Of Dreams and Attitudes

After a very recent conversation with a friend, I decided to compose my thoughts here. I don’t know if you’d drop by to read, but anyway.

I’m not comfortable with posting raw and honest thoughts. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve written five chunks of paragraph only to delete them with a few keys. I don’t like disclosing myself like this. It’s too weird. Random banter, yes. Private and personal thoughts, maybe not.

Okay. I just wrote that, and I’ve deleted ten paragraphs of things. I don’t think anyone has the patience to read through ten paragraphs of philosophical nonsense.

In summary, the conversation was about dreams and attitudes in and towards life.

For as long as I can remember, everyone around me advocates the idea of reaching for the stars so even if you don’t reach them, you’ll land among the clouds.

You know what? I think this idea is totally bullshit.

If you want to hit for the stars, hit the bloody stars. Don’t give yourself second-rate bullshit about landing on the clouds. It’s bullshit.

But don’t beat yourself up if you can’t reach for them. Make do with what you have, because the outcome of the game is unchangeable. And whether you’re gonna hit the stars or hit the sun, it’s up to you to go for it again or not.

A few things rule this world.

Reason. Logic. Emotion. Choice. Price. Consequence.

Reason and emotion almost go hand in hand. Emotion and reason says you want to save the world. Logic tells you in which way and how you intend to do so. You make the choice. You pay the price. You face the consequence.

Are there any exceptions? No.

Now… Do I have dreams? I used to. Do I want to have dreams? No. But do I want others to have dreams? Yes.

I no longer have a dream that is tangible and material. I have a dream. But I don’t want to talk about it. Not because I can’t achieve it. It’s a dream that’s going to last a lifetime, something that I’m living, something that’s very personal, subtle, unobvious, and pointless to explain.

My attitude? I don’t feel that responsible to my society. I don’t feel a need to repay it. After all, we’re all living in a world of trades. But am I selfish? No. I don’t see why I should fake altruism. Why should I talk about it.

I feel for the next person in pain, even if I don’t know him or her personally. I feel for the wronged, for victims of injustice. But so what. As long as I don’t act on my compassion, all I’m doing is just talking.

Gong nia.

It feels good just talking about things. But until one acts on it, that’s all it is—talk. And talk is cheap.

Which is the prime reason, I don’t feel like talking about my dreams and attitudes whatsoever. If you have the eye for it, you will see who I am beneath all this nonsense I’m talking.

I’ll only say this much, about things that pertain to me.

The rest of the post has almost nothing to do with dreams. But yesterday, said friend touched a nerve which resulted in the following thoughts ensuing.

Comparisons. Yeah. You know how this world is one large track of a rat race? Everything is compared. Your achievements are small. Your achievements are big. Your aim is too small. Your dream is big. This is bad. That is good. Etcetera. You are part of the majority. You are part of the minority. At least you did this. You should at least do that.

Comparisons are what we use in the objective world. If there were no society norms, we wouldn’t know how to make an entity function. We wouldn’t know how to get into schools, get into jobs, and get into, well, stuff.

But I dislike the notion that such comparisons in achievements are also used to gauge the value and worth of a person.

Recently. I had a conversation with someone, who was talking about how a taxi-driving father paid lots of money for his son’s education for medical stuff. Like y’know, become a doctor and all. His aunt was the guarantor of a loan or what. But something happened, and the son was convicted of a crime he didn’t really commit, but his future was destroyed. Despaired, he killed himself or what.

Said someone’s conclusion was, who is going to repay the father and the aunt now? A son with such a bright future, gone because of a retarded blunder (which I don’t really understand the details).

…In other words, if that son was someone else, maybe me, it’s of less consequence, right? I mean, I’m just a data entry temporary staff in the middle of nowhere.

Said someone also said that at least Michael Jackson became the King of Pop and touched the lives of many before he died at the so-called prime of his career.

So, I asked. If that MJ never became the King of Pop, but had the same compassion, still donated lots of money, still cared for people all the same, would he be of less? Can you imagine? Said someone said yes.

I’m appalled to hear such things. But it’s happening everywhere.

Who the fuck are we to judge the people who work behind the scenes? Who the hell are we to decide whether other people are worth more or less, based on the size of their mouths?

