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read between the lines
bad day i don't know what came over me today. but whatever it was, it all started with one stupid dream. felt like i woke up on the emo side of the bed today and it kinda set the tone for the rest of the day. was more sensitive than usual to unhelpful comments and reacted in an unsound mind, to put it politely.it wasn't exactly a nightmare, but more like a worst-case scenario. it was one of those dreams where you wake up crying and it's so incredibly surreal that you lie in bed for a few disorienting seconds wondering if it was just a dream or a real memory of something that happened a few days ago. so i get out of bed and my dad has one of his sarcastic moments. initially i retort and throw the ball back in his court, but when he returns it (and really rubs salt into the wound by going further), i say nothing, even though at that moment i really want to retaliate. but i leave the house feeling really pissed at myself for not doing what i felt like doing, even though i was doing the right thing. the anger towards my dad also sort of morphs into hurt as his words ring in my ears. i also feel a strong sense of injustice. throw in more incidents from the past and suddenly it becomes so difficult to let the anger go because it'll feel like all the things i suffered, i suffered in vain. to make matters worse, what i was already feeling kind of affected how i spoke to someone else and apparently i touched a raw nerve which left my friend pissed and left me feeling bad. the day kind of took a nosedive from then on. and it's still lingering tonight. i read the bible earlier. spent some time with god trying to figure out what went wrong and what i should or shouldn't have done. a few things came to mind. i fell because i took things to heart today, more often than usual. it is also most likely that i fell because...my suffering was sent to keep me from evil (job 36:21). and i think...it is a preview of what is to come, so i can better prepare myself this time round. it also occurred to me that turning to god in these times, crying my heart out in some toilet somewhere, is not a loser-ish thing to do, nor should it be viewed as a last resort, because it might be the key to deepening my level of intimacy with Him. bewitched with this song i am listening to The History Boys OST's version of bewitched, bothered and bewildered sung by rufus wainwright. finally having managed to download this piano-heavy cover, i am in several states of bliss. it's in the same vein as chet baker's my funny valentine.i remember sitting right until the end of credits at the cinema while this was playing, even though it was really late. and the other ten or so of the audience did the same. i can just close my eyes and float out into the night with this song soothing my eardrums. will upload it when i remember. p.s. rufus' version of hallelujah from an OC episode sucked though, probably because i already heard kevin max's unusual voice sing the words before he did. later note: there appears to be something wrong with my server because i can't upload it...just like all the other big files i've tried to upload in the past. so i guess i'll just have to settle with this sample or this other version that's not half as bad (also from the movie, but sung during the movie by two characters). innocent again Innocence Againby SWITCHFOOT Do you remember when You were way back then You held the world inside your hands When you told me love Was the strongest stuff Your strength was innocence But, oh man The signs of the times are omens You're starting the day in No man's land again Who are you gonna be? When you're on your knees, who do you believe? Fear is a lonely man You've been given innocence You've been given innocence again You should know by now That the darkest hour Is when your broken heart goes down It's a bitter end When the sweet begins Grace is sufficiency But, oh dear, we'll never deserve it No dear, we never could earn it Now, here, the choice is yours Who are you gonna be? When you're on your knees, who do you believe? Fear is a lonely man You've been given innocence You've been given innocence again Grace is high and low Grace is high and low Grace is high and low We'll never be the same Who are you gonna be? When you're on your knees, who do you believe? Fear is a lonely man You've been given innocence You've been given innocence again -- "Somehow, all the songs I write to others, I ended up singing to myself sooner or later. This is no different and I end up with the question, "who will it be?" This song is a sister of "I Dare You To Move." Both songs are really driving at the same point: if God's redemptive movement is at work around us, we are called to respond. Indeed, whether we act or not, we have made a response either way" -Jon Foremanthe boys have said it best. this is a song about grace, hands down. but i don't quite get how fear is a lonely man. he seems to have lots of company in a very isolated way. and yes, i am a bit fearful of