Reflecting 2009

31 December 2009 – 11:34 am by Felix Leong | ,

Come to think of it, it’s kind of funny that we often tell ourselves to make sure that we live life and yet forgetting about that very advice.

— from Cliché about modern life

As 2009’s going to pass and soon enough I’ll turn 28, I find myself struck with a shocking realization — that I had transitioned into adulthood without even noticing it coming. It seemed mundane and people would have chuckled* if I blurted this remark in real life, but to be honest it’s pretty much until now I’m starting to noticing the full effects of being an “adult” in line to the expectations of my social circle.

Such a thought came to me as I started to see how life has unfolded around and within myself: having changed jobs and returning back to where I started, getting to know more people in different situations and environments as I entered into new territories, seeing close friends marrying one-by-one, having to understand and review my parents’ insurance policies… among other things. It’s the realization that as a child, I could get away with having other taking care of certain aspects of life; But as I grow up, I’m now required to take up a bigger role not only in my life but also in others. What used to be that I’m already provided with food, shelter and transport to becoming a more growing concern in my own daily life.

It really felt like I’d now married a person named “life” and in need to get to know and live with that person until the day I pass on to another realm.

Honestly speaking 2009 has been a year full of challenges, and every once in a while I’d face situations and possibilities in life which had a lot of parameters that I’m completely oblivious about. Having to face with life decisions with a lot of unknowns and uncertainties to its potential future impact is something that I’m still not used to: occasionally some would trigger strong emotional reactions — overwhelm, fear, doubt, helpless and with skepticism.

I really admired people who always viewed challenges with a twinkle in their eyes and take the leap to pursue full-heartedly: filling with curiosity, wonder, excitement, passion and a creative spirit. Also people who had gotten back to their feet with a laugh after they stumbled, tripped and fall flat on their face along the course of pursuing their passion. I do wonder how much inspiration and personal action I needed more to cultivate such a beautiful and strong spirit?

Looking ahead towards 2010, it signifies a move into a journey towards self-realization. It’s a time to seriously think about what I really wanted in life and work towards making them a reality. It’s a time to accepting the bigger role I’m offered to play in the world and expand my interest beyond myself and looking for ways to contribute to others. It’s an even critical phase that I needed to get in touch with my strengths to harness them into the manifestion of my life.

That’d be my vision to be carried forward into next year and beyond.

* Emotional reaction may vary. But I could imagine the amusement I’d get from that :)

[Image credits: Diverging Paths by _massimo_]

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Public Diary: Is It a Good Idea?

25 December 2009 – 10:22 pm by Felix Leong | ,

This morning I finally took out my old LiveJournal backups and have them restored over to this site: that’s after a few months since I took the site down. That has always been the plan as I decided to consolidate my personal blog and website into one. But what really happened is that as soon as I took down the site on LiveJournal: I suddenly doubt whether I should keep them in online circulation.

At that time it suddenly dawned upon me on why I felt that way: The older post are more close to a nature to a personal diary; and despite the fact that I had no qualms making it public at the time of writing it, once I have taken those posts down, they are effectively private until I posted them up. And having that gap in between it being private to becoming public again had triggered some fear within myself as I start to recall what content I had written before. Despite the general positive and contemplative tone, there are also entries which are more personal and emotional in nature.

In a sense, what I fear is that parts that exposes my weakness and the ugly side of myself: thinking how those posts would reflect and/or affect me. At that brief lapse of time, I’m starting to question whether such diary-like blogs should even be public or not. And not to mention I’d adapted a more defensive style of writing in my later blog posts which shows a gradual disparity between my old self with my current self.

But, as you have witnessed, I posted them up anyway.

If you asked what had transpired me to go ahead with making it public, probably it’d be the following:

  1. There’s a lot of content that I believe is worth sharing
  2. I trust myself: I know that I’d always taken great care in writing all my posts and did not do any harm towards others knowingly
  3. There’s no point concealing parts that I don’t like about myself: I treasure my ability to express myself and I won’t be able to show just the good parts without trying deliberately to a point of faking
  4. Last but not least… in reality, nobody really cares :)

Having decided that, do I still think a public-viewable blog that acts as a personal diary a good idea? I wished I knew the answer: after all, my blog has always been experimental in nature — giving myself an opportunity to see how my writing would affect the social circles around me. And so far I have gained some insights through the discussions I had in the comments and had worked out my social behaviour in accordance to the subtle feedback I get from the real-life interactions of friends who read the blog.

