I am cleaning up my room to the lovely strains of classic french jazz, the warm glow of the chic standing lamp, and a nice fat bottle of Moscato.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is a lesson on how you transform pain into pleasure.
Poseur-style, of course, and I hold my head up high for it.
*Dabs at dust on the shelves with one dainty gloved hand, while swirling the crystal wine glass with the other*
Even if it might seem like I had done just that to you.
Life has picked up pace since I last felt settled enough to plonk myself before the lappie for a good long session to craft my thoughts into words (besides doing that for work, of course).
And they are so many of them floating around my little mind, begging to be immortalised on virtual ink.
So here's me paying tribute to Arnie again...
"I'll be back".
It was a lovely day of a long walk through the MacRitchie trail followed by a nice lunch and cold beer at a cosy bar.
The radio was on and some deejay was reading the news. I didn't really care but suddenly, I heard it.
Yasmin Ahmad had passed away from a stroke.
The Malaysian director who did a TVC for my company before my time.
It was tough to get my head around that.
She was so much alive, and we had discussed her and her works from time to time, and now she's gone.
Just like that.
Loads of people die unexpectedly everyday, and one could argue that it's silly or unfair or, I don't know, perhaps even frivolous, that I am so disturbed by her demise in particular, especially when I never even knew her personally.
Truth is, I am not even sure how I can rationalise this adequately.
I suppose one of the most obvious reasons will be that this is someone who is known to the public at large, and by this line of reasoning, it is justified that we feel something - anything - when someone we know in any manner leave this world.
And from that thought, it can be explained that the feeling will intensify if he or she had been a person of significant achievements.
And when we talk about achievements, it will not just be the works themselves, but the kind of person one has to be in order to do all that.
For Yasmin Ahmad, it doesn't take much imagination to link her achievements to talents, grit, and truckloads of passion. Whether we liked her work or not is irrelevant. It would still have taken her all those qualities and more to get to where she had gotten before the stroke took her away.
And those qualities are hugely admirable. Or, actually, enviable seems like the better word.
She died. But she had lived. She wasn't just alive in the physical sense all these while. She was living her dreams, her visions, her passions.
Are we just alive? Or are we truly living this life?
What do we live for? Who do we live for? What does it really mean to have really lived?
It could be that one had saved or changed the lives of others. It could be fighting a good fight to seek to arrive, or the eventual arrival, at the top of the career ladder. It could be the quest to be a good daughter or son or wife or husband or mother or father, or simply a good person.
Put it simply, it would be all that a person had done to lend meaning to his or her life.
A life that's worthy of regrets should it end before its time, simply because of the promises it holds. Whatever that meaning may be.
How many of us are truly living this life?
I mean, just in case you were wondering.
I am still breathing, the last time I checked.
Life's a blur of work, work and more work* - I've even lost touch
with my prized bed.
So, do forgive me for the lack of postings.
But I am loving my life right now.
On good days**.
And that's it for now, guys, see you here again soon.
*Being the excellent multi-tasker that I am, I have somehow managed to work in a fair bit of retail therapy. But that's really another story.
**Good days average 3 days per week.
I hope I can float like a butterfly and sting like a bee instead.
Although, bee or butterfly, it feels as if I have my wings clipped right now.
Oh wait...bees have wings, right?
I guess that's telling of just how mashed up my already messed-up brain is at the moment.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that it's been a long time since I last had a decent catch-up with my bed.
I have been feeling incredibly stupid the entire day, in almost every way.
In all seriousness and without a trace of spite, I feel sorry for my
Senior Art Director (to be known as SAD from here on).
So sorry that I almost feel like apologising.
It sounds like he is used to working with copywriting brains that have a much faster processing speed in his 19 years.
Apologising, however, will be stupid - it is akin to robbing someone at gunpoint and telling them "I am sorry I'm poor, so please do not mind that you are now being forced to gimme all your money". Even to myself, my own response to that apology thought (to the SAD, not the robbery victim) is "Well, learn to become great then, what's your problem?!"
I am absolutely certain he did not mean any harm at all when he shared with me how he and his partner in other agencies used to work, how their brains were trained to function. More than anything, I think he meant it as an insight for me to mull over..."putting money in my pocket", like how the characters in Hongkong cantonese drama serials like to put it.
After all, if my judgement of character is not impaired, he is a nice guy who is serious about his work. And he has been great in guiding me at work so far, both in a direct and indirect manner.
Perhaps my friends are right, after all.
Maybe I am having a case of bipolar disorder here.
Can I have that "chat with my doctor friend" that I have been offered now?
And finally, what I would really like to know is...
"Why can't someone bottle creative juice and sell it at Cold Storage?"
Make that Sheng Siong, for better affordability.
Alright, time to get my pea-brain back to work.
P.S. In case you are wondering, right up to this moment, I still love my work and where I am working.
P.P.S. I have a sudden craving for rosti and sausage at Marche.
P.P.P.S. I need m-o-r-e coffee.
P.P.P.S. Oh dear. The birds are chirping now. Dawn is breaking. Think, think, think fast.
P.P.P.P.S. Much as it sounds like I have been complaining up to this stage, I am not. Truth is, I really do work better at night and I appreciate the dead silence. However, I also do appreciate getting some good nights' rest sometimes, for recharging and machine-maintenance purposes.
