Such a simple concept and one that everyone has generally, whether you think so or not. We have them as soon as we talk and will continue to have them until the day we die. Some may have them in the thousands, some may have a handful and the differences make up a whole spectrum of the human behaviour. We enjoyed and bonded over our similarities but we have fought, joked, debated over our discrepancies. Some string seemingly limitless words together and others say but a few choice words. Every good and evil person have their own.
But as anyone who has observed life long enough would realize, simple concepts do not necessarily imply simple dynamics. Even more so when our level of interconnectedness among ourselves have reached levels never before achieved. Just as how complex our brains are, so too are the complexities of our interactions. So many factors can cause different outcomes and can be as trivial as one makes it to be or something far too convoluted to break down to its individual components.
Which makes me wonder, with all the potential pitfalls out there, how difficult is it to actually be one?
Say for example, we are at the default position. Then, somewhere somehow, we wanted to be more than the default with another person. First the initial stages will be at the very least be slightly awkward (which in itself is something which is difficult to navigate as a person in the default position) and if it is not successful, then it is even more awkward and even more landmines to avoid. Secondly, there are moments of uncertainty which can lead to two possible scenarios, that both move forward or they part ways. The former will continue on until it hits the next moment of uncertainty and will continue to do so until the inevitable parting of ways for both. Now for parting, how does one approach it? Some just separate altogether and a rare few who do manage to do so in the best possible way, back to default position.
What about the opposite? That we want to be less than the default? Another big can of worms is opened and more things to watch out for so that we do not get our belongings torched or the other way round. And where do you draw the line between enduring and "I've had enough of this"? The more important question, or at least for me, is what exactly is this position of less than the default? It's not enemies, that's for sure and it's certainly not an acquaintance. Does it matter?
I've been asking these questions because I've had people ranting/emo-ing about both these situations before in their own lives. Which strikes me as odd because if this is how a normal person should have experienced, then I can safely say I have not had normal experiences. Well, only ranted/emo-ed over the former. But are both equally important? Have I unknowingly stumbled across the Holy Grail of resolving any conflict mentioned above or am I just very accommodating that I just cruise between the default and an acquaintance? Is that a good thing?
Friends are difficult creatures. But they make life very colourful.
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Am I too nice? Too naive? Too passive? Too cowardly? Too safe? Too scared?
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Sorry. Brain asplode post. O Hai! Ders finks to reed! Kthxbai!
Kicking it with Your Girlfriend. Awesome shots of couples with their pants, socks and shoes.
Really now. A Porsche santoku chef's knife. That thing looks nasty.
Music piracy is so old school. Television show piracy is the new thing.
Think your house/apartment is small? Try this one for size.
It all about (calorie) counting, really.
Milo 3-in-1 to the rescue to diffuse those tense moments.
Beer made from melted ice from the Antarctica. People are just waaaay too bored with regular beer.
Such a wonderful story about how one wrong e-mail can bring you closer to complete strangers.
Thai Pad
Monday, November 22, 2010
at
12:57 AM
A great many things have happened since finishing my exams. Mostly good, at least externally.
Yet, I keep feeling like there's a void that I'm constantly trying to fill. And it's fairly depressing. Perhaps I should just do work. Or watch penguins.
Many things to read here:
Blond cheerleaders? Dumb you say? Think again.
Maybe this is the reason why I have pretty good scores...
All part of the capitalization of China. And they seem to be outdoing everyone.
Hilarious entries here and here on why you should/shouldn't date a writer. And written by writers themselves.
Long overdue but the sad story of local film legend, P. Ramlee.
I would love to be super geeky in physics. So many interesting breakthroughs lately like anti-hydrogen,the invisibility cloak and spacetime cloak. Time to search for a good book in Quantum Mechanics.
Here's a flowchart on how your mortgages are owned.
So we should be fat because we might potentially be saving someone's life? I'm confused.
KPMG on the happiest companies in the States list? I think my accountant/auditing friends might want to contest that.
Perhaps we should do away with the whole daylight savings thing.
Really now? Suing a 4 year old. That is...low.
Respect. He haz it.
In the deluge of social media sites and services, we need to think on how we as Christians use these sites and/or services. Interesting read.
