. Many of my coworkers did the same. Our manager is going on maternity leave, but also, quite suddenly, leaving the company. Many saw her as the primary reason for staying. To me it is another good person who has left, while I have not. I am afraid. I have always been afraid. I have been afraid of too much.

"You put your hat in the ring at a time of great uncertainty. I sincerely respect that." A quote from a colleague, whom I respect greatly for being who they are. 

I was afraid when I "put my hat in the ring", but at least not afraid enough to do it in the first place. I felt compelled, and I recognize it was an emotional "fuck it" decision, even though at the same time, somebody put the idea to me as "why not" once before, so I did consider it before. I can still be afraid, but I should stop thinking I'm a loser. I should stop thinking that others must say it for me to feel it. I should stop feeling like confidence is arrogance and shameful. I should learn to take Ls and live life. This is water. I should stop letting imperfect conditions be excuses. I should stop being afraid of judgement. I should stop being afraid of responsibility. Maybe the reason I don't take charge without explicitly being called to do it is because then I can blame others for the choice, but even when you are being asked to take charge, you should take the blame anyway. It is not fair, it is right.

I cannot shake the feeling that others are not telling the truth out of polite-ness, but I recognize that thinking this way is a form of bias too. Some of it comes from this idea of a "compliment sandwich", which at this point I believe it counter-productive, in a Goodhart's law kind of way. Since everybody knows about it, or at the minimum the more people know it, the less authentic the whole sandwich seems, because you wonder if the template is being filled out in a forced manner. One cannot boil down good and bad things always into neat slices of 2 to 1. But still, if the only "truth" I seek or believe are negative, that's all I will ever "hear" or accept.

Have some work to get back to. I'll think and process more later.

Heaven and Hell

I remember distinctly seeing a Buddhist depiction of heaven and hell in samsara. The idea being that nothing is final, you just go through cycles of heaven, earth, and hell. Escaping the cycle of suffering is the goal, i.e. achieving nirvana, and realizing you are in that cycle. It struck me as an interesting ancient metaphor that basically you go through life, and the high pleasant, pleasurable, happy moments are what sets you up to go back down to earth and into hell as well.

I feel... bad, like lonely? Helpless? Left out, not being told what's going on, on purpose? Ostracized, maybe that's the word, like I cannot shake the feeling that people are talking behind my back, negatively, because I've seen that done to others, and it hurts. I think logically, this may or may not be happening, but the feeling is really strong, and I only see signs when the feeling is strong. This is mostly coming from the a work communications problem on one particular project, that has become a lightning rod of my negativity at work and everything wrong that is going on with it. I want so badly to fix it, but I'm not sure if people will let me, and I'm not even sure what needs fixing. And of course it's all predicated on assumptions, as if I'm seeking the negative validation. Like if someone told me "you're right we were ignoring you and trying to get you off the project this whole time", somehow this would be better for closure reasons, even though it may be that there is nothing wrong and there is only a couple of original sins of miscommunication. I wish there was someone to hear me out on this. 

I saw a Dr K video that suggested that people who double down when things are bad, which is me often, is not a good thing when it comes to toxic situations you honestly should just get out of. I'm not sure if I'm in this scenario right now, but I feel like I need to see this through, and the only way it's not painful is if I show how good I can be, but that ... feels wrong too, like all I'm seeking is some personal validation... I wonder if it's something I just need to work on, a symptom of people pleasing. I can't please everyone, sometimes, and sometimes it's even people you like... Maybe I have not accepted that. And maybe I have not accepted that sometimes it really isn't you. They're going through something, or perhaps some actions you take, that seem so insignificant to you, are just perceived in a much more significant way by others.

Another video I watched was about klishta, the "coloring" of what we perceive, based on inner thoughts, which mean that we do not perceive reality. I think it's really helpful to just have the word for it, even though I know it to be true even without watching that video.

The things I must give up and or accept, in order to get through what is ultimately, perhaps in many years, not a big deal, and not to learn the wrong things.

1. I may not be promoted, perhaps for a long time, and that is OK. 

2. It may not even be fair or just, and that is also OK.

3. Others may judge you, poorly, and their approval is not in your control, and you may exhaust too much in trying to get it. This also does not mean they are bad or wrong.

4. People may not be communicative, and sometimes that is that, there is no need to add or assume ill intent

5. It is somewhat mid-west/American culture to be nice/polite, e.g. doing compliment sandwiches, and this does not mean you should overcompensate by immediately assuming people are lying, sometimes, maybe even most of the time, they are genuine, and the saying of the thing makes it genuine

6. You should do you best, not to please others, but because you value doing your best.

I want a good cry, and I want a good friend.

Processing Emotions

Dr. K put out a video talking about how to process your emotions. It's so funny that I've never heard somebody actually teach me this (or anyone) before, though I understand it's a sort of western (I'd just say more science-y type of approach to life) thing, and many cultures, religions, philosophies simply have a different way of saying it or dealing with the same subject. In any case, I want to give it a go, the basics at least. In the video he says the two basic things you need to do is :1. to let it come up, let it out, but not just in a 'talk about it way', just feel it, and then  2. ask two questions - what is it trying to tell you, and what is it trying to get you to do. The concept behind this is a bit like thinking fast and slow's system 1 and 2 thinking - emotions are an instinctive, intuitive, information - and we want to process them by activating conscious reflection. In doing so, we feel it, consider the lesson, and let it go, rather than keeping it dormant and reprogramming our behavior, as in developing an emotional response habit to situations.