P.P.P.P.P.S. Oh gawd, I just had an idea! Yippe ya ya yippe yippe ya! But I can't judge whether it's a good or bad one...let me think it over, over more coffee.
P.P.P.P.P.P.S. I think it's not a good sign if I fished a tube of instant coffee powder from my bag, walked from the bedroom to the kitchen to fix the drink, and realised I had been holding a tube of hand ointment in my hands.
P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Can you birdies go back to sleep, please? The worms are still tucked in their muddy beds at this hour. You are stressing me out like a perpetual time-reader.
Please don't drag me to the shrink by the hair when I tell you this.
I am totally, utterly, in love.
With my job.
It is true love.
At least, it feels like true love for now.
Or rather, it is those pretty rainbow-and-unicorn emotions associated with falling head-over-heels over someone.
In my case now, that 'someone' is work. I have never felt this way before, never this pure and intense anyway, even though the only reason I got into copywriting in the first place was a love for the work.
I have been 'whispering' happy songs at the top of my lungs in the shower, mindful of not massacring the peace-and-quiet of my poor neighbours. I have been skipping (yes, s-k-i-p-p-i-n-g) around the flat, propelled by a sense of deep joy that's reverberating within me. I have been going to sleep (in the rare occasions I think it is safe to call it a day for my brain) and jumping from bed in the morning with a silly grin plastered on my face. All these, when the pace at work now is the fastest I have ever experienced...even when those that I did were already intense to begin with.
And for that, I am declared a bipolar or schizophrenia case by my friends.
According to them, I have issues.
At last count, I have chalked up 1 x offer for "a chat with my doctor friend",
2 x concerns of "maybe you need to think about what is wrong with your life that you are actually happy to bring work home for the weekend" and multiple
"you need a shrink" suggestions.
Thanks, people. It's great to know one has friends who care.
*Beams a beatific smile at those around me...via Facebook*
Truth be told, the high that I am floating on now is not exactly 100% organic.
In fact, I would say up to 95.46723% of it is synthetic, man-made.
It is an extremely conscious decision on my part to ensure that I see and appreciate all the good things in the situation I am in right now.
Instead of, you know, doing what is natural and zooms in on the negative.
Because it would really be all too easy to be flip off the positive light.
It would be all too easy to gripe about this and that, that and this.
Granted, there will always be things that could be better, things that we wished we didn't have to do.
Or things that make us want to launch a tirade of profanity (I am speaking in general terms here, not about work - nothing at work really irks me so far)
But, will putting a magnifying glass to them make them scurry away and leave us in peace?
Will complaining to one and all make everything better and less of a dread?
Putting those negative thoughts in words will only serve to reinforce them, make them real, and turn what is unsavoury into something downright unbearable.
And completely obscure the pleasant bits about them or the situation you are in.
The good that can actually come out of everything if we can only stop and learn to look in the right place. To train our thoughts and focus our energy on right here, right now, on doing the right things.
Plus, the fact is, no matter how much complaining, you still have to do what needs to be done.
Only, complaining will make it many times worse.
And then there is the thing about negative thoughts being a defense mechanism for us - a state that we automatically slip into when we are about to do something that we are not sure if we can or want to do.
Even when the reality is that it could represent a huge breakthrough for us if we do it right.
When I take stock of my life right now, especially where career is concerned, I feel incredibly blessed that I have gotten nearly everything I asked for, literally.
I say 'literally' because I did really literally ask for these things I am getting now. I had gone "If only I could have XXX" on many occasions last year, and they are all coming true before my eyes.
Now back to me floating on a high.
Everyday, there will be times when I wonder/worry if I am going to free-fall from this happy cloud that I am on now.
But then I reassure myself that my euphoria is not without foundation.
And that, yes, I am only human and so when things get a little way too challenging or when I go without proper rest for too long, it is likely and normal that I will have my way-down-in-the-dump moments, when I am as negative as one can get, and it will probably last a while too.
Yet, I will survive.
I will bounce back.
I always do.
I hope so.
Hahaha.
Alright, time to get back to work...at home.
Wish me a constant supply of the happy vibes!
*Floats off in a puff of clouds*
NOTE: I am very aware that this intense high will gradually be diluted a little as I go along.
It would probably be too unrealistic to expect that I am still singing/skipping/grinning whenever I think about work after, say, 4 months into the job. But well, I guess being less on a high doesn't have to mean I go to the other extreme and be stuck in the low. I hope I can help myself to slowly ease into a well-adjusted state of mind.
NOTE II: Even though I have been busier than ever, strangely enough, I am living a more balanced life now. I make time to go for my weekly jog at the park (I value this me-time greatly, whether it's owned by me alone or shared with my mum), and I have many big plans to introduce more activities into my life. I am a happy birdie! I hope it lasts!
NOTE III: Let me just add that I feel incredibly blessed too that somehow, I seem able to handle everything that is coming my way reasonably well, so far. And that at times when I feel like I am out of my depth, I am able to hold myself back from freaking out and instead adopt a 'Let's learn then' angle. Again, I hope, I pray, it lasts! And gets even better! ; )
