Freeing my mind

"When the sea is rough, sediment is churned up and the water becomes murky, but when the wind dies down the mud gradually settles and the water becomes clear."

So concludes day one of meditation. Not too easy to begin with, but ear plugs help to block out noise and amplify the sound of breathing and heartbeats that I then used to concentrate on. Still am able to feel pain though, my usual back ache reared it's head and strange stomach pangs were felt. I read somewhere though that these symptoms could be the body reacting to the act (meditation) of releasing stress. Strangest thing though, when I finally opened my eyes I felt light-headed and taller! Well not exactly taller but probably because it felt like I was floating. Nice.

Heh, thoughts that intruded included disembodied voices repeating intructions how-to and getting excited about telling him that I'd begun trying it out.

"If we train our mind to become peaceful we shall be happy all the time, even in the most adverse conditions, but if our mind is not peaceful, then even if we have the most pleasant external conditions we shall not be happy."

That struck me. I consider myself to be in 'pleasant external circumstances' but have somehow not been able to find lasting contentment, quite the opposite in fact. It's always lead to so much grief, guilt and self-loathing that I'm unable to be grateful and happy when I have every reason to be. Always leading myself in a one way path to self-destuction.

Note to self: Must not engage in ponderous activity and further thinking right after meditating. Stopping now.

"What a wild beast you be.." - DMB

Coming to terms with duality, the Jekyll and Hyde syndrome, or worse, multiple personalities? Hm.

Case in point; I've been saying goodbye for the last 2 months, lamenting his pending (at that time) absense incessantly but at the same time I looked forward to it sometimes, often when I was angry but also when I wasn't. Today there were no tears and his comforting words unnecessary. Oh it's nothing sinister really, it's just that it's not as long as the last time and time apart can be good. Funny how on my own I'm a mellower version of the hypersensitive creature I am when we're together. I'm less of the me he knows. A me who is very tiresome to both of us. I certainly confound him by one day telling him that I'm tired of him being around all the time and the next day saying I wish we had more waking hours to spend together. My poor hun, I can see his eyes rolling back in his head!

It's the push and pull in equal measure. I wish I could fully explain how the both are true at exactly the same time. Maybe it's the same way that light has the paradoxial nature of both waves and photons.

[Delete]

I hate my life. Why can't I get a break? Why can't things just go my way? Why don't I know what my way is?

Feel like I'm toeing the angry line of resentment. One day soon I'm going to fall face down in the bitterness I'm keeping at bay.

No positive thoughts tonight. Screw positive thoughts, they're just so tiring. Oftentimes I'm just holding my breath and blanking my mind to stop the negativity from flooding in.

Most days I'm genuinely happy for other people and other times it's pure resentment which of course is stupid because their successes have nothing to do with me.

I'm sick of life and screwing up and how it's screwed me. I don't ever want to be positive again if none of it is true. A false positive. No wonder my subconscious rebels against it. No wonder it's so easy to lose all happy feelings at the drop of a hat.

And I always want to run away, firstly from everyone and everything I know , but mostly from myself.

Watching the ticking clock

..literally.

Feeling hungry (only just). Hunger is such an immediate thing isn't it? No slow building or gradual acknowledgement, just a sudden pang and that's it; must-have-food-now! it cries. But I digress as much as my stomach begs to differ.

It's late in the night, or early morning and I should sleep if only so I can get up early enough not to miss any important calls that could change my situation. But I sit and stare and idly surf, get up and pace watched by quiet walls, lie back and fluctuate from calm to anxienty, to sadness, to self-pity/self-loathing, to bouts of crying, to pits of despair, to hopefulness, to optimism and back and forth, and back and forth again.

I stand by what I said, but I still need to examine things thoroughly. There is an area of immediate concern, but if I get rid of it, will there be any remaining issues uncovered? The kinds of issues that could be real deal-breakers if they can't be resolved. I don't know yet what they might be but there is only one way to find out. So that is the first step, with your help and my helping myself.

I've always known though that in principles we are fundamentally the same. Which is why I say that trust should be a non-issue. I trust myself completely without exceptions and I should afford that same level of trust to you and vice-versa. While we will never be able to prove beyond a doubt the other's trustworthiness, for some reason I am certain that you and I live by the same rules. In this one respect I will never waver. And it is not a chore my dear, not something I have to remind myself of, it is as natural as breathing and it is a joy to have you in an imaginary cartoon bubble wherever I go, whomever I see, whatever I do. There has only been you, not even in the worst of times has this changed. And sadly I can not convince you enough, this is something you must realise on your own. But when you need me to repeat it I will, till the day it becomes a refrain that resonates from within you.

What dreams may come

I've been inundated with dreams. Unfortunately not the waking kind with aspirations of the future but the kind you have when sleep overtakes.

