What if I don’t pull myself together and figure out how life and love works in time?
That is my biggest fear.
I had a friend who told me that you find what you’re looking for when you stop looking so hard and just let things flow and be comfortable with yourself.
▲I know where I want to go, but I don’t want to go it alone.
▲Suddenly it occurred to me that 21 comes only once, which means I will be 21 in 20 days (which I oddly discovered today, which is 21 days to go), and we aren’t getting younger at the rate we get older.
Unless you count mentally, but of course, the problem with the mental is finding the physical to match up with the all that activity buzzing in your mind.
I guess the best way to describe how everything is going right now would be how I felt this morning, running at 6AM into the pitch black of the Macritchie forest, when I turned off my flashlight to let the dark swallow me up.
And now, suddenly I remember something said yesterday during a random walk/sketching adventure in Portsdown:
“Why are you so self conscious? After all no one is going to remember.”
I don’t know, really. Maybe it’s this innate fear I have that I’m going to make a fool of myself somehow, but what I do know is that this is something I’ve got to overcome, and there’s really no more time to waste gingerly watching my situation.
I need to find that self in me that was used to shrugging off obstacles and mistakes. And maybe dare to make a few mistakes myself.
One more thing to add before I go to sleep and forget about it forever more,
Life is unlike poker, where you can fold and hope for a better hand, so the next best thing we can do is to just make the best of whatever cards we are dealt. Because in life, folding means giving up on the beauty of life itself, so all we can really do is to look at the uniqueness of what we are given and play the best game we have out of it. We can either leave the table feeling richer, poorer, or knowing that we had the best game ever.
And after a night of Borderlands, strawberry and lime cider, and deep heart to heart talks about the future and the right person, it’s time to sleep.
▲Somehow, I figured that this would be something important which I should type down somewhere before I forget. Maybe some day I can look back at this and understand better on 20/20 hindsight.
I visited my uncle in York on Saturday, and I kind of expected it to be a very simple sort of visit, but something there were some things which he said when he was driving us (Daniel, Neil and I) around which somehow made a lot of sense to me. Well maybe not that much sense, but it did make things a lot clearer.
London was often the kind of place friends would tell me that I would love if I were there; the sort of place where it just fits my character somehow. And true to what was mentioned, I did love this place. It just feels like home somehow. The weather was cold and chilly, there were spots of quiet and contemplation amidst the city (Something about Singapore which I truly hated, was that the weather was total crap, and the only time I could find quiet, was when I ran to Macritchie Reservoir in the dead of the night). I really loved the character of the place too. The way the people worked and interacted; a somewhat unmentioned sort of politeness and friendliness as well as a sort of what I would call a tinge of danger with a pot full of excitement when exploring the place. To cut things short, I wouldn’t mind immigrating there when I’m older. Or maybe retire in Brighton (Wow, I loved that place).
But then I heard what my uncle talked about. He talked about when he first immigrated to England. He said it was 40 (?) years ago. He didn’t say it in a very negative tone, but from the way he said it, I could sense that he had a tinge of regret. He left Singapore because he couldn’t see a future in it back then. England felt like a much more exciting place. The weather, the culture, the huge expanse of the British nation. After all, Singapore was a young country; from my point of view, a forever summer country which is too damn small, a lack of open space and culture-less.
Culture-less. I wouldn’t really know a better way to describe it. One thing that really disappoints me about Singapore is how it lacks the sort of thing which makes it home; the street stalls, the way humans meld together with the environment through graffiti and street performers. The architecture and how time does beautiful things with concrete and gravel. Singapore is too clean and green. Everything is too perfectly manicured and orderly. It feels like the sort of place I want to be in for a holiday, but not the sort of place I want to live and die in.
But then my uncle mentioned something which made lots of sense to me (Not sure about you. Well if anyone even reads this post). ‘Singapore developed really fast’.
