The blog's primary purpose has to move away from being a purely personal journal into being an avenue for expression, and the main advantage of that shift is, it's less boring for all those out there ploughing through journal entries. who wants to scour through endless pages of information about me mindless me? [unless of course, you think i'm cute, which of course is of zero possibility]

alright.

On Social Relations (a social commentary)

Much has been written about the idea of shyness, and whether it is embedded in the brain, or not. For someone used to be plagued with shyness to such a great degree until a churchmate actually told me it seems unreal that i'm so quiet, and now gradually evolving into some level of consciousness and a desirable level of expression, shyness for me has not been something hard-wired into your brain, as though you could not help it. In fact the very essence of dealing with it can be learnt, and the faster one realises it the better.

Of course much has been said about something called the 'comfort zone', the place, the arena, where one feels most at home with, be it with one's family, or with close friends, and it is in that place where the people with introverted tendencies can express themselves more fully, to feel at ease to express themselves, and remove away the self-conscious train of thought that expressing oneself might entail a risk of getting hurt, and so on. It is in that comfort zone that a person's identity and character more often than not comes across accurately. For me it might have been tuition class, or even class, but not at church: church was not really a comfort zone due to the wrong sort of mix of people, and the fact that i had to succumb to the people who were seen as having more social leverage, and the fear of being hurt: there was simply little connections that would have helped me stabilise and find identity.

No doubt, there is that hierarchy in social relations, and often it can be felt so obviously: People that are good-looking and outgoing tend to occupy the highest echelons of the ladder, they are the in-group, the core-group: their disappearence often changes the makeshift of the group totally, and that is why they have so much influence, since the group loses its identity when they disappear. And further down there are the in-betweens, they have some social clout but not as much, and often do not have influence to unilaterally decide the course of action in a group. And further down still there are people with no social leverage: they are discards, waiting to be chucked down and away at the slightest notice; their words have little influence, and they are just there to make up the numbers.

In fact, the hierachy is not steeped in stone, but even moving up the ladder is difficult, but of course once you've reached the upper rungs coming down is harder, due to impressions. There are certain ways for individuals to move up the ladder, such as, offering something new and special; emboding more characteristics that are desirable according to the group, and flaunting these characteristics; allying oneself with the people who have influence and form bonds within a group that would help--i find this pretty helpful sometimes into integrating myself with groups; and further on reducing the self-consciousness that accompanies people at the lower rungs.

Another aspect that creates shyness is the concept of self-image: the image that a group portrays on you affects the way you view yourself. In church i was viewed as quiet, so naturally one would tend to live up to one's reputation as being quiet, for to do so would be to invite stares and questions, that go, oh no are you okay? you're mad! Stupid people, can't they realise i'm who i am?

Of course, the greatest obstacle to social integration is that self-consciousness, the fear of what someone else might think about the person. Naturally it is unavoidable that, out of the comfort zones, some of that fear would remain. However, a shift in perspective must occur: individuals should realise that the consequence of being rejected, being hurt, etc, is not death and decay, but just a little setback that can be overcome, that will be over and one can go back to his comfort zone. After all, if individuals are not very close to you, you can let yourself get hurt and risk it all by being who you are, by being yourself, since, if they hurt you, it doesn't matter anyway, they aren't close to you, you won't be down coz of them coz they don't matter, and besides, on the other side, if you aren't part of their social circle, they'll forget you the next day anyway, so why bother to produce such a good reputation, why not just be yourself?

The difficulty, though, is to develop that strength that says, never mind, i'm hurt but i'll bounce back. That inner strength that must be there is hard to build up in some, the self-belief, the self-esteem, that comes with confidence, perhaps accentuated by religion, a knowledge that God is on your side, and so on, which would provide that essential that would allow one to take risks more readily and remove the barriers that shut them out to integration and allow them to open up to the world more easily.

Oh, if only people would love themselves, and maybe they would find it easier to love others, as one pastor has said so aptly. And it is so true: having confidence in oneself, (not arrogance, mind you, but just confidence) and knowing that your views have value and you are just as worthy as the next guy on the street, or the pretty girl out there, for appreciation and adoration, is crucial in overcoming the fear that greets shyness, and maybe social assimilation might be easier.

here's what i did over the hols!

fri: watched matrix reloaded at nite: street festival
sat -
sun: -
mon: guitar
tues: played LAN
wed: guitar
thurs: watched finding nemo: played pool
fri: guitar
sat: nothing much=)
sun: soccer!
mon: LAN
tues: bball...pool at mambo
wed: soccer!
thurs: great day! played tennis, studied, went borders, hard rock revolution at night
fri: home
sat: stayed over at darren's, watched midnite movie (far from heaven)
sun: darrens...ms lim's wedding, tennis
mon: at home
tues: went og, played LAN
wed: went airport
thurs: today! charlie's angels!
fri: gonna see red


oh btw i alwways seem to have good thursdays, don't know why...