And I've had all kinds over the years, those that retell the past, foretell the future (yes, I've had those a few times) and most recently a barrage of those that are for want of a better word, vivid. It's so real it could be really happening. Everything in slow motion so that every word, every nuance, every action and reaction is felt keenly, deeply, truthfully. If only they were happy then it'd be a joy to remember each detail in technicolour when waking hour comes round.

The logical side of me says I shouldn't put any stock in it, after all the dreams are not of actual events and neither is there any indication that they are premonitions of the future. But I find it hard to let it go and dismiss it as meaningless drivel product of an over active imagination and a renegade subconsious. This is simply because of the emotion spent in its vivid throes were more real than real. They weren't very convoluted either, each scene, each message was crystal clear.

I know what I should do of course, face the deeper issues I may have rather than consuming them whole and leave the waking reality unscathed by my fictional hurt. That would be easier if the content of this most recent one wasn't so transparent that my ego would deny it to the death and will probably not survive a retelling. And the prospect of having it dismissed summarily doesn't encourage either.

In case you were thinking that you are exempt from such folishness, haven't you ever been disturbed by a dream? Something you find hard to shake off even days after the fact?

I have no conclusions. I guess we wait for it to pass, for the world to intrude with distractions and wipe out the neccesary.

On the playlist

Lifehouse
Live
Radiohead
Dashboard Confessional
Semisonic
Zero 7
Heaven
Collective Soul
Fuel

..are some of the bands I'm re-listening at the moment. There's a derth of new bands or releases from old bands worth paying any attention to right now. Either that or trawling through the indie playlists for gems is a daunting task for this lazy ass. Heh, probably more of the latter rather than former. Still a quick check of the latest playlists reveal Kyte and The Scripts as promising bands. Yup, time to hunker down and give them a test drive.

Now that I have all the time in the world

..I sleep a lot later than I should, everynight, weeknights included. As expected I wake up just before noon and feel guilty that it has taken me so long to start my day when others have already been slogging earning a living for nearly half of it. But then again I've grown into it, this 'taking a break' lifestyle. It's something which came as a complete surprise after the intinial 2 anxious weeks after I quit and it scares me when I let it, least it mean that I will never again get off my ass, don a suit and go back to work like normal people.

I'm still wavering between the 2 camps; the sensible quickly find a job and be a hardworking earning citizen once again camp and the free-spirited go on a holiday, discover yourself and don't worry, when you've had enough then start the job search camp. I've always taken the practical, reasonable road for as long as I can remember. Deciding to quit my new job without a safety net was a major departure. One that I didn't expect even those closest to me to understand, but they have all surprised me by being more positive about it than I was.

So at the moment I'm taking the middle path. I'm keeping an eye out for a job but taking my time going about it while at the same time trying to minimize worry about getting future employment and enjoying this rare extended leisure.

And oh, by the way I'm on the market, so if you have a job that could use my touch, do drop me a line. I don't come cheap though. Heh, unemployed and still tarik harga :) Well, at least I know my worth yes?

{Pause}

I'm on a one week break in between the old job and the brand spanking new one. Finally brushed off the ol' cobwebs and said good riddance to bad stuff.

Everyone keeps asking (or expecting) if I'm happy or excited or all gung-ho and such, but nah, I'm just sorta, erm, bracing? Reserving judgement for later? Being all world weary and cynical? Whatever it is I'm certainly not jumping up and down with joy. As the more experienced would agree, it's just a matter of finding another job that will pay you even more than your last one to undergo the same inevitable stress. I do think it's a sound move though, so onwards ho!

I'm glad too that my hun is moving on (way!) up as well. Funny we seemed to have unwittingly timed it to coincide, both of us on our third jobs.

I've only got one more day till the weekend, and my to do list is only halfway thru. 'To-do' lists,by the way, are a definite holiday mood killer. Unfortunately the way I'm wired, if I didn't have one to cross items off, it'd feel like a complete waste of holiday time. I swear sometimes it's like there are multiple short circuits in this brain and the rest are made up of live wires waiting to zap me senseless.

Heh, looks like business as usual I guess :p

I used to check my Statcounter account religiously. Now it doesn't even cross my mind. After all these days it's a hodge-podge of referring links from random searches anyway.

One day I'll come back to find that not only have I forgotten the password but also the user ID to this blog account.

Tick-tock, tick-tock
Matter of time
But still,
(I hope not.)

******

We've certainly moved on this passed 2-3 years though sometimes I think my life's stopped. But how can it? It's not an attribute of life. It can't stop, that is it's nature; to go on.

And yet.

I try to recall things, form meaningful memories, but struggle oftentimes to find relevance. I wonder if it's because too much has happened or too little of any significance. I refer only to myself, that while other things may have progressed, personally, I have receded into the background. I am no more of substance than the shadow I cast.

