Some moments I stored away recently:

Someone listed a few good adjectives and told me that's his description of me and I usually deny anything kind said about me. Not so much from humility than massive lack of self-confidence but he listed "empathetic" amongst other kind words and I picked that to keep. I like that someone thinks I have the capability to think and share the feelings of another. I like that very much.

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I remember coming out the salon and feeling so immensely naked. The first time I properly looked at my reflection I had to gasp because I couldn't recognise myself. I knew hair was nothing. It was nothing to me (maybe in hindsight that's not the entire truth) but at that moment I wanted to have everything right back and pretend I didn't just shed almost the whole head of hair away. I knew I was a stranger to everyone but it felt like they were staring, burning holes in me with their eyes and I hadn't bravery for that just yet. He sat with me for almost an hour, told me I look great over and over and over again. Gradually everyone I knew who saw me echoed. I've gotten both stares that lingered too long and compliments from strangers but it was me who had to eventually gave myself that validation. In the mornings, my hair stands straight up like a romaine lettuce so a new routine birthed: Wet it and blow it dry so it'll lay tamely. To avoid it looking like a lifeless mop, wax it to give it texture and trim it almost once every 1.5 months because wow my hair grows out fast who knew there is so much more to do but I love that I can feel the breeze on the back of my neck, how my hair dries almost instantly and how none of it ever comes into contact with my face.

- 

Not much context for this but take it as it is.

I knew she sensed my uncertainty the moment I told her and she gave me that raised-eye-brow knowing look, almost as if she knows me better than I know myself and maybe she does! I'm a pretty open book but I hate that she thinks that. I hate that she doubts where I'm heading when things seem to be looking up and I hate that she could be right.

-

Too good to be true. Why is it when good things happen I wonder what it is I've done that accredited me kind things. It's hardly ever the self pat on my own back saying, "Yes you're worth it". Was it because of all the times prior when I had a taste of 'good' in my hands only to watch it slipped away. And the other time when the same thing happened. And the other time when the same thing happened. Again. Again. Again. Now I've this warm fluffy bird in my palms and I'm staring at it in awe, wondering how long warmth lingers the second something's gone.

Sometimes I imagine two faceless persons standing side by side and I think about the emotions, the thoughts, the words, the background, the experiences, the beliefs etc each figure contain in itself. And I wonder about the gap between these two persons. This gap with no definite shape or size or mass, that dances in between everyone, and you see how everyone acknowledges that and tries to maneuver around it or with it, with another person. This whole perhaps slightly awkward, sometimes frustrating, sometimes painful, study of the palpable gap's presence by both parties. Connection, with anyone, is such a beautiful raw thing. Humans dancing in this huge web of complexities, weaving through their own intricacies and still trying to find balance with those around them. If we can all just be a little kinder.

Who makes better art than tortured souls. Who composes better songs, better poems, better choreography than tortured souls. Who has more to say, more to confess, more to express than tortured souls. Who has a deeper pit of bubbling emotions than tortured souls. Who has greater motivation to find better words, better strokes, better body language to communicate those pains than tortured souls.

I had the luxury to forget pain for a long time but last night I found so much pain inside, of which I don't know how to speak of. Pain is so much bigger than just manifestations. How ultimately futile it may be trying to convey it and how ironic is it, to be apparent communicators of emotions yet fail at translating the jist of things. We try to reason all that we can when some things stubbornly lie in the murkiest part of life.

How quick we are to hurt those that hurt us. How quick we are to defend ourselves, with words / rash actions but all at the price of pain. For others to dent our egoes is enough reason for us to inflict pain upon them. How wrong I was to think that. In midst of aging and learning but my behaviour at times doesn't correlate with knowledge. 24 and I'm still leashed by emotions more than logic. How flawed I am. Yet how shall I learn to stop feeling as deeply, to forgo my innate hypersensitivity to everything. And if that marks immaturity then shall there ever comes a time when I'll be matured enough.

Common Flawed Way of 'Falling in Love':

1. Project self-constructed ideas of a person on that person
2. Exaggerate / romanticise qualities
3. Spotlight the similarities shared with said person however tiny
4. Cling firmly to the belief that all these attribute to fate / destiny / cupid's work
5. Subconsciously think differences can be worked on / changed later on


First flaw lies in seeing 'love' as a noun. As something to fall into. As something you find naturally in someone else. As something to seek for. As a goal in life. As this cliche magical state attributed to abstract predetermined life concepts.

