This last week has been interesting on a lot of different levels: I’ve heard my friends share their inner demons; I’ve found out that I can [barely] survive four pints of Hoegaarden [I'm overjoyed, really]; I feel as if I’ve received a metaphorical slap in the face from a ghost from Christmas past; I’ve managed to enrage a good friend by amping my normal levels of douchery; I’ve been plotting an occupational paradigm shift; and I’ve also failed at the wingman challenge to grab three girls’ numbers for a friend.

It’s number 4 that I’m a bit concerned about: applying douchery to taint a perfectly fine, quasi-antagonistic relationship so that it becomes a non-relationship.  I’m not too good at consciously burning bridges, but I do it awfully well when I don’t need to.

I am now a douche by nature.  It’s undeniable.  My sweet nature has been replaced by someone who couldn’t care less about his sweet nature being replaced.

Run away!  Far away.

I haven’t had a schedule this packed in what feels like a long time. My weekends have suddenly come alive, and things are going at full speed…my only fear is that I’m not able to play catch-up with the world around me. I suppose that I should be thankful, but there’s that lazy idiot in me that wishes for the occasional six hour marathon FIFA session — please note that it’s been duly taken care of (if you’re a fan of accumulative, abridged entertainment — hardly what you’d call a ‘marathon’).

I’ll be in Kota Kinabalu in a week, and I’m looking forward to that. The last true vacation I had involved a mystic quest, but now, things have changed — I’m totally focused on doing absolutely nothing at all, and having all the time in the world to reflect upon what my next steps will be.

I got wind of some startling news at the beginning of this week that substantially rocked my world. It’s still tugging around at the back of my head, but I’ve filed it under a WIP folder in my mind for further action, if the need should ever arise for action to be taken. I’m not really a man of action; I’m more of a man of sloth. And gluttony. Gluttony is good.

Greed is good.

These last few weeks have been pleasant, to say the least. The second issue of the magazine was released to rave (self-anointed) reviews, and we’re making sure that the third issue will be better. There’s no such thing as a marked improvement — everything’s a constant cycle, and resting on your laurels only means that you’re letting complacency set in. Though to be honest with you, the whole idea of dedicating a volume of a magazine to weddings/marriages scares me.

Aside from the magazine, there’s something else that’s been going on that sort of leaves me with a strange feeling of wonderment. And befuddlement. I live my life being befuddled, so it’s really nothing new. I’m just antsy, I suppose. And befuddled. And sheepish. I’m in another one of those things that leave me scratching the back of my head, staring at a game plan and truly wondering what comes next. I suppose a small part of me is looking for some sort of affirmation, while the rest of me is being overly cautious.

Anyway, it’s just one more week to go.  Anything can happen.

Affirmation is a pain.  Seeking it is even more of a pain.

Here’s an image underneath for what I can expect from October.  I’ll leave it to you to speculate the meaning.  Let’s just say that it’s another line to cross along my way to learning how to be financially independent.

I hope.

Save me, Artoo!

I want to start a fight with myself.  I hope that on a fine weekend morning in the near future, I awaken to find my evil twin at the foot of my bed, mocking me.  He’d berate me for all the things that I find lacking in myself.

Fickle.

Slow.

Dawdling.

Fidgety.

Impatient.

A list.  A list would spew forth from his mouth, and then he’d charge at me and push me through the wall, into my neighbour’s soon-to-be-completed monstrousity of a renovated landed property.  We’d battle it out in this skeleton of a home.  I’d take him by the scruff of his neck, and repeatedly crush him into the pillars, thus destroying the foundation of the house and having the ceiling collapse on top of us.

When the dust would settle, we’d duke it out for a little while longer, before he’d have the upper hand and use leverage against me, pulling me over and impaling me on a protruding pylon.

He’d then take my identity, and be the guy that I never could be.

I wish this would happen.  Because I look at myself now and I feel incredibly confused.  And if the clone can set things straight, then be it as it may.  Take my name and make me great.

You’re going to make a king of me.

Living for the moment still seems to be a far better alternative to drawing up a road map.

There is no plan. There’s no method to the madness.

You do what you want because you feel that it’s right.

You do what you want because you feel that you want to.

You do what you want because you feel that you can.

We don’t get many chances to be swept up in whatever moments we find ourselves in.

Maybe it’s time we changed all that.

For some time or other for these last two weeks, I’ve been wishing for something to spontaneously combust during my day.

I’ve been starting to feel the pull of monotony taking over. What was once drudgery has now evolved into a different kind of beast; a beast where aloofness is the norm, and where the chances of becoming wayward are as slim as a eunuch being tadpole-armed.

I don’t expect excitement to be procured over the course of the immediate future. It’d just be brilliant if I could pull myself out of the hole that I’ve dug. The bright side of all this is that the aforementioned hole is starting to become more shallow by a will of its own.

There’s got to be more than this.

Having a game plan terrifies me, most probably because of the effort required to draw one up. I’d sooner just throw something into the wind, wing it from there, and see where it takes me. I suppose it’s this particular approach to things that’ve gotten me into this hole in the first place.

To be fair, it’s not really a ‘hole’ as much as it is a giant Sasquatch footprint; something that doesn’t really exist, yet you can’t totally disprove. I do have a problem; I can easily choose to happily ignore it, but there’s the risk of it always being there.

