Godsend

Today, August 6, 2016, marks the end of my undergraduate years as a psychology major. It has been six years of seemingly endless struggle and bittersweet happiness which did not just change when I decided to take my life in my own hands.

Way back in 1998, when I had first moved into the city, there were no tall buildings, the only shopping mall and hotel had just opened in the neighborhood, and there were no highways and express trains. Even the institute where I graduated from was really an abandoned block of concrete nobody bothered to work on until a decade later.

A good 18 years later, new constructions started sprouting up one by one.  The scene in this photograph is taken at the back of the campus after my very last day. It is an example of how as time progresses, things change – for better or for worse. In reality we pick things up along the years and discard those parts that are not as useful in our purpose. Humility is a lifelong process of learning and practice. Of course we must be grateful for the opportunity that we have been given. This is what shapes us into becoming successful individuals.

It was really tough having to plan and manage my team for my company business Brainiac Laboratories while studying, working part-time, and writing together at the same time. I was really hard-pressed for results. I had to meet all kinds of people every single day. You know how god puts you to test something you abhor again and again – until one day you raise your hands in submission and begin to love it as much as you can. Is that good or bad? More than once my life seemed to be just hanging on a thin string of thread, waiting for a sharp pair of scissors to snap it cut. I have no clue why, but it just kept happening. The amount of tears I cried throughout all these years could have over-filled a pool. Things went down the drain several times; and I was so helpless all I could do was try to stop myself from crying. But I cried anyhow.

I had hated my life. I hated how everytime I had to register myself for subjects the following month, the management would pull out my accounts statement  to tell me that I had an outstanding of nearly RM20,000 to be paid before I could register for any classes. I hated how I had to write to them letters after letters attached with a new instalment plan of empty promises, and I hated how I had to face rejection with a solid face and unnerving gaze but a mind full of doubts. Last of all, I hated how my uncertainties seemed to be growing bigger very quickly.

I whirlpooled into depression for the second time as I sought for solutions. I watched as my friends – some of whom were even my batchmates – walked out happily out of unhiversity after their final semester. I saw how my friends started getting married one by one and having families of their own. This made me question myself a lot.

What set me apart from my peers was the fact that I had the ego of knowing that I was way better than them, so there was no point of getting along with them. That I had to spend a huge part of my day working at the bookstore, shopping mall, or what not, and then take a bus back to home to clean the house of mess (it was like that everyday, trust me) before I could actually sit and study. Right there and then I could run back to my house and give my mother a bear hug  and go lovey-dovey like any child would, but I did not. It has never been the way my family worked. My mother refused to pay for the education I was entitled to, and she was taking the money I earned from working part-time to buy other things for herself. The more I tried talking to her, the sharper the answers I received from her. I tried my best to listen and care for her but I never got anything out of it.  Every ounce of my energy was sapped away as I worked in and out and studied at the same time. If I ever failed to do as I was required, or I could not because I was really, really tired. I got hit by anything. My depression just worsened.

Like I had done many times, I asked myself a question: What am I doing all these for? It was quite a question because I pressed myself for the answers all day. I pushed myself forward to do what I could. I definitely did not want to go through the same things anymore. Yes, I was tired of being depressed; I was tired of destitution. I was sick of all the lies I was made to tell to cover my life from my “friends”. I was sick of the inner demons eating away at my soul, devouring up the life I was supposed to have.

The answer to my own question: I did what I did to save myself.

Red Scarlet

2015 in a Bottle

Gazing blankly into the ghostly sky with its morning star hidden right behind the thick, heavy clouds, I downed my cup of espresso.  I tried to shut my thoughts and listen to the sounds around me.  I sat still in my wooden chair trying to capture some form of hope for my trusty pen to thrust its wildest dreams on.

If I could, I would.  Definitely.  I would part this sheet of paper from the book, roll it up, and then put it in a bottle – and set it free.  Well, what if I actually did?

My thoughts would have the freedom to linger off through the water surface, forever encased in its protective covering.  Hopefully it would seek refuge from raging storms, and finally meet with amicable weather in the Atlantic, before sailing smoothly into the Indian Ocean.  Perhaps, thousands of years later someone would be lucky enough to stumble upon it when it gets itself stuck in the soggy sand.

Parts of the lines are quite cheesy, and I do have to apologize, Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber, for borrowing the words in your lyrics to vent my dissatisfaction.

Thank you for calling me a bitch.  Thank you for assumming that I am a slut.  Thank you for piercing through my heart all your sharp arrows, of setting my soul to flames.  Thank you for calling me stupid, and whatever other names you felt befitting.  I have never once been that, and I shall show you that I mean it.

The players are going to play, play, play.  The haters, on the other hand, they are just going to hate, hate, hate.  What can I possibly do about that anyway.  I sort of knew you were trouble when you walked in to my life, so maybe shame on me now?  Hmmm.  All too often I was just left in blank space, baby; because all boys only want love if it’s torture, if it’s pain, if it’s hurt, and if blood oozes out from their hearts.  What do you really, really mean?  You were, in the end, the reason for the teardrops on my guitar (well, ok; it was really your guitar, but I held it with my dainty fingers sometimes).  Finally, your friends talked to my friends talked to your friends talked to me, and so we are never ever getting back together.  Not like I actually cared even.  I only have to shake it all off my head.  Yeah.  Loving you was so red, in fact forgetting you was like trying to know someone I never met.

Nevertheless, from the ashes rose a phoenix with wings so large they carried it away from the consuming fire.  I started showing gratitude and showering my appreciation on people, sometimes even people I do not even know who helped me in doing something.  I allowed myself to be as genuine as possible in dealing with the different kinds of people I have to meet everyday.  These things cannot go wrong.  As a result, I am proud of myself for having grown emotionally stronger and bolder than before.  It could be that my feelings have been numbed from the constant hurt, but my chains have been broken, and my soul has been set free.  I hope.

