A quiz

Ha well, this is a bit late, but I just realised I got tagged by Quek to do one of those blog quizzes, which I generally don't do 'cos I can't be bothered and I think it's silly to keep passing the quiz on to other people. It's like one of those stupid chain emails that either bless or curse you. But because I feel like blogging today and it's a fairly interesting quiz (I would like to see how I answer it too), I shall try it out. But before I begin I'll add this disclaimer: I'm not going to pass it on. The buck stops here.

#1. If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?

Ha well, what a question to start with. I would definitely be pissed, and hurt, very. Probably shocked too. The order in which those emotions arrive would depend on how exactly I was betrayed I suppose. Or it would be a mixture of everything at once.

#2. If you can have a dream come true, what would it be?

Ahhh, I like this. It would be my usual fantasy of relaxing in some far off exotic location involving either of the two following scenarios (of course if I could shuttle between both it would be even better): curling up in a cosy armchair by a crackling fire in some homely cottage, book in hand, with a large library behind me, next to a window with snow falling outside. Actually need not be snow. Could be lush rolling green fields with snowcapped mountains in the distance, ie somewhere in Switzerland. The other scenario would be lounging on the beach in either the Maldives or the Bahamas before returning to my suite in Hotel Atlantis. Actually come to think of it I would prefer the European fantasy.

#3. If you could be at one place right now, where would it be?

I'm tempted to say see the above, but on second thought there are so many places I'd rather be in. Hmm, either London or Venice I suppose.

#4. Are you confused as to what lies ahead of you?

Yes. I wish I knew my destiny, but then things wouldn't be so exciting.

#5. What's your ideal lover like?

Ha, wouldn't you like to know. Uh, intelligent (not more than me), easygoing, friendly, able to hold a good long conversation, confident but not to the point of overbearing obnoxiousness, caring, tactful, and yes, a good dose of sweetness. Hai why does it always have to be sweet? But I realise I have a sweet tooth. Oh yes and pleasant to the eye of course. Preferably with a good sense of fashion.

#6. Which is more blessed, loving someone or being loved by someone?

To love, of course, since it is quality of the divine, to love without expectation.

#7. How long do you intend to wait for someone you really love?

Depends on what you mean by wait. As in how long will I wait to find someone I really love, or how long will I wait for the person I love to ready to love me back/return from some far off journey/marry me? In both cases, it's really hard to set a timeframe.

#8. If the person you secretly like is already attached, what would you do?

Wait and see.

#9. Is there anything that has made you unhappy these days?

Yes. The Navy and my general feeling of discontentment with life.

#10. What do you want most in life?

To buy a house with a white picket fence. Seriously, to find something truly fulfilling and do it.

#11. Is being tagged fun?

No.. This quiz is very long...

#12. How do you see yourself in ten years time?

Successful and married.

#13. Who is the current most important person to you?

No one in particular.

#14. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?

Narcississtic, to ask such a question. Nah, but seriously, he's smart, opinionated, moody and melancholic, good to go shopping and eating with, nice to talk to.

#15. Would you rather be single & rich or married but poor?

Uh, single and rich, because because being married and poor can potentially cause a lot of misery for the family, and being single and rich doesn't necessarily mean you're lonely and miserable. Besides, who knows?

#16. If you could have any animal for a pet, what would it be?

A cute little dog.

#17. What are one of those things which you would prefer not to do?

NS.

#18. What kind of person do you think you are?

Complicated.

#19. What do you define as a bad day?

Being in camp.

#20. If you have to choose between love and friendship, what would it be?

This is a stupid question, because as quek pointed out, friendship is a form of love, and the best lovers are friends. But since the questioner obviously meant romantic love, I suppose I'd go with that, since what's the point of all the friends in the world if you missed the one person you were made for?


And that ends it! What a long quiz. Anyway, it's been pretty exciting in camp, but I;m probably not allowed to talk about what happened, so call me if you want to know.

Dog Days

27 May, six more months to go. These are the dog days of NS, when everything crawls just when you want it to go faster. In actual fact, the whole of NS can be described as the dog days of my life. In any case, the second half of this year looks set to be very busy, just when I'm thinking of winding down.

C S Lewis was right when he said the devil's best weapon against us is through the sheer monotony and dreariness of life. Keep the mortals focused on theier everyday tasks. Let them slip into little, "ordinary" sins, small vices that don't harm anyone, that they think don't harm anyone. Let them get comfortable. In the end we become bland, insipid creatures on the highway to hell, borne along by a steady stream of "small" vices. It's always the little things that kill in the end.