Perhaps this is something that will come in handy as Christians on atheism. But do so with grace for there is a very thin line between healthy conversation about God amongst believers and unbelievers and name-calling, Bible-bashing or anti-Bible bashing arguments.
Livinia Nixon. She purdy. And pretty smart too.
- Got myself into a summer project
- There may be a possibility that I may start work immediately after I finish next semester
- Had a crazy cookout for a bunch of friends
Yet, I keep feeling like there's a void that I'm constantly trying to fill. And it's fairly depressing. Perhaps I should just do work. Or watch penguins.
Many things to read here:
Blond cheerleaders? Dumb you say? Think again.
Maybe this is the reason why I have pretty good scores...
All part of the capitalization of China. And they seem to be outdoing everyone.
Hilarious entries here and here on why you should/shouldn't date a writer. And written by writers themselves.
Long overdue but the sad story of local film legend, P. Ramlee.
I would love to be super geeky in physics. So many interesting breakthroughs lately like anti-hydrogen,the invisibility cloak and spacetime cloak. Time to search for a good book in Quantum Mechanics.
Here's a flowchart on how your mortgages are owned.
So we should be fat because we might potentially be saving someone's life? I'm confused.
KPMG on the happiest companies in the States list? I think my accountant/auditing friends might want to contest that.
Perhaps we should do away with the whole daylight savings thing.
Really now? Suing a 4 year old. That is...low.
Respect. He haz it.
In the deluge of social media sites and services, we need to think on how we as Christians use these sites and/or services. Interesting read.
Perhaps this is something that will come in handy as Christians on atheism. But do so with grace for there is a very thin line between healthy conversation about God amongst believers and unbelievers and name-calling, Bible-bashing or anti-Bible bashing arguments.
Livinia Nixon. She purdy. And pretty smart too.
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Starstrucked
Monday, November 8, 2010
at
11:02 PM
The one and only Marcus Miller, one of two people who inspire me to take up bass. This guy is a legend in the bass playing world and watching him perform and sharing his often hilarious stories with us was an experience only very few things can compare with. One thing to note, he has got biceps the size of boulders and with that little eye squint of his (see pic above), reminds me of Popeye. Only thing missing was a pipe and an anchor tattoo on his bicep (he might already have one).
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Self Recognition
Saturday, October 30, 2010
at
8:57 PM
I'm going to try something here but I doubt that I will get many responses.
Have you ever watched a movie where in the midst of trying to track the general storyline of the movie, reading the characters as they play out their interpretation of the script that you had a light bulb moment and think to yourself "That looks a lot like me"? Whether the character (or rather some characteristic of the character) is a reflection of you somewhere in the past or in the present, you felt like that was what you went through or how you felt. And I don't know about you, but no matter how bad the plot was or how poorly developed the characters were, you come out watching that movie saying/thinking it wasn't that bad. Because you saw a part of yourself being portrayed by another person who may just see it as another script. You suddenly don't feel alone anymore.
Sometimes movies make you think about questions on morality, philosophy, ethics and other such deep issues (unless you're not into that kind of thing, which I would say get up and use your brain a bit more). But sometimes, movies make you think about yourselves. In that light bulb moment, it is saying to you "This is who you are/were" and sometimes in times where we don't know what to do with ourselves in our current situation or circumstance, the movie in question is telling you to think about what you should be doing. And here is where answers diverge depending on the movie. If it is one of those happy ending ones, you might suddenly forget all of the above because you come to the conclusion that nothing is this perfect or swing to become cynical and shoot down everything in sight. Which is why I love open endings (not the ones that hint at a sequel). Most of the time you're not being deluded with all the airy-fairyness of happy endings which gives me more attention to tackle the questions are being asked to me silently. What should I do? That is me right there, in that character, and he/she is giving me a possible answer or glance at an answer. Is that what I should be doing? Why and why not?
So, my question to you "stalkers" here, name one movie and the character that you saw a part of yourself that had the most impact on you. It doesn't necessarily have to be something that says about you now, it can be a distant past you. Whatever. But it should strike accord with you when you watch it. But it would be great if it is about the present you. Tell me by commenting here or the cobweb filled chatbox on the right of this blog. If you are shy, DM/PM (depending on what you use) me in whatever way you know how. Last I checked, it's still a federal offense for someone else to open your snail mail directed to me. If you are extra bold, tell me why you picked that movie and specifically that character.