At that point, something clicked with that debate I had with Daniel and Neil about Singapore being a pathetic place for art and culture to thrive; too perfect, too neat, not enough space for happy accidents (Something I read in a digital art manual; the moment when you do something by accident but it turned out brilliant). It’s true, Singapore doesn’t have much of a culture (As opposed to what the tourism board likes us to believe) but it’s developing. After all, we had probably less than a century of proper Singaporean history. You can’t compare it to England which had their medieval period and long time history. And the thing about the development of Singapore is that, we have a part to play in it because we are the youth now and someday, what we do now is gonna be our culture. And with that comes opportunities which very very few people get the chance to have, a chance to probably shape the nation. I guess in a semi egoistical way, part of me wishes to leave an impact, because I don’t want to be forgotten. It could be something as complex as a huge architectural company, to something as small as a simple well designed house for someone or maybe a treasured piece of artwork. Someday, whatever we do in Singapore would become a culture and the thing about being in such a young nation is that the change you would see wold only come about years later when we’re old and grey, and I think, that would be when we would come to either love what we have done or hate what had happened (In that case, yeah, I would like to retire in Brighton). I guess the one thing a lot of us under rate a lot is the fact that we get to do something which would affect the people after us.
Like what my uncle said, the UK is not progressing in a healthy manner more so because there is no drive from the people to really do much; after all, they have the culture and they have the land and environment, what else do you have to ask for? When he mentions this, he always tells his British friends, if Singapore can do it we can too, so he doesn’t piss them off. But he knows that they won’t do it because they are too comfortable, and there’s not enough urge and competition to do so. They do have progress, but it’s not the sort of ambition which is a do or die, which is what we have in Singapore. In a way, it’s a lot like resting on your laurels in the UK, but fighting for your life in Singapore. It’s the sort of drive which makes you want to stand out and make a name for yourself, and in that sense, it’s something that would drive people to do great things and in that sense, the future is great for us, because we have something we know we have a chance to have a part of.
And in that sense, I guess it’s a sense of belonging, but it’s the sort of thing which will take time to develop and it’s really a matter of if we want to do so and if we are patient enough to let things grow.
▲Because I tend to make loads of resolutions when the new year comes, and I feel it’s a good thing to do as well.
The necessary:
1)Get driving licence
2)Start drawing more instead of posting stupid photos or writing more text. There’s enough of that on Tumblr.
3)Actually do something with the society6 store you had set up (For the curious, the link is on the right, called society6. Click it.)
Okay there’s not much there, but that’s what 2) and 3) is for after all!
4)Please go on a holiday before uni. After the past two years void, you need one. (Japan, UK, Sweden? Anywhere, Anyone?)
5) ORD
The lifestyle changes:
6) 6 hours of PROPER sleep on weekdays (Hey it’s an improvement from the 4 to 5 hours I usually get)
7) Run more. Keep fit.
8) Improve on biblical knowledge and grow closer to God.
9) More positive perspective on certain things and situations. The only constant in everything is wrong, is you.
10) Don’t be too quiet.
The personal:
11) Fight that inertia to just sit down and play computer games and do something more productive.
12) Don’t afraid to be wrong, and don’t be afraid to take risks, because that is where we learn things.
13) Jack of all trades, master of none; there will come a time where you’ll have to pick 2 out of 3 or one out of many, so you’ll need to be decisive.
14) Do something reasonably crazy. Solo holiday, sing in public, try something different, something new, whatever. Preferably the first.
15) Remember, people won’t remember you the next day, so sometimes, doing something daring and out of the blue is fine.
16) Responsibility bro. Difficult sometimes, but necessary, much.
Others:
17) Learn to cook something other than seafood and instant noodles. Maybe real ramen and soup.
After-thought:
18) Find a girlfriend. Lol.
19) Procrastinate less.
▲It’s always nice at the top of the tower. The wind and the view makes everything on the ground forgotten. Too bad it’s locked up most of the time and no one is allowed to come up alone, or I would have done so a long time ago. Today it’s with two guys from the film crew, covering some clips for a series. One is short and stocky, reminding me of my photography friend back in school. The other was rather friendly looking with thick black rimmed glasses. He was in an instructor’s PT kit. I met them at the bottom of the tower, which was a short walk from the building I came from.
