thenighttcat

[thenighttcat]

a yogi asks me for my new years' resolution

It's less than three days to the New Year and one of the Dutch volunteers Tjaka asked me today what is something I want to let go of in 2025. He and his girlfriend Jip are yogis so they like to talk about that sort of thing. In an attempt to defer the question, I asked him the same question back. His answer: "Tension." Tension in the body that accumulated from the stress and anxiety of his troubled past. He used to get abused by his Dad as a child, he said, and he's also been to jail and all that. He also said he wanted to increase his sense of self-worth.

He asked me again, and so I said, "Control". I am a plotter, I explained, but for all my plotting and scheming and desperate trying to direct my path in life—well, none of my plans had, um, quite gone according to plan and here I am now: 28, unemployed, on a farm, doing manual labour in exchange for food and shelter (yes, I'm being dramatic, but it's funny when you put it that way).

He nodded. Said I should write it down. This whole "control" thing: what is it that I want to control, and why? Once you put it down on paper, he explained, it's off your mind. That's how you let go of it.

"Okay," I said, but I had my reservations. Sounded a bit too esoteric and new-age to me. Still, I decided, what harm is there in writing it down? Just a bit of ink and paper, which I had plenty to spare. And so that's what I'm doing now. Writing about control. And why.

As a matter of fact, I think I have an answer for that. It's nothing too complicated, really. Everybody likes to control for pretty much the same reason: we're afraid that  we don't control, our lives won't turn out well. To achieve the life I dream of, to get what I want, what I truly want, you've got to put in calculated effort. To understand who you are, your deepest desires, and then to think real hard and work real hard and think real hard again and work real hard again, to try, try, try your very, very best to reflect and plan and execute your damn plans, or else

Or else, you don't get what you want. You'd end up with a dull and drab and miserable life and that, more than anything, is what I do not want.

Hmm. And yet here I am: 28, unemployed, on a farm, doing manual labour in exchange for food and shelter. Like a piece of driftwood washed up on a deserted beach.

Yup, joke's on me.

It often feels this way. Like I'm a try-hard who nobody, including myself, likes, and my destiny is to try very hard and fail even harder. As though at birth I'd been assigned in the great play of life the role of "clown", and a sad one at that. It is a curse I know not how to lift.

[thenighttcat]

Boxing Day at Bogor

Boxing Day. I am spending the evening in Bogor, a city two hours away by bus from Jakarta. Dusk is settling over the city as I hide out at J.CO, munching donuts and gazing through the musty windows at the streets below, bristling with motorcycles.

The plan was to take a train first thing tomorrow morning to Parungkuda, a station some thirty plus kilometres down south, from which a minivan will take me straight to the farm. But that plan has fallen through—the trains are fully booked out till Sunday. Apparently, gone are the days you can just walk up to the counter and tell the attendant you want to buy a one-way ticket for the next train. Even here in the suburbs of Indonesia you now need to reserve a train ticket in advance.

On a bloody smartphone.

And so the current plan (Plan B) is to take a Grab to Parungkuda instead. But Parungkuda is quite a distance from the city centre and I don't know if any Grab rider will be willing to ferry me all the way there. If Plan B fails too, I'd be left with Plan C: walking. Thirty-plus kilometres carrying my backpack and ukulele, come sunshine or rain. Not to mention the journey would take an entire day, meaning I'd have to spend the night at Parungkuda since the minivan only departs in the morning.

I have to say, sleeping rough at a random train station in the suburbs of Indonesia—alone—does not strike me as a very bright prospect. Oh well. As Hagrid says: "No good sittin’ worryin’ abou’ it. What’s comin’ will come, an’ we’ll meet it when it does." And so I eat my donuts.

It's hard not having a proper home to return to. Sometimes I get scared. I get scared that this is the fate of the future me, the old me. Lonely, wandering. I pray through a Psalm and sing a capella some worship songs. I feel a small flame of hope, however small and feeble, and I am fanning the flames.

Tomorrow, a new beginning.

[thenighttcat]

some dark shit i wrote on, ironically, a yoga deck

Sitting on the yoga deck with the rain falling around me and the silhouettes of the mountains in the distance, enveloped by mist and clouds. A valley of terraces and fields and trees is set before me, a picture of abundance and serenity; but my heart is troubled. For a long time I have lived with a troubled heart, at times heavy, at times perplexed, at times in anguish. Lighthearted moments are sparse, and never without an ominous undertone, a wordless voice that ever haunts me, telling me (quite correctly) that the good times don’t last. Because they are only a forgetting of the problems, and that round the bend my demons are waiting to torment me again.