tomorrow. still as ill-equipped as usual, not by choice. i guess this is where grace makes its very obvious appearance and saves the day, lest i am too blind to see it in other ways. the good thing is, even if i mess up tomorrow, god's grace will still work to overcome it. which is good because most of my life has seen me screw up more often than do the right thing. but i guess this is what youth is: you make as many mistakes as you possibly can so that by the time you're old, you would've fallen into the same pit long enough to avoid it eventually. the signs of the times are definitely omens. and i always seem to return to no man's land again, as if this is some challenge i must overcome or some kind of preparation for something bigger in the future. i can foresee that my little "holiday" is headed for a close and i have to brace myself for more shit to come, in the form of history ever always repeating itself in my life. bittersweet, since that shit comes with a sugar coating. which will wear off soon...and then i'll really get to see if i can prove my mettle -- whether joy, trust and faith in god's faithfulness (never my own) will still keep me buoyant or not. when i'm on my knees, who do i believe indeed. confidence in christ i don't feel like sleeping, as usual, so i think i'll blog a bit more.one of the things i've been reflecting on lately is how my new mindset about things has changed my relationships with people in such a huge and positive way. i am still thanking god every day and almost not believing that He has come and done this for me, after all these years of struggling. the accompanying security and confidence this realisation (of my significance and personal worth in christ) has definitely made relating, interacting and dealing with people a whole lot easier. my conversations with my parents are a lot more civilised now, as a result of this. i don't feel so useless or unloved if my mother starts to criticise and blame me...and with some god-given guidance i am even able to diffuse her criticism and divert her attention to better things sometimes. ditto for my sarcastic and at times, unreasonable father. in fact he's started to tone down on his sarcasm and bad temperament, which is always good news. as for my brother, hmm....he hasn't really called me derogatory names to as high a degree and as frequently as before, but i think if he does, i trust it won't affect my self-esteem so badly now. and i don't feel so alienated from society anymore. though i still haven't got general social rules and norms down pat, i think just being confident in and comfortable being myself even though i may not necessarily be doing something appropriate or right makes it easier to get along or click with people. some of us still have our different views, but i no longer get angry or, on the flip side, start to panic, if the other person doesn't take too kindly to my action or opinion towards something. of course i am not going to take it to an extreme and say okay, i don't care if walking around in the nude is inappropriate but i am just going to do it anyway (just an exaggerated example; no cause for alarm as i have never been a nudist), but i am seeing that taking a stand for being or acting different from the norm and being proud of it (as in firm on it) actually causes me to be viewed in a more positive light than if i had just gotten affected and allowed people's comments to jeopardise my level of significance or personal worth. i also found that it helps not to hang around or take heed of people that really do me no good and will always see me through the coloured glasses their mindsets have tinted them with. simply speaking, if certain people are going to put me in a box and put me in a category or label that i know for sure does not belong to me, it is no longer my problem to care or worry that they might ruin my reputation by telling others of their opinions. ditto for people who misread my actions and intentions behind them. either they will just have to open their eyes in time and find out i am not that kind of person, or they can go on believing what they want to believe for all i care. i realised that the people who hear those fabricated rumours or preconceived notions about me will eventually see me for who i am, should they choose to test their theories, and those that don't are not worth cultivating solid friendships with since they are so fickle as to believe the presuppositions of others instead of asking me to my face. i know for sure that i am worth something (and worth something of priceless value, too) here on earth now, even if anyone chooses to continually tell me otherwise. i have also found a way to be confident of myself without being egotistic (used to struggle with that when i was a kid)....by being confident of myself in christ. and this confidence and personal worth is something nobody will ever be able to take away from me again, because i have placed them in christ, and He is the One person who will never fail to safekeep these things that i have invested in Him.