I’m not naïve to believe that people are free from judgments from people, who believe in the objective world, that which makes the whole world. The objective world is the guide that we follow, because it is impossible in a lifetime to get into the psyche of others and understand them completely. Hell, most of us don’t even understand ourselves, let alone others.

…But is this right? Is it right to judge the beliefs, the values and the principles of others, based on the objective world?

I’d say no. Much of the objective world doesn’t even make sense. Much of the objective world is something that everyone perpetrates, even though a good half of us already question the validity of the objective world.

Do you know what’s sad? What’s sad is, opinions, values, etc, are passed around, and accepted without question.

Now, a sidetrack about how perpetrating the views of objective world makes the world go backward.

Here’s a random personal experience. I do not know the chances of her stumbling upon this blog, but this is a fact. For a month, I worked in a company that had a setting befitting of a Hongkong drama centering on office politics—the man who ostracises, backstabs and plots to get his position, the woman who is that man’s sidekick, the boss who backstabs everyone to test their loyalty, a bunch of clueless puppets who go by the game and teeter on the edge of evil and good, the plot device who sticks around to reveal the ugly side of whom you thought was an ally, and that ally who turned foe in the end.

Sounds cool right? Hell, I can’t deny, although it was downright stressful I couldn’t sleep for most nights, that memory deserves a fanfiction on my part. It’s damn funny when I think about it.

So let’s talk about the ally who turned foe. She was the only person I trusted in the whole company. But then, things went sour. Why.

She was a strong believer of the objective world. She constantly tried to teach me what the objective world should be like. Wow. I totally had no idea things were this unnecessarily complicated in the ‘real world’ as we are all taught to know. It’s bureaucratic to say the least, and a complete waste of time. And not to mention, totally unquestioned and ridiculous.

But whatever it was, we were quite close, because the backstabbing man and his sidekick were trying really hard to kick us out of the company and paint us in a bad light. I don’t know why they bothered, but who cares.

So, anyway, she was the HR Executive, before she eventually took up managerial position. (But in that company, position does not equate to ability, so it doesn’t matter that the backstabbing man became the General Manager and that sidekick became the Sales Marketing Manager.)

I remember one particular day, that we discussed what we had to do with the so-called General Manager. Now kids, this is taboo. Don’t ever do the same thing as me. What I did was to suggest to that HR friend to fire the GM and hire someone else far more competent. Why did I say that. First, he formed his little clique. Then, those out of his cliques, he ostracized them, and later chided them for not getting enough sales. He didn’t even care to teach them, and he expected them to get sales. He stirred a lot of resentment amongst the salesmen, in turn causing a higher turnover rate. Now might I ask. If he doesn’t resign, who takes matters into hand? Of course the HR manager.

I was sorely disappointed when she gave me a shocked look and told me how she couldn’t do it, because she would have to craft a lengthy and convincing report as to her decision. Erh. I think the sales volume said a lot… You don’t need a lengthy report to show his incompetence. Plus, I think if you gathered the testimony of the sales team, that General Manager would be gone in a second. At the end of it, I think she was just scared.

She asked me how I could say such a thing. Why not. In school, we made assessments of a lousy teacher and mercilessly kicked him out via surveys. You’re telling me these individual students play no part in kicking him out? Plus, you agreed that he was the problem and you asked me for a suggestion. From a professional point of view, it was the best course of action. Even if I did dislike that man personally, I would not fire him if he were doing a good job, seriously. Power shouldn’t be abused like that.

But anyway, some time passed, and there was some drama I can’t remember what. It resulted in the boss asking me what the hell I wanted to do in the company. My very first role was a salesman, but as you can tell, I don’t have much talent for selling. So I moved to sales coordinator. I said the bluntest thing in the world and smacked the backstabbing man and his sidekick in the face by saying, “But there are no sales, so what the heck do I coordinate?” I swear, they were so embarrassed the boss had to say something in their defence. Then, because the HR manager wasn’t going to fire the General Manager, I decided that I had to help the salesmen out by listening to their problems, and consolidating the minutes in meetings for them and stuff. (Which funnily, the HR manager wasn’t doing much of.)