I'm afraid I've been travelling on such a stream for a long time now. I feel weighed down by a dozen little things that crop up every so often in my life, only to be pushed down quickly by some other event. And I'm too lazy to deal with them, any of them. I've become almost numb to it all. I don't know when this nonchalence started, but I want to get rid of it. It's dangerous I know. I feel it strongly, this spiritual neglect and apathy. It's like I've lost direction, motivation, strength. I can't keep a steady line of thought going for too long a time now. The only person who can make me flare up with almost diabolical rage these days is my brother, and even then I can't sustain it for long. Perhaps no one can, and in any case it's better for my health not to do so. But I feel a general sense of fatigue about everything these days, a jadedness that's pricked by life's annoyances every now and then. And even so I'm tired of being angry. I'm tired of being annoyed at every little thing. I'm tired of being tired. I know I shouldn't be affected by my circumstances, that I should rise above them, but I suppose this is the natural end result of someone who loses track of God. Everything goes off track and you become led by whatever happens to fall in your path, instead of you walking confidently forward following the Light.

It's time I did something about this. If you read this and you believe, pray for me.

Duty

Do you ever get one of those times when you've received so many orders and duties at work you just want to relax at home on a weekend and not do anything at all? I guess it happens to everyone. You serve others so much at work you just want to be served on your off days. You don't want to think about anything even moderately stressful; you don't want to hear the word "duty"; you don't want to do anything for anyone. In short you just want to be left alone. I get that feeling all the time. I think ever since I enlisted I've developed a variation of the victim mentality, that since I do so much shit work (pardon my language) for others throughout the week I demand the best service and pleasure during the weekends. And I get angry whenever my time is wasted during the weekends.

I'll be frank about what started me on this rant. (I rant a lot these days don't I? But what's the point of this blog if not to allow me to purge my frustration?) I was asked to "serve" by doing games for cell group this Saturday. It seriously is not the fault of the person who asked me. It was an instinctive response on my part to shirk away from all responsibility on a weekend, on a day when I feel I should be served, not cracking my brain about how to keep 20 people entertained with some banal game. I know I sound horribly self-centred. But I can't deny the fact that I was irked. I was irked that I was asked to perform a duty for the cell on the first Saturday I'm able to attend after two consecutive weeks of weekend duties. To add insult to injury, I was asked about this yesterday, during my duty in yard.

Her exact words were, "Would you like to serve?" I wonder why she phrased it like that. That was what got to me. Usually people just ask, "Hey, can you do games this sat..." But this was different. And when longsuffering me replied in the affirmative, albeit with a very reluctant tone, her response was this, "Be joyful! It's serving the Lord too! :)"

I don't know, but at that moment I was tempted to reply that certain people believe that blowing themselves up in the middle of a crowd is service to God too. Well, I didn't say that, but her obliviously joyous tone was grating to my heavy spirit.

If I force myself to look at the situation objectively, and in a Christian spirit, then yes, I reluctantly have to say that doing games is a service to God, for whoever serves these little ones serves Him as well, no matter how mind numbingly boring the act may be. And yes, I know I shouldn't let circumstances dictate my happiness. Joy is an act of the will, the decision to rejoice in spite of one's circumstances, and to pray the God will supply the happy feelings. Well then, God help me find a banal game to entertain 20 people this weekend.

Materialism

These days when I sit before the monitor trying to blog I am always struck by a sense of emptiness, as though there's nothing worth saying here. Why do I bother blogging? This is not a private journal, and yet I feel the urge the pour out my deepest, darkest troubles onto the world. Isn't that sheer exhibitionism? Yet I take some comfort in the fact that no one reads my blog anymore, so there is a measure of privacy, even if I'm just trying to delude myself.

What to say though? I just feel empty and shallow these days. I've felt this way before, years back in school. It's the feeling I get when I realise my happiness depends on nothing more than the material, like the next time I book out, or my next meeting with friends, shopping, eating, watching a movie. I enjoy all these things, but nowadays I sense they've gotten too much of a hold on me, to the extent that I wonder sometimes about the day I finally ORD. When all this trouble, the thorn in my neck for two years, is gone, will I just feel empty and rootless? Because as of now, NS provides a counterpoint to my material happiness, the black to my white. How then will I know beauty if I live on a bed of roses? At such a point I usually convince myself that the gloom that's descended on me is linked much closer to NS than just my shallow materialism, and that my ORD will not see a dying out of euphoria a few days after it.

