Post Mortem

Monday, November 18, 2013 at 8:39 AM | Posted by Juwen
I've had coffee with two friends after a seriously hard week, both of them getting ready to go into the next phases of their lives. Watching them talk about their respective journeys was interesting but also made me think about my own. Where am I going and what am I getting myself into, I have no idea. Hearing their conversation, it is pretty evident what those questions look like and I'm sure that they too have their fare share of uncertainty as well. But there is a natural progression to these things and it is good to have them. 

It was then that I started to become really emotional. I don't think I showed it, but I definitely felt it. You know, the usual the grass is greener on the other side kind of deal. But I think it is more than that. I want to experience what they are going through. I know that it is tough, there is no doubt about that, but I still want in. It may be that God will grant me the experience later or that it shall be my cross to carry and to give my life to mentorship. But right now the feeling I get is that is to take a good look at them because that kind of life is not for me. And this saddens me greatly. For now.

I still share with them in their joy for being granted to go through their new phases in their lives. And there is a place for being happy/content with where you are now yet at the same time longing to be something or someone. Those are the two states that I am in now in this phase of my life. And it is a very hard to hold these two things in tension without slipping into something worse.

***

I think general morale in the company is low and I say it is the result of the growing pains that we are having. I think that to those who persevere through these times will see good sweet light at the end of the tunnel. How many of those who persevere on is another question.

| 0 comments |

גם זה יעבור

Tuesday, November 5, 2013 at 11:33 PM | Posted by Juwen
The long weekend was a lot of fun and it was also a chance that for me to think a lot. For the past weekend as well as Monday and Tuesday, I have been spending a lot of time with a small group of friends, heading for road trips and just generally hanging out. It was also a time for me to prepare myself that all of this is momentary. That soon, very soon I'd wager, that all of this shall cease. I am merely trying to milk it for as much enjoyment and to learn as much as possible.

It won't be long before they will continue on with the next stage in life and that they will find new friends or rather be closer friends with people of similiar status and I will fade away from their memory. This has already happened before and have been severely affected by that. So to minimise the damage this time round, I will treat it like the fact that all of this, the fun times and doing life together, is something that will end soon. To get as much out of the experience as possible, ready to pack my bags and find another group of friends that I can share my past experiences with them and to gather new ones.

I guess you can say that the wandering spirit has started to settle in me and the desire to move becomes ever more stronger. The desire to move to different areas from all aspects of life, starting from the place of receiving spiritual nourishment all the way to the physical location. Wherever the Lord leads I will follow.

 Interestingly enough, last Sunday's sermon spoke of almost exactly the thing that I needed assurance of. That was the start of a new series my church is starting which is on promises, specifically the promises that God has made for his people. It started with the promise that God will provide. It as though God was reassuring me that He will provide my needs despite the many "why"s that I have. One of the key points of the sermon was to be thankful for the things that I have received and I am thankful for these friendships. And when the road splits and I continue down the path that I am now while friends go on with their lives down another path, I am thankful for them.

 I will just need to be prepared for when that day comes, not to be too tied down and to learn to let go.

| 0 comments |

Sovereignty

Sunday, October 6, 2013 at 10:15 PM | Posted by Juwen
A friend posted a tweet this morning with a link to Shane and Shane's song Though You Slay Me. Little did I know that the content of this song fits in very well with today's sermon. It also fits in with my own struggles, it's a song that preaches to me that every suffering is meaningful. All of this was I guess God letting me know that he is in control of all things, sovereign. Which happens to be the topic of the sermon or rather part thereof.

Shane and Shane have written, I think, some of the most honest Christian songs I can think of. Sure the songs that we sing week in week out are full of Scripture that remind us of the love of Christ and how great a cost that he died for us and so on and so forth. But few songs have come to describe our humanly struggles in a way that connects with us in this day and age or even our hypocrisy as part of God's church as well as Shane and Shane do (Casting Crowns comes close though). Songs like the one above, below or even the one below that are not meant to be sung in church but to be listened like how one listens to a sermon.



| 0 comments |

R U OK?

Sunday, September 15, 2013 at 11:20 PM | Posted by Juwen
TL;DR
No, I am not.

 ***

 September 12 was supposed to be day where there is a heightened sense of awareness about depression and a somewhat large campaign was mobilised to get people talking about it. And September 13 was apparently programmer day but that is another story altogether.

