A Light That Never Goes Out

: )

Yesterday, today, tomorrow. For the reasons I still stay is you. 

around here somewhere are our skeletons.

I found some notes lying around in my Notes.app. Figured I would look through and do some spring cleaning. Look what I found. And of course, I had to practice some black.

Dated: 18 March 2013 
Title: On the AAR of         Overnight Cycling

We reached Sims Ave way too early. Traffic was thick. And that made cycling dangerous as hell. 
Before that was City. 
Could have explored more, sit by the bay, a little more camwhoring. This way, Sims Avenue would be empty by 3am. 
We need to stop more perhaps. 
Identify more places for good camera shots. The stretch to Paya Lebar area was a killer. Because there is another stretch that would kill later. 
For that though, it's the final leg. It is kinda a souvenir and a must have for a east cycle tour like this. When touring along Sims Ave, we should have taken the ongoing direction instead of incoming. 

It's a goldmine I tell you. I have all these notes on various things. Just like a diary, they range from topics, subjects, ideas and more. Imagination is the limit. It's like having a conversation with yourself.

The above note seemed to be a reflection or certain debrief points after a cycling event. It seems that I was engulfing myself with so much information at every moving pace of the event. Must be one great feat. I wonder what is pushing this top head to do so much! And to lay it out as such. Simply great memory to be thankful for.

I had been more of a hands on person. I simply had to move. So writing was a no brainer. Then technology soon provided more reason to ditch pen and paper. But of course, you had to have a trigger point.

Must have been those long bus rides. Philosophical at its core, long bus rides contribute to many reflections of one's life. Gaze out of that window and you will fall into a deep abyss of unaltered, unsupervised and unfiltered thoughts. This makes them dangerous. Like splitting atoms, ready to explode with energy, they may pose a great trap into regret and self-abuse.

But that makes it wonderful as well.

We know it can pull one down but it forces us to teach ourselves, on how to be disciplined. We teach ourselves how to counter such negativeness. We teach ourselves how to fight it. We teach ourselves to be less suicidal.

Here's another.

Dated: 20 December 2012 
Title: Quest

Those that are very judgemental
Those that never change
Those that don't make things worth it

So what does it mean? What is the story behind these conception of 3 lines? Truly there must have been a trigger point.

And sometimes, the notes serve as a drafting area for some things that really take so much of us. Or almost a part of ourselves. I drafted a message to this person a day before a new chapter begun on September 11th.

Maybe I thought it was a great fucking idea to be optimistic.  Then again, I was trained by then so I knew what I was dealing. In my head had the 2 possibilities but I just had to put a finger on one.

Alas...

I had to use notes to draft. I knew I drafted a couple of times before I had it copy-paste and sent. Maybe at that time, I simply cannot fathom it all. So the Notes did help in ensuring that I was closing that chapter properly. I knew it all along by the way. Just wanted to be optimistic.

Dated: 10 September 2012 

Title: Hey! (Hoping for the best but expecting the worst.)

Hey! Tried calling you a couple of times but you missed it. Must be busy helping your mom tidy! Haha. That's great! Hope you're not being feisty-angsty with your mom! She's the only one you got, so treasure her! I know it might be ironic for me to say, but even if I say my mom is not what I expect, I still love her and I can't change that. Haha.

I was actually at the void deck of your place. Wanted to surprise you but... well Surprise! Haha. Just wanted to meet and say thanks for a listening ear for me! And I too hope I had been more of a positive help than a negative influence! :P 

Since, you're gonna be a few thousand km away and I will be committing to the police program, i don't think we will meet anymore. :0 All the best in UK! Come back, if you can haha, in one piece! Study hard and also, play hard! Not too hard ahh! :)

Here is a thank you for everything and a goodbye! Oh! One more thing, smile like you mean it! See you when I see you. ;)

BALL AND BISCUIT.

So we got stuck in one place. Now I've managed to summon an external source of support, it is INDEED time to begin. 

I used to be that guy who was strong. With time decaying anything in its path (the mind in this particular case), I was out and about being a person of everything. Whatever you throw at me, I can be your answer. Those days of being a mercenary are long gone. Today, I am a factory worker. 

Naturally, I can't be dissing everything in the past. What I did take away from those days were a set of valuable skills that I still hone today. The inert ability to ignore and suppress pain, constant on the ball dedication, adaptive and swift recognition, inclusive participation for those around & a keen eye for connections. 

Then again, time rots everything. 

The current 'me' wants to have a ball and biscuit and take his sweet time about things. Not exactly harmful as this is in the line of appreciating life deeper. Lol?

Let's embrace those skills again. Not to revert to the past comfort levels but to play around in today's context. I wanna be "ball and biscuit" right? Might as well "ball and biscuit" on something of value.

My Demons Hide

In the mornings, I think it's much more better and wiser to reject the public bus. We got so much over zealous families that are supremely determined to send their child to the doorstep of their schools, at the expense of others. 

I'd rather sweat it out, seriously. 

Furthermore, when rain comes, every machinery breaks or slow down. Even if that machine was meant to be in the rain. And as evident to how we humans have become part of a factory line, we work incredible slow paced when the heavens decide to cool us. 

Or...

Today I am distracted by the gym, by this wonderful person, by this desire to sweat it out and a formidable believe to be strong. These are my demons. 

Beauty Chaos

I am always intrigued by human nature. We seem to have developed a complicated system of our lives for our easy nature and simple living. What happened?

Being in love with something or someone naturally means you will be spending more time with it or him/her. Not the other way around.

However, this concept of first love doesn't exist in this materialistic and fast paced world anymore. 24 hours is all we got to absorb so much and sink in methods, materials, languages, ideas, dreams.

