End of Semester thoughts

This blog entry should contain a reflection of the semester that's come and pass. It's very much easier to write without having to think about logical frames and references, cos' depending on how you see the world, your logic or unlogic will follow.

I probably haven't been a really good boy this semester. Haven't been on my best behaviour. Some regrets here and there, and quite a lot of stuff happening too. That I've pulled through is perhaps testament to my tried-and-tried flesh armour that has been keeping me strong throughout the long long years. However, it's only armour, and armour can't tell you how you should behave and act properly, and so I have ended up bumping around quite often, reaped some small problems here and there, some big ones, by my own hands made my own life somewhat more challenging - and that's a stupid thing to do too, but seriously, no one really knows what will happen when you do this or do that, and that's why people pray for miracles.

I'm halfway away from advocating the dynamism of "human interaction", or whatever that is. It used to be that I could say that we are all dynamic beings, that's why the world doesn't stand still, and that's why hegemonic homogeneity is bound to fail. Not that sure of that myself now. Cos' it seems that there are such patterns to how people will behave, how people will react to certain social stimuli and conditions. After a while, it gets a bit boring because you always come back to the same conclusion.

It's been 3 years now, and I have just realised that I've been asking the wrong questions thus far. In fact, I've been depoliticized myself, by the distracting character of the school institutions and its system. In fact, I've made it almost synonymous with my identity. And that's why I've been so insecure thus far. Johnson.... you need to wake up your idea!!

On an unrelated note, it's been 6 years since it happened to me, on that cold night in february in Thomson, near that well where we trainees were gathered for training. It's been 6 years since then... and I'm personally amazed that I'm still hanging on. Of course, the semi-unreceptive mind that is mine can always bring up a "Matrix" argument and say that I am already dead - that all this are just illusions that I am conjuring up as I lay flat, body rotting on some desert with my mind barely breathing in its crummy cage. But for the love of sophistry and convoluted logic, every passing day shows me stuff that I can never, in my wildest and widest imagination have come up with. Like, some of the most obnoxious people who might be better termed as "boozehounds" than elite, sociology students, the most outrageous ideas I've ever come across, the most unsettling music I've ever listened to, and so on and so forth.

So I continue to believe that I'm not dead - and there's a world out there, an objective reality populated by real-life, breathing people who have their own set of thoughts, emotions, insecurities and life stories; not just merely single-dimensional figures that hop around as cardboard signs in the drama that I construct. I have to believe that there are very real, and emotionally-penetrating consequences behind each action I'm taking, stuff I'm saying, people I'm judging, etc. There's only a fine line where on crossing, can actually have me believing that nothing else matters and I'm the only agent in this simulated reality.

There have been philosophers who actually grapple with such issues, so it might mean that there has been a historical precedent to this. Like I think there was Descartes who actually considered the possiblity of an "evil genius" deluding his mind and playing with his understanding of existence. Sounds like bullshit actually. Of course there's this thing called "intersubjectivity" where your existence is supposed to be linked with others, you share a common interactional space and stuff like that. But I still can't personally "believe" in intersubjectivity, I still can't personally "believe" that other people and things actually are alive - and there.

It's definitely not an issue of perspective, like something abstract you can think up and appropriate as your "view". See, that incident 6 years ago has had a very real, biological effect on my "receptors", if you'd have it. It's very much like, an illness or condition on your body when you're down with a flu or have a fever - you are aware of it and you know you're not feeling well. Well, in the same way, ever since 6 years ago, such a condition has been with me thus far. I remember running down Upper Serangoon Road, sweat dripping and tears falling, because I didn't know what to feel now that nothing feels real anymore. It's also hard to actually relate this to other people, like as it I have written quite a lot and still feel that you, the reader probably have no idea what I'm talking about.

What was that incident 6 years ago? Was it an encounter with what you'd term as a "ghost"? I seriously don't know. I do remember being under quite a lot of stress, cos' I couldn't fit in the training, and the people there weren't exactly friendly. But I also remember the well, and I remember a story about it, and I also remember walking near - but just short of peering into it. And then, there you have me.

Sociology probably helped m a lot, and in ways that other students don't get from the intense study. Sociology helped me come to terms with the effects of this encounter. You'd find religion to make sense of these things, and they'd try to help you with some faith or another. Well, it's the same it is with sociology - not that it can be a religion in itself. You start to see norms and not individuality, you don't see decisions but you see scripted behaviour. You start to see that reality itself is a construct, just that for me, such an abstract perspective is actually a substantial bodily experience. And you understand that people have to make sense of their everyday life. Then you also understand that these days, most people don't want to have to make their own sense, they want to buy signs to tell them what kind of sense they should make. And how all this adds up to a simulation of reality, cos' it's you're not touching reality, you're touching signified reality. It's like watching reality through a Disney animated screen.

This blog is probably the best living record of my own thoughts, observations, reflections, etc. I wouldn't say that I'm writing on the assumption that no one is reading it (though it definitely feels like it), but at the same time I believe there's nothing to hide from the world that already knows you inside out, outside in. The consequences feel so minute to me, but all the same it's as though all this doesn't matter.

I'd like to actually go overseas. I'm intending to go somewhere explosive, and try to make it back here in one piece. I hope that the change in air will actually wake me. Am actually thinking of Indonesia, to take a look at their lived everyday lives. That's a plan worth getting excited for.