another good read speaking of born on a blue day: a memoir of aspergers and an extraordinary mind, i saw daniel tammet on tv this monday. he was on this documentary where they gave him all sorts of mind-boggling challenges (like learning icelandic in a week and reciting the pi to over 22 000 decimal places) that demonstrated his intelligence, yet pointed out that unlike most savants, he had adjusted well socially with society.i liked his book, not only because i've always had this fascination for reading up on savants, but because his experiences were so relatable. his book was sort of a biography, even though he's only in his twenties, but it's a rare glimpse into the life of an autistic savant and were written in a style i rather enjoyed -- candid, honest, humble and funny at times. kinda cool too that he became a christian (also mentioned on his blog). okay when i say relatable, in no way do i mean in terms of intelligence, but in his early struggles with socialising and his synaesthetic tendencies, especially so the former. in the book he describes doing or saying things considered eccentric or taboo when he was young while unaware that they were inappropriate or 'weird' things to say or do, being very compulsive or meticulous about the way certain things must be done, or (in his childhood years) not being able to express or communicate his thoughts and feelings clearly....which i totally get, having done (and still do) all of the above. he also mentioned how his mother and his experience as a volunteer teacher overseas helped him adapt and pick up social skills, which shows that such skills can be learnt and one doesn't have to remain socially inadequate forever -- hopeful news for me, haha. i've also discovered how true it is when i assess myself now and who i was even up until a few months ago. in fact, during a recent job interview, the interviewer told me her posting better suited a quiet, unsociable, independent-worker person and found difficulty believing i was actually such a person at heart! as for his synaesthetia, while i am not a synaethetic myself and cannot taste, smell or see a colour, number, word or music, i do understand the strength of feelings attached to inanimate subjects (in his case, with numbers and words). his book title is a reference to the fact that he associates the numbers in his birthdate strongly with the colour blue (so no, it's not related to depression). i would say i relate most with how i view songs. okay, so you'd have to be a robot not to feel anything when you hear a song, but for me, the feelings that wash over me when i hear a certain song being played is much stronger than most people's, at least among the people around me, even though like everyone else, i associate certain events, experiences or people's personalities with certain songs. for instance if it's a song that reminds me of a particularly tragic event, i will start tearing up even if i'm not downcast at the time. or maybe i'm just talking rubbish and just haven't met as emotional a music enthusiast yet. but anyway, in conclusion, his book was great to read and it's definitely one of those books i wouldn't mind re-reading over and over again (and i do that very rarely nowadays compared to back when i was a kid with very little spending power and couldn't visit bookstores as often as i liked).
today's pick i picked up an interesting read today i found at Popular. not only did i pick an undefeated mind by kua ee hock up, i actually finished it (in three hours). the last book i actually read and finished at the bookstore was daniel tammet's born on a blue day: a memoir of aspergers and an extraordinary mind back in june, so for this book to have hooked me it must have been something special, which it was. few books interest me long enough to finish them on the spot these days.an undefeated mind is basically a doctor's short journal of part of his rounds at woodbridge hospital (now the IMH). okay, so his writing wasn't 'fantabulous', but it was definitely insightful in terms of interacting mental patients. i totally agree when he says there's this stigma attached with the patient forever once he's been admitted, and that the next time there's a commotion or a fight he's gonna be the 'bad guy' the police detain. in fact in the ending, the reader finds out that muthu, a recovering mental patient, was not suffering from imagined "morbid jealousy" when he suspected that his wife was having an affair (he took a taxi back without permission and found her and his neighbour in the act of copulating). the book also gives readers a peek at the dedication and compassion these doctors, nurses and porters have, working in a place where the stigma even extends to them instead of just their patients (examples were being labelled the "mad doctor" or "nutty nurse"). i like the fact that the author highlighted how such people viewed their patients: as people with personal lives, not just textbook problems to be solved. i can definitely relate to that, since i've hung out with mentally-challenged people before. there were quite a number of them in my old church and even though they had flaws, it was kind of hypocritical to see most church members avoiding them, brushing them off or not taking them seriously whenever they spoke. okay, so i admit, all of them were clingy, but it was kind of understandable since people literally ran away from them or responded like they didn't really care about their opinions...and aside from a particularly dirty-minded man who used to come up after service, shake and rub my hand in a disgusting way after i played the piano, they were perfectly sane people to