It gets confusing sometimes, I can be really happy and yet the feeling of being lost lingers on. It isn't tied to how I'm feeling at any particular point in time, it's a constant state of being. It makes it hard to move in any direction, if at all. Like being stuck at the crossroads all the time thinking 'What now?" I can't see where I've come from, where I'm going, what happened before or what's going to happen next. Not here, not there, not anywhere. It's not happy or sad, it's unease, unrest and it persists from back then, till now and it'll be there tomorrow.

Neither head nor tail. What to make of it?

Back from the jaws of certain death

The sterile, fluorescent-ly bright room with misleading cheery green panel curtains turned out to be a slaughter house. And like a butcher wielding a meat cleaver, there was bloodshed! The only sounds were the ineffectual gurgling gasps of white hot pain from the cornered, terrified lamb and the sickening high pitched squeal of whirring metal against enamel.

I went to the dentist today.

As you can see, she is the demon spawn from hell. No one will ever love her for no one could ever love a person you have to pay a pretty penny to torture you. She is surprisingly a rather attractive youngish lady but all that goes out the window the moment she dons the face mask and picks up her instruments of terror.

And have I somehow missed some new development in dentistry etiquette that now encourages the dental practitioner to use the patients chest as a table to hold instruments? I was rather befuddled to find my chest propping up various metal objects during my treatment. As if staring at my gaping mouth oozing blood in the mirror was not unsettling enough. This mirror into the unknown being yet another new and heinous add-on that I had never encountered before.

And guess what? No local anesthetic baby, not even Bonjela rubbed on the gums to dull the pain. She's obviously part sadist, maybe all dentists are. Are dentists exempt from bedside manner as well? I think for a profession that inspires so much fear, a little reassurance couldn't hurt.

I forgot to ask though, do fillings come with a warranty? I should very much like not to see her again for a very long time.

In jest

1.
"How much do you love me?"

*stretches out his arms as wide as they will go*

"This much!"

"Haiyoh, so little!"

*mock pout dissolves into huge grin and laughter all round*


2.
For the umpteenth time, "Why do you love me?"

Without batting an eyelid, "Dunno, pakai hentam aje!"

("-.-)

What was and is to come

It's been a bit of a roller-coaster weekend, much the same as the last. But like I said, I take it as it comes, unexpectedly and dramatically unfortunately, but one at a time until it clears away. And it doesn't mar my outlook, the future I see is still the same bright one. Gone are the days when such episodes would leave me in quandary and fearful of my (our) prospects. That's right, we're in this together, for better or for worse. But still there is always regret at the end of things; that I wasn't a better person, that so much time was wasted, that too much sorrow was expanded. Always the regret, too late.

*****

I'm looking forward to dinner with old friends tomorrow, there's much to catch up on. It doesn't always go swimmingly though. Sometimes it feels distant, like we have nothing left in common, and then other times like when I connect with her marvelously enigmatic little princess, it is decidedly satisfying. So we'll see. That we even bother to make the (monumental) effort to have these rare meet ups now that all of us have gone our separate ways, says something of the bond we share.

*****

I have a date on Friday! Or Saturday, depends on when a game of grown men kicking around an inflated spherical object will be :p I worry though that we will have nothing to say to each other and not because we are tongue-tied and nervous, it's too late for that (but aw, wouldn't that be sweet?). It's funny because when I see others chatting away a mile a minute, I always wonder what it is they find so much to talk about. But we? We hold hands and blow kisses silently when no one is looking :)

I am not selfless

One shouldn't have to try so hard, do so much, and get nothing in return.

A 5-minute window of opportunity

Quick!

I'm back home in Ipoh for CNY and have only just managed to tap into an unsecured wifi connection. Unfortunately it locks me out every 5 minutes or so.

Hurry!

3 days into CNY and I'm already dying a slow certain death of boredom and neglect. There's (unfortunately?) only one place I really belong hence my impatience and dreariness when I'm away from it.

Time's almost up!

I've been thinking that I'll live my life looking forward to things. A way of making the present bearable by always looking forward, planning and scheming for the next exciting event. I remember a friend of mine who said she had to make sure she had weekend plans because looking forward to it made the weekdays pass easier. I know there are those who will (and have) expounded the wisdom of living in the present but that hasn't worked for me yet. Maybe there'll be time for that in the future when I'm ready to be mellower and stop expecting more out of every second. But for now my wisdom lies in seeking happiness the only way I know how.

Even if you don't agree and see it as a risky proposition to be so 'un-zen' I think you'll agree that trying to live the 'right' way without regard for what your capable of, is a sure way to lasting misery. And on my part if my expectations fall short, I'll just have to pick myself up again and move down the list to the next thing to look forward to.

The window's closing!

So right now I'm looking forward to (in order):

Valentine's Day!
Go-karting!

Over and out!