It’s really hard living this way. Last night, I begged God for release. There was none. The demons haunted my dreams. They were there when I woke up this morning. There is no escape, and the name of that feeling is despair. The darkest of nightmares that whisper in your ear that there are darker ones still. For darkness knows no bounds.

— 21 Jan 2025

[thenighttcat]

We accept the love we think we deserve

And for me, that’s not very much. For a long time, I’ve just been that weird scrawny kid who nobody thinks much of. Not important enough to dislike, but not important enough to like either. Bland and forgettable. In a book I recently read, it says everybody likes to feel important, and I agree. I’d like very much to be liked, esteemed and thought of fondly. Wow, this guy is funny. Wow, this guy is interesting. Wow, I love hanging out with this guy. I know, I sound like I’m still in high school, which only makes me feel that much more pathetic.

For a long time, I’ve been a nothing, a nobody. I’ve made my peace with that—I’ve made my peace with my inability to make peace with that. So why, why am I still in such turmoil?

— January 8, 2025

[thenighttcat]

I'm 28 this year. It's 2pm on a Monday afternoon. My friends are all at work and I'm here at a library, trying to write a book that no one will ever read.

I'm panicking. Breaking down.

I want to tell someone but there's no one to tell.

I'm entirely alone in this, and my mind is killing.

What the bloody shit are you doing, Daniel? What the bloody shit?

[thenighttcat]

Watching HK dramas on a Wednesday night

is therapy to me. Life as depicted in these drama feels much less complicated. The characters are what they are and their interactions are straightforward and pure. It makes me reconsider the whole idea that writers ought to develop characters that are complex, nuanced, broken even. Maybe that’s overrated.

I’ve never been in a relationship. Too many concerns, too many caught-ups, too much projecting into the future and mapping out all the infinite ways it wouldn’t work out. Most of all, the fear of rejection. Too ugly, too uninteresting, too weird, too childish, too unremarkable. It’s best to keep it cool, that way I’ll appear untouchable.

Looks like I got what I wished for.

The characters in the dramas, they really make a go for what they want. What it must be like, to dare to desire and to be unabashed of making known that same desire. To not take no for an answer but instead boldly pushing it as far as you can.

But it’s just a show, right?

And I’m far too thick-skinned.

[thenighttcat]

12.27pm

I came home from Parkour class today feeling like a kid. It had rained midway through class and my shoes, now soaked and streaked with mud, go squelch squelch squelch with every step I take. A film of sweat, grime and rain has formed over my face, making it feel both wet and oily at the same time. Three tubs of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream are stuffed in my backpack, the result of an irresistible promotion at the supermarket: two for $19.99, plus a free Mint Chocolate tub thrown in.

I’m 28 this year and I feel like an overgrown 10-year-old. Such a child. A voice in my head tells me it’s time to grow up. But is that even real?

[thenighttcat]

It’s never too late to backtrack on your choices and make better ones. 11.21

[thenighttcat]

I finally did it.

I told my boss I’m resigning.

Dropped it during our morning meeting, a casual “by the way” sort of thing on the back of a motley agenda of mundane items.

Why, he asks.

Oh, nothing much, haha…just want a change, haha… I guess.

What? No, he says. You need to stay at least two years in any job. No. Three years.

He makes it sound like it’s for my own good. And perhaps it is. Not knowing what to say, I said nothing. So now the situation is somewhat ambiguous. It’s hard to be firm when you’re unsure of your own decisions, of your own self.

In any case, I will miss him. For all the disagreements and low-key conflict we’ve had over the past two years, he’s someone I can’t help but root for. Like one of those flawed characters in a movie that you still believe in and hope will have a happy ending.

As for me, I’m back out on the open sea. I have to say, this is not how I envisioned adult life to be. Lonely, aimless, confusing. Is this what being an adult is meant to be? Damn. Nobody said it’ll be this hard.

[thenighttcat]

It’s 6.08pm on a Sunday evening and I’m waiting for Mum and Dad at Beer Uncle, a restaurant whose logo is a face with wavy beer foam hair and that has a whole wall of refrigerators filled with at least a hundred different varieties of Asian beer.

