Hello,
Coming into the third week of our time together, I’d like to say my gemini soul is ecstatic at the fact that I’ve been able to follow through with this microproject of mine and that you’ve had the patience and curiousity to watch this space unfold.
While it’s certainly not time to celebrate yet, please know that you are at the lifeline of my artistic survival. My favourite time with you is when we lay in bed and slide into each other’s DMs talking about the things that keep us together. There is a strange duality to what we talk about. The feelings we utter are personal and unique to ourselves, yet as a common collective you and I have found refuge in the expression of those individual feelings.
My hope is that I can create the space for you to ponder on the things that keep you up at night, and the things that slip into the sleeves of your soul when you’re caught off guard. For me, there’s nothing more sad than not being able to echo the nuances of what is abstruse in my day to day life. The cyclic nature of hopes and dreams shattering is analogous to life on the monotonous wavelength.
I’d like for us to collectively observe the chaos and absurdity in our own lives, but perhaps through conversation we can realign the perception of what is absurd into something joyously whimsical.
On to this week’s bucket of thoughts and feelings!
Last weekend I had the most rejuvenating time in Singapore for a quick visa run. A brief escape from the (now golden) rice fields has proven to assist in realigning my beliefs about myself as well as encouraging me to think beyond my routinely unkind bubble.
As the excitement of urban dwellings and artistic exploits wear off, I am back home standing before my mirror when my subconscious confronts me - What if I’m the kind of person that messes up their early 20s and end up with a monotonous dialogue with nothing to present of themselves in their 30s?
I feel like accidentally walking into myself naked. It’s an inconvenient thought to hold while you’re trying to dry your hair and put on face cream. Nonetheless I try my best to entertain it, knowing my stream of consciousness has limited access to my rational beliefs so I know better than to put myself into crisis again.
This time I knead the thoughts of that failed 30 something into a ball. I zoom out from that hypothetical person I’m trying to become in between 9-5s, hold it in my palm, feel the weight of the unneccesary suffering I put onto myself, then toss it into a paper bin of my closest convenience.
With the enthusiasm and optimism that I carried home, I decided I’m willing to make peace with the ocassional crisis à la invasion of shitty thoughts. The plasticity of my 20s allows me to be experimental, and it allows me to be forgiving. I want to believe firmly in my bones that the fluctuations of my 20s will strengthen the foundation of who I want to be in my 30s.
To live in our 20s is to be divinely aware of the fanciness and grittiness in every aspect of our lives. It is a major disservice to not taste life at the tip of both ends when we still a massive appetite for it. We get to observe its duality, then tip toe and experiment between the deep ends then later decide how much injustice we can tolerate in our lives. By that I mean our lives in the 30s.
I can offer an observation in the mutations of my taste for the fancy side of life: I’m simply less happy to suffer than before. By that I mean to pick a 3 (more like 4) star hotel over a hostel, or to take a cab over a 8 minute wait for the next bus. Admittedly, luxury is delicious when granted in small doses.
This observation offers some insight into how little I’ve been willing to settle with. While a fancy hotel stay is tipping close to the fancy side, somehow it opened up my mind about what I’m accustomed to receiving on the grittier side of life. Funny how a physical luxury has prompted me to think about whether I’ve been just as kind to myself in the mental and soulful realm.
If you’re also pondering about your age, please reply to this email and tell me about what bothers you in your current life and what it has to do with the upcoming ages in your life. Then tell me what your alter ego is doing in your wildest dreams to make your 30s great again.
A final anectode:
Ever wondered how much you love a particular person? A simple litmus test:
Imagine your loved one as a pet dog, then see if you could offer them the same lovingkindness as you would your real dog.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