Some Musings; A Statement

Inertia was preventing me from settling down to do my work, even though it's really quite urgent, so I visited a classmate's blog I hadn't gone to in a while. When I read it, it struck me, really struck me. So many thoughts were running through my head. He's an eloquent writer. Obviously, this guy really knows his stuff. He is passionate about his - our - major. Reading all the references he dropped about all that we've learnt the past four years, made me realise how little I'd absorbed. How superficially I know the concepts, ideas, arguments of the people I've been reading. It made me wonder, if I'd had enough passion for the subject, if I could be a bit more like him. To have a passion. Where is my passion?

His musings about the world as it is today really hit home too. Some of it reminded me of Mark, and the me when I was with him. Presently I feel really cynical about the world. Really callous. "Nothing I'll do is not going to change anything anyway, so why bother?" Sometimes I think I don't think. Just floating through life. I've just been taking the path the state carved out for me. And after this, what? Well, do what everyone does after this. Into the corporate world. And the thing is, I've been preparing myself for it so well, getting rid of my cognitive dissonance, it scares me. I don't care anymore. And I don't pretend to care. In the past, when I did at least pretend, I could still console myself that the internal struggle still continued. Where is it now?

And the way he wrote about his grandmother. She moved away; no wonder I keep hearing him talk to her on the phone. It put a smile on my face, the way he reminisced about the times he spent with her. When you see the tender side of a person, you'll never look at him quite the same way again. Awwww. It also made me wonder if I'd made any good, lasting ties with any of my family. I don't know how to express it, but it just made me feel so self-centered.

Unbelievable. All these stirrings-up in me just by reading this one guy's blog. If you're ever reading this, Wei, thanks. May I never want to aspire to sell my soul. Yes, I want to be "bourgeois", but may I never betray my values in order to get there.

Post-note: Reading this again just makes me feel embarrassed, but I'll keep it up for now (albeit with a slight edit) because it is a rather accurrate portraylal of how I felt at that point in time.