‘Re-shooting some shots?’ I asked the one with the black rimmed glasses. Hipster or channeling military, I wouldn’t know.
‘Yeap, running up the tower with a camera. GoPro.’
‘Oh okay.’ More amusing was the fact that his boxers were peeking out from the bottom of his running shots. I wonder how he made it to the tower without anyone stopping him for inappropriate attire. Not like I would have done so though, I’m not really the sort who likes confrontation. While waiting for the lift, I considered dropping a hint about his boxers but decided to shut up in the end. They were visitors after all.
We boarded the lift which would take us to the top of the tower. It wasn’t an awkward ride I would say, I’ve grown accustomed to those guys after following them for filming over the past week or so. They were discussing about what they would be shooting. Running up the tower. Briefly gazing down at the maroon tank top while running up. Catch glimpses of the foot stepping down on the concrete stairs.
‘Reliving the good old days?’ the shorter one asked.
‘Oh by the way, that’s the instructor’s set, not the Cadet’s. So if you’re filming and looking at the attire, you might catch the ‘Instructor’ tag there’ I chimed in earnestly, pointing at the label under the school’s logo, a nice golden yellow on maroon.
‘Aw shit, how do I get it off?’ The guy with the glasses started scratching on the label in a vain attempt to scrape it off.
The shorter one gave a chuckle, ‘It only fades after two years.’ I smiled along unwittingly.
‘Nevermind, I guess we can work around this’, The one with glasses added, still scratching at the word ‘instructor’ which was printed on rather well.
I was thinking, it would probably take more than two years to fade, but I kept it to myself.
The lift opened up and we were greeted with a blast of cool air from the breeze around. The sky was cloudy, but it was far from rainy. I took a corner and sat on a railing while the pair set up their cameras facing the surroundings. I would have sat on the marble ledges, but the ridiculous fear of getting blown off as though I was a paper doll stopped me. The image of falling over and landing with a splat about 80 metres above ground wasn’t the best ending one could have. The two of them were discussing camera angles and the height of the tower.
‘I heard you could get blown off if you climb up the ladder to the top of the tower’, I added, eyeing the ladder which led to the huge flagpole which held the nation’s colours high above.
‘Well, you should try’, Shorty said to Glasses. ‘Then I can film you flying off’, he continued, chuckling, with one eye peering through the viewfinder of the huge video camera they brought along. Industry standard.
I closed my eyes and let them get on with their work. The wind was great and I felt like enjoying whatever time I had up here while it lasts. I would have climbed up the ladder if I could, but the only thing stopping me was the presence of the two film crew members and the position I held. I would probably get into some major mess if I was spotted. Worse still, the wind would pick me up like a rag doll and blow me off and down into the thick green forest below. There are times I wish we had wings. To just soar up this high would be amazing. Imagine on those days when life is overwhelming you and all you want to do is run, you could just spread your wings and fly up to the top of some tall building. Well, that’s what I would have done.
Glasses had put on the GoPro camera on his forehead and was stepping into the lift, looking like an oddly dress dressed miner taking the lift into the depths beneath the soil. He was adjusting the camera on the interior of the lift.
‘Have fun,’ Shorty quipped as the lift doors closed. I gave a quick wave.
It was an odd 5 minutes before Glasses emerged from the stairs, breathless and exhausted. ‘Haven’t done this in a while,’ he heaved as he leaned back against the ledge. I gave him a bemused look.’ ‘Neither have I,’ I thought. I used to be much fitter before about 2 years ago before I got this job. A lot more creative too. Now I’m sitting here wondering where it went.
These days, I have no idea where that wondering mind of mine went. It used to float down the walls, leaving a slithering trail and a riot of colours; it used to transform into bunnies, divide itself and turn into bubbles. Crawl up paper and tear through layers. Turn lines of blue, purple and pink into a spectrum of colours, and from that spectrum of colours a fish would emerge, breathing out clouds; all round and fluid. However, right now it was as smooth as the marble tiles which lined the walls of the tower; angular like the corners which formed a strange vertical horizon against the sky in the distance.