When 'love' should be seen as a verb prior.

You are happy before you discover happiness, afraid before discovering fear. Verb prior noun. I guess what I'm saying is that don't love for the sake of having love. Love because you do.

Here lies mismatched thoughts:

How inherently flawed we are but flawed at the basis of it identifies as possessing imperfections and where comes the shrewd idea that that isn't something we should celebrate? Flawed as everything comes by. Flawed as fundamentals of being human. Flawed as anyone can be growing up in a blemished world. Why go about boasting normalcy as superiority when normalcy has no standards to go by. And who declares you normal? All's a fancy masquerade. You make your own mask, paint it like others' and pray like hell no one sees the differences.

There's a lot of things about my own self that I'm trying to figure out. There was a time when I wrapped myself everyday with my invisible numbing blanket. A few days back, I posted about trying my best to avoid being back at my most vulnerable. Ever since, I kept going back, asking myself if I indeed never want to feel that sort of vulnerability again.

Somewhere along the years of experiencing pain, I've misconceived the idea that the opposite of being vulnerable was to not feel and the idea of not being able to feel has gradually morph itself into the idea of being strong. But being strong does not mean inability to feel. An inability to feel is denial in two sense: a) it's self-denial to think you can't feel b) when you deny yourself any possible feelings. It's strength only when you embrace any feelings that come by. It's strength only when you welcome the possibilities of pain and pain itself. You're the strongest, when you're the most vulnerable. I think I've figured that out now.

So I take it back, me saying I never want to be vulnerable again. Taking the words back is going to be way more easy than declaring bravely, "I henceforth decide to be vulnerable" but I'll try.

Step one: To be vulnerable, first be open to possibilities and judgements, including the possibility of pain/failure that may come.

No more saying no out of fear.




Depressed Yun Jing would have laughed so hard at this crazy wanting-to-go-back-to-the-pits post. But I guess it isn't exactly that. It's just tweaking my defence mechanism. My stay in my bricked walls is long overdue.

Okay Yun Jing it's honestly time you get your shit together for the show. What's with this expression btw. Why does getting excretion together means focusing and prepping for something. Oh idk Yun Jing, maybe because the state of your life is an apt symbolism for the aftermath of ingesting unhygienic dinner. 

The irony about working is that you are firstly motivated by the need to be self sufficient but when you fall into this whole corporate system of working non-stop for someone's company's reputation it becomes easily to neglect yourself.

You spent your entire childhood and youth trying your best in hopes to secure a 'better life', only to become a mindless corporate slave.

Stream of Consciousness: Where I'm At

A state of divorce. Perhaps what’s the cement within these walls of idleness is you not being satisfied with the options you have. You don’t know where to go because you don’t know where you can go and so you choose to remain stuck where you are at. But where are you at? There’s no sense of place. Distance has no meaning because everywhere is the same. Time is nothing but still heavy air. Ticking doesn’t matter because you can’t hear it. Ticking can only be heard when you have places to go and things to do. So all you hear is silence and Silence breathes loudly and heavily right beside your ears. So much time what do you do with it? You wait as it waits for something to happen to you. Time is its own boss so it chooses the velocity it races at. Now it waits lethargically. You both wait. Time has never greeted you in such abundance prior. This bastard likes to tease everyone like that. 

It's not how you spend time.


It's how you don't spend it.
It's how you let it spend you.

Sometimes the voices were a little louder, the air heavier and my body weighed a ton. My mother told me I have to stop being so sensitive all the time, but she birthed me with the thinnest skin and a heart wired to take all shots straight to the center. I couldn't help that I was born to feel a little too deeply. I went through life experiences having so many things rubbed off me. Sadness plastered itself to me. Happiness cemented. Fear seeped into me. Anxiety was starting to feel like a permanent resident within the walls of my ribs. Room 439. I went through school, friendships, love, anything full-hearted. Through adolescence, I felt too much. So much. Every day I wished for a switch in my brain, in my heart but I slowly learnt. I learnt to sleep on things. On everything. You don't feel as much when you sleep yknow? Dreams used to be better than real life. I dreamt whatever I wanted. Nothing mattered. When I'm awake, I mastered a sense of numbness that I can stow away but can also easily retrieve. Feeling too much? Oh here's your numbing blanket. Everything dulls down. I think denial was what it was made of. 85% denial, 15% distraction. It was the softest, comfiest material. I knew all escape routes out of mental chaos.