A few more months – just one more semester – I will be graduating!!!!  (I do wish I could insert a love icon here.)  I shall be done with my degree after a long, long time.  I should be so excited right?  Yes I am, but no, I am also not.  Oh gosh, my mind is wandering to so many places!  Life is an exciting venture, a beautiful journey bestowed upon Man.  There is no other gift more amazing than the gift of life.

This year also I am chasing time to kick off my positive psychology start-up as well.  While I am working on one SBU (strategic business unit, that is) now, I will directly after I graduate, start-up the other SBU.  Currently I am looking for sponsors and venues for investors.  It has been a crazy six months running about to widen social networks and contact suppliers, and so on, whilst studying final year.  I still have not mentioned that I am also doing sales.  Haha.  Crazy times.

I have of course had my fair share of repeating heartbreaks, but yet I did all I could to keep pushing on and on.  Whether it has got to be love, wealth, fame, or self-fulfillment, I wanted it to work out this year.  I probably went a wee bit overboard, pushing myself dangerously over the edge.  But I had already decided from early this year that I am not going to let things happen to me just like that.  I am going to make things happen to me instead.

So I just want you to know: I am fiercely fighting for whatever that is meant to be mine – my degree, my start-up, and HIM!!!!!

Never say never.  All I need to do is be patient. Perseverant.  Positive!!!!  The 3Ps!!!  Oooh – how sweet.

Red Scarlet

Show You Off

I have always wondered… are writers considered artists?

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” – Albert Einstein (Photo credits to Alicia Ai Leng)

Where knowledge seeks to understand, imagination strives to satisfy its curiosity.

If we could turn back in our journey, wherever we may be leading ourselves to, and look at the origins of the term, it would mean a “lettered person” in Old French.  On the surface level, art is about utilizing creativity and imagination to come up with something innovative, fun, and, well, creative.  Most of all, to me it means a method of self-expression, the work itself symbolizing happiness, anger, jealousy, hatred, and madness.  This does not come easy to all of us.

We express ourselves in various ways.  Some of us spin around the dance floor, some of us write songs – but some of us also prefer to keep to ourselves and let the voices in our head do the talking.  And it comes out; it comes out in shades of red, blue, yellow, and orange.  At times it comes out in streaks of the pen as the nib scribbles through a blank sheet of paper.  It gets petrifying, once in a while, especially when the mind is doing all the talking, and the poor, unfortunate pen has nothing to do but etch out the mind’s jibberish.

Hell yes, writers are artists too.  Writers of every kind dances along the lines of words, making music in his own way – the words find a certain kind of harmony, a certain kind of tango, with a high or low pitch, and then connect themselves in coherent flow.  Just catch a glimpse of Shakespeare’s work; how meticulous it was written, that till now, hundreds of years later, people are still scratching their little round heads over the meaning behind them all.

Anyway, there goes…. I have been “wearing” this hairdo for nearly a week by now – and it makes me strangely cool.  At least that is the way I think. What do you think, anyway?  Is it not a spectacular piece of art? Haha.

Breaded [sic] hair. (Photo credits to Alicia Ai Leng)

Artists have the capacity to imagine to greater heights.  They have the ability to “wow” the average human being, because that is just what they do.  Even the most famous inventors are artists, too.

So, yeah.  Writers – we are cool just like that.  We are bold.  Brave.  Courageous.  In our own silent way.

PS.:  Apparently my body needs a bit more body-rocking to get going.  Just saying.

I Feel Like

The night is calling, and the fleecy clouds that adorn the stark sky are soon closing in over the round moon.  Out in the marsh, I see a dark horse galloping steadily toward me.  There on his leather saddle lies a little sack of maybe heroine.  Should I climb him up, and ride with him, and ingest all the substance in that sack?  Or should I not?

I need answers fast.

Dehydrated of – what? (Photo Credits to Alicia Ai Leng)

I feel like giving my baby (my site, really!) a complete makeover – sort of.  I feel like emblazoning all over her critical reviews of movies, and drama, and whatever else that has to do with performance and the eclectic arts.  There are two actions here involved – not only reviewing, but also writing on those reviews.  I do not have any intentions of discontinuing other topics that are currently in progress.  I feel like adding other subjects into the cocktail, things like feminity, and fashion, and dancing, and music, and dreaming, and the science of happiness and all things positive.  If it were dancing, I definitely would write on hip-hop. Or any kind of dance.  It does not really matter, does it?

It was dear old Socrates who had once upon a time mentioned that the unexamined life is not worth living.  Life is a never-ending piece of examination, isn’t it.  It is never static, for life is but a winding river gushing with water.  It overflows into a whirlpool of information – and overpowered by the enormous strength of the currents one is swirled in together, consumed in all, for once, of its magnificient omnipotence.

Oh well.  That is because I am doing it too.  Question is, should I divert my attention to another site, or should I just remain here zapping my Bazooka thoughts, under the pseudonym Red Scarlet?

My brains have been dehydrated of words like a burning desert in dire need of water, the brown earth caked hard in the excruciating heat.  It is extremely thirsty of whatever that quenches its – what?  I feel like grabbing firm hold of a shovel, losing control like a crazy word-o-maniac, and continuously digging all the way down, and down, and down, until it reaches the intoxicated id.  I feel like revealing its naked, provocative truths to the surface of the superego, out of the frontal lobe – where dreams meet reality.

Oh.  I just feel like.  I hope you hold your horses.

Red Scarlet