thenighttcat - Tumblr blog

[thenighttcat]

Busy for nothing

Look around you and you will find a busy people. People armed with big dreams, goals and plans. People constantly on the move. People blundering blindly from one place to another. Yet for all their movement, nothing they do ever shakes the earth from its orbit. The net sum of all their activity is a big fat disappointing zero. The earth continues on its circuit.

We are all trying very hard. Trying to find a way to move forward, to get ahead. We are all racing each other towards our inevitable deaths. From dust we came and to dust we return.

[thenighttcat]

☢️ November last year

It is at our lowest points that we are open to the greatest change

There is really nothing that I can control. Life with God is lived moment by moment. You can't decide what's going to happen next. The only way forward is one step at a time, and keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus, or else the waves will fast swallow you, and you shall be destroyed in the storm.

There is an impenetrable wall that stands between me and my childhood. However hard I try, there is no way to recall what it feels like to be a child. Yet every so often, a tiny glimpse, a little peek, would creep up on me unaware. It could while trudging home from work on a plain evening, or when staring out at the passing streetlights on a quiet drive along an empty highway. But those flashes of the past are always ever so tiny that I can hardly grasp them before they slip quickly away again. They will not be contained or stored.

Though I may be timid, there resides a fighter within me who doesn't back down and wants to win. Who thrives in conflict. He has been shoved down and stashed away for so long that I don't know if any breath remains in him. Keep the peace, they say, but I don't want to. Cordiality is worthless. Suffocating and inauthentic. All this tip-toeing is killing me. Why not stamp down hard on the ice and feel the icy water soak through your spine? Let your blood freeze.

The thing about growing up is that you have to be your own adult. No one is going to make you do what you dislike that is good for you. It's time to grow up, so I've told myself time and time again. Yet I'm still such a child.

Self-mastery. Full autonomy. Needing nothing.

Boredom: demanding satisfaction and excitement from something outside of ourselves. Not centered.

D minor. Walking through a desolate carnival in the moonlight. Wind sweeps through the tents and abandoned rides. It's so cold tonight.

Life is short, eternity is long.

Received a letter from my sister today. First time receiving anything from her in years. First time receiving anything in years. It was much easeir to get by cutting her out. But reading the letter today made me a great deal sad. It came like a flood and left me speechless.

Now that my sister is out of town the green and purple Yakult flavours are exclusively mine.

Had a panic attack at Uniqlo today. Fitting room, small brightly-lit rectangle. Collapsed onto the floor and started sobbing. Grown man sobbing in a Uniqlo fitting room. That's downright disrespectable. But behind closed doors, who would know? Wonder how people behave behind closed doors when no one is watching.

There are songs that make us be at place we've never been, that make us feel feelings we have never felt. They make life seem special, even if for a brief fleeting moment.  These are the songs that I treat as precious and so avoid listening too much, yet can't help but circle back to again and again.

The airport used to feel magical during those annual holidays, or the trips we made there during nights out in navy school. Right now, it's completely functional. Not a place to linger but to pass through as quickly and efficiently as possible. The magic is long lost.

On writing. Go somewhere else to write - away from everybody and everything, your own secret space. Give your permission not to write. Just sit there and stare into space, and eventually you will somehow write a little bit here and there. You don't have to keep writing.

Another colleague leaving the company. Heartache. It's so stupid, feel like an over-attached clown. Why care about people who don't give a fig about me? This frantic crossing and diverging of paths is what makes modern life so desperately empty.

Joseph came over today for Pilates, jamming and literally hanging out - just sitting around and doing nothing. He frustrates me sometimes - he eats messily, rushes from place to place, speaks at an astounding wpm that it can be quite hard to keep up, and often doesn't listen properly. Yet having him as a friend is one of the little constants that makes life make sense.

Always pursuing new highs, wandering down weary and restless paths. Always travelling, never stopping, forever coming short. When will this circus end?

The hardest time of the day is the little sliver of time between the end of the day and going to bed. You really want to do something before going to sleep, because you know the next thing that's going to happen is the alarm clock ringing, and the dawn of a new day.

Found myself in a meeting surrounded by confident, outspoken ladies. Super intimidated. It's like the gender imbalance has been flipped on me. Balls shriveling.

Tired of this world and its phony human interactions. Flattery on one side and gossip on the other. People tearing down people. Speak the truth in love, build another up with words of encouragement. Feels so far-fetched.

Ascended to the 20th floor of a HDB block in Chinatown today. Narrow corridors. Leaned over the parapet and stared straight down, feeling my legs grow jelly. What must it be like to leap off from such a height and feel the world rushing at you at sixteen million kilometres per hour.

[thenighttcat]

Polling Day

I awake to a room awash in sunlight and my T-shirt damp with sweat. Damn, hate it when I oversleep. Shaking off the brain fog, I stumble out of my bedroom where I am met in the corridor with my crazy panting dog, who bounds up at me with his pink tongue and thrashes against my knee as though he’s still a puppy. He’s 14.

