images of a physical reality

Weeee, I’ve crossed one of the most emotional states that I’ve ever been in. Life, is very very interesting. Some people consider it a weakness writing what I wrote but that’s their perspective. I’m never ashamed of what I am. Thank you to all those who care, I appreciate your presence each and every day although I might not show it very much. It’s because of people like you that life holds that much more meaning each and every day. As we get older, this becomes more and more precious because it’s so hard to hold on with each passing day. Thank you… so very much.

What can I say at this point? To consider myself over her? Not quite as I’m human. I’ve just accepted the fact that it really holds no point. Why do men try so hard only to have our hearts ripped out by that particular woman that we need not even try to love? I feel like a character in that old Mortal Kombat game where I’m standing there begging to have my guts spilled and my head ripped off in the most inhumane manner. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you see it), I’ve had my heart ripped out more than once that probably I’m becoming slightly immune to this feeling. Never thought I reach a day like that but what can I do? I never get to be with someone I fall in love with anyway. Or, even if I can be with her, it’ll just be so hard to be together that we just have to walk our separate paths. Life, sucks this way. Well, nobody said love was easy.

I wonder if it really is true that no man should ever give a 100%. Wait, let’s not be bias, I’m talking about women as well. It’s like, giving a 100% is a crime and that you always gotta save at least 20% for yourself. Give a 100% and lose the game instantly. Wowee, I thought the whole point of relationships was to give a 100% but apparently, although everyone says they want that, it’s not actually how to play ‘the game’. Let me tell you something, I have no bleeding idea how to play this game. I’ve never wanted to play it nor would I ever take this ‘game’ seriously. But I guess, if I’m ever gonna get any dates, I’m gonna at least seem like I’m playing this stupid ‘game’. I guess I’ll just stick to being friends until I meet someone ‘real’ anyhow.

Thank God for the holidays, at least it gives me some time to myself. Again, I suppose I’m going to go take photographs again. Well, at least some things give me some joy nowadays. In spite of all my rambling, it’s time to move on, yet again. Jeez, I keep hearing about women who want men interested in long term relationships but I can’t seem to hang on to one properly. Maybe I need to walk another road. Now, I’m fully focused on my career and getting many things started off instead of sitting on my butt and moaning. Doesn’t solve anything for me and doesn’t make me any happier. But things seem to be looking up work wise and hopefully I do get what I want. All I can do is hope for the best and expect the worst.

To all my friends out there, a very Happy Chinese New Year to you people. I do hope you don’t get too annoyed by the constant insane Chinese New Year songs which will be overplayed over and over again. I know I am and it barely started. Oh, and have you listened to that Santana with Steven Tyler song yet? Man, that’s an amazing song…

Aerosmith, is undoubtedly a modern artist. In a different era, he would probably be one of the famous poets that would have put Shakespeare to shame. His words are backed by years and years of vast and probably personal experience. I never realise the meaning of his words until I’ve experienced it myself and the song plays a totally different heartstring that baffles the mind. The song is not something quite dramatic, it’s basically his collaboration with Santana ‘Just Feel Better’. Initially, it was just a really catchy and meaningful song. Today, it drove me to tears in my car. Damn my habit of buying CDs whenever I’m depressed.

I guess it’s not so bad really. Unlike before, I’m being depressed for a good reason and I’m trying my best to be positive about everything at the same time. It’s like how I always say, mentally and rationally, a person may understand and accept a judgment or action. But, it doesn’t mean that he/she feels the same way in the same direction. It’s just how we deal with these emotions that make us different as individuals. Well, one of the differences anyway.

I realised that in my situation, there’s no other way around it. It’s either me who bears the burden of negative emotions or her. And naturally, since I was given the opportunity to choose, naturally, I choose to bear the burden. I’ve had people asking me to cave into my emotions and do the usual male thing of self-mutilation just to feel better. But resist I have decided and resist I shall continue to do. At times, the feeling is quite unbearable like there’s an evil lemming trying to eat his way out of my body from my heart. Sometimes, I walk around aimlessly trying to grasp reality and it requires much effort to grasp when I feel like I’m walking in a fog. Even today, I decided to take a walk in Midvalley alone just to get myself back together. Work had to take a backseat for a moment. I walked about in a daze trying to seek a semblence of reality. At the end of the day, I’ll end up at Tower Records listening to some jazz tunes and maybe even some new albums which is where Santana’s album came about. I even took a short visit to Cash Converters hoping to find some good deals that I can purchase just to give myself a cheap thrill of about 10 seconds. Unfortunately, they didn’t have anything I want and the SLOW and pathetically bad service did nothing to bolster my mood.

