Ah, it's good to be back.

The great thing about studying things like literature, of course, is the opportunity to tap into the thoughts of the greatest thinkers past and present. Freud once said that the ego is very much defined by our interactions with others, and never has this resonated more so with me.

I've returned home, and the existential crisis is now gone. I see the life that I have built for myself here, the life that I can always return to, the life that reminds me of who I am, what I stand for - compassion, love and understanding. I remember now, what this state of grace that I used to speak of is, what it is I aspire to.

Because my friends may pull me in many different directions, but this is good - it only renders the core tighter.

You've got it wrong again Tim, this overseas thing. You've done everything that suggests discovery, but you've forgotten that the point of it was growth - inside.

I understand.

There comes a time when we draw upon all our thoughts and feelings, and decide to put them into action through the medium of words.

It is difficult - so much sadness, so much anger, and yet an acute awareness of the vanity of conveying them, an inadequacy with words. Sometimes we dream up a close approximation, a metaphor, a phrase that resonates with what we want to say to the person. We click compose, we watch the letters appear on the screen, and our sentiments are somehow verified by the rhythmic clacking of the keyboard that shapes these passions into words on a page.

And then there will come a time, when these thoughts must be transmitted. We move the cursor to hover above the button, but for all the clacking of the keyboard, we cannot bring ourselves to send it.

And when we do look away, to find some courage despite the silence - just enough to press the button - when the finger strikes - the click is deafening.

Summer was a whirlwind of rediscovered novelty, meeting new people, sparkling new relationships without the hassle of bittersweet ends - only a quick wave, a goodbye, and a jet-plane away from the complications that threatened to develop. It seemed like good, fuss-free fun that I would not miss.

And yet, in Cambridge, in the dead of the night, pangs of loneliness strike here in GMT +0 as they always have, and this time there is no Summer fling to distract myself from it. It seems egotistical to wonder if the boys I left behind feel the same way about me - probably not, not in the city of opportunities. It brings to mind a passage I read about in someone's trevvy docket -

"It was... wonderfully fun, those years... Clicking onto people like magnets - That's how it was, entering a room... Lovers everywhere. People you'd had, people you might soon have. Oh, God, and the way you stared and the way you were stared at. You could fall in love with anything - a jawline, a chin - because it didn't have to last beyond the half-hour. And everything was understood; no negotiations that made you lose your apetite for the prize. You'd see someone, you'd find him early; and you didn't think - is he going to like me, is he smart, will we have anything to talk about? No, you thought: there's my evening. And the glitter in his eyes, taking you in as if you were a newly discovered continent. And it might last an hour, or sometimes a day, or some amazing times a month, but it never got stale, because the minute you felt yourself start to become boring, you'd just click away - scarcely even saying goodbye. And never - never - any regret, because there was always someone else who'd fall in love with you a few minutes away."

Definitely egotistical. How could they miss me, when I certainly didn't? I don't know if he wrote that, or if it came from a novel - if it did I would love to read it. It was a beautiful passage that captured Summer - Singapore was that for me. In Cambridge I must prepare myself for the monastic lifestyle the leaves no recourse for these needy pangs.

But most of all, the return of these feelings acts as a reminder that none of the games I played came up to anything. Over summer I learned to flirt insincerely, to play them fairly, and yet selfishly. I brazenly promised nothing, asked nicely for what I wanted, and I won, but what was the point? I merely hardened hearts that would be broken by others - there is no lasting triumph here, I cannot say that I will live on in the memory of hurt.

And then there was Zul, the ever present ex, the one influence that keeps drawing me back in despite the unsustainable nature of our relationship. He is the last bastion of romance - something in him still calls out to whatever is left of the illogical soul within me, with his half-bungled attempts at romance with other boys. He loses, we laugh about it, but it is a laughter that carries within it a strangely romantic understanding. There are days I wonder if I should have met him at a different time. But these hypothetical questions are useless - In these later years I may very well have passed him over for a needy, immature boy still grasping for that elusive ideal that is all-consuming love.

I say that I don't want to be hurt again, that I don't want to center my life around another person because that person will leave, eventually, through my fault or his. I don't want to have to reconstruct my life each time it happens. I say that I want to live for myself, that I want to guarantee my own happiness, even at the expense of others foolish enough to take the plunge when there are so many glittering alternatives available.

I have done all that, and yet the same, dull, loneliness is still here to haunt.

I've realized that I still don't know what I'm looking for. I have a vague image of receiving a teddy bear and actually not hating the person for it.

The city disappoints. I should have known it would, but I honestly thought otherwise. It was deeply foolish to romanticize home as a hotbed of new discoveries in a familiar land. This place is just as it was when I left, and there is no reason for it to change for me.