Like the world reflected on the cold grey stone, where trees will be trees and clouds will be just gaseous structures in the sky. Perfect to the details of the formations and colours, coming together for me to see the greenery, the horizon and the perfect weather which surrounds this triangular container which holds me, high up the sky, as a tower should and a tower ever would be. Everything is ordinary, everything is well, and everything is just the way it is. Everything is perfect.
‘10 more minutes and we will be done.’ Shorty said as he stared out into the distant buildings.
But I don’t want to be done; I don’t want to be perfect. I want to see the marble ripple from the winds which blow this way, transforming into a tidal wave of swirling grey marble-coloured droplets; see the corners sway and the foundations bend and bow. I want to lean back off the ledge and pull up from the dive, with wings from my boots or clouds under my back. Heck, I could hit the floor and turn into a swirl of colours, but emerge from mouths of the stone lions which guard the stairs to the tower gates. I don’t want it to be picture perfect and well formed, but want it to be fluid and unpredictable. I had no idea where my mind went and what had become of it, but I know I don’t want to recognise it as how everyone tells me it is.
‘And we’re done. That’s a wrap!’
I hopped off the railing which I was sitting on and took in the cool breeze for one more time before stepping into the elevator in which Shorty and Glasses were waiting in. Shorty looked a lot like your typical soldier with the huge camera tripod resting on his shoulders. He nudged a button and the breeze stopped as it had come, as the elevator was bathed in a dim light and made its way down.
‘Thanks, we’ll see you again then’, Glasses piped happily as we walked from the tower. He still looked ridiculous with his boxers jutting out from under the running shorts. The sun was out and it was getting humid again, the way it usually was here.
‘No problem. Next time we’re filming again I think’.
I waved goodbye and headed down the stairs and back into the air conditioned building as they packed their equipment into an orange van in the parking lot. ‘Funny pair’, I thought, as I pushed open the door and entered back to where I came from.
Last I saw before the door closed, my mind was a huge shimmering pink and purple fish gnawing on the red brick corner of the building.
▲
After a week of procrastinating, finally. Had a really busy past 2 weeks. 12 consecutive days of booking into camp, 7 consecutive days of sleeping in office, down with a bad ass flu and tired and weary for all the different reasons. This was written last Sunday night. It was a great week being the liaison for the ADFA people. Exploring Singapore with them was a pretty big eye opener. Photos will be in the next few posts because there are some which turned out really good and seem better as a standoff thing. Indeed, I’m quite terrible at taking standard how daily life goes photos. I actually admire people who manage to do that.
Things to do; gotta start drawing more. This creative drought is scary stuff.
147 days to ORD.
~~~
There are times when we want to get away from where we are without realising that it is not because we long for something new, but rather because we ourselves are so unfamiliar with where we belong, being tourists in our own homes. And most of the time, all we need is to be he guides to guests to realise that we are just as lost as they are at more things than we would like to believe.
I always thought that being the liaison to someone from another land would be a rather easy job; follow the program, find the key places, just don’t get lost, easy things to say, difficult things to do.
Turns out I slept in office; dragged an office couch in front of my desk, use my towel as a blanket, read my book and drank a litre of instant Milo while reading a book in the dim light at night. Showered dead at night in HQ, sat around in the HQ contemplating. Lived like there was no life, but surprisingly, life like how it should be felt, tired but satisfied while the haziness of sleep turns out the lights for you.
If there is one thing I definitely took away, it’s that I probably learned a lot more about where home is than I did in the past few years. At the same time, I probably had more pride than I ever did for where I live, because sometimes, it just takes a third perspective to figure out the things we often take for granted.
I’ve never visited the Night Safari before, always waiting for the right time. I’ve always wanted to go to the Marina Skypark, but have always been procrastinating doing so. I’ve always wanted to walk around Little India and Chinatown, but without the awkwardness of doing it alone, or the imagined accusing looks or glares of taking photos in the strangest of places and angles. I’ve never tried salted egg crab nor have I tried eating chilli crab with fried dough bread.