Perception has changed in a sense that at times, I feel like my spirit is just watching and controlling my body like how a puppet master dangles and brings life to his puppets via a few simple strings. Naturally, being puppet-like, I’ve become more ’stoned’ than I am usually used to. I’ve lost all my inspiration to take any photographs although I know now more than ever I have reason to photograph. Reality becomes a sudden daze but funnily enough, I’m not torturing myself but rather trying to delicately carry myself forward one step at a time. I guess I can’t afford to make any mistakes. Neither can I afford the slight luxury to go nuts.

But, to those who have read and sent their well wishes, thanks for your concern. I might be too stoned at times to response in kind but it is very much appreciated deep down. As always, I’ll learn to cope with the issues placed before me and what can’t kill me can only make me stronger. After all I’ve been through and the things I’ve heard throughout my life, in actual fact, what she told me wasn’t really too much of a shock. It’s just that with her, everything is magnified tenfold. Hence my dazed existence at the moment. Worry not as I always have hope and I choose to believe. For without hope, what would life be anyway?

As music takes on new meanings, the songs close to me is currently Santana’s ‘Just Feel Better’ featuirng Steven Tyler (naturally) as well as Nickelbacks ‘Far Away’. That’s an amazing track, if to listen just for a moment. Thank you and now I shall go into deep slumber.

Here we go again. My blog has become such a depressing story that at times, I’m thinking of renaming it to ‘images of a sad nobody’. But, that would be too negative. Contrary to my positive (considered positive I suppose) opening, this has probably got to be one of THE MOST AMAZINGLY depressing day of my life. For the first time, I was driven to tears in public and there was nothing I could do about it. And why? For a very simple reason is because I love and I care for someone so much that it takes every ounce of energy within my body to even remain standing in a calm manner.

It hurts to hear that someone I care for so much is being mistreated in a terrible way. It hurts that it happened and I knew nothing about it. It hurts that I can’t do anything about it. It hurts that I’m not able to make a difference. It hurts and honestly, till today, I never knew what it was like to feel pain for another. I practically have to bite myself to keep my sanity. My dear, you know how I feel about you. If you’re even reading this… well words that should be said has already been said. Let’s make things happen.

Yes, I’m in love. And love, like most things in life, can be complicated and simple at the same time. And I bet, any so-called ‘macho’ guy would probably be thinking that I’m a wuss for being so helplessly in love and to announce it to the world online like this. They probably would think that I’m weak for being affected so badly just because of a woman. But you know what? I don’t care. Love is probably the one thing that gives us a reason to move forward in life. No matter how much a person wants to feel indifferent, they love. It is the single most irrational feeling in this world that doesn’t need a reason to surface. And I’m glad I have the courage to admit it.

But with love comes a great deal of extra emotions as well. This night, I felt love, despair, anger, desperation, confusion, depression and helplessness magnified by a hundred-fold in the span of 10 minutes. The severity of the news was like throwing 10 tonnes of beef on top of that skinny guy in the weight gain ad. Out of the entire mass of emotions, I realised that the only thing I wanted was for her to be happy and to be beside her to make her happy. Dear God please, let me be there. I can’t say that I can make things better for her or make a change for her. But, at the very least, let me be there for her even if there wasn’t anyone else to be there for her anymore. I’m but a mere mortal and I wish that I was infused with some magical talent or even powers to make everything right. Some things I just can’t have.

I realised that to do something for someone that I care about the most, I would do almost anything to make her happy. And seriously, for a guy in my state of mind and emotion, I should be dead drunk by now and smoking ten sticks of ciggies and maybe even some weed at the same time. Every guy resorts to hurting themselves whenever faced with anger or depression. At times, we want to just lash out at just anybody to vent out our frustrations but society deems that a crime and thus, self-mutilation is the only option. It’s either that or jail. It must have been the genes from our caveman days where we were grabbing clubs and just clobbering each other just for kicks. Those were simple times.

Alcohol is the most common self-mutilation method. There’s nothing like getting stone drunk and drowning your sorrows in your own blubber. Seriously, we might feel absolutely stupid doing so but it feels so damn good when you’re there. Another option is to whine, moan and bitch about the issue. If that turns stale, we’ll start whining, moaning and bitching about anything under the sun to anyone who’s still there to listen to us babble. Driving recklessly is another, nothing like cutting traffic in a dangerous manner and pissing off other people. It just feels so damn good. The thrill that your life is clinging on to a friggin steering wheel and some bits and pieces of metal also helps to soothe the soul. All these I’ve done but my personal favourite is smoking. After quitting smoking, picking up a ciggie is like absolute self-torture. But that’s what I usually end up doing in worst case scenarios. What about crying you ask? Oh no, that would be the ‘unmanly’ thing to do… most would deem anyway.