I felt ashamed the in the last week, amongst a mixture of other emotions. I'm not sure how to describe shame, but I guess it told me that I had some expectations upon me, that I knew, and that I did not live up to. My colleagues and Chris have told me I shouldn't feel it in this case but I do. I understand what they mean though, they think that the expectations I'm having are perhaps erroneous. But what are they? I feel like perhaps I do deserve to be promoted, but also that I did not, was not, at my best, and I expect myself to always be at my best (not the same as being perfect, which is not entirely in your control). The shame compels me to "prove myself" back. Repent through doubling down. Funnily, Dr K just had a video on high-functioning depression - which I don't think I have to be clear - and mentions this is a common pattern called "sublimation" - where instead of changing the maybe non-conducive environment, the person doubles down because "they are not a quitter" but it doesn't work long-term, generally speaking people will at some point sink with the ship that's taking on water. The action needs to be on patching the ship, the inflow cannot be negative.

I've ended up talking with people I don't usually talk to today, and so I'm truncating this processing session at just the shame I felt today. Let's see how it goes again, I'm glad to have done it in any case.

Childish Energy

I was looking for a word or way to describe how I felt today. Me and my co-worker have been using "vengeful", but today I think it went a bit further than that, and it was layered with other things. I decided it would bring me comfort to write them out instead, as Mr Chow whispers it to Angkor Wat at the end of In the Mood for Love.

The feeling reminds me of the story of an Italian man doing a semi-Forrest Gump after having an argument with his wife and walking 450 km (and semi-funnily/cynically, getting fined for breaching a Coronavirus curfew). I don't know exactly how he must have felt, but I would think he was filled with the sort of energy or feelings that I had today.

I also thought of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a movie I haven't actually seen, but as I understand it is just some kid who skips class and decides to take an adventure around Chicago. He might have been motivated by more childish feelings, but in a way I was also motivated by that too.

It made me think of how disgraceful being "childish" is seen, and yet petulance, being a "hater", being fueled by spite and pettiness, is, when I think about it, one of the purest forms of motivation in a time when it seems like people often lose steam, burn-out, lose will, etc. I liked that in Inside Out, anger was shown in some scenes to be a fueling force behind taking action, for me, this is childish energy.

Ye, I was feeling "childish" today - I worked late the past 2 weeks, and while I think they were useful and "necessary" perhaps - it was not satisfying. A coincidence that the evening after the work was presented, I read a reddit post asking what things are over-romanticized, and the literal top post was over-working. It went something like "nobody's going to clap for you, you'll just get another email". I didn't feel like I was supported well, or listened to, or seen, in the process, perhaps.

Opening the mini-Zen garden also made me consider whether I was falling victim to a common male pattern of externalizing my problems and resolving them that way too. I do a healthy amount of escapism through games and media, and today I went more "extra" by "reclaiming" the 16 hours I lost doing unpaid overtime essentially. I had left the office an hour earlier than usual last week and today I went a bit further by A. not drinking any caffeine - as I decided to do my no coffee day on a work day where I knew what I had to accomplish was more brainless, B. leaving early to go see a movie and C. not related to work per se but about externalizing my issues - getting some ice cream - I might add, the same flavor that me and Chris had gotten a few days ago, but she conveniently ate all of it even though I thought we were sharing it. I suppose this reminded me most of the Italian man who decided to be extra instead of confronting their partner - I'm just that tired maybe, or more true for me, don't like burdening others with an emotional binge of sorts - it's neither helpful nor healthy for anybody.

Slight tangent - I've come to appreciate Worst Person in the World a bit more, in that the film does portray someone I actually do not have much sympathy for/I actively despite, since I value loyalty and consequently hate infidelity - but I suppose the film would not have worked if they chose something only lukewarm and not an actual unpopular opinion. In a way I also do petulant, unsavory, childish things - my life is great, but dumb, sometimes 1st world problems or injustice convinces me that you know what, sometimes nobody is going to look out for you, and that I should not be entitled and expect it in the first place - you have some power to just quietly look out for yourself.

So that was me today, just self-caring a little because nobody else was, and that's OK. I went and saw Superman, and I cried a little at different parts of the movie. I've always thought Superman was a boring character, but this movie has convinced me otherwise. People are saying it's because the director Gunn understands the character, and I think they're right. I think that his vision and understanding of the character, as well as the actor who plays him - felt earnest and got to me in a corny way. In an interview he did with BBC1's Ali Plumb - David Corenswet talks about what defines his understanding of the character, and he says that Superman is contradictory - his upbringing and life is actually great in a lot of ways, and he doesn't have the tragic backstory (or at least, the destruction of Krypton is not the same as seeing your parents murdered in "crime alley"), but he is lonely. He's still an alien, who feels human, and chooses to walk and live amongst us as Clark too, but sometimes is reminded he is an alien by others, but he earnestly wants to be good, and kind, and protect others because he does see the good in everyone (which in the DCAU this role is more taken by the Flash perhaps). Watch the interview, he states it more eloquently than I. Or as the movie puts it as well, in a corny way no doubt, and almost embracing it - maybe it (kindness, and seeing the best in others) is punk rock. 

The show also reminded me that aside from petulance, the "childish energy" I have, which motivates a lot of what I do personally, even if I think and opine differently at the level of society or country, is very "childish". I try my best not to break the simplest of rules in a lawful good kind of way, and I find myself thinking and admiring still the "shonen" type heroes like Naruto, and ye, this version of Superman too. I think something really has been lost with all the intellectual nuance and "well this and that complicates this".  We often think of these simple values as perhaps "missing the point/reality of the situation", making excuses of pragmatism or "but how will people see this/take it" - and I am 200% guilty of falling into this trap of mistaking complication for intellect/experience. I certainly think the US's Democratic Party has lost the plot through the opposite - political-sciencing their message - test audiencing/making things palatable and messaging, has become the prime focus instead of the message and content itself - just put yourself out there, with an honest re-telling of what you're about and you're focus, and let those things come later, and letting the voters discern and choose. 

But I digress, so ends this short day, time to patch the temple with mud.

