Hell doesn't freeze over

There is no sound that I can make to describe how I feel. Usually when I move to a new place I will do comparisons and of course by doing that I start off hating the place for at least 6 months.  Then I go through the cycle of acceptance, to making it work by finding things that I use to replace the things that bothers me.  Little by little the bothers gets off set by something else.  It has helped me cope in the past.  But where I reside now, despite all the nice people that I have come across, the place crush me everyday.  It is difficult to explain, but it is like living in a land where I see so much passive aggressiveness and negativity inside of people that I get drowned by the superficial world.  After being in some many countries and moved to different places all my life, I find myself lost within.  I don't remember a time where I had such a difficult time to find the positive within me.  It feels as if the bubble that I live in now, the dirt that I gather can not be washed.  I know I should be thankful and yet I can't.  Life may be good and yet it lack substance.  I can now understand why so many people leave this place after awhile, just so they can get back to reality.

Usually the beauty of the holidays is that it reminds me about life.  This holiday spirit for some reason is so not here.  It doesn't feel it physically with 29 degree in December and the common theme around here is about shopping does not help.  The spirit and the beauty of the holidays are dead here and I can not understand how small view of life things are with the people here.  So despite the clean air and low taxes, you are exchanged with ugly contradictions and high materialism.

What if you try to stay as positive as you can, but yet you fall so short that it feels like spiritually you have gone into an abyss.  Is it possible that purgatory can exist?  What if you live in a forever hot place, bad people pretending to be good, crude noises everywhere that feels like mental warfare, no soul walking except warship money, always try to gain a little bit more advantage over others even just going through the door, everyday is the same spiritless purpose, when everything tries so hard to be orderly but yet you see how corrupted things are, and of course spiritually everyday the place eats you away.

So above all that, of course I realize a big part of it is me.  When I am not in the environment that I believe in, I have a forever slippy slide that hard to get rid of.  Yet I realize there are many people who feels the same and fled his place.  I don't do well in a superficial place where there is very little amount of humanity that exist.  It is boring because it does not have soul and therefore it tries so hard to buy some to come in.  Even though if you go to most events that come in are half full.

So if I can worry about what I can't control.  Now comes what I have the biggest struggle of all.  Me.  Sometime it is so tiring that you really don't have the words or the fuel to go any further.

First day

Another day has passed.  1 day older.  It is boring as well as excited that tomorrow is a big unknown.  It can be m last or it can be just another day closer to my last.  I received comment on my whatsapp.  I must say I sometime don't want to explain or try to sound positive. Not today.  Not now.

I wonder what there people are doing.  Is it another day for them or is it something that is their forever changing moment?  Can it be that as you get closer to the end....you know a whole lot less?  Don't get me wrong.  I am super thankful for the people that is in my life.  I don't know how I ever got here without the companionship, love, trials, and failures is included in this journey.  Despite the plentiful support, sometime the only person that can make you stand up is yourself.  Life is pretty tough now.  Yet I probably have 1st world problems, but it still feels dark as night sometime.

Anyhow, time to close this random though with no logic what so ever but to just type so that I fall sleep.

What do you call....

.....a place that is forever 30+ degrees and you can barely walked more than 4 blocks and want to turn back?  This has become my world as of late.  I am here for 3 weeks now, although technically it has been 5 weeks already.  This has been a wicked 5 weeks in which I don't even have words to proper explain the flood of emotion and thoughts that consumes me..  I am not sure if it is because now I have free time and the daily routines stopped distracting me or if is it just because now I am in bubble land lion country with time to see a completely new way of life for people.   Whatever it is, I am like an ostrich with his head stuck into the ground.  Which is real?  The mental state of me stuck underground or the physical body that is hanging out?  I seldom have really much answers when it comes to myself because through the years I think I have gotten so busy trying to loose the things that bother me that along the way I lost the understanding of who am I.  Thus I became this ostrich.