The friendships are the same - the same joys, the same annoyances, the same failure to view you as an individual different from the person they first met. The materialism of it all - if only because this island recognizes nothing else but success. The dullness of the average person, not necessarily because they are intrinsically insipid, but because all individualism blends together in this dense city of 4.5 million. And the vices - the dark escapes that we hatch in our moonlit flats, the acts of rebellion against conformity that deviate with such uniformity. Everything about this place suggests more, and it is always falling short.

There are valuable things to miss about this place - the food, the efficiency, the security - and all of this makes Singapore a good place to live. There are abstract things to miss about Cambridge - the idealism, the intellectual environment, the privileged aura - and all of this makes Cambridge a good place to study. But it seems that home, or at least my conception of it, lies not in a geographical position, but in a few select friends - the friends to whom I recount my hopes and disappointments, with whom I pick apart the events of our lives to find the same nothingness inside.

Is it the flesh that calls out to flesh, or the heart that calls out to a heart?

I can’t decide which phrase to put ahead of the other, since to do so would place emphasis on the first and less on the second. When loneliness strikes, which comes first - the desire for physical intimacy, or for deeper understanding? I’ve decided on this order because the mental image of an embrace seems to offer respite, but I’m sure that the symbol of the heart encompasses far more of this pain.

The heart. Where emotions are born, where identity resides. The core of our being, the centre. You would think it immovable, and yet it yearns.

The loneliness that one feels in the dark of the night is a strange, untraceable emotion. It is painful, that much I know. But unlike most pains – pains of failure, of inadequacy, of heartbreak – this one has no particular cause. The heart does not yearn for another specific heart, just as the skin does not long for specific flesh.

All I know is that it yearns.

Finding something to yearn for is a respite in itself. An embrace. The fantasies that ensue – the situations we hope to create, the revelations we hope to discover – these are all comforts from this bleak nothingness. They may be mere dreams, but all dreams have a direction.

And thus, the difficulty of finding someone becomes a tragic mockery of our uniqueness – a reminder that once again, we are special, and alone.

There is something deeply discomforting about people proclaiming their search, or achievement, of love on their blogs and other online exhibitionia. It discomforts me.

Now on one hand, one could say that because I am a lonely tart, these things make me envious. But no, it isn't envy. Envy is a bitter, bitter emotion, and is accompanied with a desire to emulate, or acquire. This discomfort is milder, and accompanied with a strong desire to distance myself from such an act. There is no longing here.

I think I know why.

(But of course I do, the former was just a dramatic preamble)

Something about me believes that Love, like all other important things, should be kept inside. That it benefits from a quiet sort of reflection, uninterrupted by the vain egoism that accompanies these obviously exhibitionistic endeavours.

I'm of the the belief that anything published online carries with it a statement to three people - self, addressee, and public. A statement to self - that I am in love. A statement to one's beloved - I love you this much. A statement to the public - we are in love. Some may contend the last point, but why else would one chose for it to be on a public domain? A blog is not a diary. It is a performance.

In light of this, one questions the need to make a statement to the public. It might be the same as having the status of being attached, but I disagree. People agree to tell others that they are attached for very practical reasons - firstly, to communicate the nature of the relationship between the two of them, and secondly, to shut out other possibilites, for the moment. A public declaration of love, with all its romantic flower power, is not quite the same.

So we've established that there's an audience. But who? I have an image in my mind, I must have got it from the television. Passionate cassanova makes fervent and sincere declaration of love in the middle of rose-laden park, to pretty young lady who is oblivious to what's coming. Ladies on the street stop, look, and sigh.

Herein lies the irony. A public declaration of love is a testimony to one's ability to love. One's prowess in the romantic arts. It's not just for the beloved - it's also for the would-be suitors as well. A public declaration of love is, quite possibly, the opposite of simply saying we're attached - because the focus lies in the fuss, and not in the two individuals. Instead of blocking out possibilities, it embraces new ones.

The other thing is, in something as subjective as love, any declaration is always wrong. Love is in the moment, when someone says those words, that phrase, that just resonates within the moment. We can reflect on it, and learn lessons from it, or even map out the beautiful implications of it all. But trying to capture the emotion is nearly futile, apart from that grasping, ethereal sense that is left in our hearts.

There is a point when pain crystallizes into a shell.

What is a shell?

It implies something hard, cold, and introverted. It shields something that is vulnerable, and hides the tender flesh that resides within. Protection - a shield to keep the elements out.

When we think of emotional shells, we envision a hard, calcified state. We think of words like jaded, bitterness, and dullness. We see a guarded stone wall, surrounded by a murky moat.