I looked at the boat on my blog

And wondered why I feel something for it. I wondered if I really liked that kind of idyllic lifestyle, when often I don't feel enthused to do similar activities right now. Then I came to realize it's the setting that enables the lifestyle I want - being able to literally sit on a boat for a few hours with no consequences or responsibilities after. I might just be that tired on no-caffeine-days after having to return to work for 5 days a week and continuing to do most of the weekend chores and finally working on my final language of the 6 UN languages (العربية). Often I feel better after having ate - so maybe these are the beginnings of the dreaded sugar-ed up American diet. Speaking of which, I sometimes feel trapped by my situation - in some sense by who I've decided to love and where I've decided to make a living. But because I've decided I cannot be trapped. Anyway, the country is pretty fucked, always has been but more so now, and not directionally so too, it seems. Let's just eat and stop being hangry/hungemotional. 

Feeling fast and slow

I move slow and steady, but I feel like a waterfall. I move slow and steady, past the ones that I used to know.

I decided to stay here for Thanksgiving, having declined and offer to join Chris in NC with her family and (new) extended family. I'm glad I did, I was very tired and didn't have the energy I think to first of all socialize, but second of all adapt culturally to a family that is 3 degrees of separation away from me. I'm not sure, visualizing myself in that space, if I could stomach the loneliness, ironically, more than being alone.

I was annoyed this morning because I thought about using my phone since I was pretty productive past 3 weeks and Chris woke up and immediately told me using my phone in bed is bad and that she just learnt that. I was annoyed because we literally talked about this before, me sharing Dr K's insights about the subject, and it seems like she either forgot, doesn't care to remember, or didn't listen. Not the first time, and very frustrating. Maybe sometimes I should just ask her what we just talked about like yesterday to see if she's listening. That's toxic though, but I also am feeling pretty helpless, as if I'm talking to a bot that only responds in the moment and with a lot in platitudes, a bit like Jacob maybe. I suppose my mind is implicitly comparing to other people to whom A. don't live with me and maybe it's easier to remember rarer interactions, B. are smarter, as in my colleagues, and C. I am not as emotionally invested in if they don't listen. I was frustrated too at myself of course, because in some ways I consider it a bit of a weakness to give in to cravings too easily, and I judge Chris for it a lot. In a way it's like hearing a smoker tell you not to smoke, but in that scenario the smoker 100% knows the are addicted to smoking, and in this scenario Chris always has an excuse for her own habits, then later regrets not being productive as if they were not correlated. Question is should I care? I do it automatically, but should I dis-associate from that outcome?

I sometimes reflect that a lot of my instinctual reactions for better or worse are still tied to saving face, imposter syndrome, or the metaphorical inside-out 2 "anxiety" in my head.

Now perhaps on to processing the main impetus. There is great churn in my workplace. Most meaningfully two of my longest running managers whom have been really great and that I've built rapport with.  I'm blessed I'm still there and that my staying team members trusts and values me still. I look back with a lot of nostalgia and confusion. There was a certain level of startup-intimacy in the team, but the team is much larger than 2 pizzas now. I feel a lot of things. Like a turtle and everyone else are hares. Like a sailor on the ship of Theseus. Like the youngest and the oldest. Like a foreigner in a foreign land to which I still do not embrace outside of practicality. I've thought much also about the role models in my life and why I now go about life the way that I do, including the larger and life figures of fiction and non-fiction. I feel tired of being annoyed. Let the uncertainty come, I'll handle it.

I gave some thought to why I like Singlish. I am sure to some extent this is true of other native languages and accents too, except I cannot imagine it for Americans except for certain (minority group) vernacular. I can only describe it through feeling and characteristics. It's a feeling of authenticity. When Singaporeans complain, or use slang, it makes even corny messages feel sincere. Or maybe it's because I feel the opposite with other kinds of English. There's a certain amount of camaraderie, maybe from not being in Singapore together that is already shared the moment you speak it outside of Singapore. But it's almost as if, I were allowed to say things plainly and straight-forwardly, or maybe it's the special end-phrase intonation/signifiers that add "word emojis" to each sentence, something that modern internet memes have caught up to, to some degree.

Tired

 A few weeks of hectic work, culminating in a lost weekend before a long one.

I gave up, decided to abandon the plan. Nobody seems to be following mine anyway. Communication hard, feel lonely as a result. Prefer speak less word like office gag. Hard for people understand me, seems to be happening much more than usual, wish did not have to learn to communicate better for others. Miss Singaporeans. Miss Victorians. Is it not rose-tinted nostalgia for simpler times? Miss book, kind of need a new one, maybe non-fiction. Burnt out, probably, but usually recover after a few weeks of "vengeful" slacking and me-time. Hard to find me-time, hard to say no, feel like people will misunderstand, but maybe because I misunderstand and project. Want to be outside, but quiet, and things I like. Mostly want to travel, but quietly, almost. Like visiting a global library, with some limited, but courteous attempts at learning the language of others'. Maybe need recognition, for effort, but effort silent. Want to nap, but still have work. Am tired, boss.

Feels like people paying attention to different things, and I'm left paying attention to things alone, maybe pay too much attention. Then people question when did not take responsibility. How liddat? I want to curse, in Singlish though. Like when I do US taxes or Visa things, burden.

Learned a meditation from Dr. K for sleeping. Ends in bed feeling that you have a right to sleep and be comfortable. I've always had that in my head, in different things. IEHAC is comfy, all SG music is, I guess. I've also had this image of Fern (adventure time), "dying", of him disintegrating and flowing away as grass in the wind. It's comforting hearing the sound in my head, it reminds me of breaks in the army out in the field.

Sometimes I just want quiet, but I don't know how to ask for it, and not seem angry or needy. But that may just be self-fulfilling. 

No Coffee

I'm not sure if I've ever talked about this on my blog before. I must have, even though the habit, the routine, became much more solidified recently then in the past when my blog was more active.

