The First Step Away From the Land of Birth.

Right. So last week I was in Bali for a holiday; one planned over a year ago. Now, I’m not going to be talking about sights and food and whatnot; you can go look for some crummy tour guide or something for that sort of stuff. What I’m going to talk about is something that I feel for on a personal level, and that is the culture there, or rather, the difference between theirs and ours.

First of the differences is the traffic culture. In Malaysia, people use their honks in a sort of ‘get out of the fucking way’ kind of way, where if someone is slow to respond to a green light by more than a second, other drivers behind will start blowing their honks away, never relenting until their temper has been cooled. Which may be a good 100 meters later. That, or they use it in a ‘do you have mud for brains?’ way, where it used the same way a short fused bugger would be scolding another for some mistake someone made. In short, Malaysians use their honks very aggressively, always scolding people using the honks instead of their own voices.

In Bali, however, things are a bit different. Actually, things are very different if I’ll be honest. There, people use the honks in a ‘hey, notice me’ or ‘look out, I’m coming through’ kind of way. The way it was meant to be used, if I may say so. I’m not saying that they don’t use aggressive honking over in Bali. It’s just that, it is so much rarer. As a result of all this though, you hear the honks almost every minute there, but each time you hear it doesn’t make you feel guilty of committing some sort of offence or like the guy who just sounded his honk needed to spend seven centuries in burning hellfire like you probably would here.

Let me give you an example.  Imagine a narrow road with only one lane going in each direction and there is a fast car coming behind a slow lorry. In Malaysia, the driver of the car will drive up next to the lorry when the opposite side is clear and honk while showing the finger through the window, before speeding up and actually finishing the overtaking manoeuvre. In Bali, when the driver of the car sees that the coast is clear on the opposite side, he sounds the honk, which catches the attention of the lorry driver, who notices that someone wants to overtake, who then proceeds to slow down and drive a little closer to the edge of the road so that the car can overtake a little easier.

Now, there are a few things that I’m unsure of, first of which is if this kind of driving style is an Indonesian or strictly Balinese style. I am also unsure if this driving style is the result of the narrow, single-lane roads that I described above which make up most of Bali’s traffic network. What I’m sure of is that people should drive like how the Balinese drivers do. I don’t know if drivers in other countries drive like they do, but those in Malaysia really should learn to do so.

That aside, many other things remain similar to Malaysia; the flora, the fauna, the food, the architecture, the lack of a nightlife, and probably most important to some, the cutthroat prices that helps one sharpen their bargaining skills.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

P.S.: You may notice that I’ve changed (finally) the background picture. This is because ImageShack is a completely incompetent shit that loses uploaded images and when you ask them to try to retrieve it, they make you go through useless and troublesome procedures. Since I’m sick of seeing a blank background I decided to get another, but because this setup of mine doesn’t not have Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator installed because I’m too poor (and lazy) to get another copy, I’m unable to make my own and thus shall resort to the raw materials provided by Capcom.

The price of freedom, revisited.

Perhaps I should have realized sooner, but I now know that not everyone can bear the price of freedom. With hindsight now I understand why, during my schooling days when motivational talks for students were a frequent thing, that those motivators would give me queer looks, mock and scorn me when they ask “what do you dream of?” and I replied “infinite freedom.”

Credit where it is due, I guess they did alright for realizing that they themselves are unworthy of freedom because they are unable to bear such a price. But for them to think that everyone else is as unworthy as them, well, that is a bit condescending of them, if not also egocentric.

Despite all that’s said I have no problems with people embracing freedom. In fact, as long as no one else in hurt in the process, I can encourage nothing more than I do freedom. Emphasis on ‘no one else’ because I also believe masochists are free to hurt themselves or deprive themselves of their own freedom if it makes them happy, as long as no one else is hurt. At the risk of stating the obvious, when I say hurt I mean physically and mentally, of course. No doubt there are sadomasochistic people who wish the entire world is as depraved as they are as they relentlessly attempt to introduce such depravity to their family and friends, but I would personally prefer that they keep their practices within their own depraved community, for everyone else is also free to live free and wholesome lives.