One thing I’ve got figured, never procrastinate certain things, waiting for the ‘opportune moment’ to get things done, because some things just won’t happen if you don’t do it. Don’t be afraid to do what you want to do or savour what you want to remember, just because someone was staring; I bet you he wouldn’t remember you in the next one minute. Probably just as the strange guy taking photos in the middle of the road, but that is just that.
The first night I went to pick up the Austalian’s at the airport, awkwardess couldn’t be a better word to describe it; knowing that they were cadets with 2 to 3 years of training didn’t help either, considering that you were an Officer in 9 months. Time makes you feel cheated sometimes.
By the end of a week, I could say I kind of felt a little lost as I watched them cross the doors which would lead them to the one way flight home. Maybe its because I’ve learnt so much from guiding them around the place for long periods of times within the day. Probably is the fact that next week, it’s gonna be back to the ordinary office life. Perhaps it’s because we were just getting to get the hang of having them around and knowing them. The funny one; the one who probably has lion blood in his veins. The one who looks like a Heavy from TF2 and the quiet but friendly one. Things, labels and thoughts of them in our heads which they will probably never know.
Which leads me to the thought of how sometimes it feels that saying goodbye to great people you have known for only a week seems so much harder than friends who will be gone for a few years, once you get about the fact that you might never really meet them again, unless by luck and chance your paths cross and I really don’t like to believe in luck, because it leaves a lot of possible things impossible and reliant on chance.
You may find it strange, but that liaison duty ranks one of the best experiences I’ve had in this confusing and tough 2 years of National Service.
▲
I really love this shot. It’s somewhat amusing and it’s the kind of neighbourhood I’d imagine Harry Potter and the Dursleys to be in if they were real. Funny thing though, I never noticed the odd blue roof, but rather took this photo for the magical and peaceful lighting. It would be the kind of place where the entrance to Narnia would be in one of the houses there, in a somewhat ordinary closet.
Sometimes I feel like the only blue roof in the neighbourhood.
So lately I’ve been thinking, if I took it easy instead of taking it tough, would I have been better well off than I was now? What if I were less picky? Only to realised that maybe sometimes I just take things much too seriously, so why not just let time tell, maybe care less for a bit because like they say, things always find you when you’re not looking.
So last Saturday, I couldn’t help but feel cheated after getting kicked out of the water. Yes we haven’t been training, work just sucks the life out of you sometimes. No, we didn’t fill the training logs because we couldn’t do much during the past few weeks.
Well maybe what a friend said was right; There’s more to life than canoeing. But I really can’t help but feel that I’ve just been cheated at the prime of everything. I’d give it up, but there’s a reason why when coach first came in and told us to write down our goals in canoeing, I only wrote two things: 6 years gold for interschool, and SEA Games. No Olympics, no whatever else. No more, no less. For the next few trainings after, I really couldn’t help feeling that coach thought I wasn’t really serious about things. Coupled with the fact that I took Fridays off for art. Or have the occasional ‘flu’ to seek shelter behind my desk in the art room when life got too tough.
I hate how there’s this last one on bucket list which I thought I could do, but life just throws you a curveball.
I hate giving up you know, but the circumstances just make it so hard.
Read this quote by Chuck Close the other day at work,
“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.”
Just draw, just live. Maybe something will occur. The things you don’t look for will find you.
▲
So maybe I’m at this crossroad where I’m beginning to realise that sometimes not everything in life is planned out the way you always thought it would have been. And the moment when you realise that, perhaps, sometimes you can’t have it all. The times when you felt invincible have come and gone and now everything is back to square one.
Starting from scratch is always hard. No plans and no idea where to start.
Where to study, what to study. Industrial or architecture; Stay local or give the foreign lands another shot. How to get this big machine to start. Where’s the hand to hold for cover from harm?
Dear 2009 and 2010, you have no idea how much I wished I didn’t do my best, didn’t take on the challenge, and didn’t give up everything just for this life. This is all going so wrong at the moment and I have really no idea what to do.
▲I say repeatedly ‘Jesus, take the wheel’, but I still can’t help but hold on so tight.
▲