i am going on a date with myself. somewhere only we know.

“In 2 hours I shall be in battle, with little information, and on the spur of the moment will have to make the most momentous decisions. But I believe that one’s spirit enlarges with responsibility and that, with God’s help, I shall make them and make them right.”

And then! THE EXAMS WOULD BE OVER.

i think one of those ‘defining moments’ in life that really ‘defined’ me as an inherent anti-structuralist and recalcitrant rebel (despite all those positions i have taken which ironically required people to conform to my leadership) is this moment (or moments, since it happened repeatedly) in my childhood where my dad, an engineer by training, told me of how he, as a maths whiz, always could get pass his peers in maths exams because he understood the reasons and derivations of the formulas they were taught and refused to blindly apply them, as taught. i think he told me that likewise in life, it is always important to understand the reason why we do things and not just blindly go through the motions as prescribed by others. I think that must have had a profound impact on my person and character: i have stubbornly refused to conform (probably with some post-modernistic suspicion of:) the norm. exams too, form part of that suspicion i have of structures.

looking back at this sem, as it closes in the next couple of days, have i enjoyed it? despite the crazy convergence of essay deadlines, and the convergence of exams shortly after, yes, i did, of which the best part was the simple joy of accumulating knowledge in lectures (those which were useful anyways), through the immense research done in the process of churning out an essay and yes, even through the satisfaction of consolidating what has been taught in the semester in the preparation for the exams. exams therefore are peripheral and that is why, despite this singaporean obsessions with grades, i would very much like to do more than 3 usp arts mods, because 3 just isn’t enough to make my uni life meaningful to me.

i cannot describe what i am feeling right now. it’s kind of a sense of liberation from a structurally superimposed pressure to do well. i have never been one to do well in exams (maybe except maths somehow) and i cannot foresee myself doing well in this set of exams either. yet, i find comfort in the fact that in this semester, even though my grades may not reflect it, that i have gained something far more important. and i don’t just mean the good experience (or the feel good experience) or the ’skills’ but really this sense that i have acquired knowledge in areas no one else has bothered with. and maybe that is why i have this reluctance to go through my notes and have decided to enthrall myself in the arguments made by Jonathan Rigg on marginality instead. after all, who really can be contented knowing what everyone else has learnt?

roar.

More than to the visionary of his cell:
His stride is wilderness of freedom:
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
Over the cage floor the horizons come.

come the end of exams, it’ll be time for chasing dreams and sunsets.

i was thinking about Martin Smith’s “compassionart” and yeah, I’d like to take 2 weeks off to Scotland just purely to cut an album. Somehow, it is at my busiest that all these things that i wanna do come flooding into my head. And while I wouldn’t drop any of the things that I’ve planned to be doing, i feel like i should make my own ‘list’ just to make sure they never actualize just bcuz the opportunity to do them doesn’t present itself to me in chatter (pun intended.)

how big the world is, and all out there for us to explore.

why must i have parents that demand i do housework when i still have some 7.5k words to go.

it’s hard to keep a smile lifted these days.

For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children’s futures, and we are all mortal.

i think there’s a reason why i stopped listening to music. seriously at least.

it used to be a prime form of expression for me: my ipod and guitar. and then i think i wasn’t sure. i wasn’t sure who was the expression for whom. i remember how the random track on the ipod would change my mood almost arbitrarily, and while i was its owner, really, my earphones merely served as chains exploiting my most fragile emotions. i sought to protect myself and create distance. I intellectualized music, analysed every bit of it, from guitars to lyrics, arrangements, musical references, historical contexts, music-lyric synonymity etc . i sought to claim power by understanding it. i still do that now, but for intellectual engagement, music, while fascinating, competes with a whole other myriad of topics for my attention.

i think i won. i can now somewhat claim power because i understand it and its tricks. but i wonder if i have lost my soul together with it.

aiyah, i just wanna play basketball.

I was gonna say a bit about my emcee-ing experience and how i was given a script (as all emcees are) and ramble a bit about how i just couldn’t stick to it because it just felt too boxed up for me to stick to anything for too long. but that was basically it and i just wanted to put something about it somewhere.

-

deep inside, i think i am most skeptical of people. and of course, in self-defense, i have become exactly what i have been skeptical of, and the cycle has become somewhat self-reinforcing. i wonder if this’ll lead to a downward spiral where eventually i’ll become schizophrenic, distrusting, unloved, sad and alone. it doesn’t appear foreseeable at this point, but i don’t know if all this Hobbesian thinking will eventually translate to more than just an intellectual exercise; and i worry for my soul.

all this deathcab music.