But I digress. The fact remains that everyone should be free and despite that, not many can bear the burden of being free. I’ll admit it’s not something I understand, but I will hypothesize that it has something to do with our violent animal nature, that some feel or believe that there is no point of freedom if they are not allowed to be agents of pain and suffering. To quote Immanuel Kant, “Peace amongst men living alongside one another is not a natural state. On the contrary, the natural state of man is that of war. War manifested not only by open hostilities, but also by the constant threat of hostility. Peace, therefore, is a state that must be established by law.”

This brings me to an old problem, one that I face every now and again. One so old that I have just decided not to mention it again; some things get old very quickly, especially unpleasant ones. The only difference is now I have just thought of establishing a bit of non-reporting to myself. Intentional ignorance, if you will.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

P.S.: The word ignorance is a greatly misused word, mainly by dim-witted people. Ignorance is described as being unaware or ill-informed, which differs from stupid which means someone with a slow brain. This needs to be mentioned because I’ve had enough of my ignorant pillock of a father calling everyone who doesn’t think as he does an ‘ignorant’ person. This is unfair to other intelligent but otherwise uninformed people, and is giving idiots too much credit.

In Exile; the Heart of the Sword.

You can always trust the Japanese to not fuck up their own legacy. Despite the rearranged and rushed story and non-main characters not staying true to the original, Rurouni Kenshin was a good movie. Great theme song by One OK Rock, nicely directed by Keishi Otomo and of course, excellent, almost perfect portrayal by Takeru Satoh.

This is probably why I so much prefer Japanese tributes rather than their American sorry excuse of an equivalent. Take Street Fighter, Dragon Ball and Tekken for examples. Hollywood has half the right idea when they think that the original will only appeal to cult audiences, which consists of people who played the original games or watched the original anime, so to sell to everyone else, the whole movie is changed into - guess what? - hot babes and their boobies. That's something that will appeal to even the most uncultured barbarian (or rather, that kind of appeal is greater the less cultured and the more barbaric a person is). Most ironically, it gets hard to think that those 'hot babes' are hot because, well, when a whole movie is dedicated to proving that single point, expectations tend to get quite high. In this proper live action adaptation, however, I cannot help but notice so much beauty in simplicity; in the normal everyday person. But what do I know? I am, after all, part of the cultured cult.

Thing is, what they probably don't realize is that their 'cult audience' is much larger than they anticipate, and of course, what's the point of using those titles if you're not going to appeal to the fans of the original? Not only is the essence of the original lost, fans who turn up to watch are disgusted and people who know nothing about the original get the wrong idea.

From a different perspective, you could say that the Americans are very good at unconsciously making parodies. Not sure if that can ever be viewed as a compliment, no matter how many different perspectives we view it from. Pretty much like calling a fool a person who is proud of his/her decision to not think; softening the blow or making it more obvious?

Incidentally, it may be a little late for this but I finally realized where the title ‘Heart of Sword’ came from. Silly me for not realizing earlier.

And with that, adieu to y’all.

P.S.: For y'all who missed the clickable bit up there, here it is, 'The Beginning' by 'One OK Rock'.

And 4 months later... Well, almost, anyway.

Between 4 and 5 days ago, most of the friends I made during university life had their convocation back at the hell in which I have suffered for the past 3 years. These are people whom with most contact has been lost entirely, while a handful of others I do what I can to maintain irregular contact when regular is not possible, some I still secretly stalk through Facebook (not so secretly now that I’m putting it out here in the open) and some others I wish I had less fucks to give. It’s the same sort of feeling 5 years ago, when I just finished secondary school; wishing I’d be able to keep in touch with a handful of people yet realizing that from that point on it would be more difficult to do so, as everyone gets on with their lives and the involvement of one another in it isn’t largely possible.