 While as far as I am aware of my current mental state and that I do not fall in the category of clinical depression, the question that was posed during September 12 was something worth pondering about. And what I find is that the answer to that question, at least over the past few years, has been a steadily and increasingly been...no.

 I struggle with a lot of things, things in the past, regrets of the even further past coming back to haunt me again. And I am really struggling. I drop in and out of being an OK person and a mild state of depression where I want to avoid a large group of people. Which makes it even harder considering that most of the people that I am trying to avoid are people that I used to be able to see them eye-to-eye, laugh and joke and talk pretty much everything under the sun. Now it takes so much mental effort just to be in a public space with them in it.

 I am reminded of my own personal studies on 2 Corinthians recently and the line "My grace is sufficient for you" is something that I holding on fast to because there is nothing else that I can hold on to. Even though Paul was going through physical suffering when he penned those lines, I'm sure the same thing goes for someone going through emotional suffering. Someone who is still looking for answers or waiting on an answer.

 I will wait upon the Lord.

 ***

 I can't say that I was not a little angry/annoyed when I heard this on the way back home today. There was a context and somewhere in that context the question came up to "How do you deal with being single and all?". Now perhaps I am reading to much into it but when I heard that, the default expectation was that everyone should be attached or at least recently attached and someone has to think twice about being single especially when said person is approaching the big three-oh. There was a little irony in the context of the story but that shall be another story.

 Until now, I have yet to be a part of a community of Christians that holds true equal regard and support to people who are relationships and those who are not. The default position is we need to hook up this person with someone else if someone isn't already attached. That or we just do the following, "Interested in anyone?" "No." "Oh. That's cool". Given the recent sermon at church today, it seems that we are far from holding these two groups of people with equal regard.

 Some people are struggling with issues of singleness and our response is like parents consoling kids who got a D in an exam, that it is not the grade that you expect them to get but hey, at least you didn't fail. Or worse, give some kind of divine-laced answer of there are plenty of fish in the sea and you are bound to catch one. Nice idea but still wrong.

 It would somewhat cool if I did burst out in outrage but I didn't. I'd still like to give the benefit of the doubt that it was totally not intended. But whether or not it was intended at that point in time or not, I'd say it is still very evident in how people look at singleness today. And I am very very annoyed at that.

| 2 comments |

Anchor

Saturday, September 7, 2013 at 12:38 AM | Posted by Juwen


This is the yardstick for all bass players. To hold the groove, tight timing and just small variances around a central bass line. With the exception of a few sections in the song, the bassist plays the same progression, with a few sprinkles thrown in for good measure, but he played it like his life depended on it. And now, it's hard to imagine the song without the bass part. I still can't play that well and it is good to strive for such a goal.

| 0 comments |

My Blueberry Nights

Sunday, August 25, 2013 at 1:28 AM | Posted by Juwen
TL;DR
Food can be associated with the good memories, sometimes the bad too. I make a few of those that are both.

 ---

 I think most of us have very strong memories when it comes to food, particularly the events around partaking food. Who we were with, what were we doing and what were we eating get solidified into long term memories that when we think of food, we are immediately transported to that first event. It is often the good times, laughter with friends and amazing food that makes us close to impossible to forget.

 Of all the deserts I've ever tried, none can bring me close to the first time I've tried cheesecake, a very specific cheesecake. Blueberry cheesecake. To be exact, Sara Lee's blueberry cheesecake that's freely available in the frozen food section of the supermarket. It's not the best cheesecake I've ever had but when I first had it, it was a mind blowing experience. And I remembered it clearly, mum bought this cake because we wanted to give it a try and I have never tasted cheesecakes nor blueberries back home at that time. After one slice became two and three, suddenly I was almost asking for it every time my parents went grocery shopping. Till this day, no desert can really take that place of the almighty blueberry cheesecake.

 It is also a very special cake to me. It was the first one that I have made from scratch in a crappy little oven, in a crappy student accommodation during my first year in uni. I decided to make it after buying a magazine that had this wonderful shot of this delicious looking cake on the front cover. It was also the magazine that started to bring out the foodie in me. So really, I owe it to this cake that I became interested, passionate even, about cooking and baking.

