By Your Side

9:23pm

[“Cyberbird” by Gabriela Robin]

The first time this song played was when I watched an episode of Ghost in the Shell SAC – I don’t remember if it was the first or second series though. The next time after that was when I got the song and in all the glory of being home alone, everyone’s at work, in the break of mid-day. The music was rich and full of emotion – especially the first few seconds of it. Imagine being awakened – something deep inside of you breathing its first breath, opening its eyes to see its first glimpse of light from high above the dark heavens… Unfortunately, as the age tires, so did that initial invigoration. As quickly as the dragon whelp awoke, it fell back asleep again.

The lack of recent updates resulted from a meditation period in which to collect my thoughts. In that process, I even almost impulsively deleted my MSN account to start a fresh one, or maybe not even start another one. I considered ending Leemanism.com, and pretty much end everything all at once. I feel used and unforgivable.

My past have not been thought about as often as I would have in the past. Most of my meditation has to do with present events and possibilities of futures.

I layed in bed this morning for about an hour and a half, on and off on my sleep thinking of a few things concurrently, and as I slept, I also thought about a wish list. One of the wishes was I wished… Well, actually fuck it.

I used to spend countless nights talking with the sea, the sky and the land around me. It was invigorating. In here [points to myself], I knew what I needed to do, I knew all the answers to my questions, and I knew when to ridicule myself and when to support my ideas. So talking with the environment was like talking to myself but without all the restrictions of being embarrassed by foreign ears, or those who do not know me, and I can tell you that no matter how close you may be to me, you don’t know me enough. You may know aspects of me, but ultimately, only I know me. However, I will admit that though I may know myself, I may not be able to see my own mistakes until I made them.

The other day, my cousin Brandon came online on MSN and we had a little chat while I worked on a rushed demo for my company. I asked him why he was bored and he said he had nothing to do. So I asked him what he wanted to do, and he said he didn’t know. I asked him what are his hobbies and if he can do whatever he wants, what would he want to do, and he repeated himself and said that he didn’t know. Eventually, I got annoyed and said to him “You should stop saying i don’t know, and use your brain to think more or people in the future will think you’re a dumb person”. I didn’t mean ‘dumb’ solely, but it was the most understandable thing to say to him at that moment in time.

One of my friends told me that one of my problems is my inability to stop getting into other people’s businesses. Looking back within the last 20 years, there has been only three sets of people I got myself involved with. The first would be Albert and Stella, second was Albert and Jenny, and the third was Jon and Laura. In the last 20 years, I’ve been keeping myself low-key. I only exerted myself when people asked, and yes, I can be out-spoken.

After this meditation period, a few things were reorganized in my thought sub-structure. Firstly, I lost almost all my motivation to care about anyone’s intimate well-being. Hence, if some of you have noticed, I don’t go to DC and contribute nearly as much as I use to and this has been consistent since the 2007 new year. Another thing is that I stopped asking people about their relationships.

In the past, Albert would always meet up with me or anyone and continuously tell us he didn’t care about this and that, but it was obvious he cared as he talked about the things he didn’t care the most. However for me, if I didn’t care about something, that’s that, it will most likely never be brought up again.

In short, I am sick and tired of intimate relationship woes. In the last year and a bit spending my time at DC, chatting with various people on and off-line, and getting dozens upon dozens of emails from various people about their relationship problems and such, I slowly and gradually developed a resentment towards what love means in this world and what love has always meant as far back as humanity has recorded its history.

I thought how I could justify the things that happen, how they can be acceptable, and I asked Laura questions to do with that. I pondered on various relationships from my friends. I looked through literally thousands of threads through the net on this subject, and read numerous articles, and in the end, my only conclusion is that it is torturous when you have one and it is torturous when you don’t have one. If you are a clone of everyone else, fantastic, you can live a mundane lifestyle filled with BBQ’s, kids, the pool hall, and 9 to 5 every weekday. You may develop boredom, routine, and the usual tidbits of negative and positive emotions throughout your life – fabulous. That’s the ideal life. Everyone wants to be rich. Those who don’t are either naive or they are devoted to their cause 99% of the time. Unfortunately, as the world turns and turns and turns, I feel that at this ripe old age of 28, I cannot justify any of those actions.

One of the things my friend said to me is one of my weaknesses, that I tend to give off an arrogance that can be overwhelmingly overbearing. First and foremost, and I will say this bluntly, if you don’t like my expressive ‘arrogance’, no one is forcing you to be around me. Second, in what sense is this arrogance from? If some guy/gal always presumably expressing his or her superiority over others as some form of quasi-godlike being with skills and talents above and beyond all others, then surely, his or her arrogance may be uncalled for, especially if s/he doesn’t actually have the skills to back it up. However, I may be an expressive ‘snob’, but what are my underlying motivations for such things? Am I doing it to be smug? Am I doing it to put down others? Am I doing it to be some greasy preppy who likes to show off? Or rather, am I doing it because it’s me?