But a shell can be beautiful too. Observe the swirling patterns on the intricate hexagons of the tortoise. When I think of shells, I envision graceful spirals and swirls, a lovely multitude of colours. Its beauty does not fade, not even upon closer inspection - there may be speckles of dust, gentle stains, but it is no less beautiful.

Perhaps this is the answer then, to let pain transform oneself into the most beautiful of shells. A shell that chronicles the patterns of experience.

Pain is but a medium for the art form that is life.

Continue to live. Not in, but with this shell.

Live a life, that all may appreciate.

Where does love begin?

Where does protectiveness stop being just an extension of ego and power, and become an altruistic desire to make another happy?

When does being provided for cease to be a wilful pleasure of self-entitlement and acquisition, and turn into a genuine gratitude and thankfulness?

Where does love begin?

In a little foolishness, and a lot of faith. In fate lies sincerity.

Love doesn’t begin with two people in love. Love begins with two people who believe in love.

It's said that humans are one of the most adaptable creatures in the world. We've used our intelligence to make clothing for cold weather, construct weapons to hunt animals, cultivate agriculture where food is scarce, and we've built shelters to shield us from the elements. We adapt through ingenuity.

Yet how is it, that after two millennia, the human heart has yet to adapt to the condition of being alone? Is there an ingenious solution to this problem?

Surely the emotional calcification of the heart is not the best that our human adaptability can come up with. It is akin to shutting down the liver if it cannot successfully purge the body of toxins, or clogging up the lungs should they be unable to inhale.

The function of the heart is to love. The symptoms of a diseased heart - pangs of loneliness, more acute than the worst of hungers.

I am back, and that only means one thing - I have no one to talk to, nothing to occupy my time.

In retrospect, self-reflection is a terribly useless hobby. Yixun has introduced an economic theory to me, one that states that the all personal growth is measured in attractiveness. In this light, self-reflection is terribly useless, not only does it do nothing to enhance one's growth, but it makes one look mopey and depressed, which is really a step backward in the whole social capital race.

But this is what we do, when we are tired of pursuing, when there is nothing, or no one, worthy enough to pursue.

One tries to believe in the inevitability of it all, of course. I say that this is the natural course of all things beautiful, and so let it end, let it end, in gray twilight before the night comes, so that a new dawn may colour your life again. You say you wish me well, and hope the best for me, and that you are sorry it has ended this way. We romanticize, we fantasize, we tell sincere lies - the breakup needs to be lovely, and we will not accept an ugly end.

But sometimes an ugly end is all you can hope for. The brutality shocks one out of the illusion, and one needs that to fall into despair. Because only despair can let us let go - not hate, not anger, not bitterness nor scorn. Only despair. The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.

Hope is such a difficult thing to quash. Pair it with this thing they call 'love', and you're in for a hard time. How do I cut this bond when neither of us wish to? Let it fade, you say?

I am but a weak little star, blotted out by the light of your life. But at night the stars come out to play, twinkling merrily, shining cheekily. Every night they come to play.

This is an old, old blog.

I have not written here in 5 months. There is nothing to write about, really. Weekdays spent counting down to weekends, weekends spent dreading weekdays. I have moved on to greener pastures in terms of camp conditions, but limbo is still limbo - the absence of freedom to fulfill one's dreams.

Waste of my time, really, the filling up of this empty box.

I met my doctor this afternoon. After a brief inspection of my body, where she confirmed that the two white pustules on my upper left tonsil were merely infections and not some vile strain of cancer, we talked. I have not seen her in some time; she only works in the mornings now, when I usually am asleep or at work.

Dr Chang has practically watched me grow up. She has seen me move through three houses, three schools, eighteen years.

Our meetings were always brief, and I was usually suffering when they occurred. I was, and still am, a rather sickly child, falling sick every three months or so, so when I meet her I’d either be sniffling away my flu, or shivering from the cold of my fever. She never said much about the sickness, except to elaborate briefly to my parents about the medical aspect of it. None of that excessive cloying concern that I get from some acquaintances at camp, just a simple “take care” and “get well soon.”

After diagnosing my illness, she’d talk to my parents about issues of the day. I remember that I’d get restless in the brown chair, the same plastic brown chair with metal legs they use in classrooms nowadays, and start asking for sweets. She always smiled at these childish requests, and offered me orange-flavoured fruit-tella that she kept in a small container. She knew I loved orange indiscriminately, whether it was on clothes, shoes, or my sweets. Once she gave me two to take home too, one lemon and the other strawberry, telling me that I should try new things and that I might like them.