These past few months have been a limbo. A complete limbo. No school, no job, no purpose. I'm in a numbing blanket but not mine because I didn't retrieved mine. I wished for the switch and it came belatedly unwanted. Sometimes I want to throw myself into things for the sake of feeling deeply again. Get my heart broken so I can feel that piercing sadness again. I've limited extreme emotional experiences so I only think about sadness. Right at this moment, lying on my bed typing this, I can't see a purpose in my life. I know it's what all suicidal people say and I'm not. It's just difficult seeing clearly right now. Just for now. I hate admitting this. So many people came up to me and asked why I haven't gotten a job. How do I say I'm given money and an entire year's time to work on a new project hence I can't work. How can I say that when I'm stuck in a big fat limbo and haven't got a hint on what I'm going to work on?

Mum called me a failure today. A heart wired to take all shots to the center remember? It didn't failed this time. Anyone would do anything to not be deemed a failure. She picked the sharpest dagger. I saw some truth glinting in the light.

I used to think people who swear have limited vocabulary. But I'm starting to understand the furiosity and the power of vulgarities and that they somehow make the words you say sound a bit more vocally alive. It's like honking your car yknow? It has an auditory presence and maybe it's the presence that serves as some form of catharsis. Though I have no idea the evolution of the word 'fuck', nor the reason why the synonym of 'making love' should be used as a common swear word. Young Yun Jing will look at this post aghast. Yoowhoo look at me maturing backwards. Then again, it has to be a whole other level of maturity to not say fuck just because it's cool or out of habit. Maybe swearing selectively is like... Some form of strategic literary use. HA! Yeh justifying vulgarity eh Yun Jing?

Well you know you're into adulthood when you swear because there's much to cuss about. Adult problems.

We've been put on this Earth to experience much. To experience the greatest joys and to know how it feels to have our souls ripped out of us. We know about ghosts because they are real in our heads. Albeit different ones. The older we get the more we get to stow away and the more regrets get accumulated but we cope. We walk with them whispering in our heads but we cope, like how everyone copes with theirs. You choose... you choose how you cope and there are many ways to deal with ghosts. It isn't just straight up option A or option B. It isn't straight up stop living with the ghosts. Neither is it straight up embracing the existence of ghosts. There are much more than straight-ups and there's beauty in there. We've been put on Earth to experience much but this experience is no said path. It is always and will always be us floundering about the in betweens, weaving through messy options, living with the choices made. But we cope because we yearn for the better times ahead to reflect the better times in our past. We tell ourselves there are brighter lights ahead without paying attention to the fact that each step towards the brighter lights may result in catching more ghosts.

Then it depends on you. How you cope. The entry of the first bad thing in your life changes the game. 'Coping' starts to become synonymous to 'living'. Though the definition of cope suggests some degree of success with the matter.

It really isn't all bad. It's about being stronger about the choices we have made, the choices we will make and whatever that happens to us.

Stale tears that grew too still at the bottom of the tub with no one dipping in. I can never quite know if stale equates to no longer being relevant. How quickly we dismiss all which has expired. Yet how can things which have settled deeply be irrelevant? A thick layer of dust can be sufficiently a comfortable blanket.

For the crazy sea within me, all's too ironically still on the outside. I desperately want to break something.

Isaac bought me The Death compilation of Gaiman's Sandman comics as an advanced birthday present. I treated him to lunch yesterday because he helped me proof-read my entire fyp thesis, which is 39 pages long, at 2am the day of submission and you don't find friends like that easily yknow? A book about death on my birthday is ironic but he wrote in his note saying in Tarot, the death card signifies new beginnings. Like how I drew the death card when I was still in a relationship. I guess as with all end, there must be a new start. It isn't even a question, what comes after death. A new start. Overly optimistic yeah, even I cringe a little but it's the truth of the way things work. Starts begin without ends anyway.