You see, people used to love things. And that in turn make them masters of what they love. These days, we don't have that similar capacity. We choose to spend time like it is currency. And the more we spend, the more we invest, the more we hope to fall in love.

Take this example of the tuition scene. Parents spend thousands of dollars on each subject, so that their child would be exposed to more of that subject and be able to excel.

Yeah, practice makes perfect. But perfect practice makes the real perfect.

Has anyone wondered if the child has zero interest in Math tuition or classes that he dreads the slightest look of numbers? Has anyone even considered his love of arts, language or music?

Truly, where is the love?

So it makes me wonder, if this girl I am fancying, is she the product of me falling for first love or falling because I grew to love her?

Isn't it obvious enough? But does it matter now?

Ultimately, I will do what I love. And I love to spend hours with people to just strike a conversation. At the end of that, they will just leave. And all it remains is just an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone!

Though that's not me.

---

Sincerely, I hope to be able to tell her how wonderful she is to me. And that is thru my actions and never my words.

Besides, I am never good with words.

True Fixie Boy.

So I got a bike. I am known for the no frills, no nonsense and no maintenance culture with my belongings. And as I was looking through pages of bikes, I only had my sights on a fixie.

Booyeah.

And in true fixie fashion, I rode with slippers, shorts and a tee. I was not a fan bike racing. I just wanna have fun. Well, maybe I had too much fun because I overestimated my road clearance to turn and went off the pavement ledge. What I got was a trophy for the need for speed and also the obvious indicator that slippers and bikes are not widely recommended when travelling over 25km/h. My right foot went top foot first onto the pavement and slippers being slippers, I got some blood on that right foot. But all is well. Like I have said, it's a trophy.

These few months have made me live a big man's life with big man decisions to make. The PS3 console was one. The surgery was definitely. And now the bike. And I will add in another today. I not usually a fan with big decisions. I normally play a supporting role with a directed approach. But in life, there are no specific role to be playing within. There are no repeats, rewinds and perhaps, 2nd chances. But there are, just the way forward.

So when I was crashing, I didn't think, "OH SHIT OH SHIT." I was more of, "Here goes nothing!" I was kinda more interested in landing and laughing it off. Instinctively, though a little troubling, after the landing, I had an automatic response to check on 3 things. First, I looked at my fresh wound on the top of my feet. Second, on the bike. Finally, if anyone had caught my clown act. The last one would really be detrimental. Haha.

Oh by the way, in true fixie fashion, the flesh wound was just cleaned and left naturally open. Some kind of bad ass eh?

Ever since this big-decision-making-life phase has started, I became more real in life. Things will get rusted. Mistakes will be made. Scars shall be placed. But, all of that in exchange for, experience. You see, the rust or scratches on my bike don't make it less of a bike. It makes more of a unique bike, my bike. That tool mark on the top tube, oh that's my bike. Scratches behind the seat tube, mine! Oh a scar on my left abdomen? Ah! I remember that surgery! Cute doctor by the way.

So I will be ready to make mistakes. I will be sure to make most of the mistakes and be enriched with the lessons they will offer me. You see, when one is on a bike, one thing is for sure, you will lose your balance and fall. What keeps you 'balanced' is that you keep paddling and moving forward. Much like life. I just wanna have fun doing things.

Living On vs Moving On

Oh hello there. 

Some times I thank Red Bull, coffee and maybe late suppers for giving me the extra push to eek out a little inspiration. And of course these kinds of things need more than just a little chemical reaction, they also require a certain series of events to happen. Else, it's just be a bonfire without the people. That's no fun at all. 

I went back to Ngee Ann Polytechnic today. It is just the itchy-backside-me that want to go back. Earlier today, I realised my juniors were graduating! And I simply had to go down and give them my high-5 for surviving 3 years. Those 3 years especially with a hotshot like me. It should be a diploma by itself to survive my wonkiness. And since MOE will not recognise such a diploma, so yeah, I just wanted to see them off. Besides, that was what I would have wanted when I graduated.

It was a rash decision. Since I was on MC, it was a clear sign that my doctor wants me anchored so that this body can repair itself. But you know me, I have a heart of a lion. Cool enough? So I grabbed all my stuff and just went down. But it got to me as I made my way there in the all too familiar express bus with its rumblings reverberating through my body, "Wow, it has been a year."

A FRIGGIN' YEAR PEOPLE. It has been a year. What has happened in a year? Then, what about that year before? Or 2 years before? Or 3? Or 4? Hey, remember that time where you wanted to be a teacher? Haha. 

I guess what these is all about, is that in this life, our culture dictates that we shall live on. This is indeed the beautiful nature of our lives, we get to move on and carry forth. Whatever that comes our way, ill episodes, failure, incidents, we will always find a way to begin anew.

So when I sat in that bus and as I walked towards the CC in a path that just seems that I took it just yesterday, I feared for the worst, that I would be long gone. Which I think will happen in the end, people live on so fast that they are willing to leave what they have and start on a new page. I just wondered if we ever forget our roots, what will happen to us? 

Our roots brought me back there today. I wanted to appreciate my juniors. I wanted to tell them, in presence, that their graduation is ever important. They have been a big part of my life and they still are. That is my root. That is my culture. So culture really dictates eh?

Plus, once in a while, it is a good idea to go back and sink in with the past. If you've been following, I call this Hippo Time. And I did have my Hippo Time. It was especially emphatic when my eyes caught her. And hers caught mine. It just struck me on how I was so foolish then. Haha. Maybe, sometimes, these things are left, unspoken. But I was glad to see you again. Really.

And it will not matter if I am forgotten or long gone or left behind in this society that lives so fast. My culture dictates that I will remember you. And so I will remember you.