Have you ever watched a movie where in the midst of trying to track the general storyline of the movie, reading the characters as they play out their interpretation of the script that you had a light bulb moment and think to yourself "That looks a lot like me"? Whether the character (or rather some characteristic of the character) is a reflection of you somewhere in the past or in the present, you felt like that was what you went through or how you felt. And I don't know about you, but no matter how bad the plot was or how poorly developed the characters were, you come out watching that movie saying/thinking it wasn't that bad. Because you saw a part of yourself being portrayed by another person who may just see it as another script. You suddenly don't feel alone anymore.
Sometimes movies make you think about questions on morality, philosophy, ethics and other such deep issues (unless you're not into that kind of thing, which I would say get up and use your brain a bit more). But sometimes, movies make you think about yourselves. In that light bulb moment, it is saying to you "This is who you are/were" and sometimes in times where we don't know what to do with ourselves in our current situation or circumstance, the movie in question is telling you to think about what you should be doing. And here is where answers diverge depending on the movie. If it is one of those happy ending ones, you might suddenly forget all of the above because you come to the conclusion that nothing is this perfect or swing to become cynical and shoot down everything in sight. Which is why I love open endings (not the ones that hint at a sequel). Most of the time you're not being deluded with all the airy-fairyness of happy endings which gives me more attention to tackle the questions are being asked to me silently. What should I do? That is me right there, in that character, and he/she is giving me a possible answer or glance at an answer. Is that what I should be doing? Why and why not?
So, my question to you "stalkers" here, name one movie and the character that you saw a part of yourself that had the most impact on you. It doesn't necessarily have to be something that says about you now, it can be a distant past you. Whatever. But it should strike accord with you when you watch it. But it would be great if it is about the present you. Tell me by commenting here or the cobweb filled chatbox on the right of this blog. If you are shy, DM/PM (depending on what you use) me in whatever way you know how. Last I checked, it's still a federal offense for someone else to open your snail mail directed to me. If you are extra bold, tell me why you picked that movie and specifically that character.
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Crapzorz
Thursday, October 28, 2010
at
12:33 AM
Who on Earth reads my long boring rubbish here?
Anyway, the most boring exam just ended even though it's the first paper. Which means I can relax a little bit more than usual.
Had a wonderful weekend, it was awesome from front to back. Friday after playing for OCF I went for dinner at a friends' place and just have nothing but good times there. And a whole lot of Take Two and Grabble. Then Saturday, a bunch of us went out shooting because there was this Shoot The City thing where we have a list of 20 items and we are supposed to present those items in photographs however we choose to interpret them. Didn't go off to a great start because it was raining and a number of other things. But more importantly we all got sidetracked a lot and mostly took photos of stuffed toys (long story) and before we knew it we decided to not submit at all. Went for badminton for an hour and then suddenly we all decided to cook dinner at a friend's place. Even more impromptu was that we decided to make lemon tart for dessert. So a quick grab of a change of clothes from home, grocery shopping and off we go to cook. Made pizza with tons of toppings and a lemon tart. The plan was that there was enough time for it to set before we went for a gig. But it didn't. In fact after we came back from the gig, not only did the lemon tart didn't set, the base was burned. Which was a pity because that was probably one of the best tart base I've made in awhile. Fortunately, there was barely enough tart base and other ingredients to quickly whip up another batch. 40 minutes later, tart came out all nice and stuff and just for kicks, we decided to brulee the top. o. m. g. Best idea in awhile. While I knew that the base was a bit dodgy (didn't bake it long enough), the filling was pretty good. The best part? I did it all from the top of my head, measurements and all. Someone said it was like taking a test. Nearly true except I was using someone's oven which is a bit hard to predict. Sunday had dinner at another friend's place and we stayed for quite a bit and the bunch of us actually went on to finish a litre of tequila. And we're still fine. I think.
Really really great time.
Time to do a news dump.
Student hides Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up in his assignment. Win.
Psychology majors are least happy with their majors. Ironic isn't it?
You can't argue with data. Panasonic > Canon > Nikon =P
Dog is a man's best friend. And when a best friend is going to die, you lament. Powerful stuff.
Science can answer questions about morality? Are you absolutely sure?