Which reminds me; having zero fucks to give is apparently an unhealthy way of being. I say apparently because this is opposed by 3 years’ worth of psychology classes, but supported by the counselling subtopics within. While psychology will tell you to not give a flying toss about what people think of you, how they judge you and whatnot while asking that you don’t judge others either, counselling will tell you to care about your interpersonal relationships, to work towards strengthening it and the like, in other words, telling you to give some fucks about what you think of others and what they think of you.

Life experiences, however, tells me that counselling is bollocks. This is because the more you care about it, chances are (when I say chances, it actually is 100%) that at some point you will be disappointed. Every time I actually cared about something and worked towards that something, the end result will almost always be exactly as if I did not care one bit, sometimes worse.  It’s kind of like the English proverbs, one going “distance makes the heart grow fonder” while another goes “out of sight, out of mind.” Life tells me to go with the second one as the first one is clearly bollocks. Otherwise there would be no such thing as losing contact with friends. The irony? I thought so too.

So yes, the irony of my life is that I have learned to care as little as possible about matters not directly concerning me in order to protect my sanity but at the same time the act of not caring makes me a clinically depressed person. And for real this time, too; I’ve been officially diagnosed as clinically depressed about half a year ago so you fellas who are not sick in the head reading this might want to take things I say with a pinch of salt, seriously. Yes, I am aware of the irony this time as well.

I am actually even seeing a therapist semi-regularly according to whenever she schedules the appointments, and the stuff she tells me just further justifies my opinion on the whole matter. I am being given the impression now that whenever I see something pointless and mundane on the internet, instead of merely being indifferent like I always do, I’m supposed to feel strongly for or against whatever that piece of information might be. Instead of just going “meh, might be some rumour mongering, I’ll check it out later,” I’m expected to explode with emotion, “I KNOW RIGHT!? THAT IS SO TOTALLY TRUE!” or “WHAT ABSOLUTE NONSENSE IS THIS SHIT? THE AUTHOR DOESN’T KNOW WHAT HE/SHE IS TALKING ABOUT!” So as a result, I’d feel really good about myself because someone agrees with me or I’d explode with anger and compromise my sound mind if someone disagrees with me.

And if you’d notice, this also means gambling is good for your mental health. Checking out the internet is like checking out the table. Act indifferently to whatever you see or read on the internet is like acting indifferently and not placing your bet. Once you place your bet, however, you’re very likely to explode with the same kind of emotion is the same way as well, because when you win, you’re actually just getting agreeable results like you’d get from agreeable info off the net, and vice versa when you lose. The only difference is when you gamble, there’s anticipation that further amplifies the emotion, while when surfing the net things tend to be more spontaneous. Probably explains why previously only the rich bother with mental health while middleclass people and lower don’t really care too much; because only the rich can afford to gamble. Fortunately for me I got the psychiatrist to refer me to a therapist who works for a semi-government hospital, so I don’t have to pay for the treatment. For now, at least.

So there you have it. I am mentally ill because I have gone through more shit than most people who are mentally sound have. So my words are words of wisdom gained from experience which people should heed, but then again they should not because the very experience that made me wise also made me mad.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

The Plight of an Objective Person.

The painful moment when an objective person is forever alone because he is unable to accept people for who they are, as he desires others to be the best they can be.

That, in a nutshell, describes my life.

In my mind, to be an objective person, one needs to both be vengeful and hold grudges, while at the same time remembering every virtue of every person around. This is something I consider myself as doing quite well. I don’t remember important stuff, that’s why I get such shitty grades for my exams; nor do I remember insignificant things, since no one does anyway. But things slap bang in the middle of the continuum between significance and insignificance do not escape my memory easily, if ever.

It isn’t a pleasant experience, to say the least, to watch someone berating another for some offence or other, while remembering a time and place when the same person was committing the very crime he/she is now berating another for. It is even more so when someone reprimands another for one thing, and moments later chews another person out for doing the exact opposite of what the first person was criticized for. I’m sure it is definitely far more unpleasant for the transgressors of said inconsistency and hypocrisy to have their own paradoxical behaviour pointed out to them, but that, perhaps, is the point in which I’m trying to get across.