But if there’s anything I have learned from my blogging journey, my take is that we have to treat blogging in the same way that we treat any interactions with people: always have considerations towards the person you are talking to and any person that you’re talking about, at the same time just being yourself and have fun in the process. Otherwise life would be just be too hard to live.

[Image credits: Secret Book #1 by Randy Cox]

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From Windows to Linux to Mac

24 December 2009 – 9:29 pm by Felix Leong | ,

I can’t really remember since when I have been drolling for a Mac: probably it’s as soon as I saw the very first iMac in fruity colours. And now, a decade later, I finally get to own my very first Macintosh: the humble Mac Mini.

And for the whole week, I have been staying up until three in the morning getting to know this new baby of mine: awed by the simplicity and beauty of the thing and OSX as well as banging on my head over its little differences and quirks. (I still can’t get over the fact that I couldn’t Shift-Delete files)

Having gone through and used all three major operating systems, namely Windows, Linux and OSX, I’m pretty surprised how similar all these systems works and certainly couldn’t understand how people would really swear over one system over the other.

Maybe it’s just me being a computer power user which greatly reduces most basic learning curves and the fact that I’d google as soon as I face some problems that I couldn’t solve. Or maybe I’m not really into games and gadgets in generally that I’ve to go through any head-banging to any solid surface when I find out that it doesn’t work with whatever system I’m using.

Either way, I now got the perfect computer setup that I wanted, leaving only two things to wish for: a webcam that could take high-definition videos and Windows 7 Professional Edition, which I plan to dual-boot it with my Mac — mainly for my games and some occasional software development work.

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Catching Up

18 December 2009 – 7:30 pm by Felix Leong | ,

Catching Up

As you are reading this, I’d probably attended a friend’s wedding back into my hometown – as I had scheduled this post a few days back.

As I’m writing this, it really reminds me of the early days when I started my web log back in LiveJournal. And that was the time when I post pretty much on a daily basis on what’s going on with my life and all the thoughts that had been wandering in my head for sometimes.

And at times when people whom I haven’t met for a long time starts to ask me how am I doing, I usually answer them with a slight bit of pride that they can always read my blog and proceed to gave them the URL. And I can’t really remembered how the conversations went on after that.

Fast forward five years to the present, I revisited and pondered about my behaviour. I’m pretty sure what’s going on in my head at that time: that I personally find it tiring giving out pre-canned answers repeatedly to the same questions and that if people cared about my recent endeavours, they could just check it up on my blog.

Looking at it now, I wondered whether I’m too idealistic on the efficiency of humans keeping up with the latest events within his/her social circle. It turns out that most people like myself are pretty much completely occupied with our own lives that we can’t keep up with the news of every person that we had met throughout our lifetimes.

Hence the tradition of asking “how do you do?”: that the only way we could ever reconnect ourselves and bridging our communication channels. Hence that idealism of mine not only indirectly alienates my acquaintances, it also robs away the possibility of catching up and sharing experiences in life, relishing the short time that we’ll be together again.

So, by the time you’d read this, I’d probably had my opportunity to meet up with a lot of my old classmates – some of them which I have known since the first day in primary school. Hopefully after all the toasting to the newly-weds and enjoying the sumptuous dinner (as per Chinese tradition), I would have learn a bit about enjoying small talks that I’d had there.

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Commitment

13 December 2009 – 12:43 am by Felix Leong | , ,

CommitmentAt the ripe age of 27, I’m only starting to feel the transition into adulthood: a time when friends around me are starting to have their own families. Together with that, the responsibility not only to yourself but the livelihood of the ones dependent on you.

And as we progress in life, inevitably our signatures carries more and more weight – with each stroke of the pen could potentially bind you into bigger and bigger responsibilities. Mainly legal documents that not only declares the proper ownership but also together with it the unknown opportunities and burdens that arise from such properties.

Imagine this: employment contracts, marriage registration documents, S&P to your new home, loan documents…

And that being human, some of us (myself included) have the fear of potential loss – a psychological barrier that we fear to thread. As we look upon the dotted lines, the brain would conjure up a whole list of worst-case disasters that could potentially arise from such legal bindings. And the next thing we know is that the pen I’m holding may have been quivering without me consciously knowing that it happened.

I’m starting to be able to empathize how Peter Pan feels – however, in a world where Neverland never exists, putting oneself in complete denial wouldn’t make these legal structures go away.

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