But, as usual, I digress.

I’ve drawn up a strange schematic that might actually resemble a game plan, and it terrifies me. Being called into action is one thing; after all, you can’t run away from conscription (unless you exile yourself to Canada). But willingly submitting to something as proper as a plan only makes things harder for you — you do so many things with the risk of them not being appreciated.

But apart from being a morose motherfucker, I also pride myself on being incredibly stubborn once I set my mind to something. I can only call it a quality I possess that makes me all the more redeeming.

Of course, whereas some people might consider not taking any advice to be a sign of a higher degree of self-value than anything else, I consider not taking any advice to be a sign that you can stay straight and true to whatever silly objective you had in the first place.

After all, we won’t always get what our hearts desire. But we can surely, surely fucking try.

With that said, I’m about to embark on a relatively strange and alien trip to the center of my head. And I hope that this incredibly cliched passage of self-discovery ends with me being a happier person.

I’m just like Jerry; I know what completes me.

The path to getting it is the bitch.

Sometimes I wonder if incompetence runs through my blood. My ineptitude will be my biggest downfall; I attribute it to nerves. Or, to be precise, the lack of them.

It’s troubling when we see how motivated we are in the beginning, only to cut back on progress and then bring everything to a grinding halt once we’re either complacent or bored (or at most times, a mix of both).

Success spoils us. There’s a possibility that it softens us to an extent whereby we simply cannot face failure without being able to pick ourselves up again. Undoubtedly, a lot of work and effort would’ve been put into being successful, but there’s an incredibly short way to go between being the king of a mountain and being a king of a mountain of beans.

And let’s be honest; success can only be reached if we can overcome the perennial short attention span and obligatory threshold for punishment.

Things taste sweeter when they come easy, no?

Yes.

Sadly, I’ve been drifting further into the camp of believing that hard work and effort takes us places, while being inundated with invitations to direct marketing plans telling me otherwise. However, I can see that the latter would probably involve just as much initiative as the former…which I’m unable to provide. Or it could be a biting unwillingness.

I also don’t wish to impart any more pain upon my parents, because I’d like to have them go away in peace without me having to go to their graves (or in my Chinky case, their urns), wishing them to come back to life to spot me a dinner.

There is no subliminal message here; there’s no epiphany to speak of. There’s no new dawning realization of something that I didn’t already know. There’s no striking of Nirvana.

In a little under a week (depending on…you guessed it, the probability of success), I will possibly be struck free from the only bonds that I have ever been willing to become tied down to, towards a path of either corporate slavery, a lifelong commitment to the less-than-debonair civil service or simply biding my time on a beach, making money off selling bait and tackle.

And My Lord, despite how incredibly inviting, serene and surreal that last one sounded, I know that it won’t lead me anywhere. After all, I didn’t (over)spend six years on a business degree to help you fish.

Or did I?

I was never given a raw deal. But I’m about to give you one.

Yes.

I woke up grumpy.

I’m still grumpy now.

I can see cascades of joy overshooting their mark.

The bastards.

It’s been said to me today: I’m a lousy poker player because I can never hold on to all my chips. There’s nothing like the drama of going all in and making it known to the world…or at least, the perceived tension and drama that goes on in my head while doing so. The thrill of the plunge. The desire to know what the others are holding.

I’m proud to be part of the pack of idiots who have no clear understanding of the game, other than that patience, planning, foresight and a good dose of common sense are vital to winning a good round. But realizing these things doesn’t mean that we have to play with them in mind. Skirting on playing with plain irrationality might not be the smartest thing to do, but it’d be good, as Tyler would say, to let the chips fall where they may.

To thrift off from a song I know, chance is a kind of religion where you’re damned for plain hard luck.

No truer words, no?

Dive deep. And pray you don’t drown.

No matter what the situation is, crossing a line either takes a lot of courage, blind impulse, desperation, a calculative mind or a combination of all four. When a boundary is crossed, there’s usually a very good reason for it; Clint had to get the Firefox from the Russians, Mario had to save Peach, Spock had to sacrifice himself, Gwen had to die for editorial reasons and Dubya had to invade because of that pesky insatiable thirst for oil.

It comes down to how much you’re willing to give and what you’re willing to do in order to cross that hypothetical line. And whether or not you get what you want. However, I still don’t believe in ‘calculated’ risks.

I don’t usually walk around carrying high expectations, nor do I carry lowered expectations. I simply don’t care, because nonchalance won’t get me into trouble. But on a rare occasion, something comes along and I come alive. Not like a firecracker; but like an atom bomb.

I’m easily excitable, as is everybody else. But it takes a lot to retain, maintain and contain that excitement, much less twist and tease it to ginormous proportions. It plays with my mind. It drives me on incessantly.

It’s terrifying when that does happen, because it offers the perfect justification for flagrant line-crossing. I would know. I’ve done it before. And so have you. All of you. We’re all guilty. So why bother feeling it?

Maybe this is all a way to compensate for my wasted, sad youth that was spent mulling away at how bad a hand I’d been dealt. But there are some lines that we’d all be willing to cross because whatever is on the other side is worth it. Very much so.

Would it bring about a crisis of faith? Maybe.

But nonetheless, I feel better now.

Thank you.