Never in my 8 years in the design industry have I ever ONCE said I am an elite artist. In fact, I often put my work down. I often question my abilities. I worry a great deal about my talents and skills, and often think that it’s a better choice to have the company hire a formally trained creative director than have me on as management.

Aside from my work, education – nothing. I don’t have any formal education. Well, no degrees anyway. Even my mom shedded a few tears the other day when she was fixing my lunch for work. Her voice was whimpering and she told me in Cantonese, “Unlike most people your age, you took the hardest route to try to achieve something great. Watching you all these years is heart-breaking for me, that I hope you will succeed one day, after such a long and arduous journey.” She timed it quite right, as she ended her words, she left the door for work. As I closed that door, and turned off the lights, I thought that I could be like Jon, like Albert, like Ed, Gabe, and whoever else out there. Work 9-5, get some formal education, and my family will be good and dandy. I know they will be.

In the biggest religious doctrines, forgiving is a huge factor in achieving some form of enlightenment or heavenly boon, but forgiving is not a human act. Just like sexual pleasure, love, hate, and any emotions are all human, forgiving is not a human factor. Forgiving is an ideal.

In the last couple of weeks, I have avoided people. I needed to clear my mind, but I can tell you that it’s not working at all.

It’s uncanny really. I had a great 2006. Leaving Cindy was one of the best choices I made in my life, then it was followed by a Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter full of sports and events. I got the chance to meet new people, hung out with my friends more, got closer to some, and reassess myself and how I relate to others, etc. Hong Kong was awesome. It allowed me to see what I can be, what I can do, and who I can be with.

As the last few weeks came to the point, I constantly thought I needed to call Ed and have him look over Albert as I will be away. He may one day turn into the corporate tyrant, and blame the world for his deeds, and then push everyone away with his grudges. Am I too bold to say that outloud? Possibly, but damage is done, and there is no further damage that can be done.

It’s weird.

I have this framed picture of Pat, myself, and Emma on top of my computer desk. It was taken at Garibaldi, at the start of a pretty rough hike upwards carrying 20 to 40 pounds of stuff each on a 10km route up then down the next day. Despite the pain and ache and heat, I had TONS of fun. I got to see a gorgeous lake with snow-capped mountains in the middle of Summer. I got to experience a perfect reflection on the water of the dawning sky.

[sighs]

One other thing that my friend held a grudge against were my [smirks] in my emails a few years ago. I use to smirk a lot about things, but again, I was going through a transitional stage, from being all high and mighty to whatever I may be becoming in the future. Most of my [smirks] have over the years, turned into [sighs]. I’m really just too tired to think that way.

I would like to believe I am easy to get along with, that my past of being a semi-bastard, a mind player, or whatever you want to call it has passed. I would like to believe that I am a cool guy to be with as a friend for both my guy and girl friends. I would like to believe I no longer have ulterior motives except those that benefit them more than myself. I would also like to believe that I can be reliable and dependable to a degree.

The other night, before I retired to bed, I messaged Laura with an apology. There were two reasons. First, she is one of the closer people to me whom have known me the least amount of time, and that was an incentive to apologize. Second, I apologized due to varying things which despite her irritating persistence, I did not directly answer to still. However, I can say that I will try not to let it happen again.

Totally off-topic: I prefer tulips or lettuce if you’re broke. 8]

For the last hour, I’ve been drinking the wine that Albert left here. I thought about bringing it to Laura’s place, but a scenerio played in my head and thought, “NO WAY! I will not let her shove plugs in my butt! Let alone, drill me when I’m buzzed or drunk!”

[sigh]

Seriously though, right now, my mind is playing a chess game by itself. Where the pieces tear off from each other to form ‘evil’ reflections of themselves. Every square is an unknown, where every piece can at any time, end up fighting with itself OR worst, tricked into fighting each other. It’s difficult to stop the game when I am the chess master and the pieces themselves. In fact, imagining that all these years, the chess master was being subtly influenced by the curious addiction of the pieces – becoming a ‘slave’ to the game, where the game ‘controlled’ the chess master, thus the game itself became the master and the chess master, the game.

[smirk]

8]

[“By Your Side” by Sade]

[thinks for a few minutes while listening to the song’s lyrics]

I remember using this song in one of the commercials I made for Van City, or was that for Citizen’s Bank? It’s a good song, and I was pleased with the commercial too.

Well, I want to go back out there and talk to the environment again, but no motivation to.

10:42pm