The fact that many women don’t realise is that these methods help to calm down the inner beast in a male. Men are in essence, irrational and stupid beings and only irrational and stupid actions can help to calm the irrational and stupid homosapien. To us men, this is the healing process. But instead of the usual options that a man takes, I instead cried, although mainly in the inside. I chose to not abuse myself and I chose to not give myself the pleasure of the healing process of self-mutilation. Why, you may ask? Simple. Because I promised her that I would. I realise that it doesn’t make it any easier for her to overcome the obstacles faced before her that my self-mutilation would only make the process slower and that very much more difficult. And, I promised her that I would get a good nights sleep and I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that I do so.

Many may read and go blur while trying to comprehend what I have just said. Yes, in spite of my feelings, I’m just going to go along and be ‘fine’. And that’s called mourning some may ask? Trust me, for a guy, it’s harder to not do stupid things for someone. In fact, it’s the first time that I made so much effort to NOT do a stupid thing. The temptation of a ciggie is so freakishly strong for me now and I just want to drown my emotions in the sinful act of smoking. But I shall resist the satisfaction. For, I made a promise and no matter what, I want things to be easier for her. In that manner, she can actually focus on feeling happy that I’m there for her rather than her feeling bad that she’s making me do stupid things. And if she starts feeling bad, she’ll distant herself from me. And I know for a fact that if that happened, I would probably literally die.

At this point, take a breather and re-read everything that I’ve tried to elaborate. Sometimes things may seem completely complicated but at the same time, the reasoning is very simple. In a nutshell, it means that I would do anything to help her even if it means defying my own inner instincts. It’s just that simple but mcuh more complicated to carry out. Relationships become more complicated as we get older as we tend to take more variables into consideration when we opt to love. No longer is the feeling enough, we need to take into consideration lifestyle, distance, interest, characteristics, family, etc etc etc. The list goes on. Hopefully, by shouldering some burden, I can help simplify the process because really, anything else is just a hindrance to love.

One can never know what the future lies for us. Opportunities (love included) comes every now and then and in some cases, rarer than most. It’s either we grab the opportunity when it arrives and cherish it or consider too long and it might go away. True, there might be other opportunities. People always say that there are so many fishes in the sea. But there comes a point where you realise that the only fish you want is that fish and no other. And we’re not talking about species of fish but a very specific fish with that particular beauty and imperfections that seem perfect to you and no other fish. And to get something that specific in an ocean as wide as the world, it’s like looking for a strand of hair in ten haystacks. If you meet him/her, don’t hesitate and never give up hope. But strangely enough, I honestly do believe that the person we probably love the most is more often than not, standing right there in front of us. It’s just that, we tend to not notice or we weren’t actually ’seeing’ and using our hearts to feel.

Have you told your loved one that you love him/her?

PS. My love, if you’re reading this (if ever), there are many songs that expresses a person’s heart. Right now, I’m moved by Joe’s ‘I Wanna Know’. Let’s make this work, together.

PS2. For those who think that this post is too damn emotional for your own reading comfort, I don’t apologise.

Strange that how one feels all alone even though they aren’t. There might be a hundred people all around you but it doesn’t make a difference. I realised yesterday after the enormity of my efforts that I’m walking a long and difficult path in the next few years. Definitely a few years well spent for sure. But, I’ll be walking it well and utterly alone. Won’t be easy to find someone who would walk the path I plan to walk with me and that ain’t exactly the best feeling you can have. Many don’t realise how lucky they are. I guess it’s because I’m transiting completely that I’m leaving my past life behind me for good. I’m neither an adult nor am I a teenager any longer. What am I? Confused soul doesn’t quite cute it but it’s more or less close.

I’m playing around with the idea of leaving this country again. There never really is a right time to leave but I guess there’s no time like the present. But, all my current efforts would be blown to dust if I just walk away like that. I guess some sacrifices have to be made, no matter how much I want my life to be different. Making some sacrifices now may change my life later, I may never know. Or, walk another path now and see how it turns out. I’m going slightly crazy.

Today, I’m going out. But my hear weighs heavy meeting someone whom I don’t entirely want to meet. I’ve finally admitted to myself that I’ve been stupid all this while and I don’t want to ever walk down that path again. I never realise that anyone can be selfish in a kind way and I’ve been duped for many years thinking differently. Maybe it was something that I want to believe, maybe I’ve been deceiving myself all this while. But no more, not today and hopefully not ever again. If I have to walk down that path and feel the way I used to feel again, I might just kill someone in the process. I walk alone with a heavy heart, especially today. And alone I walk, by choice and none less in hopes that things may turn out differently for me. God, give me the strength to walk this dark path and never to be duped again. To steel my heart from the pain that is about to appear before me.

I’m listening to ‘You Don’t Know Me’ by Ray Charles and Buble’s version as well.