There is a problem with the human psychology: we don’t like to be wrong. This is because it harms our self-esteem. We feel bad about ourselves when we discover that we are not right. The opposite is also true: we like being right; it makes us feel good about ourselves. We also like to correct others as a result, because this makes us feel good about ourselves for two distinct reasons. One being the fact that we’re right; what this means I have already explained. The other is the fact that we are of a more knowledgeable position, thus of greater perceived importance than the one(s) we correct. In effect, this also means that we don’t like to be corrected, because we will feel bad for ourselves because we were wrong and because there is someone more knowledgeable than we are. I think by this point the problem implied by this paragraph should be apparent enough.

Some people can take criticism. That’s fine; it gives them the chance to be right in the future.  Some others strike back with righteous fury. Some go the extra mile and foam at the mouth by going on and on baselessly about how the criticizer is wrong and how the criticized is right for 10 years straight without stopping to sleep, eat, drink or even breathe. Fortunately, more often than not, such people end up dead by the time they’re done, or even when they’re not. Others develop arthritis or carpal tunnel.

People should be aware of two things. First is that we are all learning. And so, when we criticize our fellow learners, we do it rationally, ethically and calmly. Likewise, when we are criticized, we take it rationally, ethically and calmly. This is because we are all aware that at some point in our lives, we were wrong. We have changed our perspective at least once, or at least have looked at things from another, and thus have no right to defend said perspective with righteous fury, simply because it is impossible to discount the possibility that we may come across another that we find more agreeable, which completely invalidates our defending the previous one. The only ones who do are those who live in their closed world where there has never been the possibility of another perspective. These people criticize the view of others and defend theirs to the death simply because, if they were wrong, then their entire life has been a lie. And they can’t take that.

Before anyone points out the subjectivity of the above paragraph, let me continue. Secondly, when you criticize, do so objectively, with facts and a neutral stance, and not with bias or prejudice. While a perspective is definitely subjective, the facts behind them are not. What this means is that while there are certainly things that are wrong, not everything else is perfectly right. Things do not come in two states of right and wrong, but rather, they fall in a continuum; a line in between two extremes. Where we place something within this line is subjective, but we can, and should, do so objectively, with a neutral stance and with facts to back the decision.

All this leads to the point I brought up at the very beginning of this entry. How does an objective person point out mistakes done by people he cares for? Rationally, ethically and calmly, sure, but would it be better to just let the person be? Will the criticized person be able to take it just as rationally, just as ethically and just as calmly? Should he accept people for who they are, and endure the hurt every time he sees them commit paradoxes in his face, or should he point it out and risk hurting the relationship he has with these people?

In a way, for putting all these words in public view, I have forsaken my objectivity. But in the end I still hope that it is a worthy sacrifice, for the benefit of my own psychological wellbeing, and for the growth of all who read this.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all. Food for thought for until the next time.

Fathers' Day or Foodsters' Day?

Fathers' Day was bad for a number of reasons; first being it is the day that I got an unexplainable swelling in my mouth where ulcers usually show up thanks to the upper left wisdom tooth, only this time there wasn’t any sign of an ulcer at all. So yeah, this is the infamous killer microbe(s) that has made me feel very sick indeed. Sorry if I sounded cold the other day bro. Good thing it left (or rather, is leaving) as quickly as it appeared suddenly.

Fathers' Day was also the day that I reevaluated Tony Roma’s. I now place it below Chilli’s because on a busy day, service was a little poor. Might have to do with the fact that they had a newbie on duty, but it does not change the fact that they made 2 mistakes on that day which they didn’t when I showed up on a weekday, when there was literally only one other table seated with customers. Sure, their food still tastes slightly better, but considering Chilli’s much wider variety I’m very much inclined to rate them better in general.

Something about this week that is a bit odd. Six days felt like seven. It is usually the other way around, and much more exaggerated. But this is a good thing because it gives me the opportunity to rush what I was given 2 weeks to do in 8 days. Then I can probably reward myself with something expensive to fuel my pride. Here’s hoping all goes according to plan.

