If my life was a movie, most cinema watchers would be sleeping by the first quarter of the hour. By the next, three quarters of those who were still awake would be queuing at the counter for refunds and made up their minds to spend the rest of their afternoon joining another queue for Hello Kitty. It would be better time spent, they'd reckon. That would be the ultimate insult, but it also meant my life had been average, conventional, smooth sailing. No lavish lifestyle sneek peeks, no fancy incredible trips to the Amazon forest. We weren't well off but there was no dramatic poverty tales. I would be one of the first who fell asleep during the first few minutes in the movie.
For any who made it through, sufferers of insomia or fellows with steely determination, they would have noted 2008 was possibly the lowest part of my life, at least in the conventional sense. Truthfully, I enjoyed unemployment, being a bum that I have always been. Not to everyone else though, according to the way they expressed their opinion over my unemployment for three-quarters of the year. The only thing that upset me was my ticket to Australia by skilled migration was permanently dashed. If you noticed, that actually showed how typical of a Singaporean I was. I went by the books, I couldn't think out of the box and I abided whatever rules that society thrown at me. I thought that was how the world worked.
If I did not make that eventual move to Perth, I would be still making my rounds in sunny Singapore like a miserable grit, pissing my friends off with my unacceptable level of negativity. All I hated was a demonic level of crowd and all I wanted was some space. Did I ask for too much? I was the classic case of good riddance and I am probably the first person who tells the world how socially fucked-up he is in a blog.
If I wanted to talk about how popular I am or how great is my blog and show meaningless statistics to keep my ailing self esteem on life support, I wouldn't be writing stuffs here. You wouldn't be reading this either. There are only two kinds of blog readers. The first group reads blogs of successful people to be inspired and hope that one day they will reach that pinnacle of life. The second group reads blogs of below average countrymen to feel better about themselves and their lives. Whichever the nature of blog, it fulfills different needs of different people. I didn't know that until I began writing things here. All along I thought people only wanted to read about beautiful people, successful people who have already achieved enough to be able to find time to troll their blog-goers or talented folks who could translate the languages and dialects of aliens.
for me, u are a success that i inspire to.
ReplyDeleteHi ASingaporeanSon,
ReplyDeleteGuess I'm a square peg that does not fit into either your 1st or 2nd group of blog readers. I read blogs that are written honestly from the heart -- regardless if the person is successful or otherwise. I just enjoy learning about how another person experiences life.
For me, it gets stale once the blogger repeatedly tries to tell his/her readers that his/her way to do things AND/OR his/her viewpoint is the ONLY way or the RIGHT way. [Albeit, as a blogger, I am probably guilty of the same sin from time to time.]
Guess I've seen enough of life to meet people who crashed despite the best of plans and those who "succeed" by sheer chance. Who am I to judge who is a "real success" or a "real failure"? Case in point: My migration to Canada and my career switch were really by chance -- a strange coincidences of push-and-pull factors (and "disasters") happening at the right place at the right time.
Keep blogging. Love your honest and heartfelt sharing.
Cheers, WD.