So far, I’ve been keeping with my New Year’s resolution. First and foremost is the exercise routine. I’ve been working out for about an hour every day and boy do I hate that gut I’m carrying around. If I wore tights, a dolled-up chimpanzee would have more sex appeal. But then again, almost everyone (except for the finer sex) looks silly in tights anyway. To think that a year ago, I was doing a 100 sit-ups, 40 lifts and 40 bench presses and now, I’m screaming at 10-20 of any repetition. Being out of shape is an understatement. Thus, I’ve been keeping at it and working through the pain barrier most of the time. Hopefully I’ll get to see some decent results by the end of the month. Or at least, get some consistency. But it would never really show, that’s the problem with my stinking metabolic rate. I eat up energy faster than a fat man at a pie eating contest. Oh well, as they say, no pain, no gain.

I’m having a little bit of difficulty trying to get piano lessons. Not that they don’t exist but my funds are severly limited. I’m gonna need a digital for some freelance jobs soon and I can’t even afford that. I need a big windfall or some extra work to come in soon. Anyone wants some headshots done? It’s a long shot anyway. I can’t do events due to the lack of a camera body, flash and lens. Heck, that effectively means I have nothing at the current time. I hate loaning equipment but I guess I have to keep on doing that till I can afford my own equipment. Maybe I can consider learning it on my own for the time being. THAT is going to be very hard for that sorry excuse I call a brain residing in my empty skull. But, at least I’m doing something about it and that’s the important thing. Anyone want to give me some beginner lessons?

After some self-assessments, I realised one major thing. I’m not much of a writer although I am one as a profession. My one true passion calls out to me everyday and I’m a photographer at heart although my abilities have not reached a level which I consider as excellent yet. Knowing me, before I achieve a certain level, I can’t consider myself as one even though I may be able to produce satisfactory work for clients. I need to get better. I also realised that I hardly ever post any pictures lately. I guess it’s due to my laziness really. I really should be uploading some but I keep procrastinating really. Maybe I should go out and shoot more and at the same time, do some series and upload them. What the point of having an image gallery if I don’t use it? Shall take time to do the bus stop thing this weekend…maybe…

New Year’s Eve, a night to remember. I went to sleep. Pretty much sums it up for me. It’s pretty strange to me how my life seems to be so different than what it used to be 2 years ago. Let me sum it up for you again: I’m becoming boring. I feel so bored with life that codfish swimming in a pond is beginning to get interesting for me. And I’m not sure what that entirely means either. It feels like where the donkey stares at the dangling carrot, sighs and says, “What’s the point?” with eyes of bleak despair and boredom. Maybe if I was a highly strung up in-Duh-vidual that I wouldn’t be this bothered. Damn that Dilbert. I need help.

The highlight of New Year’s Eve for me was buying that 200mm prime lens off from David. And that’s because it adds a whole new dimension in the way I shoot. Imagine being all excited over a piece of metal with some shardes of glass jammed into it and you get a pretty good idea how I’m like. I gotta start a new hobby. And, get some fun while I’m at it.

Thus, the New Year has brought about some resolutions that I am determined to follow. First and foremost, being as out of shape as I am, I’m going to start working out regularly again. I highly doubt that I’ll look like the son of Zeus anytime soon (More like a sprangly giraffe maybe) but at the very least I’ll have some stamina which may prove useful to me in the future *ahem* but I’m getting ahead of myself. The whole problem is that I’m absolutely lazy to the bone and I need to willfully force myself to get into that routine. Gone were the days where I could do a 100 sit-ups a day with ease. Now, getting there seems like I’m running a marathon with elephants tied to my legs for sheer amusement. Thin as I may be, flab is starting to peek out in an unsightly manner.

Another which may be weird in some sense to others is that I’m going to learn to play the piano. Probably not what many would deem as something that I was likely to do yet many know me for my phases of unpredictability. Probably I have made mention of it in past postings but I’m hopefully going to start no later by February this year. I sure hope that prices haven’t escalated somewhat, I’m on a pretty tight budget. Also, I need to convince them that I’m only there to learn and not take tests. I wonder if that could be arranged…

Of course, my long terms plans have to be implemented as well. I believe that I’m going to be into a rough one two years but it will all pay off, I do believe sincerely. But, given my habit of indulging in work as I do so, I shall remember to take some time for myself and have some fun. I used to be a fun and outgoing person but nowadays I believe I’ve punctured the tires somewhat. Also, I need to get out and actually meet some new people. A date or two might be desireable as well, it’s been awhile that I’m not very sure what to do in dates anymore. Rusty is an understatement.

This post shall prove as evidence and a reminder of what I plan to do. This has probably been the longest blog I’ve ever maintained thus far and I’m not entirely sure of the readership but for those of you who read this, be my witness. If I fail to do what I’ve planned out for myself, feel free to give me a huge whack on my head at the end of this year. Please. That way, I’ll actually feel scared and get off my sorry ass butt and do something about it.