Speaking of fueling my pride, I ran Adobe Audition for the first time since I got it. Thanks to my internship I became so lazy that all the stuff I intended to do with it was put on hold. But when I finally found the spirit to get one of the many projects done, boy was it a great moment. It was so long since I was so full of myself. A very long time since I last got the chance to practice my sinister laugh Rau Le Creuset style to go along with the unjustified sense of overachievement.

Also, as an unintended result of putting my old plans into motion, I’m now having the PSP playing my RLBGM most of the time. Unsurprisingly, when I think about it, since the OST for games that I play nowadays are either too impossibly rare to be sold locally or to even have any torrents, or non-existent altogether, leaving me with the task of making a homebrew sort of OST. Which means another project to add to the already stretched list.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

Committing the perfect murder… On the self…

It has been a while since the last time. It would’ve been sooner had things went a little smoother. But then again, this is life we’re talking about. My life, to be precise, which is good at nothing but making itself miserable.

Picking up from where I left off the last time, I now conclude that:

Tony Roma’s > Chilli's > The Ship > Victoria Station > TGI Friday's

It should be noted though that while the food is better at Tony Roma’s, Chilli’s does have a greater variety to their menu and is more flexible with their drinks. As before, anyone who doesn’t agree can feel free to keep your opinion to yourself.

Actually, this was decided very long ago; probably about three weeks. I did not announce it back then because something else happened that killed the mood completely: someone nicked my PSP, and along with it, 48 hours of my life spent on completing G Generation World. And this reminds me of one of the reasons why religion exists in this world: because most people (myself included, and I am very ashamed to be admitting this) are incapable of accepting the simple fact that shit happens, and endlessly foam at the mouth demanding an explanation as to why said shit happened in the first place, though I maintain that bastards who commit crime for a living should be shot in the head in front of their family.

But despite all this I took a cue from 9gag and took a deep breath, and proceeded to fuck this shit. And it works. And that’s quite the bombshell since it came from a completely nonprofessional site.

Also, before this if anyone asked me if I was a pampered kid or ‘anak manja’ as they say in Malay for being an only child, I would have much trouble responding, not because I’m ashamed to admit it if I was, but because I genuinely did not know as my father never bought me anything I wanted and never kept promises whenever we made a deal that I’d be rewarded whenever I achieved some sort of outstanding academic achievement, except for that one time when he bought me the entire first season of Digimon Adventures series for my 5As in UPSR. He’d also break anything that I bought with my own savings or that my mom bought for me without his permission. Now though, if anyone were to ask me if I’m a pampered kid, my answer would be ‘yes’ without a doubt. Because my mother agreed to replace the PSP that was nicked. On the same day the incident happened.

Life went on after that, with me occupying 5 days of Yat’s study week because he didn’t feel like studying and we were both bored to hell. And today with me heading out of the house for the first time since the incident, meeting up with JY for a short morning tea followed by a whole lot of rotting in Times Square, although I did catch a movie. Or two; the second one was being played outside some DVD shop. Was an interesting Korean movie about 2 POWs, one a Korean POW to the Japanese Imperial Army, another who was a Japanese military Colonel before being a Soviet POW. I did not get to watch the whole thing, but it was quite the touching story of how they both end up being POWs of the Soviets, then the Germans, and how they deal with their differences and how their friendship grew as they struggled to survive the war, which ultimately the Korean did not. Though throughout the movie and explicitly so in the end, it was implied that they were childhood friends. The title eluded me for a bit, but after some research, I discovered that the movie is titled ‘My Way’. I would highly recommend watching this; it is one of the few war films that actually touches the deeper emotions IMO.

Some point during the day today mom reminded me to think properly of the things I plan to do and don’t think about it after it is done. However as soon as I reached home, I was presented with a massive gamble. After some much consideration, I decided to take the risk, and moments right after, I realized that I have killed myself, metaphorically speaking.

And on the plethora of bombshells tonight, adieu to y’all.