On the door to her office she frames up pictures painted by her other patients. Often hand-drawn with crayon on a piece of drawing bloc, they carried messages like “I like Dr. Chang”, and “Thank You for making me well.” The boys often drew dinosaurs, while the girls were a bit more sensible, drawing her flowers or a portrait. One boy sent in a mess of red circles. Not the most aesthetic pieces, but they carried a whole lot of heart.

I don’t know why but I’m always comforted by her presence. She exudes such wisdom and knowledge, such a motherly aura that she’s almost like a grandmother to me. I talked to her today as an adult, no longer asking for orange flavoured fruit-tellas. She asked how school was, and I reminded her that I was doing my National Service now. Bemused, she remarked how quickly time flies. She asked what I was in the army and I whined. Smiling, she said her sons had mouthed the same phrases too. In that instant I felt comforted, I felt the same kind of understanding and concern that I’d felt years ago when I took her sweets home.

It seemed as though she had not aged one bit.

On a wall above the weighing scale was a clock that she must have made herself. It was a piece of cross-stitch, with the clock handles placed in the center. A flock of ducks flew around the dial, and at the top left was a short bible quote from Matthew. There were always simple paintings of scenery hung around her clinic, and once there was a great massive patchwork quilt that kept me enthralled with its interlocking patterns and motifs. They were not polished to perfection; if one looked closely one could still see spots where the paint clumped together, where a bit of red ran down just a little more than it should, where the patchwork was a bit loose; but nevertheless they were beautiful. I never saw her working on any of these pieces, but I knew they were hers. I just knew.

Here I am at home, on an MC, away from work. I’m settling on my applications for university, and reading The Glass Menagerie.

Two years. What Spartan endurance Tom must have had to work in that warehouse for as long as he did, when I, only at the ten-month mark, feel like I cannot bear it anymore. My superior (I hate that word, in what aspect are these insipid bosses superior to me?) reacted quite grumpily to my decision to report sick, and now I feel torn, torn between the knowledge that such an impression will not sit well for the next two years, and the burning desire to have no need for that impression at all.

What an exciting life an AWOL fugitive must lead. To defy the institution that has locked up robust young men at the peak of their years, and transformed them into nothing but MC haggling desperados.

I am angry that no one believes my MCs, and have to weave a web of lies, deceit, and false sympathy before they do not question its integrity. We all fall sick, how is it that the big dumb blokes get away with it? Is it because, in being bigger, they invoke more respect? More faith in their diligence? So is it such that I, skinny and not quite well-built, of an agile mind and glib tongue, am unable to be actually productive in the workshop, and hence am undeserving of my MC?

They value lumbering obedience over wit and intelligence. A tank is after all, more important than a soldier.

All I talk about now is the army, and the psychological impact this foul conscription has caused. I take myself far too seriously, which is a bad sign. I devoured The Glass Menagerie in a day – I confess that I am rather deprived of such material in camp.

All this while I sit here and create my future, plan for it, pay attention to every detail, delighting in the fantasy. It is no different from Silas Marner, counting his gold, for I too am paying attention to the hard outlines of letters, emails, and petty applications. I count them, go through them again and again, and vet my emails twice over. These little things are the light at the end of the tunnel, they sustain hope, yet all I seem to be doing is sustaining hope for the sake of sustaining hope. I try desperately to evade the truth, that I actually get to go home everyday, that I have the whole weekend to myself, that Cambridge is not the only place where I can live out my dreams.

There is time now yet. Time now to create things in the present. I need only summon the strength and focus to do so –

But I am such a lazy fellow.

I have already planned out my first lesson of my teaching career! When I walk into class, I will take up the whiteboard marker and write slowly, deliberately, in light cursive strokes the words:

"Only Human"

I can only hope the brats don't roll their eyes.

Life hasn't been particularly inspiring as of late. I think it has something to do with me spending my weekdays in a workshop fixing vehicles that the SAF dares not show to the public. No, I am not working on top secret classified military vehicles, on the contrary, I am servicing relics from World War II that would make the SAF blush with embarassment like a woman.

There is nothing new to NS life. I cannot find anything new to write about it. I have written about meeting new people, I have written about opening perspectives; but as it always is with the SAF, I find myself running around in circles.

The politics is mildly interesting, but more distasteful than anything else. I cannot believe the amount of power invested in these crooked stripes and bars, but it is enough to keep so many in servile silence. I already know the price for breaking it, but perhaps I should do so anyway. I have two years to screw up my life, after all, might as well experiment with clawing my way around.

The people are boring. Singapore needs to find ways to produce more interesting individuals. I make few friends - I don't count those that I politely smile at and engage in small talk while squatting in between the wheels of a land rover twice my age.