So being in this lion city I wonder if I can really survive here.  For instance while writing this entry.  I have a guy reading a book in a coffee shop while putting his dirty feet on top of the chair that I am sure many hundred other people will touch.  This is a county that claim to be 1st world country while really under its skin is a 3rd world DNA.  Through the 3 weeks that I have been here I have seen a lot that I will predict that the country will hit a tough period in the next 20 years.  Currently there is prejudice against foreigners where quota and sub par rights are given.  Yet if you look at one of their top economic machine real estate industry has benefited from the foreigners that enters this land.  It is the foreigners that gave this land a path to climb out the 3rd world.  Many other industries have benefit from the outsiders coming in.  Yet even to this day and age, you still find the less know things about this land which many people do not see or hear unless they live here.  In this new world, I feel like people should understand this so that if a society is to truly progress, then self awareness and willingness to hear people's opinion is a critical component to that next stage.  One things for certain is that this place is not as civil and proper as one thinks.  So far I have tested that honesty is really lacking here.  It has done so well to put lipstick on that pig that people stop believing it is a pig anymore.  I have numerous time received less change or no change to what I am owed.  I purposely see what will happen if I gave a little bit more to say buy a takeaway lunch and so far there are more than 5 occurrences where they kept the money and pretended nothing.  For instance, today I went to get my dry cleaning done.  A sweater range between 6 to 8 on the menu.   I have one of those thin sweater that you often see in Zara.  The lady quickly says 7 dollars and proceed to write up the invoice.  I stopped her and asked why 7, she mumbles oh sweater 7 or 8.  Then I point her to the menu and then she says oh it is a sweater and then mumbles some more to ask me to sign. Then I say okay then tell me why this is a 7 and not 6 given this is a light sweater, cotton and require no special instruction.  She couldn't answer except finally change to 6.  This example is really how I found people to be here.  To get away with the littlest things....kiasu to use that term to justify unlawful things.  The country seems to embrace it so much that there are very loose law against merchants cheating consumers, prejudice in the workplace, taxi cabs short change you, pretend mistakes, acting like robots (no can) as an excuse to do less, and the basic lack of consideration for people so as long as not getting caught.  It doesn't take much to just google and you will find other people having similar experiences of being cheated when then come to this land with the so call reputation of being organized and proper.  In a way I understand why there are so many laws and signs to tell people how things should be done.  But then is it really progressive to a society?  When will civility become self proclaimed versus just trying to follow commercial rule or to save face?  This pinned aggression is illustrated in people purposely walk faster to get in front of you and then return to the slow pace for kiasu.  Those people will falsely use the term by law in the common speech just so they can win a conversation or prove a point.  They will make everyone wait behind them so then can get the ERP to drop 50 cents.  They will quick to comment about other people while not do much to help the person next to them such as a dark skin lady with a baby needing a seat.  

These are just a few things I observed so far these 3 weeks.  I have never heard so many people use the term passive aggressive as I do now.  The last 25 years have been good for this land to have liberal laws to invite MNC to come in along with foreigners.  As the lion city decides to cut off the water supply that feed the city, its self entitlement society will hurt itself.  I often wonder what I heard so fabulous about this city is really just a mirage from the heat or will it really progress itself to be a 1st world country.  My last comment about society is that you often start by looking at language.  It is part of that DNA and it is the foundation for it to come out of it downfall as well as its back to support its come back.  If you look at the Singlish vocabulary, you will find so much of the slang is more self absorb, self centered, passive aggressive and its core prognosticates what are the common social values of the people.  Maybe it is time to add more positive phrases. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlish_vocabulary

Aimless

I feel like everyone should take time to be by themselves.  I don't why these days people will tag you when a person decided to be alone.  Is it so bad to be alone?  You see so much more.  You hear so much more. You notice the things around you that usually you don't because either someone is talking or you are talking.  These day you see a lot less listen.  It is almost seen as weak or non social or awkward.  For instance today I went to my favorite pizza place in wan chai.  I heard over some conversation about some guy explaining how he is OCD and how he is the way he is today because he controls what he has.  I find it funny that there are certain thing people use to give themselves a pat on the back of who they are.  I am willing to bet that the case of self diagnosis of people having OCD, anxiety, depression, or whatever the not me illness has increase multiple folds in the last 10 years.  Self righteousness is the coke that people drink.  People have gotten so good at being victim and self promotion that the society I believe gotten more ill.  People give else self excuse or self empowerment is so many way and that I believe people has no idea what humanity is.  Anyways more of my rant as I think my internal anger trying to escape itself.

Another observation....I slept to much today.  Maybe I am jet lagged.  But I slept a lot during the day and now at 1AM I am up writing.  So psycho.  I sometime wonder if I have mental disorder of some sort.  Haha....maybe I am also self diagnosis.

Take a swirl in my mouth

What if there is no answer?  As I gotten older I may know more and be able to recite more things that has happened historically, but when it comes to life matters I have to say I actually have a lot less answers then when I was young.  When I was young, a decision is made and I move.  Just like sports as a person gets older the mind thinks more and the body slows to react to the situation.  Even the difficult of situations I remember getting away to give my mind a break, meditate, or whatever I do to just swirl it and I surface some realization.  Some what like Bobby Fisher except will a lot less brilliance.  I am still trying to, but I must say more questions come up.