I'm on the train now and today I'm dressed all black. I even did eyeliner which I can hardly ever bother with. But today I feel like Death. Death not as in dead but as in the character in his comics. She's so laid back, nonchalant and confident. I guess when there's never an end in your life you can be nonchalant. What weight do consequences hold anymore? The other day I was thinking, where lies the fragility of life if not buried in the deathlessness of death? You get the buried part? Life buried like corpses. It was funny to me. If death isn't as permanent as it is, shall life still be as precious? Probably not. Mum talked about how it's been a year since the bombing in Bangkok. She talked about how a newborn was dumped in the sanitary pad bin last night. The news said so. Death reported countrywide and people feel sad for the dead or people who came so close to death. Death as an end to life. But perhaps death is a part of life. Perhaps death is a start? It is only with death that anything we do has meaning and worth, no?

We are all products. Of society, of biological evolution, of cultural beliefs, of political policies, of marketing brainwash, of trends, of media, of unsaid expectations.

If the things we think are products. If the things we say are products. If the things we do are products, all of something else, how much of you is you?

#identitycrisis

This weird unofficial graduated life is bringing in a lot of existential questions, as if I don't scrutinise life enough on normal days. Ironically after The Thought Of Nothing, I'm thinking of everything.

I look passively at the tan line of my old slippers and wonder when it was going to go away. The slippers broke a few weeks back when I was making my way home from school and I had to duck-taped them together. It looked funny so my friends snapchatted me and I told them it was the new avant garde shoes. Andy bought the slippers for me when he was in Taiwan a few years back. I wore it so much my skin directly below the straps are a few shades paler than the fellow skin around it. It's as if the straps burnt its presence into me except in an inverted way.

But it's been weeks since I wore it and it's been weeks since I've really busked myself in the sun and those pales lines still remain mapped on my feet.

How long does it take for traces to fade after the departure of something?

Yesterday I went to the library and hugged 6 books home. Kafka, Kierkegaard and Karen Joy Fowler.

Things to think about.

Today I sat in for a conference I didn't know existed, because Uli was a speaker. My friend spoke so eloquently and confidently in front of an entire ballroom of people, it's incredibly admirable. I would have undoubtedly shat my pants and emptied so much contents my body goes into a food and nutrients debt.

Anyway, this conference is about how travel retailers can better target millennials and I watched intrigued at people hanging on intently to the words of people my age. It has always been the other way round: youth listening to the elders, so it was a refreshing change to think that the youth has insights people want to heed. I know nothing in context to this conference though, might I add. I didn't know exactly what to expect but things said made me think a lot.

To be honest, prior, I had to google what exactly is 'millennial'. Then I realised I 'am' one but when did this term even arise. Somewhere along the conference I felt something was off. Since I am a 'millennial', why didn't I relate. All these terms and the need to always generically classify and categorise people into demographics generate so much stereotypes they drive me nuts but heyho, demographics are needed to better study people however much the fact that they are based on potential assumptions.

Dear marketers, put me in an age box so you can better decide how to mass brainwash my friends and I though we are different. Put us in a box so the society can now lump us as one and dismiss our actions or reactions as 'being millennials' instead of us being individual humans. Dare I say I am exactly who my peers are? No. Dare you? Apparently.

So now I am defined by my age and the way people believe people of this age behave but demographic data are poor reflections because what about behaviours and attitudes and beliefs and habits and ideologies and cultural differences and personal preferences and personalities and religion and shall I name more?





As I typed all these down I realised there's a lot of parts where I can contradict myself. It's a little difficult to type an opinionated post when you have a tendency to be your own devil's advocate. All's jumbled.

On being average.

I'm required to type a CV. I don't know what to include in the CV because... I'm not exactly an achiever. To be honest, I don't care much for 'achieving'. My JC's motto is Aim and Achieve and I think it's tacky as hell. I don't care for rewards. I don't care for grades. I don't care for trophies, or leadership roles, or lists of things to add on to my name. That's why I like ADM. There's no you against this person, you against the class, you against the entire level. I don't know where exactly I stand and I like that. I do as I please, not to up my 'rank'. The world thinks a life fulfilled is the CV you can endlessly chant. The constant "Oh look at him he's only 17 and he's doing that. What am I doing with my life?!" Obsessed with leaving some kind of legacy, some impact in some aspect in the world however small. Do we even know why we pursue the things we pursue?