Cooking and baking are kitchen science. Like all science, there's a process, a reason for why they behave the way they do. Something that should be taught it more cookbooks rather than recipes.
God works even in the toughest of human conditions and circumstance. North Korea is no exception.
Which geek are you?
Bees can solve the traveling salesman problem? This is HUGE!! If we can break it down to an efficient algorithm, pretty much there's no such thing as a "hard" modeling problem. Which also means that computer security might go down the drain soon. I think it's a pretty good time to go into physics.
Be grateful for that sister of yours. She's one of the major factors that you are not depressed.
Think you are great at light painting? Try light painting an entire city...
Really good ideas rarely happen. Hmmm.
I'd like to have 1/2,000,000,000,000,000th of a slice of pie please.
Apparently you can buy your way into the US. Is it just me or does this sound a bit off?
The Christian beliefs are not to be assumed but to be thoroughly convicted in to the point where we see everything through these beliefs. Very interesting. For those of us who come from a Christian family, this is what we sound like. We assume the Christian belief (in our case, via our parents) which actually on hindsight for me is a pretty dangerous thing to have. But there's the other side of adhering so strongly to the beliefs that we have been so convinced of that we act in a very un-Christian manner. Hitting that balance is something we all struggle with.
This is very interesting and VERY tricky. From a former Christian missionary, how does one preach the gospel when they want actual physical evidence or physical witness that Jesus was a real person, nothing more, nothing less? This tribe from the Amazon live in the present, they do not talk about things several generations ago nor several generations in the future. And they are genuinely happy about their way of life. So, given that they already find it hard to accept anything without physical evidence or witness, how do you tell them that they have sinned (ala Adam and Eve), that Jesus came over 2000 years ago to save sinners and finally that we can look forward in the future where we will be with God and all the pain and suffering will be gone. All of these events are largely out of their scope of their physical verifiable belief system. To make things even harder, as a by-product of their belief system, they do not have a creation story. Of course, this is something that only God can deal with but it is one heck of a challenge to bring the gospel to these people. You can't help but feel the frustration of the missionary in trying to bring the gospel to these group of people who want no part in it because they literally cannot see or hear Jesus himself. Brings another dimension to the term spiritual blindness. Watch both the videos. Very interesting stuff.
How can you not want a hedgehog after seeing this picture? By the way, the photographer is awesome stuff.
No seriously, who reads my crap?
Anyway, the most boring exam just ended even though it's the first paper. Which means I can relax a little bit more than usual.
Had a wonderful weekend, it was awesome from front to back. Friday after playing for OCF I went for dinner at a friends' place and just have nothing but good times there. And a whole lot of Take Two and Grabble. Then Saturday, a bunch of us went out shooting because there was this Shoot The City thing where we have a list of 20 items and we are supposed to present those items in photographs however we choose to interpret them. Didn't go off to a great start because it was raining and a number of other things. But more importantly we all got sidetracked a lot and mostly took photos of stuffed toys (long story) and before we knew it we decided to not submit at all. Went for badminton for an hour and then suddenly we all decided to cook dinner at a friend's place. Even more impromptu was that we decided to make lemon tart for dessert. So a quick grab of a change of clothes from home, grocery shopping and off we go to cook. Made pizza with tons of toppings and a lemon tart. The plan was that there was enough time for it to set before we went for a gig. But it didn't. In fact after we came back from the gig, not only did the lemon tart didn't set, the base was burned. Which was a pity because that was probably one of the best tart base I've made in awhile. Fortunately, there was barely enough tart base and other ingredients to quickly whip up another batch. 40 minutes later, tart came out all nice and stuff and just for kicks, we decided to brulee the top. o. m. g. Best idea in awhile. While I knew that the base was a bit dodgy (didn't bake it long enough), the filling was pretty good. The best part? I did it all from the top of my head, measurements and all. Someone said it was like taking a test. Nearly true except I was using someone's oven which is a bit hard to predict. Sunday had dinner at another friend's place and we stayed for quite a bit and the bunch of us actually went on to finish a litre of tequila. And we're still fine. I think.
Really really great time.
Time to do a news dump.
Student hides Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up in his assignment. Win.
Psychology majors are least happy with their majors. Ironic isn't it?
You can't argue with data. Panasonic > Canon > Nikon =P
Dog is a man's best friend. And when a best friend is going to die, you lament. Powerful stuff.