 I don't know about the rest of you, but there are some food items that are strongly related to experiences in the past that reminded me about my regrets and to some extent, my despairs and failures. The blueberry cheesecake is one such item. It was only the other day that I've made blueberry cheesecake in more than 5 years because I was craving it. Well actually, it was an idea implanted in me a few days before that when I was passing by the frozen food section and see that there are frozen blueberries. I was happy that it still turn out as I remembered it to be (maybe a bit better), taking photos and sharing it on the usual social circles and was elated when taking my first bite.

 And then I remembered.

 I remembered the other events that I had with blueberry cheesecake. Events that I later regretted because of who I was at that time. It was a very strange feeling, how is it possible that can I feel both extremely happy and yet regretful at the same time. And at that time, I was alone in the house, the housemate has gone back to Malaysia for a funeral and the other housemate is still not back from holidays. The silence just amplified whatever that I was feeling that night. It dawned upon me that there was a reason why I had not want to make blueberry cheesecake for so long. 

 I wanted to forget. Forget that it ever happened. Forget that I ever felt that way.

 And so for the next few nights, I take one slice of cake, partake in silence and take it in. When the cake has been fully devoured, I think I might not make it again for a long time. I've had enough.

 In the same way how I have always joked about if there were such a thing as a spirit animal, it would be the hedgehog because of similiarities in behaviour between this cousin of the shrew and me, my experiences with this confounded cake represents a lot of who I am. As much as I try to make myself presentable to others though there is nothing really special about it, I will end up disappointing myself. This cake is also a closely guarded secret of mine, not because I have stumbled upon the holy grail recipe for this cake, all about the why this cake.

 Blueberry cheesecake is not the only food item that brings this double edged sword into my life though it is still invokes the strongest emotion of them all. Other such items are Milo with drinking chocolate, tuna with corn and capsicum and soon to be added, mango cheesecake.

 ---

 I can relate a lot to the film. I just wish that I can have the same ending. But it may be that take whatever baggage I have and keeping moving, just like Sue Lynne.

| 0 comments |

Fiction

Sunday, August 18, 2013 at 9:21 PM | Posted by Juwen
TL;DR
Games can be like books, good environment and a good story.

 ***

 My general philosophy on what are the kinds of games I usually play are very simple. One that either has a very immersive environment where you are just so captivated by the universe is created by the game where you can spend hours on hours just looking around or one that has a very well crafted story and pays very good attention to detail. I reckon that the kinds of games that I choose to play and how I treat it is very similiar to how people choose fictional books to read. Two very seemingly different things but have the same sorts of experiences when consuming them.

 Over the past month, I've played two such games, games that have completely taken over my Saturdays, having never ventured out to get some sun, coffee or friends. The first one was Fez, a 2D puzzle platform game in a 3D world. The background music, the picturesque worlds and the incredibly hard puzzles makes you just want to get lost in this kind of environment. A lot of the game play emphasises a lot of exploration of different areas (and of course to solve puzzles to get to those areas) adds the experience. It's just like a good narrative. Even though I have finished the game, it was clear that there is actually more to the game than what is necessary to complete the game. Many more secrets that are hidden throughout the different areas that you have explored. 

 The other game was Bioshock Infinite. There are many things that I like about the Bioshock universe, many things that I think people (Asians in particular) might find a bit weird for me to get into. But one thing that the Bioshock games have always had was a good plot. A well crafted story one that will grab your attention from beginning to end. The other thing that it has done well was incorporating themes like the fallenness of man's efforts when they have elevated their achievements to God like levels, the sins people commit, the regrets or the moral issues that a man faces. This is no different in Bioshock Infinite. The character Elizabeth deserves special mention. They have put so much character into this person in the game that she seems almost human. It is very hard not to be captivated by her, not just how she looks but in the character that she portrays in the game. I can't remember when was the last book that I have read that has all these things in a book that I just simply cannot put down. Then again, it was a long time since I have read books to that level.

 What's next? I'm tempted to go back to Bioshock Infinite just to have a second pass at the story. There are some bits that are missing when I first played it through and also to reinforce what was going (the story was quite involved and need to have a think about all the things that were said. A bit like Butterfly Effect, Donnie Darko and other such films).

 Games and films are in a way like substitute for books for me. When they are done well, they can tell a whole different story without words. Mainly because that I prefer to see non-verbal communication.

 ***

 The loneliness continues.

| 0 comments |

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)