What would you do if you have the world to yourself? July 31, 2007

 

OK, this is one of my daydreams on the stupid, suffocating, and demoralizing subway ride to work.

 

Not that I like the movie about the remote control from god (do’nt even remember the name of the movie!)

But seriously, if you have the pause button and you can have a moment of absolute silence and a complete break from the others, what would you do?

 

I think I would first of all pass out sleeping.

It’s been awhile since I last felt completely guilt free sleeping in.

Even on weekends, time is precious and you want to wake up earlier and make good use of the sunny weekend.

I would LOVE to be able to sleep like when I was in high school, no worries in the world, free to dream and waste the day away.

I want to feel that there is always another day in the weekend, like during our good old summer school break.

 

Then, I’ll spend day and night reading a good book or two.

When I was in university before exam, I had to stay in and read all the literature in a 2-3 weeks time.

And it was probably the best 2-3 weeks of the entire semester funny enough.

There was huge pressure to finish all the novels but it was facsinating to be completely submerged into a different world, to a point that reality became surreal.

I think I’ll choose to read in Central Park…maybe with a picnic basket…Or maybe on a beach with shade of a big tree…

 

If the world could stop for a little longer, I’d bake a good cake, boil a nice pot of coffee, and go through all my art books.

And then pick up drawing for a bit. Maybe just one painting, on my apartment wall.

 

Ahh…life could be so good when it is simple, isn’t it…

 

 

Friday finally July 27, 2007

 

A few more hours to go before the end of this extremely long week.

Very tiring…brain dead and I just want to curl up the sofa and vegetate.  

 

Princess, sorry I didn’t call back the other day after the Kabuki show. The next day was Monday and you know how it is.

Passed out almost every night. I want a nice weekend of tidy home and chill out, maybe some cooking and definitely some walking around the city.

 

Alright, lets hope my inspiration returns and I can put something more lighthearted on the blog…

 

Is it lightness or heaviness? July 19, 2007

 

So following up to the posting earlier.

Turned out the problem was kinda of resolved. Because of a human error, it was never a problem to begin with and we had a false alarm. But this false alarm left terrible consequences to our relationship with the client.

And it strained my tolerance of this company.

 

The day I learnt the fact that this whole humiliating experience I had for the sake of my team member as an Account head was a stupid error, I fell off my chair.

Personally, I really doubt the reasons for my existence as a human being.

 

If you can be stripped of dignity for something of no particular reason, and that it can be just brushed off by your Business Manager as a out-of-practise unexplainable mistake, you have to wonder what the worth of our dignity is to begin with.

 

Being could be so unbearably light, at the same time, unbearably heavy.

You drag the heaviness of everyday just to realise the lightness of your existence in the world you are too familiar with.

 

It’s a world I don’t mind leaving. Advertising. I think I have enough of it already.

 

And yet, I have to tread my path carefully. September – to be or not to be?

It’s a test of my patience afterall. Sigh.

 

 

Another sleepless night July 17, 2007

 

It’s rare for me not to be able to sleep. I always feel blissful of my ability to sleep through all worries and troubles.

Tonight is slightly too harsh for me.

One of those days when you feel you are utterly humiliated because of something that you didn’t do.

 

Responsbility. What a heavy word.

 

You’ve worked so hard to get to where you are, still you taste not of what you reaped.

With responsibility comes the burden of taking on what your team member did, no matter what the consequence is.

You take it in gravely. It cuts you hard. But you don’t get any sympathy for it.

 

It’s like growing older.

You worked hard for a better living all these years.

But you lost your ability either physically or mentally to enjoy life fully with everything that you built for yourself.

What is the sense of it all?

And you stay up at night wondering if it was worth it afterall, and you wonder what went wrong.

 

It’s ironic sometimes how values are relative to our state of mind and stage of life.

It could become such a transient idea in time.

 

On better days we shrug and say c’est la vie.

On worse days we find our everyday struggles, hopes and dreams painfully weightless.

 

I curled up in a ball on the bed in the dark thinking that maybe it was a mistake.

I will just go ahead and leave it all behind and start fresh.

 

Then I turned on the lights and think that maybe in time things will change again on its own as nothing stays the same forever.

 

And the sad thing is, tomorrow, the pain lessens and you grow back to the strong stone cold self.

And life goes on.

 

Maybe it’s a good thing that even the hurt and skeptism of oneself also is a transient idea.

It vapourises when your day is flooded with more problems and other priorities.

Oblivion is the power that keeps us going.

 

It may not be a good idea afterall to question why.

It’s the pandora’s box that you only dare peeking into in the darkness of the night.

 

 

Passive Aggressive? July 10, 2007

 

Somehow in the world of advertising, the word "passive aggressive" is frequently used to refer to our clients and co-workers.

 

But everyone has a different opinion of what this phrase means.

Seems like most of the times the term is used so that we can avoid using words like "aggressive", "rude" or "retarded."

 

So here is the actual definition. Lets not get it wrong and give slacks to people who deserves the real adjectives above.