Sometime being alone make me understand what if something is taken away from you.  Sometime when I am in a different place I stop thinking.  Sometime I retrieve inward to observe and to examine about me, because I have become even good at tricking myself.  I am having 1st world country problems I know, but it feels so unmanageable right now.  In SA you see people faces cut up from knives or they talk about violence and just the fear of life that I see they accepted.  It is different and also so trivial.  What troubles me and the trouble I cause to people is true and real.  Not able to do things right is a part of me.  I wish people would stop judging or make assumption that I am nice or that I have the easy life or that I am easy going.  With the crap that I have done, I rather just be that the reason that I am getting what I am suppose to get and that there is a reason for the things that happened in my life.

It is always been taught to me that things change and that is life.  I don't think I was ever prepare that the changes will impact so much or how so little control that I have of changes in my life.  Or even when the change happen so quickly and sometime the change is so subtle that it morphs into something that I totally did not expect or ready for.  I don't have answers, just going blindly and it scares me.

This entry reminds me of the song Crying For No Reason by Katy B.  Making a mental snap for myself.

I push all my problems to the back of my mind
Then they surface in my dreams, they come alive
I sweep all my issues to somewhere I can't find
In hope that I'll forget but there's just so many times

Why can't I be strong and just confront all my fears?
When my fear is hurting you by being sincere
But how many more days can I run? How many years?
Emotions flooding and now it's all seeming so clear

Crying for no reason, feel the tears roll down
I felt strong but am I breaking now?
Crying for no reason 'cause I buried it deep
I made promises I could not keep
'Cause I never faced all the pain I caused
Now the pain is hitting me full force

I push all my problems to the back of my brain
A darkness deep inside where I just can't find my way
How can I walk with a smile? Get on with my day
When I deceived myself pretending it's all okay

I tried my best to hold it all together, I know
The strings have worn away and now I'm all exposed
I try to hide it all away on top of the shelf
I can lie to everyone but not to myself

Crying for no reason feel the tears roll down
I felt strong but am I breaking down?
Crying for no reason 'cause I buried it deep
I made promises I could not keep
'Cause I never faced all the pain I caused
Now the pain is hitting me full force

Forgive me now 'cause I said that I'll be there for you, care for you
I let you down, I walked away
'Cause there were things I couldn't say to you, say to you
I'm breaking now

[x2:]
I burned some bridges down
There must be some way out
The voices speak so loud
Will you forgive me now?

Crying for no reason, feel the tears roll down
I felt strong but am I breaking now?
Crying for no reason 'cause I buried it deep
I made promises I could not keep
'Cause I never faced all the pain I caused
Now the pain is hitting me full force

Side swipe

Sometime there is no words to explain or even write down.  What if you are so lost in your mind that you can not find the word to express or the physical strength to project out.  The closest to describing that feeling is like getting into a car accident.  Instead of a split second of time that is all empty, hollow, and numb, I carry them constantly inside me as I go through the day.  I think the last time I refer to the walking dead and that pretty much is what it feels like.   But does the walking dead carry an aching heart?  Do they feel and yet experience numbness at the same time?  I find my body voicing out the same objection that it did years back.  The continue connection between the mind, body and soul that makes their dependency so much harder to managing when things are the way they are.  I am in state of oblivion it seems and I just wish somehow it is a material matter and I can just rip through it so that I can find a way to pound it to this ground that stand on so that I am finally feel I am in control of my "self".  I wonder where is my finite strength to push forward.  Have I reached it?  Have I passed it?  Am I not looking at the right thing?

You can't wash it away

There are certain things I feel like I can not ever get rid of.  When it come to my struggle with my parent it is an everlasting maligned cancer that seems to continue sits deep into me.  I feel and I can only see how physically what the cancer has done to me.  No one really see it, they may see some, but never know really how it is killing me from the inside out.  Cancer generally starts from deep within inconspicuous, impacting the internal organs, eventually reach the physical appearance, and of course gradually kills the mind.  The evidence of the disease does not surface way after time passes.

What happen today really confirm how I feel broken by the two people that brought me to this world.  I don't know if there is much greater hurt than what parents can do to their kids.  I understand everyone has issue with parents, but what if the parent break down your ever strength and courage?  What if they speak and request for their own gain, but use their relationship with you to get you to do what they want?  What if they don't see you as a person, but a possession?