But that doesn't mean I don't have good qualities or skills. Yeh I don't have certificate or awards to back me up but just because it isn't validated by pieces of paper, doesn't mean it isn't there. But we all know the society loves papers. I first-hand see my talented Dad struggle because he doesn't have the education. But man, if you see his works you won't doubt his skills! I wish I can award him something. I wish I can say he's the best potter I've ever seen and I wish my word's enough for the world to see him as beyond average.

I don't know where I'm heading with this post. Maybe it's me trying to justify why my CV is plain. But look, to some extent we need validation from the world. To most extent, validate yourself and be happy. If you're happy with your own stuff, the world will slowly 'see' you. If not, that's all right. You don't need it.

YOU DON'T NEED IT.

Be proud of being average. Everyone's too busy proving themselves to be extra special. No one needs to prove themselves extraordinary. You already are. Don't get caught up in the paperchase. Live live live live LIVE. For yourself.

Hi my name is Yun Jing and I am average. Ordinary. And I'm okay with the world seeing me as that because I know, and I have people I love that know, I'm special and those that matter are all that matters.

Time

What is time?

Time is defined as the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole, measured in hours, minutes and seconds. Or however you would so prefer to measure it. Some count by breaths, by each tick and tock, by the sun and by the moon. It's this thing that slides all over you like an unseen river that flows and flows and flows.


What is time... right now?

It is 1.57am exactly as I type this line, the 54th second of this minute, and it's the early morning. I love the early AMs because you stop feeling this constant need to do something. It's a wind down period. The time frame when you somewhat leave for yourself to sit down and do whatever. Take your time... time has a moment to spare here on for the night is always slower than the day.


What was time to me today?

Today I woke up pretty early and with so much time in the morning, I managed to go to three different places by noon. It was productive and because I was so early, I had two hours to spare before meeting my sister.

For the past few weeks I jam-packed anything I could, FYP-related, into every single hour I had of the day. I woke up early to go to school to finish up my video-editing. I was printing till late at night. I've started walking back to hall from school because I've stayed till the last bus' gone. If I could maximise time, I would. Time had to translate into productivity. Time always has to translate into productivity. It's a global obsession.

That two-hour wait for my sister was weird for me. I didn't have anything with me, didn't know what to do. Half the time I just sat, watched people and read a book I just bought. Nothing FYP-related but ah, here's the funny part. A big part of why I do my FYP on nothing lies in the fact that within all that we do, every single day non-stop day after day after day, I wanted to find little breaks in between. I wanted to find gaps and voids and space away from all that we robotically pile on ourselves. Yet somehow nearing the end of FYP, I neglect the significance of nothingness within everything. I guess because I'm left with less than 3 weeks for FYP now, every single hour counts. But for that 2 hours, I felt relieved. For once I didn't have to be productive. Just wait. It felt really really nice.

I had lunch with Brian the other day and he asked me what my FYP was about and I merely told him "It's about nothing." Then he looked confused for a while, pondered and almost immediately said "Mindfulness?" "YEAH! How did you managed to get that so quickly! It's about mindfulness and mindlessness. Just thinking about nothing." He told me our lack of emphasis on nothing lies in the fact that we can't really quantify nothing. It's easy, on the other hand, to quantify time when we are doing something and being productive. Hence in that sense we always see doing nothing as a waste of time. Though we really need to stop seeing it that way and I don't mean doing nothing as in procrastination.

I haven't been talking much about my FYP here. But here's a summary! It's basically a recorded performance art on 8 things I did to think of nothing. So one of the things I did was counting my hair. Talks about how to derive into thinking about nothing, about the process both physical and mental.

I don't know what to think about it having being so involved in it for so long now but hopefully when all's up, I'll be proud.

Grad's show on the 7th May till 15th May, if you're interested. I think I'm more excited to see my batch mates' works. :) It's been a pretty intense year I can't believe it's ending.

ADM GRAD SHOW SITE


I shall sleep now. Tomorrow time = being productive will resume again.