Science can answer questions about morality? Are you absolutely sure?
Cooking and baking are kitchen science. Like all science, there's a process, a reason for why they behave the way they do. Something that should be taught it more cookbooks rather than recipes.
God works even in the toughest of human conditions and circumstance. North Korea is no exception.
Which geek are you?
Bees can solve the traveling salesman problem? This is HUGE!! If we can break it down to an efficient algorithm, pretty much there's no such thing as a "hard" modeling problem. Which also means that computer security might go down the drain soon. I think it's a pretty good time to go into physics.
Be grateful for that sister of yours. She's one of the major factors that you are not depressed.
Think you are great at light painting? Try light painting an entire city...
Really good ideas rarely happen. Hmmm.
I'd like to have 1/2,000,000,000,000,000th of a slice of pie please.
Apparently you can buy your way into the US. Is it just me or does this sound a bit off?
The Christian beliefs are not to be assumed but to be thoroughly convicted in to the point where we see everything through these beliefs. Very interesting. For those of us who come from a Christian family, this is what we sound like. We assume the Christian belief (in our case, via our parents) which actually on hindsight for me is a pretty dangerous thing to have. But there's the other side of adhering so strongly to the beliefs that we have been so convinced of that we act in a very un-Christian manner. Hitting that balance is something we all struggle with.
This is very interesting and VERY tricky. From a former Christian missionary, how does one preach the gospel when they want actual physical evidence or physical witness that Jesus was a real person, nothing more, nothing less? This tribe from the Amazon live in the present, they do not talk about things several generations ago nor several generations in the future. And they are genuinely happy about their way of life. So, given that they already find it hard to accept anything without physical evidence or witness, how do you tell them that they have sinned (ala Adam and Eve), that Jesus came over 2000 years ago to save sinners and finally that we can look forward in the future where we will be with God and all the pain and suffering will be gone. All of these events are largely out of their scope of their physical verifiable belief system. To make things even harder, as a by-product of their belief system, they do not have a creation story. Of course, this is something that only God can deal with but it is one heck of a challenge to bring the gospel to these people. You can't help but feel the frustration of the missionary in trying to bring the gospel to these group of people who want no part in it because they literally cannot see or hear Jesus himself. Brings another dimension to the term spiritual blindness. Watch both the videos. Very interesting stuff.
How can you not want a hedgehog after seeing this picture? By the way, the photographer is awesome stuff.
No seriously, who reads my crap?
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Technically Artistic or Artistically Technical?
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
at
2:16 AM
I've always loved the sciences as far as I can remember. I remember when my parents got me my first encyclopedia that utilized Disney characters to describe just a small subset of the general knowledge there was available for a 4 year-old, I was overly estatic. I would read the encyclopedia over and over again until I could memorize scientific facts and regurgitate on the spot. I didn't really care so much for the colourful and familiar Disney characters though that did play some part in stoking my interest, which is pretty odd for a 4 year-old to behave I guess. Years gone by and my parents decided to up the ante a bit by getting me another set of encyclopedia, this time utilizing the characters from the Peanuts comic strip. Again, I didn't really care so much for the colourful Peanuts characters but I reread the encyclopedia from front to back and spitting out even more scientific facts about the world we live in (and in the solar system).
At some point my parents might have felt annoyed because I was bugging them with a lot of "Did you know that...?" facts from these two sets of encyclopedias. And somewhere down the line, they probably began to worry about me not having any artistic ability whatsoever, or at the very least an appreciation of it. I was too fixated on science. So they slowed down my craving for more and more information and started me on the path of cultivating some sort of artistic expression in me. For most Malaysians/Singaporeans, this means one thing. Piano lessons. I didn't really make it that far in my piano lessons (less than 5 months if I remember correctly), I kinda enjoyed it but was pretty lazy in practicing although according to my piano teacher, I seem to get away with it. On a side note, I've heard many many stories about how fierce piano teachers are to their students in their posture, style etc. but I have like the nicest piano teacher ever. Perhaps I could have gone further had I not take her for granted.