“Alright buddy, let’s go take a walk.”

I leash him and we head downstairs. An unusual sight greets us: pockets of people are strolling along at an unhurried pace. Not something you usually see in fast-paced, individualistic Singapore. What’s going on? Hmmm….ah!!! The country is electing its president today. Right… that’s why it’s a public holiday, which explains why I’m not at work today. These pockets of people must be families on the way the polling station. Which means I need to vote too, because I’m a …

Citizen (I am? Yeah, dude you are - you’re freaking 27. Oh right!!) But who I should vote for? Not that it matters either way. It’s one sensible candidate versus a random and a clown, and it’s obvious who’s going to win. The question is: should I be reasonable and sensible, or should make my valiant albeit doomed stand against the establishment?

As always, personality trumps reason.

1 Sep 2023

[thenighttcat]

2 January

First day back at work and it fees like I’m on drugs. Couldn’t sleep last night, which is always a bad sign because that’s when the thoughts descend in a swarm, and it’s invariably a losing battle. Midnight. I bolt out of bed and head straight to the shower for a cold blast of water. It’s all I can do to not wreck myself. Morning. Sleep-deprived. It confounds me how anyone can survive with less that 7 hours of sleep. The doctors, the lawyers, the investment bankers, the high-powered corporate slaves. How on earth do they do it? At the office I binge on junk food. Three packets of milo, a tube of multi-coloured Haribo gummy circles, a mars bar, a snickers bar and leftover fried chicken drizzled with sticky lemon sauce that is more fried bits than chicken. No alcohol. If that’s something to be proud of. It occurs to me that I have developed an unhealthy dependence on essentially trash to cope with the mind-numbing stress and boredom that I encounter on a daily basis at work. Trash food, stress, boredom - three commodities that are in ample supply at the office.

2 Jan 2024

[thenighttcat]

1.02pm

2 slices of brown toast. 2 bottles of 200ml Meiji chocolate milk.

Parkour is over. Pilates begins.

21 Oct 2023

[thenighttcat]

God is no respecter of people. Neither should I be.

[thenighttcat]

2.13pm, Aug ’23

It’s my leave day today, and I took the train down to the CBD to have lunch with Joseph. He works at one of the big banks and goes for two-hour lunch breaks, so it’s worth traveling all the way down. Besides, it is a terrific feeling to be dressed in a flowery shirt and bermudas while strolling past the other men in suits and leather shoes, sleeping-walking through their humdrum working day.

I wait for Joseph at the open-air atrium of his office building. It is one the gleaming skyscrapers that make up the city’s skyline, and I sit beside a bronze statue that is either a DNA strand or a man with extremely flexible joints. It occurs to me that perhaps you can pass your work off as great art as long as your concept is as vague and ambiguous as possible.

I don’t have to wait for long. At 11.47am, Joseph is downstairs and ready to go. ‘My boss left for an early lunch,’ he says, ‘and I took the elevator right after his.” I nodded. Joseph has always been extremely efficient when it comes to exiting his workplace. We go for Thai food - chic place, small portions, not-so-small prices. It’s so crowded we can hardly hear each other’s voices over the din. After that we wander around the CBD, our conversation just as meandering, before finally settling on a couch in a hotel lobby.

That’s the nice thing about catching up with a long-time friend. It doesn’t have to have a purpose. You just say whatever you want to say and go home afterwards.

[thenighttcat]

when you friend brings his wife along 🌊

4.27pm, Sep '23

Saturday afternoon. I’ve just returned from an overnight trip to JB with my pals, and the post-trip gloom is setting in, those grey moods that all too often accompany late afternoons. It’s hard, this messy business of relationships, and I’m not even talking about relationships with a big R.

One of my friends brought his wife along for the trip, and she isn’t the most amiable person to say the least. In an ideal world, everyone gets along and thrive in each other’s presence, but it is not an ideal world. The trip was a choppy one, and I’m starting to think that perhaps our other friend was clever to have sat this one out…

At least now I’m more grateful for my brother-in-law. It’s been close to two years since my sister married him and he’s always been kind and considerate to us. It doesn’t hurt that he’s got quite a sense of humour as well. He is the diametrical opposite of my friend’s wife, and ironically that can be somewhat stressful. When people are kind and considerate, they make you feel as though you need to be kind and considerate as well, which isn’t exactly how I like to roll. Sometimes it’s easier to hang out with people you don’t have to hold back with, because you know they wouldn’t either.

Relationships. To love, to care, to hope. It opens you to expectations, which opens you to disappointment when reality hits. And reality always hits. But what’s the alternative? Emptiness. To have nothing, and to be nothing. Not much of an alternative, right?

[thenighttcat]

Change does not come in a dramatic sweep or in an accumulation of tiny steps. Change may not even be delightful or celebratory. Change is like the slow breaking of dawn on the horizon, the stark, unrelenting realisation that things will never be the same again. And it doesn’t matter what you think Or what you want All that is irrelevant - because

Change has already come.