I enjoy many things less without coffee and I think by definition that makes me dependent. Part of why I do no coffee days is to make sure I continue to exercise that disciplinary muscle of continuing to function without coffee, and also find things I enjoy doing without it. I've neglected the latter and for a time simply dumped all my chores onto the no coffee day since they don't require all that much brain power and being caffeinated doesn't help with them at best, and at worst makes me do them impatiently and haphazardly. In theory. In practice I do function slightly better even doing menial chores. Though part of it is also that there build up some amount of fatigue over the week that is pushed entirely to no coffee day as a result. Today as I truly reflected on my frustrations I realized it's simply not good. The source was that I was "running out of coffee time" to play Age of Empires since I don' play or even feel like playing games on no coffee day - if today had been no coffee day it would have been great tbh. It probably started with the expectation inertia to drink coffee for board game day at Joe's which ended up not happening, then that transitioning into a close to 8 hour day outside going to and fro and spending time at a mall deep in the suburbs. I guess it really should be a rule of thumbt hat I tell Chris I expect to be home by 6 or something in the future and that I should not be afraid to set my gaming recreation time more concretely.

I've also recently thought more about the energy I spend passively. Deviations from routine, negative emotions - I'm not sure if it's the same kind of energy, but I probably spend some energy redirecting my efforts, replanning my day, or getting over emotions without processing them later as Dr K might put it. But how do you process? If I think about it, I feel like I already know the ways I've done it before - blogging. For one. "Solo" adventures - another. I remember distinctly once in command school, where I cleaned the bathroom and listened to Paramore, doing nothing else while others spent their free night's out, well - out. That's another then (and probably more than the bathroom) - the music. The same, good old stuff. Maybe there's research on this, but I've basically locked in some of the music I always turn back to, nostalgia wise. I'm not sure if more will ever be added. Maybe, in a different way. Maybe it's harking back to times and emotions that become less and less frequent. Dr. K too, I think, is how I process - maybe that's why it's relaxing to hear him, but also dangerously engrossing if I do it at work, I guess. 

Other things. I'm thinking about my inner voices. No, not some psycho shit. I just mean how does your inner voice sound like and does it change? Mine does, I think, to some degree. If it were a transformer model for language, almost like a hidden layer of meaning separate from attention, long context, the word itself, etc. It's like long-tone or something, Some of it today is Grubby or Dr. K-like in language. I'm reminded of how I sound blogging here. In Singapore, sometimes, I would feel ashamed. Because it sounded like my "elitist" voice - the kind of English I hear and sound absent Singlish, and I was afraid I was a stereotype, that this was really me, and I was ashamed. Am I today? No - in some ways, I think I've accepted it. I've missed stream of conscious-ing. I've missed selfish-ly taking up space, standing on my soapbox about inner-psychology and musing like a teenager who read one book by Nietzsche. 

Why am I bothered?

Sometimes, I'm bothered, and it's hard to talk about it with Chris as I'm not sure how I would word it non-abstractly, and I sense a tension when I talk about relationship things with her. I am in constant fear she would take it the wrong way or in a negative light. Maybe I lack trust about how much she trusts the core strength of us. Like I'm not sure if she has truly inherited that any issues are for us to work together on, and not meant to be blamed on anyone in particular. Maybe I've been tanking for too long. I will talk to her about it.

Writing

I found this in draft mode still from May 2021, I'm just publishing it yolo style now without reading to check if it's fine. 

"Writing is easy. All you have to do is to cross out the wrong words." - Mark Twain

The quote I actually learned through Civ 6.

---

I've been meaning to write. In my so-far fairly stable period of thoughts and life, the contentment that pseudo-Buddhist philosophy has brought has been laid bare at times when I've felt provoked and quick to anger. I wrote down the topics which have done this. And I finally feel compelled to write.

I suggested Joseph try it to, though I don't know if he'll take it up. Maybe it is only for some people. He has had his own thoughts, and I think they are worth writing down for himself.

There are certain things that I'm afraid of, and they are unconventional. I feel the fear that maybe someone else from a less wealthy family may fear, and maybe it is a fear that is tied to the same philosophy. I think sometimes that maybe my father feared this too, and for the most part chose to ignore it. These are all I think, interrelated fears, but since I've listed them down on my phone separately I'll also write about them separately.

-- 

Fear 1: Thriftiness and Credit scores

All children eventually grow up to understand that their parents are flawed human beings as well.

I grew up taught by my mother to be cheapskate about many many things. In fact, I think I felt (note that in truth I don't even know if it mattered to her) like she was proud of me for spending the least amongst my brothers and living frugally. Till this day, variants of my spending habits translate comfortably to also being generally less wasteful and more eco-friendly. But the truth is I expend a lot of energy into things that probably do not translate, in real dollars, to as much savings as if I cared about "bigger" picture things like how I handle my personal finances or take advantage of deals. I am aware of my own stubbornness. And in fact in writing this I've come to realize what I've learned from my mother basically are all the things that also coincide with two virtues I value which are to live simply and to be at less wasteful, while passing up all the "auntie" street smart things like getting onto as many credit cards as she does, and opening up accounts in many places to get as many discounts and what not. She clearly does both, and for some reason I value one and disdain the other. Maybe these traits are a marriage of my mother's saving habits, and fathers' simple living. It's time I get on a credit card.

Fear 2: Immigration

I've also worded this to Christelle once. I think that I fear a lot of opportunities presented to me because I assume they are not for me, or because I'm unsure if I will lose something in translation. It may not be easy for someone to understand, especially because I speak great English, but there is a primeval fear associated with disassociating from your culture. It is maybe the same fear you might expect a first generation college student would experience, because the young person has to lean their way into the dark, without parental experience. That feeling can be generalized to immigrants that may not be able to rely upon an established community presence like mine. I feel neither here nor there, a common occurrence I'm aware, and fear I'm equipped neither here nor there with the intuition to navigate new situations. It is almost a curse that I manage such a natural American accent, because it arms others around me with expectations of me, outside their control. Yet it might also be my fear of being patronized that I know absolutely nothing, or weird stereotypes of foreigners I'm trying to avoid, that keeps me from seeking help with simple "I'm not from here" statements. It's time I wilt the pride.