After my meeting with my dad today, I wanted to get rid of everyone around me.  How can he made me hate myself so much.  I see a bit of myself from him.  When I see that I want to run and hide.  How I wish I don't want to be like him.  It is a scary feeling when I realize I run away from people and things that reminds me of them.  To be honest, after today I am okay with just among strangers.  Not having to see traces of my parents around me.  Not having to see my reflection.  I don't like to be alone, but if being alone is what it take to get rid of the reminder of the cancer, then I rather choose that route.  It can't be scrubbed away, it never fall off, and it make me feel like reckless.  In a unexplainable thought, I wish for chaos so that I will not let them break me down again.  I seek superficialness to give me moment of amnesia.  I give anything to have a short moment of free falling, empty, mindless experience even if it a mirage, just give me temporary false cleansing.

Walk on both sides of the street

Maybe because I have more time and also I am traveling that I can finally sit down and just free flow notes on blogger.  I return to my previous location, Hong Kong for a short stay before I head off to Japan tomorrow.  It is not until I left I noticed more things about HK.  People often ask my how is Singapore and whether I like it.  It is difficult to answer just because it is like comparing what food do you like.  For the bird that has no feet, that is actually what my friends call me, naming which is better is a very difficult task.  Even more difficult is saying which I like more.  It just depends.  Both places encapsulate a little of me.  When in HK you feel the chaos of life, it is true life.  Yet when walking down the street, SIN give you the definition and order that you need to keep a bit of inner peach.  One more than the other is not good for the soul and neither is one missing.  Strangely HK chaos gives the reason the nice thing about SIN.   Inversely the robotic society of SIN gives HK that energy that one needs to appreciate what you have.  By walking out on the streets of HK you can't help but to have in your gut to go do something despite the humidity and the hot temperature.  It is as if the place tells you to do something so that you do not miss out.  You don't know what it is, but you just need to move.   I don't think I have enough words or time to list why these two city are so oppositely compatible for a person like me.  But walking through, eating, and lounging my way from Sheung Wan to Causeway today also give me the motivation or even maybe the society pressure to site in a coffee shop and just write.  I will miss this place, that is for sure.  I will be critical of SIN as I have been for HK.  Just coming into SIN for the last week, I hope that I also work through my feeling so that one day I start to notice the wonderful things about SIN.

In a follow up to my other personality.  I came across this poem by Shannen Wrass on hellopoetry.com. I am reposting just because I like how it is written.

Welcome To My World ©

Have you ever tried to cry
But there's no tears left to shed
Have you ever seen the face of misery
Or looked into the eyes of dread
Have you ever gripped the pain
Cause it's all that's left to hold
Have you ever tried so hard to love
But found your heart was just too cold
Have you ever just had to accept,
Your agony has no end
Have you ever been so desperate,
You've claimed the sorrow your best friend
Have you ever held hands with depression
Wept on the shoulder of fear
Have you ever reached out to emptiness
But there's nothing to pull near.
Have you ever sobbed yourself to sleep
Anguish at the foot of your bed
Have you ever been shaken from your dream
To be thrown in a nightmare instead
Have you ever felt the cringe inside
Embraced by betrayal and hate
Have you ever then just had to dwell
In a world that terror creates
Have you ever been left empty
No Courage to unfold
If you've ever known the hurt
Then welcome to my world

Written by Shannen Wrass
Copyright © 1995 Shannen Wrass

Strike Through

It seems like I am not consistent in writing down my thoughts or feeling.  So much has happened and I have omitted so many things that I should have taken down.  Today I feel like I need to just put it down because I don't know what to do or where to put this "thing".

I feel like I been in a deep deep well for so long.  I tried yelling out.  I prayed for a higher being to get clarity. I kick and scream like a spoiled kid.  The thing about being stuck in a well is that you fell like you can do anything to yourself.  You see light and yet light dim or sometimes it brightens.  Then there are time when I wake up the next day, the depth of the well deepens.  I been starring at the light for so long.  So so long, that I became someone that just wish someone will just close the well for me.  Let me be....let me not hope, not see.  Let me be in the darkness.  I don't want to lift my head.  I don't want to see my hands and feet.  I want silence that ever lasting noise that is inside of me.

I did wrong and I forever will remember the wrong I did to the best person in this world.  Maybe I was in this well for a reason.  It was never intended for me to escape, but to protect others that is outside in the light.  It saddens me that the one person that tried to help me I pull into with me.  That I have no words to express how bad of a person I am but to confirm the purpose of this well.