And Before All That

Right.

The idea, initially, was to write a story every day. To make up small and big things and put them in words and leave them as they are – messy, pointless and meaningless – because what matters more here is that I get the cranial exercise that I need, so that I could keep writing the things I want to write.

That idea eventually downgraded into simply writing something every day. It doesn’t matter what; a story or a blog post or a sentence, it doesn’t matter. It just needed to be from the brain and heart.

Then real life came along and wrote itself, leaving most of everything that couldn’t catch up.

These days, it’s rare for me to be here, sitting in front of my computer with the night at my disposal. These days, I live more in the office and only return home to peruse the bed, and the toilet, and the dining table for the occasional breakfast.

These days, I wrote only for the desperate need to fill in the pages of a magazine that doesn’t want to admit that it’s understaffed, and perhaps a little overworked.

The scary bit here is that every month came and went without me being able to think about it. Life no longer presented itself like a piece of art, which subtleties and abstractness can be observed to reveal the kind of beauty you can smile to, or take to heart. Life now is a passing train that occasionally shows you a wonderful view of the world, only to return back to the caving darkness of the tunnels.

Life’s a lot less beautiful when you can’t see most of it. And it’s scary because I still wanted to see them all before I croak and drown myself in the bathroom.

I don’t want to start every month already in the thick of work, wrestling a growing pile of tasks that doesn’t know how to sort itself no matter what program I wrote into it. I want to be able to spend an hour every day to see Life, and being able to muse, observe and maybe write about it. I want to know I can still see the world and actually care for it, instead of simply shrugging because it doesn’t buy me another hour of sleep.

God dammit, I want to live. Shit.

Anyway, I’m writing this because I refuse to go into next week knowing that I have, once again, failed to write something that I can constitute as ‘Writing’. My job lets me write, yes, but when you have writing to get out of the way for many, many other things, it simply becomes a chore; it serves its purpose, but doesn’t mean anything more than taking the trash out.

Before all that, I want to feel a slight chance of accomplishment.

Then there’s nothing in the month than can get me lower.

****

I’m having trouble writing things now. In fact, I’m having trouble discerning between writing and Writing, or whether they’re the same thing and that I’ve just intentionally capitalised one letter to make it sound more prominent.

It’s frustrating. On one hand, I’m churning out soulless articles that reek of the boring and mundane. On the other, I’m Writing about nothing at all.

Clap them together rapidly and it becomes applause for the unremarkable. It’s like clapping at a rock for being hard. Even that was better cause for celebration.

I make as much sense as a broken calculator. All numbers but no equation.

I’m only writing whatever’s coming to my head now because I can’t think of anything else to write about, but I don’t want to stop just yet.

For once, I think I’m having fun.

****

How was the past six months?

Hectic. Crazy. A roller-coaster running in a whirlwind to the latest dubstep track. A lot of travelling, which was good until it became too much of a good thing. I travelled almost every start of the month and returned home to weeks of unending work. After Taipei, which happened in June, I told myself that I won’t be up in a plane again unless I’m headed out for an adventure, and not to the next foreign convention centre.

For the past six months, I had travelled to Krabi (adventure), Hainan Island (family adventure, plus obligatory Birthplace of the Forefathers visit), Orlando (work), Shanghai (work), Singapore (shorter work) and Taipei (crazy loads of work). I won’t be flying again until November, and that’s for Siam Reap and Angkor Wat (adventure).

But I did get to see the other bits of the world, and that’s always fantastic. And every of these places were beautiful, strange and filled with fascinating people. There was always something new to see. I just wished I could’ve seen it without having to rush back to the hotel in a bid to finish work on time.

Other than that, life’s pretty much on a chaotic routine. The gentler nights, I spent it with the people that matters. And I guess I can always be glad of that.

I can’t complain, and I know I just did. But it’s truly a complaint to myself. If I don’t cross out the Customer Satisfaction slips for myself, I can’t expect the service to improve.

Here’s hoping that I can still find nights like this for a hearty spot of word diarrhoea.

Man, it feels good to finally let it all out.

(Do pardon the stink).

Goodnight, people. And goodnight World.