And yet I cannot ignore what I just called my shallow materialism. Shallow, ha. To think I would call myself that. Maybe not exactly shallow. Materialistic more like it. Shallowness would imply an inability to see the emptiness, an inability to notice the deep end a few metres beyond the bathing pool. But how? How to shake this off? It's linked, I know deep down it is, to my increasing detachment from the spiritual life. And what plagues me most is my inertia, my sheer laziness to get up and do something about it. Writing does not help in practical action here. Maybe writing clarifies things, brings thought into focus, but it certainly does not dispel sloth. Prayer? You know alot of times I feel my prayers are mere words without actions, a temporary balm to appease a vengeful deity. Completely erroneous of me I know, but these are the sort of thought errors I am liable to fall into without rigorous correction time and time again. My God is both Saviour and Lord, the Righteous Judge who also stands as my Advocate in heaven. I need to bring back that balance in my life. And yet words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Drained

I really question myself nowdays about the life I should be the living and the one I actually am. Is it normal to feel continuously drained and exhausted, barely holding on to the end of the line each day? I know in my heart it shouldn't be this way. My friend tells me he barely sleeps when he gets home from camp. There's so much to do outside that sleeping seems a waste. To me it's the opposite. Once I've bathed and settled into clean clothes back home, a general sense of fatigue always falls upon me, and I crawl into bed. It's as if before reaching home my body's working overtime to maintain this hyped-up state of urgency to detect and pre-empt all nonsense in camp, and once I'm back the line, stretched to breaking point, snaps.

This continuous fatigue is making me feel as though the world owes me something everytime I book out. I know it from the way I react to things. I get so irritated when I reach home and see my brother on the computer, as he invariably is, because I feel I should be granted uninterrupted access to the computer at home. I get mad at the bloodcurdlingly slow pace of human traffic in the train stations, as if the whole world is out to delay my return to home. I fume when I have to eat a lousy meal on the weekends, because I want to enjoy myself after all the crap I stomach during the week. I'm becoming a crabbier, more short-tempered person by the day; I can see it in myself. I am plagued by fears, worries, anxieties, tossed to and fro on waves of uncertainty. I need a break, a very long break to recuperate.

A raging helplessness

Writing has become my final outlet for pouring out my woes, the last medium through which I may attain some measure of catharsis. Only here do I exercise full control over what I say, being free from any of the distracting interruptions that are inevitable in conversation.

I like studying the mechanics of anger and frustration, seeing as they occur so frequently in me. At present, given the topic of my post, I am of course, angry. But anger is too general a term to describe the gamut of emotions I’m currently feeling. To try and bring the reader into my experience, I must describe the sequence of events that brought me to this pass. There is nothing remarkable about these events that have made me angry. They occur very frequently in the armed forces. However, since attempts to describe them in a general sort of way always tend to lack impact, in my opinion, I have decided that I must be specific and describe them as they are.

To begin with let’s start with Monday. On Monday I discovered that my ship would be sailing till 7pm, thereby preventing me from joining my cell group for the dinner they were planning to have in celebration of my birthday the next day. Well and good. Next, I discovered that the whole week’s schedule was to be changed dramatically. Because of that demented fanatic on the loose, my ship has been tasked to patrol the area to look for him. So, that meant spending Tuesday, my birthday, out at sea. To add insult to injury, Thursday, which is now designated as an off day for the crew due to patrol duty this Sunday (yes, I have to sail on Sunday too), became my duty date. This means while everyone goes for an off day, I have to come back for duty. So I’ve been sailing since Tuesday, and only just came back home. This Friday I will sail again, so in effect Saturday will be my only rest day. So much for birthdays.

Hungry, tired, trying to make my way back home, I found the roads jammed with traffic. After an hour and a half from Tuas I finally reached Serangoon station, only to wait a further 15 minutes for the bus. When I got off at my stop, I headed for the market to buy dinner. Realising I had no money, I went to the ATM, and saw a long queue, which meant I had to wait another 10 minutes. That being done I waited 5 more minutes for my food before finally returning home.