So, being the smart ass that I was, I told the boss that I didn’t know what the job I wanted was called, but I wanted to help the salesmen by…yeah, listening to their problems etc.

I didn’t know what happened then, but from then on, the HR manager stopped being close to me, and she started treating me with hostility.

That hostility ended when she found out that I was resigning. It was strange. She joined on the same date as me, and our last effective day of work was only one day apart.

What happened was, she thought I wanted to snatch her job. She viewed me as a threat. And she later backstabbed me to the boss, telling him how I wanted to get rid of the General Manager. And oddly, she became more cooperative to the GM and his sidekick. But what changed? Nothing. The company was still dying.

With a boss that played double games on his workers and incompetent leaders left to run the company, I eventually resigned. I didn’t care about what the ‘good stuff’ that boss wanted to give me (he promised, but then, he’s a habitual liar) was. I have a good guess… That HR manager was intending to switch to some other job, which I don’t know what it’s called, so she wasn’t staying there long anyway. My guess is I was eventually going to be made HR erh, executive.

Have you heard of adults telling you this bullshit? That the real world is harsh and cruel. It’s a dog eat dog world. You must fend yourself off backstabs, and you must guard yourself. You must be self-oriented if you want to survive. You must be hard-hearted if you want to survive.

Bullshit. Total nonsense. Perpetrate that belief some more and you get that Hongkong drama in the above. You’d think that the HR manager would be happy to have an executive under her to help her with her work but no—she thought I was trying to steal her plastic rice bowl. (In that place, there’s nothing like iron)

Talk to me. I wouldn’t dream of snatching things from others. I’d gladly give it up if it clears my conscience and keeps the peace. Hell, I don’t have a reason to help that company at all. I only felt that the salesmen deserved more for all their dedication. It was a lot of fun listening to them share their sales experience and celebrating that one sale they finally made in a long time

And now, coming back to the subject of success in the eyes of the objective world.

It is completely understandable to make comparisons. We feel the impact of different people’s successes. To me, to this date, nobody rivals up to Lee Kwan Yew’s contributions to our country. (Please don’t hack me with parangs for being honest here. ><)

But does this make the rest of the contributors any less? No. They do what they can.

The man with an annual income of one million versus the man with barely 20k a year. Is the latter of any less worth than the former? That would be subjective. But the objective world would agree without question that the former is worth more.

Now.

Why isn’t there more glory to contented living? Why must we all make it big? Why do it in the name of the pursuit of happiness?

Why?

I have examples of achievers who dream it big. But a lot of them are unhappy people. No. I am not a believer of ‘rich but sad’ and ‘poor but happy’ nonsense. What I’m saying is. Their achievements are compensations for how small and low they feel in this world. They fight for recognition. Their life is a war. But when they get there, are they in the right frame of mind to enjoy their hard work? No. They don’t even realise it.

Where’s the happiness in that equation?

Some people love a good challenge. The more obstacles, the more they overcome, the sweeter the reward. It makes perfect sense. They dream it big. They have the confidence. They’ll get there. They deserve it.

But why should everyone else be the same? Why can’t people stay small? I’m not talking about small people who aren’t even contented and are constantly complaining. I’m talking about small people who are contented, who seek to find happiness in small things, who gather the small happiness and who spread it to everyone else in their surroundings. I’m talking about the people who make everyday living a more wonderful thing to be.

It doesn’t have to be a huge gesture or anything. It could just be a simple smile while you invite someone else to walk before you.

Just for example’s sake. Have you heard or read about the Japanese man who broadcast his suicide live on video? He made clear his intentions to die on forum posts.

Who would you be? The one who can’t stand his ‘whining’ and challenge him to ‘please just die’, or the one who hears his desperate calls for help and encourages him to live?

Is it a small thing? I don’t know. It’s only a matter of positive or negative attitude, and it carves out who you are.

In sizing other people, you put yourself in a position to judge others. But are these things necessarily subject to judgment? Why should you judge the size of a person’s dream and call it good enough or bad, when you don’t even know a fraction of his or her life story?

We’ve all been taught to estimate, to compare, to judge… It’s inevitable. But don’t take it for granted. We’re denying the right to be individual, the eye to see everyone as who they really are, when we embrace something so superficial.

That’s all I have to say. I hope it was meaningful to you.