There were many other attempts in installing the arts in my brain, most of which failed. There was this very VERY futile attempt in sending me to an art class. I hated it for two reasons, I had to miss my Saturday morning cartoons and I felt so lost in the class because everyone was painting well while I barely had a pencil line on my paper. I barely made any friends in that class and after lamenting how I really didn't want to go my mom finally let me off. My sister on the other hand, thrived in that area. She easily whoop everyone's asses in the art class. Digressing again, there was another bad attempt at learning languages. Again for most Malaysian/Singaporean Chinese, it's of course Mandarin. For me, there's also my mother tongue, Hokkien. I actually enjoyed learning them until I lost interest because the teachers either became very useless or that they themselves lost interest.
So there we have it. 18 years of my life not knowing music, art and languages. I didn't mind it then although it's a pain when your friends start switching to Chinese and not knowing a single thing. But other than that, I didn't care.
Then in a remarkable turn of events, I started getting into those. Only this time the mode of learning was drastically different. I started learning music, another language and more recently some sense of artistic expression.
At 18, I picked up the bass because I loved jazz and I knew that it was fundamental to jazz music. So the opportunity presented itself and I took it up. My bass teacher was pretty good but the difference between him and all the other teachers was that he taught me the technicality of bass playing. I soaked it up like a sponge, just that my motor skills couldn't keep up with the technical information coming in my brain. I didn't realize it then but he pretty much taught me everything I knew now in 2 months because the technical explanations stuck with me and it made soooo much sense.
At 19, I picked up Japanese because a friend asked me and I just said yes. It was probably due to my interest in anime that I said yes. So I went for classes. Compared to Mandarin, Japanese made a lot of sense to me and it is remarkably technical. There are very few exceptions to grammar rules (unlike English) and there's almost a formula for constructing sentences once you break things down. Again, I soaked up everything and before I knew it, I'm just one step to being averagely fluent in Japanese. If you read Japanese outside the context of anime/manga, the language is utterly beautiful and expressive. You can describe a lot in a haiku written in English because of the nature of the English language, but a haiku written in Japanese is more profound and using less words.
At 24, my ex-housemate "brainwashed" me to take up photography. My dad has always had the latest camera gear and frequently shoot. He tried to explain the fundamentals of photography but failed. Once the rise of DSLRs started, I shunned it completely. Once I had been brainwashed, I started shooting. It took awhile before I started developing my own constructs on what I think photography should be like. Then I started shooting on film, more likely because of the "brainwashing" by my ex-housemate =P And all of the sudden, my own artistic expression starts to surface and I'm liking every minute of it. I got into photography because there were a lot of aspects that boil down to technique and technical aspects of the fundamentals. With that, photography made sense to me. The funny thing is that after knowing all of these things, I cringe at my dad's photo-taking skills. So. Painful. To. Look. At.
I always thought I am a pure, hardcore science person. Which in some sense is still true. I like the reasoning that comes with science. Science has always been about applying specific sets of technical details to the world around us but it's this same love of technicalities that made me learn the arts as well. This might be strange for some people but this makes a lot of sense. The downside is that, after only picking these things up so late in life (relatively), I have to fight harder in order to do something that is second nature to a lot of the friends that I have now, be it photography, music or language. Also (and this is the one that will hurt me the most) I will have to admit that there are some things I will never be able to comprehend or replicate no matter how hard I try. Because technicalities can only bring you so far. Unless you are, so to speak, wired to process art, no amount of algorithmic techniques can fully reproduce pure brain-fueled inspired artistic power. And that sucks.
It is also interesting to note, that the biggest expansion in my knowledge and understanding of the arts come from the downfall since my attempt at a Phd. I lost the opportunity to be at the pinnacle of technical achievement, to be at the forefront of science but gained an understanding of the arts that I never knew when I was a kid growing up with my encyclopedias. Worth the trade? Perhaps. Is God teaching me something here? Too soon to tell. Is it a coincidence that the timing of such lessons in art matches my halt in my forte of science? I think not.
At some point my parents might have felt annoyed because I was bugging them with a lot of "Did you know that...?" facts from these two sets of encyclopedias. And somewhere down the line, they probably began to worry about me not having any artistic ability whatsoever, or at the very least an appreciation of it. I was too fixated on science. So they slowed down my craving for more and more information and started me on the path of cultivating some sort of artistic expression in me. For most Malaysians/Singaporeans, this means one thing. Piano lessons. I didn't really make it that far in my piano lessons (less than 5 months if I remember correctly), I kinda enjoyed it but was pretty lazy in practicing although according to my piano teacher, I seem to get away with it. On a side note, I've heard many many stories about how fierce piano teachers are to their students in their posture, style etc. but I have like the nicest piano teacher ever. Perhaps I could have gone further had I not take her for granted.