Fear 3: Finance

The excuse I've given myself for a time being is... yet I also know there are some unresolved tensions between what I know to be "good for me" and what I value personally as powerful motivators.

Fear 4: Future

In Coach Carter, one of the basketball players recites a poem that it is not our inadequacy that we fear but the opposite, of our own capability. Though I don't recall exactly the lines and could be misinterpreting entirely (especially as it later goes on to talk about how we should let our own lights shine to inspire others to do so as well), that line could read something about fearing we will not achieve our full potential. It certainly scares me. At this point I'm infatuated with being perfectly mediocre (knowing fully that on average in society I am doing well), but knowing it is possible for me, given life circumstances, to achieve more. Of course, there are all the sort of speculation that one never truly knows, which is why I always aim to do "slightly above average". I know that if I buckle down and stress about it now, I can set my own path. I also know I can be happy in many circumstances and don't need to stress about trying too hard. But it has often left me at an impasse between trying hard and not trying too hard.

Fear 5: My family, culture, and Christelle

Recently I reacted negatively to Chris's enthusiastic offer of help to my elder brother. This would not be the first time I react strongly and badly to Chris's enthusiasm for some subject. It's about time I sat down to really think about what that's all about. On the surface, I can honestly say it is cynical distrust. There's no way around it and no point in being euphemistic. What are the root causes and are they rational? Can I change or compromise? I can't help but remember the "curse" my history teacher Mr. Khoo told the class he was bestowing, and the irony that I probably have not strongly questioned his wisdom which is to question things. It's a simple precept which is the opposite of the presumption of innocence, which is not to commit to believing until evidence is provided. But I know aside from that I  know most people base their suspicions on their culture and personal experience. It's simply intuition whether right or wrong, personally justified. So when Chris shares her personal family stories with me, I believe them in my head, but I have not accepted them in my heart. This is obviously extremely hurtful to anybody who is sharing a personal story only to be disbelieved. But in my heart, it's simply principle and again, culture and personal experience. I do not come from a family with such a fantastical background. My family were simply immigrants - sure, my grandparents were fleeing the cultural revolution in part, but so have many others - worked largely within the system, and are for the most part, ethnically Chinese. Chris, and here maybe comes some partly American interest in genealogy, or maybe it was just my parents who simply don't find it imperative to share, has English nobility in his ancestry. And not just - she also has indigenous ancestry. I have never met anyone with this kind of background - or else they have never shared - so the matter-of-fact way she talks about it makes it even more incredulous - does she even know how rare and uncommon this is? Or maybe it is not uncommon in the US (for example, some of the slave-owning founding fathers, who likely sexually assaulted their slaves, have large family trees over the generations), or maybe I am unaware of how uncommon it is? Another piece of personal background, perhaps even more contentious was about a mural and painting that her family owned, stolen out of war and with incredible injustice, claimed by someone else as theirs. Perhaps I should not be surprised - injustice like this is apparently well documented in the US, however incredible it may seem today, and still occurs, though maybe more blatantly in the past. But then my history lessons (with Mr. Khoo) kicked in, and it tells me that I should not trust sources that could be biased.

An aside - there is another area in which I am to relax what I try to apply as standard skepticism across the board that I think I have yet to truly grasp intuitively, which is that we should always trust sexual assault victims. At first this was hard (because why should we believe someone without knowing the full story or evidence?) but in actuality the bias is against them, and so on the flipside this made it easier to accept this tenet (because the fact that they are claiming this, when there is bias against them not to do so societally, makes it more likely it is true).

So is it the same case here? I am not sure. Maybe from experience, Chris has never found it difficult to get people to believe her, or maybe it's the opposite and it's because she trusts me - making my skepticism more disgraceful. The fundamental problem is that it conflicts with one of my values - which is to treat everyone equally, even my SO. This means if a stranger or acquaintance were to tell me the same thing - I would not immediately believe them either. Yet I think she expects me to - because I'm her boyfriend? Or because she thinks it's normal for people to trust immediately? What is an average level of skepticism in America? Is it different from Singaporeans?

Here comes the more irrational parts. Part of my distrust comes from behavior I tend to associate with people who should be distrusted - but are they really correlated? For example, Chris likes to talk about her dreams. That's fine - but sometimes I get a sense that she believes they have some greater meaning (the latest science gives a pretty clear no) - or is it that she just finds them fascinating? Maybe it is me that just finds them not fascinating because they are so random and ultimately meaningless? To be fair, Chris finds many things meaningful where I do not (and vice versa sometimes), and I feel like I am disappointing or a mood-killer when I do not share the same enthusiasm. In fact it is a skill I think I should learn - which is to find joy and fascination in many many more things - which seems to come naturally to her. My mind on the other hand has been acclimatized to optimize and remove distractions - and things that she finds interesting, I sometimes find distracting from bigger picture things. So comes my own cognitive dissonance - I respect and admire valuing simply things, and am beginning to disdain "big picture" type people - yet I don't do it myself! Fuck me. Another thing I'm uncertain on is Chris's generally disorganization in some areas, and complete organization in others. I think some article said this was a sign of very smart people - hmm. Chris "gives me the impression" of someone who believes everything on the internet - but this is certainly and patently untrue. In fact she has probably whipped my own intellectual laziness quite a bit in terms of fact checking. One area in which I find difficulty is that she likes talking about news that are essentially still rumors - and she knows this, so why talk about it? - is what I find hard to understand. Maybe it's because I have given up myself - I don't like "following" news until they are certain, I think it's clickbait.

So back to the impetus for this section of the post - my reaction to her wanting to help my brother. This subject might be one of the grayer ones too. It's about culture. Essentially Chris sometimes gives me the impression that she doesn't understand, doesn't get, or doesn't care that I'm foreign - and this is not a bad thing, generally speaking! For one, I am familiar enough with American culture and perform my own automatic-translations (literally, in the case of Fahrenheit to Celsius). 