Time to kill

It's not over yet and it's already too short.

This year-end break is one of the longest I've ever taken and very possibly the most enjoyable. Technically I haven't gone anywhere or done anything especially 'holiday-like' but the sense of freedom (from a fixed schedule, responsibilities, drudgery etc) has been wonderfully more than adequate.

In general I dislike taking (wasting) leave unless there's a reason for it ie. as in there are specific holiday plans. I am a slave to the limited nature of annual leave and as such treat it like gold. But this time I find myself pondering the possibility of extending the holiday and weighing the consequences work-wise.

Perhaps you could call it escapism, this distance and apathy I now feel about all things work related. It's a creeping realisation that things have become a matter of dull routine and while the drop in quality might not be immediately apparent, the attention to minute detail and the desire to go the extra mile has gone out the window. Going back means facing it and taking action, a prospect I don't look forward to as change does not come easy to me.

Strangely it feels like everyone else is on leave too. I find myself surprised each time I'm reminded that other people are slogging away while I wake up in the wee hours of the afternoon, spend a disproportionate amount of time concocting pleasurable ways and means of filling my tummy and luxuriantly while the day away.

For now all that needs to be done is to continue to enjoy the rest of the holiday, which evidently won't be a hard task at all ;)

PS: There's a New Year's Eve makan (and minum!) to be planned! Yippee!

The scourge of humankind

Facebook is a scary place. It’s a virtual reality where you ‘poke’ (and superpoke) random ‘friends’ whom you don’t even speak to in real life. A place where six degree’s of separation is more like two as you discover that that minor acquaintance (now afforded the dubious honour of friend), once went hiking with your best friend’s, brother-in-law’s dog. It’s not the best place for private people to be as you receive one after another shocking friend requests. People who you thought had fallen off the face of the earth, resurrect in frighteningly lively ways.

It’s with morbid fascination that I watch my friends list grow, not by leaps and bounds but slowly and surely like a fungus with menacing deliberation, spreading it’s spores into every nook and cranny.

What? You can’t tell? I love Facebook!

The old and new

It's my birthday so I should write something, now really.

Have been neglecting the good ol' blog after starting a food blog just recently. And since we eat at least two meals a day everyday, this means that there's so much material and only so little time to catch up with the back load of food postings. I'm enjoying it though since I'd always wanted to start one, being quite the diligent food blog reader. And it's am exciting new avenue as it's very public as everyone from my family to my colleagues, to the stranger on the street, Tom, Dick and Harry have free access to it and can identify it as expressly written by this real life person. It's nice for a change to be so....exposed.

Anyway, if you're interested: http://dinnerisserved.wordpress.com

I was just telling bran last night that the passage of time and the impending big 3-0 next year now no longer felt majorly daunting because I had him with me. And I'm kind of disappointed that I have to admit this because I feel that it's a disservice to single people, the epitome of which I used to be for many many years. The idea that being on your own in actual fact can be really hard. I'm still a champion for single people since I've experienced first hand how much flak society in general doles out. But now i can see that behind the gung-ho independent facade, things aren't always rosy and time on your own takes it's toll eventually.

I'll try not to let my shiny new love supersede my enduring love for this site. So must work twice as hard now. Gambatte! :)

In lieu of something more Important

November’s come round again, and I’m not unhappy! Although being in danger of not being able to count as high as how old I’m going to become this month should send me into a panic attack, I’m still not unhappy!

This must be what unchecked, wanton happiness will do to a person.

(And in a superhuman effort not to ramble, I shall stop here until I can form a cohesive narrative of something more Important.)

Tales of Mere Existence - Lev Yilmaz

This is just the kinda stuff that makes me feel like a creative under-achiever:
http://www.youtube.com/user/AgentXPQ
http://www.ingredientx.com/index.htm

Can I be him when I grow up?

The Massage

I know I have a masochistic streak but this was way too painful. Instead of dozing off in tranquil bliss as was my expectation, I was fully awake for the whole 2 hours most of which I spent gasping in pain. For a slip of a girl she seemed to know exactly where it hurt the most and milked it for all it was worth. I finally couldn’t keep from crying out any longer and blurted out that it hurt while she was pulverizing my shoulder muscles. She seemed taken aback and in her soft voice befitting her slender frame, she told me there had to something wrong with me if it was painful since she wasn’t using much force (I say! My still tender bits beg to differ!).

She then offered up the proverbial Asian malady called ‘angin’ as the possible cause. It literally translates into ‘wind’ in English. I never understood what it meant, but all Asian (or at least South-East Asian) races seem to offer it up as the cause of joint and muscular aches and pains. And each race has its own traditional medicinal concoctions to treat this mysterious affliction.

At least the hot ginger tea at the end of the (torture) session was delicious. For now I’m watching my well-oiled torso and extremities for signs of purple-hued bruises.