[thenighttcat]

10.39pm, December 16

First night lesson at accountancy school. The sensible thing to do is to head straight home and get a good night's sleep to restart the day afresh tomorrow.

I can't bring myself to be sensible.

Instead, I walk around the CBD with no particular aim or direction. If the green man lights up, I cross the road. If not, I keep walking. The crowd has diminished but still it isn't quiet, there are people and cars in every direction - truly, a city that never sleeps.

Exhausted. On nights like these, the sheer frustration of being alive on this planet really gets to me. I wish there is some way I could let it out, but I don't know how, and the grievances lie deep.

The thing is, I didn't imagine that it would be this hard. I never do. I thought this could be a new beginning. Not the ideal path, certainly not the least boring, but a new beginning nonetheless. But why does it still feels so isolating?

I've come to the sea. My path might be aimless, but it somehow always finishes at the sea. The city lights sparkle on the wave tops. There is something calming about letting your gaze settle on the reflections; softening, widening. It's okay, Kai. It's okay.You're be okay…

[thenighttcat]

23 October 2023, 6.44pm

Back in Vietnam.

This would have been a huge deal if we lived in ancient times, but not today. Time and space no longer means anything. It’s midday and you can feel the concrete radiating the heat back as you wander down the dusty, chaotic streets, motorcycles whizzing here and there.

Ate some chicken salad at a roadside stall. It is so soaked in sauce it might as well be soup. Usually, the dirtier a stall is, the more delicious the food. Not applicable today. Got a tummy ache which I tried to ignore to no avail. Ducked into a coffeehouse and let it all out in a dingy cubicle. Door was just inches away fro my nose. Felt sorry for the barista whose job it probably also was to clean the toilet. Bought an iced coffee, took out my notebook and started scribbling.

The thing about some Vietnamese coffeehouses is that they make the customers sit around shared long tables. Nosy fellow squeezed next to me and kept stealing sideway glances at my notebook. Wondered how to ask somebody to back off, politely. No clue. Silently permitted him to violate my privacy.

[thenighttcat]

How I waste my life by attending briefings

3.53pm on 22 Nov 2023

There are two types of people who gives briefings.

Type One. They hasten to get the whole darn thing over as fast as politely possible. Faster, faster, faster! Politeness is thrown out the window. Fast.

Type Two. What’s the hurry? Productivity is overrated anyway. Surely my lovely audience would love to hear, interspersed within the long laundry list of administrative matters, of which bullet point I shall elaborate and repeat at least five or six times on average in case Mr Thomas at the back isn’t listening, oh his hearing isn’t quite that good, little amusing comments that draw from personal philosophy, or a funny detail about my recent holiday to Antarctica, or perhaps that meme my uncle’s wife sent in the family group chat last Friday, or what about…@#&#Y$Q

It’s funny how for somebody who hates wasting time, I sure know how to waste time on a gigantic scale.

[thenighttcat]

every morning's Dilemma

2 Dec 2023 (8.04am) Hate waking up. Hate being a slob. Arguhhh

[thenighttcat]

Swimming in the cold.

Sep 24, 2023; 10.45am

Light rain all around, pattering on the water, sending out delicate circles as they meet the surface.

I’m the only one in the pool. The frantic world melts away, leaving in its wake a rare quiet.

[thenighttcat]

a bunch of short sentences

8.02pm. Gig at hospital. Just finished. Wandering the lobby. There’s a piano. There’s a lady playing the piano. Put my earphones on. No music. Lean against the pillar, secretly listening. Lobby is noisy. Hard surfaces, poor acoustics. Give up. Drift into bookshop. Selling large clocks. How savage. Tour the shelves. All generic. Give up. Walk out. Lonely, empty, insignificant. Just another face in the crowd. Fading in, fading out. Mostly out. Train home. Tomorrow it all begins again. Think of all the girls I liked. Like. Don’t mean nothing. Only figments of the imagination. Unreal. Strangers. Stupid.

[thenighttcat]

Idea Idea! Alternative Career Path

6 September 2023, 3.51pm 🌧️

It’s raining and I just missed the train. The sky is weeping and its dreary tears slant over the faded buildings, the shuddering trees, the brown, barren fields. Hanging from the ceiling is a small monitor that shows the waiting time. A public service advertisement is playing. IF YOU MOLEST, WE WILL ARREST. The words flash in large red font over a scene of a man being led away in handcuffs. I laugh, then wonder how much the actor playing the molester was paid.

[thenighttcat]

A vignette of working adult life that is probably not representative at all

4 September 2023, Lunchtime

There's no one in the office today. I'm eating a vegetarian rice box while listening to Telegram voice messages on the laptop. Today's topic: Joseph’s thoughts on Singaporean politics and cost of living.

Adult life is strange.