One common stereotyping of Americans that Europeans and Asians share afaik is that Americans often fail to see how "American" they are, or that they presume certain commonalities across cultures that are simply false. This can be very irritating to foreigners, in foreign places, though obviously that's not unreasonable in the US aside from stressing immigrants out sometimes. To be fair, for Americans it might be both easy and difficult to understand or perceive these differences. Then comes a problem that is probably universal - people mistake what are individual characteristics as cultural phenomenon. Surely I am guilty of this. For one, I've come to the realization, too late at times, that when I talk to my elder brother, the discussion we have or jokes we make kind of exists in its own culture and understanding that does not translate, at least for my brother, to his other interactions. I guess I just assumed I was always talking to the same and true person - I was, but that wasn't the whole picture. Unlike me (or perhaps just like me), he keeps his mannerisms separate. Why is this relevant? Because we often make fun of Americans or other non-Singaporean places for various reasons. And so when Chris offered to talk to him directly, I was afraid some of her mannerisms would not be taken or understood well by my brother, who has not had the same experience as me in the US. But on introspection I realize this is not true, and that he may very well be keeping the jokes between us or perhaps he healthily chooses to keep an open mind anyway even if he has some underlying prejudices.

Where content ends

She finally replied, essentially asking for space. I guess at least I'm not tone deaf to the point that I can't tell. It really reminds me of the time I upset my sister in law. I'm at a loss... I've been known to be callous, and always I've scaled back, but not in a very refined way. This one hurts so much because I know it's my fault, just like all the other times I've hurt other people... And all those other times I took responsibility too, and I really did try to change, but it still eludes me, I go back like a drunk to the bottle. I don't understand people, or I'm narcissistic. I envy other people to which it comes easily, but I'm wondering if it was a trade off somewhere. Maybe they experienced some pain in the same way. I read a reddit post saying people who think they're sociopaths because they lack empathy are actually attention seeking losers, literally after this morning when I posted my thoughts on it. I hope she gives me another chance, but even when she does, I wouldn't know what to do. I'll have to ask and hope she doesn't give me the cold shoulder. I don't know who else to ask, if I'm completely honest. I don't have a close confidant that could help me in this regard, especially. I don't know how to be gentle, or worse, I don't understand why I need to be, naturally. I'm wondering how all the callous comedians get by, or are those simply acts.

I'm wondering too, the irony that sticking to this pseudo-Buddhist mentality has actually done the opposite for me, in that I've lost the ability to introspect because I'm so blissful in the moment at times. Or is it age, that I've gone through the phase of. I really don't know.

Who are my confidants and good friends? I would surely point to my Singaporean friends. Maybe I should talk to them. I'm feeling sick and out of it. I know I love her because it hurts.

Thinking about thinking

I woke up today thinking. It's been a long while, I think. I thought about how I've been being lately, toward Chris especially. I'm not a very empathetic person, and even till now I don't quite get the fine line between platitude and genuineness. Since I was 9 I've asked myself the question in some form or another of whether I'm a literal sociopath. That day, I was watching the news about the Iraq War, and I felt very little about it. I wondered if I was supposed to feel sad or bad about war so far away, truly. And I wondered if people generally feel that way too. Since then I've felt "compelled" by duty and morals to do "good", but often I'm not sure if that's just a pride-based substitute for real emotions. Maybe this is why Amos is such a compelling character to me. I'm scared.

But mostly I woke up thinking because Chris has not replied to a long set of messages yesterday from me that ended in an apology for an issue I was not sure she actually cares about. This has happened several times now and it always makes me anxious. Sometimes she keeps her feelings and thoughts to herself and this scares me. Is it none of my business when it involves me? Is this the age old stereotype that boys are clueless and are simply dumbstruck when things come to fore? Or is it actually in my head blowing things out of proportion? Or even more ironic, is it that acknowledgement of the situation brings about the situation (i.e. drama creates itself)? It goes back to something much fundamental for me. I consider myself very direct and still prefer, very very much, that people be direct. It makes things simple for people like me who have difficulty understanding subtleties and emotions, which apparently loads of people "just get". I've thought rationally about it (maybe my original sin when responding to issues), and in the grand scheme of things we'll work it out and carry on. Though I can't shake the paranoia that it blows up into something terrible...

Maybe I'll continue this later, but I actually need to work... Mid-season final thoughts before I forget. I've grown more  now and I know you can't expect people to be direct if you yourself are selfish and lazy and not do your best to create the conditions that make people feel comfortable being direct. But I've now known a good solution till this day of how to go about doing that. I'm on the verge of tears and maybe I should ask.

Wet

I had a good cry after so long. What broke me was re-watching a video of the final moments of Jurassic Bark and the true story of which it was based on, Hachiko. I cried not just for that but for all the pent up anxiousness and stress I've had for the past few weeks and the reminder that that story brought up. Which is that there is great sadness and suffering in the world that happen in isolation, and yet like Hachiko, people too go on. Maybe good news will come soon. Till then I want to cry in empathy with everyone else.

Dry

Eyes are pretty dried out. I felt the need to blog to get things off my chest (read: rant). I feel extremely lost over issues and feel guilty about it in a kind of cringey white guilt way. I think I have to, in an even more cringey way, resort to stepping away from whatsapp and the like. I'm very tired and just want to be with Christelle. I want my visa issues to be resolved, I want to make sure my apartment is OK, I want to get back to being motivated about learning and my job. I want my family to be happy and my younger brother to trust his instincts and learn to try and fail or disappoint and be his own success. I want people whom I've wronged to know I sincerely tried but apologize nonetheless. I'm not sure what spaces I can be my authentic self except here, sort of.

