Truth

Truth is a strange word. It's an absolute. It's not a maybe, perhaps, or will it, will it not. It just is. Truth that is bent is no longer truth. Sometimes, I let the problem cloud my mind more than it should. The truth is that I should proceed with my work, despite any fears I have of it.

The fear speaks, and says, maybe you can't do it. Maybe you should think about it some more. Perhaps a little more consideration time. But will all this thinking, I lack the important element, which is movement and action. Thus inaction is borne out of fear. I guess that's a new meaning to the term "paralyzed by fear". I'm afraid to move for making a mistake.

But in the end, when I look at the situation, I have to do something. Because doing nothing is akin to dying. Only dead people don't move. Sleeping people still dream, and engage in REM, and when they wake up, they move. Maybe I'm in a dream right now, where everything should be moving, but is only going in persistent slow-motion.

Movement without thought is hasty and often leads to more problems. However, I tend to think too much. To double think, triple think even. And that's where the problem is. I know I think too much, and hate that part of myself. I need to learn that once I've thought about the situation, I have to act. After all, if I do nothing, nothing happens. If I do something, according to Newton's law, there has to be some reaction. If I eat, I'm no longer hungry. I need to take thinking and then acting as a base instinct, and not something that's more metaphysical or "higher" than just what needs to be done.

And I've just done this post instead of just thinking of doing a post and wondering what to write, I've actually gone ahead and written something.

Walk in the dark

Sometimes you walk, and you see a light ahead, to the next destination. That'll probably be good. If that light is illuminating beckoning relatives long gone, then that's probably not a good sign of anything to come in the extremely short term. We all walk through the carpal tunnel of uncertainty.

I wake up in the morning, uncertain, and I go to bed, uncertain. In this world, what is there to be certain of? Pretty much nothing. Nothing is certain, nothing is sure. It's pretty cryptic, but it's probably the only certainty out there.

Enjoy the euphoria of the music. No one needs drugs to forget the present, just close your eyes to it, and concentrate on looking down the tunnel. Down that tunnel we go. Sometimes, maybe we get flashes of light. Sometimes, not. Illumination is sometimes a very broad word to use.

Sometimes, we just flail away in the darkness until we are accustomed to it, before seeing where are.

Biting the Bullet

It's finally here. I've finally decided to do it. One little step for me, maybe a larger step when viewed from another perspective. I've always wanted to do my own thing, run my own show. Somehow ever since I was born, I knew this was what I've always wanted to do.

And now I've the chance to do it. Either do it now, or never. Time isn't going to wait for me, and I shouldn't wait for myself either to grow old and regret missed opportunities. I finally start up my own little film production company. I've decided not to fully focus just on films, but on anything that requires a camera, I can definitely apply myself to. And if I don't know how to do it, then I'll get myself down into the trenches and learn it. It can't be all that hard since many other people are doing it as well.

Exciting times. Every day is a battle between myself. Sometimes you're afraid that it won't work out. Sometimes you're afraid of failure, but there's no other way but to stand up and go on ahead and face that fear. I read an article on the internet about how guys manage to talk to pretty girls. Strange subject matter, but the underlying concept is the same. They just decide on an action in 3 seconds rather than letting their head get in the way of being knocked back.

So I've linked my film website here. It's in english and german. It was a little hard with the web coding, but I'm happy everything turned out fine.

Now for the next step!

Actually Doing Something

When I think back about it, it's amazing - not used in a good context here - how fear actually developed in my psyche from a young age. Of course, for this I place the blame totally on the Singaporean government for promoting meritocracy.

Meritocracy, as found on the internet merriam-webster dictionary is defined as :-

1 : a system in which the talented are chosen and moved ahead on the basis of their achievement

2 : leadership selected on the basis of intellectual criteria

There's nothing bad about meritocracy inherently. It was just the botched execution of a good sounding idea that messed me up. To rank students and schools in almost every aspect just smacks to me of eliticism. To be able to claim that 'oh, I was 15th in my school year' - is that really important? To suddenly see a friend as not a friend but a fellow competitor that you have to overcome. That is the harsh reality of what it turned out to be. I could no longer trust the people I went to school with because someday, as it turned out to be, they would stab me in the back.