talk to, once you figured out what level (of comprehension) to communicate to them with. it's not like they were crazy or stupid (if they were, they wouldn't have been released onto the streets). sure, they had their shortcomings (i know of one who liked to think he was a famous author and used to hand out books and articles not written by him -- he cancelled the authors' names and replaced them with his own), but once you could sort of show them and reach that level where they felt they could trust you, they tended not to exhibit their unlikeable tendencies, or to exhibit them less. as for those for whom miscommunication was a common thing amongst other people, i found out through time that prayer and confronting the person directly and telling them what was really going on were the best ways to resolve issues. there was a lady who was overly sensitive towards everyone's actions and anything deemed as ignorance would cause her to think so and so didn't like or had a grudge against her. the above method seemed to help a lot when speaking to her. i've also volunteered occasionally (more so when i was younger) at the local spastic association home for children (and a few teens or adults)...and i definitely enjoyed their presence and watching them progress. i guess i see myself in these people and thus feel a greater need to reach out to them and befriend them. their clingy tendencies seem to be an exaggerated version of who i used to be. i mean, i know what it's like to have people not believe or take you seriously, to have people who walk the other direction when they see your face, to feel like nobody cares if you live or die and you're just this third wheel who seems to serve no helpful purpose in life. unfortunately, most people seem to have the opposite mindset. even christians, which is what pisses me off when i observe them in action. a lot of people like to give up on 'hopeless cases' while forgetting that we serve a god of hope for whom "impossible is nothing", to quote the adidas advertisements. you know you're.. you know you're out of depression when the latest crisis hits and you still feel the same way you did before you heard it: chipper.after this crazy year (or three) i've been through, it's almost like i know the drill already: bad stuff happens, trust god and leave it in His hands. the best part is, i don't even have to force myself to be upbeat anymore. i just am. all thanks to god. and some very persistent prayer comrades-in-arms. hallelujah indeed. breakthrough year 07 after the latest paradigm shift, i can confidently say this has been a year of breakthrough for me. thank thank thank thank thank god, cos it's been a long time coming for so many burdens i've been unwittingly dragging along from the past. hopefully there'll be more breakthroughs to come, and the ones that are currently underway will see themselves to completion.to date, this has been the year that: 1) i fell out of depression. and recovered the joy i lost in the process. praise be unto Him. 2) i was freed from my insecurity of always wondering if i was worth anything good. thank Him for opening my eyes to His love and assurances of worthiness through grace. 3) my family and i are finally rebuilding our burned bridges. still a work in progress i hope to see an end to. may He continue to be the driving force in reconciling this relationship by continuing to play the active role in our household He recently took up (man i should have asked for it sooner). 4) i finally found a church to settle and start growing in, after three years of searching and asking god. i am extremely grateful for this, having benefited greatly from finally being able to grow corporately (and not just individually), a process which has been unknowingly stunted for so many years. truly He has answered the prayers of those who have been praying for me (multiple thanks here) as well as myself regarding these matters. i look forward to further breakthroughs and the continuance of truth-illuminated living as the rest of this year progresses. will elaborate in detailed posts on the as-yet-untouched points if i have time and i remember. new way to be human man, i gotta stop lifting from song titles (this one's from switchfoot) to name my entries.i just cannot describe the unbridled joy and freedom i've had in me since this very timely wake-up call. it feels really good not being anybody's sucker anymore, haha. other than being a sucker for god, or more accurately a "fool for christ" (1 cor 4:10). anyway, there's more i wish to expand on regarding my previous post's topic. having a secure point to anchor my significance and personal worth on has just taken so much pressure off the process of developing friendships. case in point, mutual accountability. before i was so bent on deriving some form of significance from friendships (those i saw potential in) that i would feel somewhat unsatisfied if the friends i met up with consistently seemed to reveal what i sensed to be only the surface of their lives. the fact that they seemed almost strangers to me made me feel left out and therefore of not much worth to them. i also used to get pretty upset whenever i read blogs of people i regularly meet whom i regarded as close friends, only to find out tons of things they were going through that i was never aware of. to me, it was like finding out your cousin was gay through the national newspaper instead of straight from the horse's mouth. it seemed to me that i was so insignificant to said people that they couldn't even give me a heads up on the big issues of their lives. which made me feel even more useless and unwanted here on this