Here are some 'cultural issues' as Carlin might have put it:
-Our parents are proud their kids go to Harvard, OxBridge etc but then when they come back slightly ostracized because of an accent that for most people they probably have little control over, any ideas they might have are dismissed as Western liberal nonsense, unless of course it follows the dominant discourse that touts pragmatism and free markets
-We are scared of 'AOC-type politics' and warn of the dangers of liberal extremism, marxism, etc; again we call these 'sjw politics', or Westernized thinking, out of touch etc, but then we inherit colonial practices and ideas, neo-liberal economics, all products of the 'West' and are surprised if it brings along any of the consequences and fair criticisms of those ideas that also originate in the West
-We idolize and re-post LKY giving fiery speeches in cheem or poetic, usually Oxbridge British English 'this is not a game of cards!
-We are fine with comparing down 'at least we are not the US', but 'we are in a different situation' when trying to compare up ('scandinavian standard of living')
-We keep saying 'Singapore is small, we must be open to survive', but pick and choose what we are open to - rich tax avoiding foreigners and migrant workers that have low socio-economic and political power, but no 'Western ideas', sjw language, no refugees
-Singapore is actually beholden to shareholders - there are real threats that voting away from the centre-right PAP will cause investor confidence to fall, it's a reality that we seem powerless to or too cowardly to try and confront and change

I have more perhaps, but I've also calmed down for the most part... we just need to talk more.

Panic

I panicked during an interview and have so many regrets now... I feel worse when I feel like I didn't do my best and that was probably my worst. I also feel like I'm the only person supporting me.

Why Lambda Chi was meaningful and important to me

I'm recalling Jeremy Bell coming back from work one day frustrated that his workplace made him go through a lecture on 'building your personal brand'. If you find that not odd at all (the lecture, not his reaction), well idk I guess we won't connect very much. I find such a world where such topics are 'taught' to others as absurd to the extreme and dystopian even. Yet it is pervading across the so-called 'business world' as if business administration and marketing was objective science (and people will swear by it, which I cannot really understand), and now it is treated as such since places like 'investopedia' exist, placing finance on a strange commensurable pedestal as chemistry and history.

Anyway, I felt like despite having differences elsewhere, that kind of weird disgust and cynicism to the ironic consumerism society we live in is what made Lambda Chi's bond together (well mostly, except Armaan), and the variance was in acceptance of that reality and eventually landing a consulting job. I feel like my fault then is that I was self-deceived, I feel like everybody knew it was mostly a joke but I did not and tried to live by principle if I was already joking about it, and nobody is actually on my side and so here goes my mental health as my perspective of the world is torn down. Back to linked in and the sort of banal life we lead anyway.

Sleeping

I was thinking just now about how my blog is a place to express myself, and maybe it's because of the difficulty of sounding emotional out-loud, in-real life as a guy, or otherwise normal human being. I think it ruins the image of sounding stoic and in-control and not attention seeking and not needy.

I slept for 18 hours by accident and by design since I didn't set an alarm. I woke up normally yesterday and so I didn't think I would need to honestly, but I guess the jet-lag really didn't reset that quickly... so it's back to square one. I overheard my mother joking that I was useless, having heard I slept so much. My dad said it probably means I needed the sleep. I think it really shows their different approaches to life. The capitalist and the 'normal'. I guess now I'll start looking again. Another thought I had was that I slept 18 hours because it's a sign of depression? I don't think so though.

I feel like I've learnt to quickly the normative nature of words, without any experience. Like 'networking' - what is that supposed to mean? It sounds ridiculous, and a lot of people give me a lot of shit for it, but when I think about it, I can't grasp it conceptually, it sound estranged, foreign and scary. Is it fear then? Maybe. In my head I just see negative things, a room full of tired, fake, uninterested people. But that isn't true. Supposedly it 'happens all the time', but I think that is a lie. I don't know if it is possible to 'network' and do other things at the same time. It just sounds like a deception. This ricemedia article I'm reading doesn't help: https://www.ricemedia.co/culture-events-diary-forced-boss-visit-funan-mall/?fbclid=IwAR3dBkoEZqMyI7A5v2I1LxG_Vt7eCff-Z3jmvu7sas9j-Czj2yTl38J5Lcc. I think the worst emotional feeling in the world for me is embarrassment, which is extremely Chinese. I don't know how this came to be, but it is. I just read that LinkedIn is apparently one of the top 10 sites visited in Singapore. Jesus christ that's banal. Fyi Blogger is telling me to capitalize the word Christ lol. When people smile so cheesily in the camera, are they thinking of memes, or are they genuinely blissful? My brother saw my graduation photos and saw my half-smiles and said I looked like a monk. But to tell you the truth I didn't know if I was happy enough then, which was the real problem.

I wonder who are the 1 or 2 views that see my post, or are they just search algorithms parsing through my site? It's hard to know these days. I'll tell you something though, this ricemedia article really stings, because I was in the process of accepting I must become a 'liberal-leaning' type they describe, and it's displaying it in full glory. Mostly I feel caught in a contradiction. On the one hand I've decided to pursue an education in 'capitalism' but am not particularly seduced by that work space. I am told by my mom most people are lying all the time 'but what to do' as in this is the reality we live in. On the other hand I feel like I relate much more to the artist-type 'outsiders' of sort, although they lean-in to society in odd dysfunctional ways too, but I have no talent in that regard, even in photography which I've given up almost entirely. There are thousands of 'tips' on career-building on all these sites, and I feel uneasy, why are they helping, and I can already hear a retort from Christelle. I don't know, but I feel put off by smiling these days, for the same reason that Musée des beaux arts is a great poem.

