I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you're the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and how you are with Spencer, "Spence," and in every single thought that you have, and how you say what you mean, and how you almost always mean something that's all about being straight and good. I think most people miss that about you, and I watch them, wondering how they can watch you bring their food, and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good, about me.  - Melvin Udall, As Good as It Gets

What an amazing quote. Watched this film for my abnormal psychology group project. Was worth every minute of my time.

Speaking of time. I hardly have any left to myself. It sucks being the group leader for almost all the projects. I'm killing myself scheduling and tanking up work. I'm no machine, I need sleep and play. 3 more weeks, and I'll be free from all these.

Unless/Especially if I die, of course.

~Win Ee

 

 

It's ironic that given my IDGAF attitude nowadays, I would care so much about this. My favourite cat is leaving with my sis tomorrow, I'll miss his company. A lot. He was snobby and cold at first, but he's got a heart of gold.

He sits beside me when I'm doing work late at night, perhaps knowing that I'm stressed out and feeling alone. He sits beside me when I'm slacking, perhaps knowing that I'm still lonely and seeking companionship. He sits beside me when I'm watching TV, perhaps knowing that I need an audience for my commentary. He sits beside me when I'm reading, perhaps knowing that I'd like to share him a story. He's always beside me. It'll feel different without him sitting beside me on my 2-seater leather sofa.

He's also considerate, giving me massages when I'm weary and only shitting when others are around so I don't have to clean up his mess. Ha ha.

Happy 10th birthday Rex, hope you'll find your new place a better home. I'll visit you sometime and you can sit beside me on the sofa again when I do. Love you.

~Win Ee




My sanity's at risk.

It seemed not too long ago that it was Lunar New Year. Time certainly passes quickly. That has been especially been the case for the past 3 or so months. Seems like there's an association with meaninglessness/emptiness and the days flying by. Days that go by without purpose aren't encoded well in memory and hence it's as if a lot of nothing has happened. I don't remember much of the days. It's a difficult enough existence without meaning/purpose; without memories to keep me going it's been worse. Everything seems so insignificant. What the hell have I been doing. What the heck is this aimlessness.

I abhor this anhedonia. It takes a lot of effort to choose to be happy nowadays. It's exhausting to keep rejecting negative thoughts and force positive ones unto myself. I keep fighting to be normal again but the normalcy of 4 months back has been elusive and fleeting even if I seem to grasp it. I want to feel like the world means something again. It's just a cycle of emptiness and abject bitterness that I feel right now. Occasionally, my friends and family drag me out and give me hope, but the cycle's a hungry hungry black hole. Those occasions are transitory, however comforting they may have been. It is a lasting reprieve that I seek. I seek answers to this emptiness.

I've questioned a lot. I'm not sure sacrificing so much for acad success has been the right thing to do, considering that it does not translate for sure into work-life success. I'm not sure struggling so much to live up to people's expectations is worth the pain. I'm not sure anything I do is worth the opportunity cost. I'm not sure which way's the right way to go. I'm not sure of myself. I'm not sure.

I'm 25% into my life and I'm not sure.

Not sure.

Win Ee

It's 2012. I haven't been able to post my resolutions nor the fun I've been up to lately. Actually, the latter is a lie. Assignments are no fun at all, and they're all that I'm doing lately. Yet, I don't think I'm keeping up. I'm rushing for deadline after deadline, and this madness doesn't seem to be subsiding anytime soon...at least not until february's end, but that looks like a long ass time away. Stress, oh stress. I sometimes wish I weren't such a type-A person, because then I wouldn't be so susceptible to the effects of stress. Often get stressed induced head, stomach and chest pains. It's just pure suffering right now.

I know that will come to pass, though. Just letting off some steam with this post. Go me.

~Win Ee.

Studies #1 but if I meet the person who's perfect for me I'm not going to pass the opportunity up again stupidly. Go for it, settle down asap, get my studies over and done with and start on my career. I'm a quarter through my life and this' my plan for the next 10 years. Maybe the plan will work out, but just as we may plan for life, life may have its own plans for us as well. Hopefully I can look back on this in 2022 with positivity and just a little hint of nostalgia.

Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with atowering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever. It is a terrifying dilemma to be in and to have to live with. The lower animals are, of course, spared this painful contradiction, as they lack a symbolic identity and the self-consciousness that goes with it. They merely act and move reflexively as they are driven by their instincts. If they pause at all, it is only a physical pause; inside they are anonymous, and even their faces have no name. They live in a world without time, pulsating, as it were, in a state of dumb being. This is what has made it so simple to shoot down whole herds of buffalo or elephants. The animals don't know that death is hap­pening and continue grazing placidly while others drop alongside them. The knowledge of death is reflective and conceptual, and animals are spared it. They live and they disappear with the same thoughtlessness: a few minutes of fear, a few seconds of anguish, and it is over. But to live a whole lifetime with the fate of death haunting one's dreams and even the most sun-filled days—that's something else. - Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

It's been almost 2 months since I've encountered my existential crisis. I have no doubt that I see the world differently from before that point in time. The sudden realisation that life is without inherent meaning hit me out of the blue and sent me reeling. I'm not sure I've recovered from it yet, but I suppose I'm doing much better than the days that immediately followed that epiphany (for the lack of a better word; an epiphany would have positive connotations perhaps pertaining to dealing with this existential crisis), during which I felt lifeless, depressed and deeply fearful. 


As Maslow or Rogers would opine, man is driven by a need to understand the meaning behind their existence or purpose and achieving their full potential in the context of that meaning. In the aftermath of the above-mentioned "epiphany", I couldn't find any. In midst of the chaos and dissonance induced by my death-anxiety, my mind was frothing with thoughts that everything I do was for nought; everything I endeavoured was inherently meaningless because with the eventual ceasing of my existence, nothing would matter. 


Even now, I doubt that there is an inherent "meaning" to life, though I still seek it, as would be expected of my human nature. What is "meaning" anyway? Meaning is merely a concept constructed by man to complement their agency, to convince themselves that there is a special significance behind what they do. Because men are driven to act purposefully, and meaning serves as as their guide and the direction to channel their purposeful actions towards. Without meaning, it is extremely difficult to live and act normally knowing that everything you do has no special significance. It is a big "So what?" to which there is no reasonable retort for. And that must be agonising to live with, passing the days by without human dignity and the enthusiasm that is endogenously generated by knowing your own special significance in this world. So we pretend that meaning exists. Even though it is ultimately arbitrary. Because we are bound by it, and we cannot function and live without it. Note the usage of the word "live". A person can exist independently of meaning, but I'm certain the same person cannot live independently of it, as "living" is purpose-driven.


Right now, I'm still trying to figure out the nature of life and meaning, but progress is limited and I regret my neglect of my spiritual development, which I acknowledge that would be helpful in resolving this crisis. As it is, I'm picking up ideas from which I'm trying to assimilate to form a personal worldview, which is hopefully the basis of a foundation I can derive my own meaning from. I'm mostly drawing them from buddhism, because I intuitively agree with its views. Being a non-theistic religion also helps, because through simple inductive reasoning, I am reasonably that a god does not exist. To imply the existence of a creator behind our existence, we must logically assume that the creator itself must be created by a more complex creator.  And following that logic, we have an infinite loop wherein a preceding creator always exists. The logic falls through because ultimately, a creator is something - and it is absurd that at its very origin, it was derived from nothing. Alternatively, devotees of a god reason that god doesn't have to be created, it just is. However, if that statement can be made, the statement that "the universe doesn't have to be created, is just is" would be superior, because it makes less assumptions. Occam's razor. 


Bit of digress. Back to buddhism. I am not a buddhist practitioner. I merely am absorbing its ideas, of which I am intuitively attracted towards. If I find it as a whole to appeal and agreeable to me, I may adopt it as my formal religion, even though I have always been a "buddhist by heritage" (not by beliefs nor practice). It's truths appeal to me, and I am attracted to its fundamental laws of transience and dependent origination. They make sense to me, and I accept them totally. 


I'm still in search of meaning, and trying to make sense of the world. As I see it right now, meaning is arbitrary and the world is a lonely, lonely place. Maybe that will change. I don't know. I don't know if buddhism is the answer either. I just know as long as I exist, I will try to live and find meaning. 


My current sentiments regarding all this mirrors that of Marley's from A little bit of heaven. I envy people who have absolute faith, blind and unwavering faith that a god exists. That an eternal life awaits on the other side. That a kind and merciful god who intimately and graciously listens and tends to our needs, watches over us, empowers us as long as we ask for strength and tides us over obstacles as long as we just have faith and pray to Him. Unfortunately, I cannot accept that. I know because I have tried to before, and I couldn't see a god. I couldn't be faithful without any justification nor evidence behind it. Faith in those circumstances would betray a lack of integrity and dignity. I wish it were different. 


Still. 


~Win Ee