There were many other attempts in installing the arts in my brain, most of which failed. There was this very VERY futile attempt in sending me to an art class. I hated it for two reasons, I had to miss my Saturday morning cartoons and I felt so lost in the class because everyone was painting well while I barely had a pencil line on my paper. I barely made any friends in that class and after lamenting how I really didn't want to go my mom finally let me off. My sister on the other hand, thrived in that area. She easily whoop everyone's asses in the art class. Digressing again, there was another bad attempt at learning languages. Again for most Malaysian/Singaporean Chinese, it's of course Mandarin. For me, there's also my mother tongue, Hokkien. I actually enjoyed learning them until I lost interest because the teachers either became very useless or that they themselves lost interest.
So there we have it. 18 years of my life not knowing music, art and languages. I didn't mind it then although it's a pain when your friends start switching to Chinese and not knowing a single thing. But other than that, I didn't care.
Then in a remarkable turn of events, I started getting into those. Only this time the mode of learning was drastically different. I started learning music, another language and more recently some sense of artistic expression.
At 18, I picked up the bass because I loved jazz and I knew that it was fundamental to jazz music. So the opportunity presented itself and I took it up. My bass teacher was pretty good but the difference between him and all the other teachers was that he taught me the technicality of bass playing. I soaked it up like a sponge, just that my motor skills couldn't keep up with the technical information coming in my brain. I didn't realize it then but he pretty much taught me everything I knew now in 2 months because the technical explanations stuck with me and it made soooo much sense.
At 19, I picked up Japanese because a friend asked me and I just said yes. It was probably due to my interest in anime that I said yes. So I went for classes. Compared to Mandarin, Japanese made a lot of sense to me and it is remarkably technical. There are very few exceptions to grammar rules (unlike English) and there's almost a formula for constructing sentences once you break things down. Again, I soaked up everything and before I knew it, I'm just one step to being averagely fluent in Japanese. If you read Japanese outside the context of anime/manga, the language is utterly beautiful and expressive. You can describe a lot in a haiku written in English because of the nature of the English language, but a haiku written in Japanese is more profound and using less words.
At 24, my ex-housemate "brainwashed" me to take up photography. My dad has always had the latest camera gear and frequently shoot. He tried to explain the fundamentals of photography but failed. Once the rise of DSLRs started, I shunned it completely. Once I had been brainwashed, I started shooting. It took awhile before I started developing my own constructs on what I think photography should be like. Then I started shooting on film, more likely because of the "brainwashing" by my ex-housemate =P And all of the sudden, my own artistic expression starts to surface and I'm liking every minute of it. I got into photography because there were a lot of aspects that boil down to technique and technical aspects of the fundamentals. With that, photography made sense to me. The funny thing is that after knowing all of these things, I cringe at my dad's photo-taking skills. So. Painful. To. Look. At.
I always thought I am a pure, hardcore science person. Which in some sense is still true. I like the reasoning that comes with science. Science has always been about applying specific sets of technical details to the world around us but it's this same love of technicalities that made me learn the arts as well. This might be strange for some people but this makes a lot of sense. The downside is that, after only picking these things up so late in life (relatively), I have to fight harder in order to do something that is second nature to a lot of the friends that I have now, be it photography, music or language. Also (and this is the one that will hurt me the most) I will have to admit that there are some things I will never be able to comprehend or replicate no matter how hard I try. Because technicalities can only bring you so far. Unless you are, so to speak, wired to process art, no amount of algorithmic techniques can fully reproduce pure brain-fueled inspired artistic power. And that sucks.
It is also interesting to note, that the biggest expansion in my knowledge and understanding of the arts come from the downfall since my attempt at a Phd. I lost the opportunity to be at the pinnacle of technical achievement, to be at the forefront of science but gained an understanding of the arts that I never knew when I was a kid growing up with my encyclopedias. Worth the trade? Perhaps. Is God teaching me something here? Too soon to tell. Is it a coincidence that the timing of such lessons in art matches my halt in my forte of science? I think not.
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