Thinking some more

I feel emotionally very stressed and lost whenever I think of job hunting, or trying to learn something 'professionally-related'. It's like I get a sick feeling in my heart and stomach and I'm not sure why; maybe in my head I've just been building up so much disdain and vitriol that now that I must confront it like an adult, I've only shot myself in the foot by literally triggering a bad reaction every time I try to deal with it. I feel like I am being pounded by contradictory advice, values, and I have so much fear that I cannot be myself or that I will get so good at imitation as I always do that one day everything will explode once more when shit hits the fan. I feel like I have so much regret but can only move forward, and only now witnessing the proverbial Jenga tower collapse in slow motion as I am left behind by everyone in the rat race and am only not sleeping on the streets because I can draw upon immense privilege, i.e. I am making my parents suffer for my arrogance, childishness, stupidity, laziness, etc. and have no confidence in anything that I do at the same time that I judge others less clever and yet employed - again the arrogance - but then this cannot be and it must be that I am just blind, unaware, unable to build up any form of the 'street-smartness' that was my passion and example to follow. I am constantly afraid to ask for advice as it makes me look dumber and dumber, and as I told Steele I hate feeling like I am dumb, patronized and spoon-fed like a damn amateur. I feel so fucking stupid, and a failure of a Singaporean compared to my peers because I should have, could have given up my ideals earlier and thought long-term. Now I might work in Singapore and essentially lose the only real connections and relationships that I really value at this point, for all my years of self-perceived social ineptness, because I was a fool. It's good to write this in words at least. But unfortunately for new algorithms they might be read, which I why I like being honest, so nothing can be held against me ever. I feel like I've been indoctrinated, turned against society by my education and made a fool for it, because I cannot seem to hold down reading any business news without cringing, when I know that the world is grey and made up of people who are just trying to do their best, as I saw in the museum today. I have squandered what was given to me instead in some lame rejection of position, as Chris pointed out, and am now the hapless and useless son that I despised in my mind. So it's self-hate really. I don't want to hear any comfort because I'm the recipient this time, and nobody's convinced me otherwise yet. I have to focus.

How easy was it for me back when I still had mainstream hobbies and interests, and now everything seems so listless and hopeless. It's as if I've discovered myself and discovered nothing and no growth except realization of self-deception as I talk to the internet. I've thought about suicide some more but it's too selfish and too pathetic so I must ride it out. I have to try and hope for the best and meet mediocre standards and be prepared for jealousy and ridicule as I go below people's expectations. The thought of it only makes me want to work triply hard for any job I get. I must learn to discipline my mind and treat things as important and regain my confidence that things will work out, that the child in the basement will be uplifted if you participated, that this is MLK's struggle for integration and that revolution is a red herring. I must learn to remember that people opening the window, eating, walking dully along smiling while others suffer is a normalcy of reality, and that they truly mean no harm or perhaps are ignorant in self-protection. That you can help with a smile, though that still feels wrong to me, because only the people supposedly helping have that choice to carry on, smile and forget about everyday woes. I feel angry on behalf of people I do not know, that being a symptom of my own privilege still, which leads to further frustration that there can be so much unfairness but as long as it breaches no thresholds it is tolerated regardless.

:thinking:

I think I should start by admitting that I've had the beginnings of what people would consider suicidal thoughts. I know that suicide ideation requires planning of method, time, place, etc. so I should not kid myself in thinking I've gone that far, but I have been thinking about it much more than usual.

It's pretty pathetic though, which is why I chose to write it on my blog which I haven't posted in a while. The ironic thing is I think a lot of it is stress from job hunting but this absolutely does only harm in a job hunt by putting your mental health on the internet. I say stress from job hunting when in fact everything is my own fault and I have not really done much about it because of a mental block. I supposedly pride myself on being adaptable but can't seem to manage something that supposedly everyone does. I remember a lot of things in different orders that I wanted to include in this post. One of them was just thinking about a friend whom I visited many times in the hospital when he was checked in for mental health. That friend told me the doctors were not helping, but the sheer helplessness and hatred of the situation he was in (having his movement controlled, meds, etc.) made him absolutely want to never go back and motivated him to try and get better. That's just honestly, very tragic... I don't know, perhaps we are being selfish by being depressed, and that logic of the system only seems to confirm this. A shame that most things are a lie these days and for all days. I should read Kurt Vonnegut after Infinite Jest.

The other thing I wanted to include was this poem, and perhaps 2, both of which I was crying to when they were spoken by Professor Natasha Trethewey  during Weinberg's convocation. I took this from Emory's website:

Musee des Beaux Arts
W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

It takes up a good chunk of the text, so I'm not going to write the other way here. I told a few brothers this, but the true banality of the poem manifested itself in the setting of its delivery - while I listened intently in awe at how ... correct... the poem was, my two neighbouring graduates were looking at their phones, maybe listening, maybe not, maybe texting about how someone was crying next to them, or how depressing the speaker was, and how they didn't need to hear it, because ironically, her tragic life, was not an important failure to them either. But it certainly helped me to feel, and that's how I know I can carry on, or how I know I must learn to praise the mutilated world.

Soon I will have to leave my blog as is and write other things.

The poem goes even further; it reminds me of times when I felt that the suffering of others was not my own, and I had somewhere to get to and I sailed calmly on. Right now it frightens me how little I can do for others, how little attention the homeless man sleeping on a pile of soft garbage must get, and yet he carries on because he must. And yet I am upset over my own privileged life because I am upset that he does not get that same opportunity, and I believe the system will only benefit me if I play it. But this is not true, according to everyone around me, and yet this is not what my classes have taught me, but surely this is what all the fancy-clothed people around me must believe, as they stroll past Icarus in the dumpster. How curious that it follows the opposite pattern as another story I've been thinking of lately, the Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, which if you have not read... well you should and if you've forgetten its premise, you could catch up with this well-written article.

My mind strays then to the Little Match Girl, another story about poverty... But what is this abstract poverty I'm thinking of? Am I not just romanticizing the poor and exploited? That is when I think of Brave New World, about a happy socially-stratified country which somehow still makes absolutely no sense. Because maybe the book was about how happiness is meaningless without freedom, yet today the latter is easily traded, and you would be childish to go against the meta. OK, I think I've cried enough for now.