inchoate talent.
written: 8:39 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 23, 2006

It's a pseudo-teleplay, heavily based on my life, my attempt at making fun of myself. I was in Company tutorial and my mind was going, What the fuck is he talking about? when KW answered a question (not meant to be offensive; goes to show, in fact, what a formidable brain he has), and all of the sudden I was seeing that scene in my head as if it were a TV show, or a movie. Against my better sense I opened up the unfinished work but my fingers were poised on the keyboard and the urge was gone.

I get stuck in all these places and I find it hard to wriggle my way out. I added another line at 2 a.m. this morning (when I really should have been reading Shares and Debentures) and then, my mind was a complete blank. I can't progress and move on until I've dealt properly with that block, and so the unfinished work continues existing in its present form.

I haven't lost the ability to write; I just haven't found my subject matter. The more Company tutorials I attend, the more sure I am that I am a writer, not a lawyer. Maybe they're not mutually exclusive, but when it comes to someone as extreme as me, one immediately nullifies the other. I see one objective and nothing else, one sure path and no others; so it comes as a great surprise to me whenever I think back to my post-JC days and still find myself in law school, wasting my time, idling my days by, not doing what I ought to be doing.

And I'm sure there are many more like me, sad people who gave up on their ambitions on the pretext of going for something that "pays more", is "more practical", more malleable to conform to the demands of The Real World. Simon asked me if I knew what I want to do with my life and my answer was certain and firm: I want to write. End of story. It's been this way for as long as I can remember and nothing has changed, not materially.

I qualified my answer, however, as we all learn to do in law school. I want to write, but it's not very practical.

Simon replied, Well, maybe you can think of something more practical to do?

I just smiled and nodded, then changed the subject.

I would have posed him this question: Why are you allowed to fulfill your ambition of going into teaching, but I'm not allowed to give shape and substance to mine? You're asking me what I want to do with my life and that's my answer, and it doesn't differ greatly from yours. You've been sure since time immemorial that you want to teach, and I've been sure since time immemorial that I want to write. Why is one so easy while the other so difficult? Why do I have to give up on mine while you get to do yours?

Lest I'm giving the wrong impression, I'm not accusing Simon of anything; I expressed a concern - bona fide or not - and he gave a suggestion. My accusation is directed at society, the forces that subtly and insidiously influence people like me into abandoning their passion (and it's a single passion that trumps everything else) just to conform to society's prototype of success, of seeing life as a means to an end, not the one shot you have to make things count.

Mostly I wish I could stop realising these things because I'm a loss in their aftermath. What do I do with this knowledge? Where do I go from here? What do you do with a passion that society doesn't particularly care for?

I don't have any answers, just a bunch of questions and a few realisations that don't tell me anything new and only affirm the truth I've always known. I just wish I had the courage last year to move on with my life, to take a firm stand and tell them, This law shit is crap; I'm outta here.

I thought I could adjust, but I can't. Try as I might, law will never inspire in me the same excitement and awe and passion that writing and literature both simultaneously manage to, time and time again.

You truly never realise what you have until it's taken away from you.

**

I tried, I really tried, to do my readings for Shares and Debentures, but when I found myself reading the same fucking sentence ten times, I knew it was time to throw in the towel.

So what am I going to do now? I don't fucking know. I don't understand why I have to study shares and debentures; I sure as hell did not sign up for law school to know that. If I wanted to know about shares and whatever else, I would've majored in Economics. I hate Company Law with every fibre of my being and it doesn't help that I consistently walk out of every tutorial dazed and confused, defeated and worn out.

Why is it that they can get it and I can't? For all my claims to intellectual superiority, I'm really a fucking dimwit. So what if they can't pronounce words properly? They know the answers to all the questions in class and they're the ones who will get the A's and make it to the Dean's list. And me? Like, wahoo, I know the proper pronunciation of 'purchase', let me be happy with that insignificant info with my ass eternally stuck in Bottom Half of Cohort?

Fuck that. I didn't come to law school to fail. I don't know why I came to law school, but I didn't come to law school to fail.

And yet, I don't know what the hell to do at this juncture. My tutor is nice enough to help but my pride always gets in the way of things and I feel stupid for even asking her for help like a dumb JC student. And I haven't even got round to revisting Corporate Governance so I still don't know what the fuck I don't know, all because of the fucking mock trial on Wednesday that was pretty much sprung on me out of nowhere, catching me completely unawares.

Excuses after excuses. God, when are you going to learn to take responsibility for your own actions? Grow up already. I'm tired of you.

**

I was in Company tutorial and staring at the Powerpoint slide and thinking, This is fucking Mathematics.

Or Science. I thought of my D7 grade and I almost laughed out loud.

**

I'm seriously quite set on going for the mock trial on Wednesday with my nails painted blood red. It's not a colour people would normally associate with me, if all they know of me is my face; and stupid as it sounds, this colour - blood red - gives me a weird sense of empowerment, the courage to flip the finger in anyone's face and say, I can do whatever I want and no one can stop me.

How post-modern and deconstructive, affixing a deeper meaning to what is essentially just nailpolish. My own shameless conceit really does me in sometimes.

**

We don't live to find love. We were born with love and we live to find ourselves. We look for a partner not to find love, but because we see a part of ourselves in them and because they help us understand who we are.

The importance of knowing and understanding oneself is paramount. Inherent in the ability to do that is a conviction that one is truly capable of something, and, if I may go that far, has a unique talent. Of course, no talent is unique; a single person is not so important as to lay claims on a single talent. The world is big enough for a talent to be distributed, evenly or unevenly, all around it.

But it is a talent that is personal because it means something - more than something - to the individual who possesses it. And it is this special significance to the individual that makes the talent unique. And when the individual knows what his talent is, most of the battle of finding himself is already won.

When you have found yourself, maybe it's time to die, because then you won't have much else to live for.

That's just the pessimist in me talking.

**

An interesting fact: The thing I wanted to do most in JC2 was to write an Honours thesis paper on Julian Barnes. And you know what? I will not die before I see to it that it's done.

Somehow. I don't know how yet. But like most things I harp on about endlessly, all I have is an idea to do a thing, not a roapmap that will help me in achieving it.

Sigh. I truly do hate myself at times like these.

**

I like the entry that Mag wrote in Starbucks. Go you! Your friends are always here for you. Always.

**

So I see that my new favourite way of greeting people is "Hey you" or "Hello you". I think I picked this up from Ruishan, particularly "Hello you". But because she's Ruishan, she does it WAY cuter than me. I just sound like some deflated, sexless old hag trying to act all fresh and cute when I say it.

And speaking of sex, I kept trying to find a right way to incorporate this into this entry, but since I'm starting to feel random, I'll just say it, all out of the blue and shit: I am not morally against casual sex and its many derivatives.

Yeah, you heard me. Not that it's surprising though, right?

I don't see anything particularly wrong with seeing a guy only for the physical action. However, I think I draw the line at seeing a hell lot of guys purely for the physical action; but if it's just one guy at a time with a long period of nothingness in between, then I think it's kind of okay.

No, wait, I think it's okay, period.

I'm not interested in emotional entanglements, emotional support, blahdeeda. My biggest folly would be to believe again, naively and groundlessly, that someone else can be the emotional pillar that I am to myself. Because that kind of misguided, downright idiotic belief would only ultimately undermine and destroy my strength of mind, of character, of will.

Guys are trouble when they want to talk about love. And hey, it's the 21st fucking century; roll with the dice already. Who's using whom at the end of everything?

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010