That’s the sequence of events that got me into this state. It’s an all too familiar feeling. An angry, frustrated resignation that just drains me. I’m so tired of feeling this way all the time. Overwhelmingly it’s a feeling of helplessness, the feeling that nothing is going your way and you’re powerless to change the situation. It raises strong surges of anger within me, made all the more stronger by the constant recognition that nothing I do will help the situation. It’s a vicious cycle, this raging helplessness. It all adds up to a very potent brew that’s been stirring in me for a long time now, indeed ever since I enlisted. I hate the army, and I’m tired of hating, and I know nothing I do will hasten my exit from the army, thereby making me hate it more, and fall into this weary resignation. How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.


Coda:
The above post is two days late, as it was originally intended for Wednesday. But once again, as part of a never-ending series of little things to annoy me, my modem failed to start up that day, so I saved all my ramblings on Word. Since then I've thought of a few more things to say.

I would like to destroy once and for all the myth that sailing is fun and exciting. I know that to the land-bound person the idea of a ship on the high seas will always carry with it visions of romance and adventure. It is a very easy fantasy to fall into if you watch enough movies and television. But like all such fantasies based on reel life, it is highly erroneous. A few misconceptions must be corrected here.

Firstly, when I sail, I do not end up at foreign port. To the civilian, a voyage must always start at home and end up at some foreign destination. This is wrong. Most navy ships simply sail out to the surrounding straits for patrols or operations before returning back to base. Many of these exercises can be completed within a day, therefore it is not true that a sailor is necessarily well-travelled in the popular sense of the phrase.

Secondly, and more importantly, there is nothing exciting about sailing. It is as dull as, say, taking a ferry to Batam. I simply stay onboard and perform the tasks required of my vocation, which are dull and monotonous too, and basically that's it. All talk of the sun and sea and the salty tang of the air in my face are poetic fantasies written by people who were either sailing in an earlier age when ships weren't completed air-conditioned, or who were sailing for leisure. Most of the time the crew is indoors, watching DVDs or sleeping or eating. As these things can be done much more comfortably at home, I see little excitement to be made about sailing. So please, to everyone who gushes "That sounds fun!" each time I tell them I'm sailing, excuse me if my reply to you sounds weary and cynical.

Fishes of Men

A disastrous thing happened today, an event of unprecedented proportions. For the first time in my life, I had to pay extra for wastages at a sushi buffet. Yes, I ended up paying double of the actual buffet price, because the amount of food we had left on the table was equivalent, no, more in fact, than the normal buffet price. It is a sad tale to tell...

Quek and I went to Cineleisure to eat at that smelly place, as no other sushi restaurant serves teatime buffet over the weekend. We reached it after 4, but the buffet ends at 5.30, with the last order being at 5. We only got a table at 4.35, and so we had to rush to order all the extra ala-carte buffet items that are not found on the revolving belt. In our haste we made the foolish mistake of overestimating our appetites and ordered double, triple even, of everything. And having done so, we proceeded to stuff our faces with more food from the belt. A foolish, foolish mistake. By the time the extra food ordered came, we were already full. What a disaster that was.

We were like drunks after that, laughing bitterly, senses gorged, faculties functioning at 10% in Quek's case. It is truly an unprecedented disaster. In our shock I suppose our minds tried to force some meaning into the event. He said this felt important. It is important, but beyond the immediate blow to our wallets the ramifications are harder to explain. One thing's certain; this is a confirmation of our shrinking appetites and ageing bodies. We are growing old, my friend, oh yes. No more feasts for us, I think, but gluttony of delicacy can be a pleasant alternative.

And one more thing. We were lamenting our precarious position in life at the moment, how it seems that, at age 20, we are adrift, directionless, bereft of the joy, meaning and purpose that we, as the redeemed people, should rightfully possess. A quarter-life crisis is upon us. On my part I feel spiritually lazy, and lost as well. I enjoy C.S. Lewis, but I think there's a problem when I read his books just for the intellectual stimulation. Religion cannot be a mere mental exercise, something to muse and ponder about over a cup of coffee or heaps of unfinished sushi plates. And yet I feel increasingly like an armchair Christian. I'd like to say that the idea of the perpetually joyful, faithful Christian who moves through life with purpose and meaning is a stereotypical fantasy that non-believers or the naive think, but truth be told, are we merely using that as an excuse to cover up the fact that our faith is woefully inadequate when in actual fact, the true Christian life is one of power, joy, peace, purpose?

I think I'll end with that rhetorical question for today. Time to think a bit, and hopefully, act.