Anyway, digressing off the point. Fear.

Due to the pressure placed upon students to perform well, we had to take our papers back to our parents for them to be signed. If we did well, nice and good. If we didn't that's where the problems started. I vividly remembered asking my friends so many times to check my results for me because I was afraid of getting scolded and beaten back home. Verbally demeaned and lowered to nothing more than a disgrace to the family or worse.

And now, many years on, in looking back, I realized my fear of moving ahead has stemmed from that single root. Everytime I've wanted to move ahead, or try something new, or ask for something, I've almost immediately assumed rejection or a negative answer. Such to the extent that I almost never did anything I wanted in my heart to do. It didn't fit with the *plan*. It wasn't the path the country prescribed that we should follow.

Everything was psychological, not physical. But, recently I've come to realize. Screw fear. Just do it, deal with the perceived fear *problem* later. If it even comes at all. Most times, there are more ways to a solution than I expect or see. Most times, I'm probably fixated on one particular solution which I think is good, but God has something much much better if I would get my eyes actually off my perspective of a solution. So what if I get a negative, something will turn up that's much better as long as I not worry, look, ask and trust that it will come.
No is never the end of the world. It's just the path to something better ahead.

If the only way I can encourage myself is to keep writing then that's what I'll do.

I remember going to my computer afraid and clicked on my facebook account and saw this verse pop up. It shot straight to my heart, more than medicine could ever do.

2 Corinthians 12:9

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

Fear

I'm afraid. That's why I don't like going to bed too early. In case I might miss something. I'm afraid for almost every positive, there's sure to be some negative creeping about in my mind. I can't sleep because the fear eats me out from within. Telling me in its little voice that I'll never be what I want to be before I grow old.

I hate living in fear of the unknown. Fear of the future, whether be it one second or one year. Fear of not knowing what the next action will bring. I wish I could shut my brain down - thinking - for a moment to enjoy peaceful serene bliss.

Peace in my mind. It's what I'm seriously longing for. Against all the naysayers my own mind has put up against me. I am my own worst enemy, paralytic to the core. I want to move, but my body disobeys me. My heart fails for fear has gripped it tight. To live like that, beyond a nightmare in existence.

There will always be challenges. I just didn't expect it to be this hard sometimes.
We face our own fights, and fight them we must. I picked my road to walk. It's a strange road. Life is a journey, they all say. Maybe no one has walked mine yet. I've got to walk it myself. I can't walk the journey for someone else. Only they can do it. My path is special as is theirs.

And though I fear, walk I must.

The Next Step

I've finished up my studies in London, and though I'm kind of feeling wierd in saying it, I'll miss London. After 5 years, I finally get the chance to live in a lively, big city again. I'm used to large cities. I can't live in a small town. I need the hustle and bustle a large city provides, along with its list of amenities, although London definitely needs lots of work on some aspects. Nonetheless, having some *proper* chinese food was great.

So what's the next step? Get a job, I guess. It's not an easy prospect, nor is it an impossible one. It's just a mentally daunting one where I'm afraid. What exactly I'm afraid of, I guess it's just preparing in my mind to see all those rejection letters piling up. But as friends have told me, I've got to keep trying and that those letters are in no way a reflection of my ability. They just have got no vacancies is all the situation is.

In a strange land, I am. I've got to stop talking like Yoda, cute and wierd as he might be, but a muppet he still is.

The time during the course has been very good to me, and I've felt like I've come out of a huge valley with a lot of knowledge. And after a month of rest and relaxation, it's time to enter another valley. This time of work, of getting work. But at least one thing's for certain, I've finally found what I want to do and I'll put my hands to it and do it well.

God is faithful, God is good. He holds my hand though I fear, he holds my hand.