Charlie's angels was super fun, super dumb, and super hilarious! It simply released all the endorphines in me, goofy lil' Cameron Di's adorable, man, what can i say. hehs. been laughing throughout the show and it was simply wonderful! it was almost like a music video with lil songs here and there and even a funny part that alluded to the sound of music with the song 'lonely goatheard' playing..how cool was that. in fact the beats and the rhythms of music were with me throughout the day, and especially the facility of language....wrote many lil' hooks complete with lyrics today, which was a change from usual when i can hardly think of words to write: words actually help in so many ways to actually construct melodies, in fact. there was just this rhythm and this lil' beat that i've been lacking, being sleepy and bothered....this was a nice change. played pool, but it sucked. haha. still the songs written were enough to compensate for it: i've got some little 'babe' song, some 'beautiful baby' song, and some 'rock and roll' song....eh. yeah. even the guitar playing's improved. it's like my brain has decided to work again, so i'll keep it while it lasts, huh? yeah
breathe the pressure, come play my game i'll test ya, psychosomatic addict-insane

oh i had another really weird dream yesterday, which consisted of some sharks swimming in a dark ocean, and they were really bad sharks, fighting for every little human being...and they could really eat human beings...so to distract them....we, on the shore, sorta threw little pencil caps at them...which ended up in them fighting over the little pencil caps! and it ended up with another shark coming to negotiate a truce at a conference (wait, was it sharks, or crocodiles? haha)...and in the end they started having peace...something like finding nemo, huh? fish are firends, not food... and then there was something about them deciding to attack a city. an unrelated part of the dream ended in me asking someone to go for red (which is tomorrow) and she refused coz she was going out with her friends...and the i asked someone else, and they all happen to be girls! ironic, huh. and another part of the dream focussed on me finishing school early and going to orchard....

sigh
dreams.

Had medical checkup today, which meant that I had to wake up at 7. consequently the rememberance of my dream became even more concrete. it was so, so, weird, i could tell you that. It all started off with this really funny emotional-lovey-dovey song that was playing, which made this girl feel so ..,unoe..that we hugged....and it was so funny. coz the girls' a really obscure one. haha. speak of weirdness. and then it progressed on to wishing another girl happy birthday, though i hardly know the girl at all, before i actually forgot i had an exam, and forgot which exam it was...until i realised it was history....we trooped into class, before realising that you know, it was a singapore history paper, with many many questions, and from each section of three you choose one....and it had questions about a burmese king who came to singapore to assassinate a local prince, and about the periods of war in the 1860s *what war, i don't know....there must have been!* a burmese invasion, and the quesitons were all short questions, but you didn't know how many marks they were! so we were supposed to scribble on and on and on.... and rolly allowed us to bring the paper home! so sneakily i checked the answers...before going back to school to have breakfast with 1b at ghim moh....and that's how the dream ended.
so surreal. yucks.
wonder if you all can beat that. haha.

Have you ever been so stoned before, your head's in a daze, chocolate has lost all its aroma and flavour, the pillow's inviting....intl' economy's so boring...music has no charm, there's absolutely no rhythm, you just want to rest in some Dvorak or some mellow crap. Woke up at 2'o'clock today and went back to sleep at 5--just that sorta hangover, and couldn't wake up for dinner. man. music beats irritate the 'ell out of me, and i think audioslave's vocalist has a really ugly voice, whereas the subtle mellow horns of the largo from dvorak's new world was so inviting, so peaceful. so spiritual.

Audioslave's 'Like a stone' was pilfering through my head today: ironic, tho it's not what the song intended, huh. never mind. stone is stone.

happy birthday jeremY!
it was pure exuberant energetic energy yesterday...prolly a sugar rush of coke and all. wonderful. couldn't sleep till about 5, stayed over at darren's, played war3, jammed a lil, talked....ahha how fun can your hols get? i'm gonna have real good memories man. just to bring some along with me. don't think so much...don't worry...but be happy...live for the good things in life! yeah!
ms lim...have a wonderful marriage yeah. haha. although no one really reads this.nice to see all the rj pple again, huh. but then again i din really miss them. haha.
=)
oh well, mebbe just a few ^_^