Nostalgia is still cheap. I don't miss anyone as I move from camp to camp - If you catch me saying I do, I'm probably paying lip service to the generations and generations of fools that have come before me.

And Love is as it always is - indescribable and wonderful.

I don't know about everyone else, but no, none of these so called life-changing moments have really stayed with me throughout my life. BMT, Orientation(s), OBS, etc. etc. I only remember them as vague stretches of time where I where I finally completed these rites of passage, rites that everyone else completes too. Its all very nice and peachy to say that this experience will stay with you through your life, but it really sounds like a load of sentimental bullcrap to me.

Really now, Pre-emptive nostalgia is such a load of crap.

I’ve just finished re-typing out an anti-establishment play written by my friend. The issues brought up are familiar issues, questioning the practices of authorities. A tad bit angsty, but it hits the mark.

To administrate successfully is to inspire efficiency and productivity. But must efficiency and productivity come at the expense of what it means to be human? To be efficient and productive simply means to produce results at an accelerated pace. To be human is to experience – fear, hope, accomplishment, disappointment, joy, sorrow. Two seemingly separate issues, yet almost every anti-establishment book/play/novel seems to point its finger at efficiency in the de-humanizing of the masses, either as a cause or a symptom.

Let’s take the opposite of what efficiency means then. To be inefficient means to waste time away, to be unproductive means to fail to show results. It is possible to draw the link between idling time and emotions – after all, they say that a busy man is a happy man, and to be human means so much more than to be just happy. But my experience in the SAF has been far from that; I have a lot of idling time, but I feel like an empty vessel until I step past that green camp gate.

I don’t think the issue is as simple as cold efficiency versus warm emotion. On the contrary, I think efficiency can inspire emotion – the sense of achievement at the swift completion of a project, the cutting disappointment when a tried-and-tested measure fails, the joy in knowing that your team works cohesively, the (imagined?) similarities and sense of understanding one feels with one’s team in assessing their strengths and weaknesses. Efficiency itself can be an experience, a swift, explosive experience that can form and break human bonds, because efficiency manifests itself best when there is a bright, burning objective that everyone works towards.

Bright, burning objective.

An objective with no compromises, no shady edges. Bright, sharp, and burning. An objective that can fill one with the fire of idealism and hope, an objective that inspires altruism and decision that cuts through all doubt like a lance.

Authorities pervert this. They strive for efficiency without a purpose.

To produce something quickly without understanding the need to bears resemblance to that of a robot. An automaton does not feel accomplishment, satisfaction, or disappointment. Rather, an automaton takes delight in the processing of work rather than the outcome – he would rather the work continue on than to actually accomplish something, simply because he cannot envision what that end-objective is.

Most importantly, automatons are easy to control.

It is not because the automaton is coldly efficient, therefore he does not feel. It is because he cannot feel, cannot feel for the end objective, cannot feel for the partners he works with, cannot feel the altruism and determination of working, that is why he is coldly efficient. Cold efficiency is a symptom, a symptom of the perversion of the ideal that we were originally working towards.

And this is what any group seeking to retain control over its members does – it creates/perverts an ideal and forces its members to work towards it. The members try their best to believe in the ideal; after all, everyone seeks to be of some use to society in order to address the pangs of conformity. But such an ideal is not bright and burning, it does not have the fire of originality or urgency. It is synthetic, artificial, like flickering fluorescent lights.

To inspire faith without miracles, to create siege mentalities without battles.

God is to the Church, what War is to the SAF.

I'm doing a heart of darkness assignment for my friend now. I've always been able to identify that Kurtz internalizes his ideals to a point where he believes he embodies them, and thus any action he takes is justified in the name of that ideal. But I've never actually thought of it, and now I realize that many have fallen to such temptations - TT Durai suddenly comes to mind. What Smriti told me about Ghandi cheating in his non-violence campaign too.

Ideals are, thus, dangerous things to play around with and subscribe to. One runs the danger of become self-righteous, of fervently defending one's actions, of being incapable of seeing the self-element in them. Everything we do has an element of selfishness. The realization of these elements is what keeps us grounded, it is what keep us humble. But when one subscribes to an ideal and pours every bit of belief into it, one starts to believe that he IS the ideal - a dangerous belief indeed. I'm sure TT Durai could justify his actions in the spirit of giving, and more importantly, that he would actually sincerely believe in these justifications. It is a trap that one does not even see, and it will come to a point when one starts committing actions that are clearly inimical to these ideals, but seem perfectly in line with them to him. Kurtz's claim to the ivory is selfish - but to him it is upholding justice.