I don’t like waiting, but it’s been a packed day and I appreciate this little pocket of rest. Breathing space — as Miyazaki liked to advocate in his art. Besides, it’s not a bad place to relax. A down-to-earth establishment, an amiable owner (the beer uncle himself), a convivial atmosphere and, in the background, strains of acoustic music intermingled with the lively conversations of young people in Mandarin.

I don’t like waiting. Yet life has a way of making us learn the lessons we don’t like, and we are repeat students until we pass.

I don’t like waiting. It’s too uncertain — wondering how things would pan out, wondering what you should do, beating yourself up for whatever you have or have not done.

I don’t like waiting, because there is no deadline to waiting, no end in sight. I really don’t like waiting.

[thenighttcat]

Reality is a monster without eyes; only teeth.

[thenighttcat]

Feb 15 2024, 8.25pm Turned in the keys at the studio today. Made a little wave to the manager and some of the staff, and then I’m gone. Saying goodbye is like eating rice for me now. Well…more like eating rice with tiny fish bones embedded among the soft fluffy grains - they don’t choke you but they still prickle when you swallow.

[thenighttcat]

Dating is a luxury for have-nots

Two statements that don’t go well together:

My bank balance is down to $13.63 I might be falling in love

Damn. Wasn't my bank account topped up just the other day? How is it possible for money to disappear so quickly?

I only bought three cupcakes.

Apparently spending money, unlike most other activities in life, is much easier than it looks. In bits and pieces, three cupcakes here and a trip to NTUC there, the leaks all add up and they all weigh me down. I don’t know if I can be more frugal than I already am.

Another thing I don’t know. I don’t know if I might be in love with a particular somebody. And for once, this is no unattainable Manic Pixie Dream Girl fantasy. It’s someone I feel I've come to develop a deep friendship with. I haven’t known her for long and yet I’ve told her things I could never have told anybody else. Not necessarily dark or sinister secrets, simply thoughts and feelings I have about myself, about God, about people and the world; trusting that she, at least somewhat, understands.

This is new to me, and I’m treading carefully. The last thing I want is to look like a fool.

Circling back to statement one. It hurts to say this but I’m going to say it anyway.

Marriage is an economic arrangement.

Forget I said that (but it’s true).

I’m 28-years-old and I have to think twice, thrice, walk away, walk back, think again, just to purchase three pathetic little cupcakes. Three flipping cupcakes. People my age are talking about applying for BTOs, home renovations, supporting their families, retiring early?! My family would be lucky if they didn’t need to support me. And what if I am struck by a car, a chronic disease or (in this case, maybe) love? I wouldn’t know what to do.

Or maybe I do.

I just have to fall out of it.

UPDATE: And I did.

[thenighttcat]

Wisdom comes to the seeker in strange, unexpected places.

The unlikely places, the places people don’t look.

It's carried in the morning light, the evening breeze.

It’s wedged between dusty photo albums, beneath raggedy blankets.

It’s concealed in the tiniest whisper, and perched on the craggiest mountain peak.

One place it isn’t in.

You can search all you want and you’ll not find it. It’s not there.

Your room.

It’s not there, it really isn’t.

So quit lying around.

Get out.

Get out, and live.

[thenighttcat]

Waking up in the morning be like

I couldn’t wake up this morning.

Snoozed a half dozen times before abandoning the alarm altogether and sleeping through.

Woke up. I'd have kept sleeping but sleep had deserted me. Stared at the ceiling till I could stare no more. Got up.

Depressed, I opened a pack of Hello Panda biscuits. Ate one, ate another, ate the whole damn packet. Didn’t give a single one to my dog, whose little black nose twitched hopefully inches away.

“Sorry pal, can't give you any. You'd die."

Not that he won't ever die. It always comes in, the tide. No sooner does one wave comes crashing in than the next wave looms.

I thought of Sean. We were ten when we were friends, several lifetimes ago.

I thought of Renee. Several more lifetimes back - days of carefree innocence, us kids just jackassing around.

I think of Eleanor, who tells me I need to go.

Sooner or later, like waves they reach the shore, dissolving into foam.

But this is sooner.

[thenighttcat]

Singaporean Propaganda 🥳

Rachel’s birthday party. The guests are not a motley bunch. They hail from either her Christian or social work circle: respectable, eloquent and above average. Chatting in polite clusters against a backdrop of neatly shelved LKY books.

Yup, he would have been proud.

[thenighttcat]

You don’t get rid of darkness. You just turn on the lights.