earth. after but now, i don't really care. because i realised, it doesn't really matter in the end (hey, linkin park). i've found my significance and personal worth in christ, so there's no need to find it elsewhere already. there are no more "requirements" for anybody to be my friend anymore. which i think is probably the most likely explanation for the influx of new friends this past month (it's been unbelievable the number of people i've gone out teh tarik-ing with, late-night mamak style). oh, and i'm fine with listening to recycled stories now. tests my memory skills, haha. and of blogs? they don't bother me anymore, cos i'm no longer reading them for the wrong reasons. i don't need to be 'in the know' to feel important (like i'm worth something) anymore. the return of the singer by the way, my blog entry is named after kevin max's song title.as i was saying, truly god has indeed done something in my life during these past 40 days that has definitely had a 180 degree impact on my life. not only has He recovered the joy i lost when i fell into depression for three years, He has also given me the freedom to be myself, freedom from insecurities and worries i have been imprisoned or limited by for most of my conscious life. He has infiltrated my mind and changed my thinking and subsequently, how i relate to people as well as how to understand them (still an ongoing process). romans 12:2 comes to mind. but most importantly, my relationship with Him has progressed further as i re-learned to trust, have faith and surrender completely to Him through life's testing moments. it seems to me like we were all born with the innate ability to do all three when we were kids, but as we grew up we got more sceptical and thus lost the simple faith which we try to regain once we realise its importance (and come full circle). life seems to be a lot about coming full circle and repeating history for me, by the way. so yeah, praise, glory and honour be to the One who most deserves it. for it has been a long time coming (and i've been waiting for so long) to finally be free from certain emotional chains of the past. the fast didn't start off on so high a note, though. when i began, i was lamenting for a whole week on the absence of people who "get" me or whom i can really connect with; i couldn't seem to quite get over the fact that there'll always be only one set of me and no replicas anywhere. and then there were these reminders of the past as i cleared up my junk (i am a mild-degree hoarder, by the way) that sort of stung, hurt and angered me but did not provide any answers or closure. oh and my self-control was lacking (as i have already said) and there was a great need to do the great escape artist trick again of living in one's own little world, oblivious to the harsh reality of life. the following week was one of expiration. after what seemed like a whole lifetime of initiating things between two-way communications, i decided not to initiate because not only was it tiring, but it also left me wondering if i was the only party interested in communicating. i had been initiating so often that there was barely room to assess what the situation was like. thankfully, it was a fruitful week that yielded good results. people actually initiated for once, which i did not expect. still, i did not truly feel at peace with myself. i knew something was wrong, i just didn't know what. and then suddenly, the right word at the right time became the tipping point where my life was sort of changed forever. i was on the phone with an old friend who had just come back from overseas, divulging details of life's latest events and unexpectedly tearing up when i expressed my gratitude to said friend, tc, for still being around after braving through my whirlwind of a life. it was at this point where tc, in typical i'm-humble-yet-i'm-about-to-provide-vital-information fashion said, "though i am the least qualified to tell you anything, since my own level of quiet time's recently crappy, from what i've observed, through what you've said and what i know you to be, it seems like you've been placing your significance, [personal worth] and acceptance in friends instead of in god." i have to stop here and explain because usually at this juncture of where i am relating my story, people give me a sort of quizzical look and say "really?". the thing is, while i had always been consciously aware that i was insecure and always needing someone to push me in the right direction before i actually felt qualified or worthy to undertake whatever tasks ahead since my childhood days, i couldn't exactly figure out the remedy or what exactly it was that was making me so insecure or reliant on people to sort of validate me before i could move ahead. needing acceptance didn't really seem to cut it because, while i did sort of want to belong to a group of people where i could just be myself and not get ridiculed for it, i wasn't willing to go so far as to mimic or clone myself into "one of the rest". for instance, i definitely would not speak in a falsetto voice, poke my finger into my cheek and strike kawaii poses in photo booths just so i could "belong", although i would obligingly provide leeway for enduring shopping trips, chick flicks (just not too many) and laughter that is out of context. another thing is that i usually tune out when people tell me i have acceptance issues because the topic is viewed so negatively. there is an invisible derogative label that comes with being tagged as such, and words like "desperate", "no life", "loser" and "i'm being nice to you only because i pity you" come to mind. but this time, it's like the