Friends and Family

I had planned a day out with my campmates at Sentosa tomorrow. A Sunday. I had forgotten about my father prebooking me half a week before to go fetch my aunt from the airport, and subsequently have dinner at some must-be-quite-expensive Jap restaurant at Central. I dropped Sentosa. For some reason this has dragged me down into the pits of depression. Almost back to the days when I felt that I had so little to live for, so little to look forward to, that I gorged myself with food, any food, anything remotely tasty (so no, I did not stuff my face with celery), so that I could at least enjoy the material tastes, if I couldn't indulge in ethereal pleasures. (Thing is when I was happy I also ate, so... not now though. I have a whole set of other things to occupy me now when I'm happy.)

It's just funny why I feel so bummed out over it. It's not like I made a hard choice. My father, who's learnt his lesson with our ways of worming out of these things, booked me early. Way before the first mention of a Sentosa day out. So by virtue of order, my father's booking wins hands-down. I'm at fault for double-booking myself with my friends.

And friends... maybe campmates is still a better word after all. I love my camp. Even with all the crap we're getting, I love my camp, my unit, my company, my bunk, and my colleagues. I laugh and quarrel with them, I gang up on others and get ganged up on, I share things with them and learn things from them. But there's hardly any connection I feel. Or rather, one minute we're running well together and the next minute a heavy oppressive aura separates us. Am I severely blind to something, some fault of mine that I'm not aware of? Something that makes me repulsive in an instant? I've been told by friends who understand me abit better that others feel that I give off an air of arrogance, as if I look down on others (I am a graduate in a sea of diplomas after all), as if I know everything under the damn sun. Well that is a fault of mine, I have this absolutely foolish habit of nodding and going "Ahhh yes yes." if I have so much as heard the name of the topic in question, and worry later about what exactly it is I know about it and what I don't (must be all the PRing I've done haha noooo that's so not true).

But yeah. Friends.

I'm tempted to say that I'd left my friends in university. But that is unfair because I've had three years with them. I'm only slowly crawling towards my first year of conscription, and I've hardly known my mates for more than 6 months. I know I should give them more time because something about me makes people take a much longer time to warm up to me.

Or maybe it's something about me that makes me naturally appeal to people as an all-purpose punching bag.

Why? If you know, I want you to tell me why. If for nothing else take it as a rant, a public rant, take it as getting back at me publicly (as public as this invisible footprint on the web gets) for whatever I've done to you to hurt you. Tell me if I'm meant to get along with one crowd and forced by life to mix with another. Tell me if my university has trained me to act like an idiot. Tell me if I just want attention. If at the end of the day all I'm looking for is recognition, a pat on the back, an inclusion.

Sometimes I feel that that's all I live for. I just want someone, whoever it is, to always be there, saying "good job", "nice one", "awesome", "so smart", "how did you do that?", "you're amazing", "why didn't I think of that?", "thank you Renhao". Really? After having existed for 20 years, read so much, seen so much, heard so much, known so much, is that all I want? Just someone to say oh wow you know everything? Or else company in which we can all live in our own little elite world slapping each other's backs?

Or is it just that I'm naturally resistant to the ways of the world? Am I a traditional soul at heart, in this physically young body?

My parents are a real unique breed, caught dead center between tradition and modernization. The same person who would fuck you upside down for sticking chopsticks vertically into a bowl of rice can at the next moment be telling you how open he is to more than one religion under the same roof, provided proper respect is shown to the other's beliefs. You might have noticed, my dad is downright anal about family togetherness. As I grew up and as he saw it fit to tell me more, I slowly understood that his family, my mother's, and some of his friends' were ruthlessly torn apart by politics, lust, money, and alcohol. It was a situation he cautioned my brother and I from allowing to happen on pain of him coming back from the grave to haunt us (and I totally believe that if it was at all possible, he would do one that would beat Hollywood, Jollywood, Kollywood and Tollywood flat out).

It's something I'm confident I've taken to heart. Something that I will stay with me, and something that I will pass on to my children, if I have any.

I just needed to rant I guess. I originally wanted to write about me and the world, but I've complained so much about me that I probably can cut alot of that out and talk about the world in the other post.

I've had enough.