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"People with passive-aggressive behaviors show hostility and aggression in passive ways. Their aim is to resist job and social demands.

 

Examples of passive-aggressive behaviors are:

 

‘Forgetting’ to do something on purpose

Making a habit of putting off or being late with social and/or job tasks

Failing to do one’s share of the work or doing sub-standard work on purpose

Having a constant negative attitude

Criticizing authority figures, not openly, but in subtle ways

 

A person who shows a lot of passive-aggressive behavior can have a Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder.

 

Is irritable, defensive, and resentful

Lacks self-confidence

Has a hard time getting pleasure from relationships with others

Feels others are making unreasonable demands on him or her, but thinks he or she is doing a better job than what they are given credit for

Blames others for his or her problems

Is not aware that his or her self-defeating behaviors are part of their personality"

 

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Help – who is this illustrator? July 8, 2007

 

Following my 1 year anniversary gibberish, I am looking for the artist who did the illustrations below.

The fish tank one is my favorite and it was the image I used to represent myself when I first started this blog and the space.

I forgot how I came about these few images but I’m sure they are all created by the same person.

 

If I can find the artist, I’m going to post some more images from him or her in my album. Thanks all 😉

 

 

1 year anniversary to this blog July 7, 2007

 

Time really flies. It has been a year ago since I started this blog.

And it has been comforting writing about my thoughts and sharing my favorite illustrations.

It’s like a little sanctuary.

It is also a record of my life here in NY.

 

Sadly to say, things have not changed much in my lifestyle.

But I guess I could also say that the decision to move from HK has not been meaningless.

I have achieved what I wanted to do –

to live in a different country, to be with the man I want to spend my life with, to have my own place to live.

 

It is easy for people to fall into comfort zones.

And unless we push ourselves non-stop we grew accustomed to our everyday life.

One day we wake up from a nightmare and we wonder where we are and why we are here.

That leaves a bad taste in your mouth and the aftertaste lingers on rotting away the joy of a weekend.

 

That’s why I’d rather keep myself alert everyday with unsatisfiable desire to be different from who I am now.

It makes everyday imperfect. It makes me feel restless.

I wonder how life would be a year from now.

And I want to know that life has an unexpected turn waiting for me.

 

This phase of our life – from 25 to 35 – is not a short phase.

Despite that time flies, life is in a pretty stable "pattern."

 

Nowadays people who live in the metropolitan city area do not get married that early.

So we focused at our relationships and our career.

We are caught in about 10 years of recurring relationship experiences, and a painful upward climb in the business world.

It’s a harsh awakening from being a young hopeful person. And it’s less magical than being a parent.

Life is all about ourselves and what we get out of it.

 

People like me feel anxious of what lies ahead because we hate living our lives waiting for a new change.

We hate being in a pattern.

And despite that we know after we progressed into the middle age, life is nothing but routine, we still yearn to move on in life’s stages.

It’s a dilemma really.

 

I ask myself everyday what I want.

My perfect day has changed from feeling alive and create, to being cosy and at ease on my own, to being with the people I love and spending a day in the bed.

Though we hate to waste the day, we love to cuddle.

How are we going to resolve that…I wonder…

 

Well maybe a year late we’ll know.

 

A true friend July 3, 2007

 

When you become more independent in every aspects of your life, it is expected that you odd to be emotionally independent.

 

For example, it is a weakness if you are afraid to speak in public, or cry about being stressed.

Being sentimental over little things that really doesn’t make a big impact to anyone else but yourself is "irrelevant" and "frivolous."

You are asked to overcome everything on your own.

The pledge of help sometimes is thrown out of the door and you are left all by yourself.

 

We all have a part of making this the norm of the grownup world.

We lost our sympathy and we lost our right to ask for it.

 

It takes a weak moment in our lives for us to realise how important it is to retain that little shred of humanity.

Today we could be a little kinder and more patient, tomorrow you will be grateful when you need the retrospective.

 

You see, it is quite amazing sometimes how a true friend brings out the best and the worst in you.

 

We tend to be the meanest with our closest friends because we assume they know us the best to distinguish the act from the heart.

And we took advantage of forgiveness.

 

While at the same time we put up with the worst from a best friend. Giving them an excuse of a bad day.

 

The frivolous behaviors do not seem to be an issue – because we took advantage of each other.

You allow them to be irrelevant because you are pardoned to be brutally honest, or even sometimes mean.

And your brutality is forgiven because you lend listening ears during moments of weakness.

 

Sometimes I look back and regret the hurt I could have brought.

Sometimes I look back and think how special it is.

 

The truth is we are all imperfect. And we need to be able to be imperfect.

 

Though I do not embrace the idea of taking your best friends for granted, I do think that it is exactly the forgiveness and the sympathy in our friendship that makes everything special.

These are the elements that are missing in ordinary day-to-day when we have decided to grown hard to everyone else.

 

So I guess I could say – sorry to you.

And I guess I could also demand that from you.

And lastly, I think I should say thank you my dear friends.