gears in my head finally clicked when tc said that. suddenly things that seemed so important didn't seem so anymore. i think the words significance and personal worth held greater relevance for me. as i chewed on this new information the following night in my quiet time with god, He pointed out to me the times when this was most evident: the times that i have felt truly useless, not needed and like a spare tyre in my life were either the times when a significant friendship in my life had just crashed and burned or when i was in a position of being forced to be in regular company of people who acted as if i was invisible. i had always been struggling with the issue of significance. what on earth was i here for? because god wanted me here, yes, why? to help people? i finally came to the saving conclusion that even if, theoretically, nobody seemed to need me anymore here on earth, or it seemed that way because i was around people who couldn't appreciate me, i would still matter (i.e. i was not useless) because i was alive, so evidently god would still want me here. i would no longer need a reference point in the form of at least one person, be it friend or family member, to "activate" my significance here on earth, nor would i ever need any one person to determine how much i was personally worth here on earth. it was then that i truly understood what it meant to be significant in christ; i was significant because it was christ in me that made me significant, made me "that xtra something", as my alma mater likes to publicise themselves as. the direction after that was not so clear initially, though. i knew i was at the crossroads, that this thinking had the potential to change not only how i relate to friends and family but also how i treat them, but i wasn't sure how to ingrain this information into my mind, wasn't sure what the "concrete plans and actions to take" were, as tc said. the only thing i could come up with was to constantly remind myself. i found out a week later from another friend that that was the answer; it (the answer, not the task) was that simple. to constantly correct myself every time my line of thinking started to revert to the old one until a natural progression into the new one sufficed. to make a non-habit a habit, which it would become in due time. i can honestly say that when i next looked through my old journals detailing personal accounts of certain events, i saw things in a different light. now, it's like a great and long-carried weight has been lifted off my shoulders and i am able to laugh again and just be who i really am in public, no longer getting frustrated at being misquoted or misunderstood, nor being held back by these limitations. but this restored sight of mine is just beginning to impact my life. current stuff i'm working on is learning to reject the sin in people instead of the people themselves. i've also noticed i've had a greater threshold for controlling anger, an ability to be more patient with people...thank god. i think there is less rage in my heart now because the fire that triggers it has been quenched. i hope and look forward to greater things to come as god continues to change and mould my heart into the one He wants it to be.
jessica's back this entry's title is a pun on jack nicholas' character (johnny)'s familiar phrase by the way.well i'm back: spiritually healthier, fresher and more alive than ever...so yeah the fasting season has been a blast! i've never felt so free nor happy like this for so long...so i am definitely grateful and appreciative to god for giving me this new lease of life (it does feels that way). so thank you to those who've prayed and wished the best for me as i took the month off to pay intercede for my country and recuperate. much has happened, mostly for the better. other than benefiting myself, the fast (obviously) benefited the nation too. i am someone for whom reading the papers is a regular afternoon ritual, and there was a point in time of about two weeks when each day's designated prayer issue (from the booklet) seemed to pop up in the papers the same day. examples of such issues were the government consensus for the current constitution to be revised to better suit today's times, the IDR and similar projects to create more job opportunities for the rakyat, our PM's vow to eliminate hardcore poverty by 2010 and others. so it was really encouraging to see evidence of prayers being heeded that way. like the rest of my countrymen, i also feel a special pride in our country this year, despite it being what it is, because we have turned 50 this 31st august and have managed to live cohesively and develop relatively well thus far. i feel so thankful that i (an example of the average person living here) am living in a country where i am free to practise my religion openly, go out anywhere and live a relatively high quality of life. okay, so people are still getting murdered and robbed every day, but it's not like we're living under a curfew or national state of emergency (and thank god He's always got my back whenever i'm out), and it's not like i'm even close to rich or anything, but at least there's a roof over my head and my basic needs and amenities are met and provided for. on to things on the personal side. headlines of the past month have included the passing of my beloved grandparents' and aunt's dog jack of 17 years, finally acquiring a job (though i have yet to start) after months of searching and trusting, a civilised, decent breakfast with my parents and others that i can't recall off the top of my head. will continue in a new post. |
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