I have a new strategy to deal with being misunderstood.

First, I’m going to keep my mouth shut, then adopt a long-term approach to win people over with my actions as opposed to launching a quick-fire response with words.

I realized that explanation has finite effectiveness, and a primary reason is the fact that most people are pretty much intellectually lazy.

How about let’s talk about opinions. There’s a saying that people are quick to form first impressions. We all know it’s true. Most opinions are based on first impressions, and subsequently formed by linking empirical evidence from later observations together. Depending on how much critical thinking they do (as well as how discerning they are) people are generally stubborn and inclined to settle for quick resolutions; in which case, first impressions.

So where does the intellectual laziness come in, you may ask? Well, I believe that the lions’ share of misunderstandings are actually culminations of flawed first impressions. And why?

Because people got lazy to observe. They never deconstructed their miscalculated opinions. They stopped wondering whether their observations were fortuitous and/or skewed. They were ignorant, or worse, ignored the fact they were stubbornly looking out for supporting elements to bolster their inconclusive first impressions. All this, instead of tearing down the entire mental sketch and reforming their misinterpretations upon the first sign of inaccuracy.

With this notion in mind, why bother constructing a well-thought-out explanation for a person who has closed his door to intellectual discussion? One might argue that the inability to form logical and systematic opinions should not be construed as intellectual laziness – because after all, laziness does not equate inability. But they are the same! If a door is closed, whether because of impotence or by choice, it remains closed! Less reformation of choice, there is no difference of result.

Perhaps being deliberate, intellectually discoursing and measured will make one seem a little too complicated for most social interactions. Whittling it down to the finer details may be a little too obsessive for most. But as you have it, knowledge is power. With knowledge comes the confidence and propensity to act.

Oftentimes, an explanation isn’t the most appropriate medium to deal with misunderstandings. It seems the fastest way of clarification, but it doesn’t always work.

And when it doesn’t, shut up and observe. A little listening never hurt anybody. Slowly win them over with your actions, always subtle and never theatrical. This will pave the way to smoothing over misunderstandings and altering first impressions, yet always asserting your control.

Baby sneezes
Mommy pleases
Daddy breezes in
So good on paper
So romantic
But so bewildering

I know nothing stays the same
But if you’re willing to play the game
It’s coming around again
So don’t mind if I fall apart
there’s more room in a broken heart

You pay the grocer
Fix the toaster
Kiss the host Good-bye
Then you break a window
burn the Souffle
Scream the lullaby

I know nothing stays the same
But if you’re willing to play the game
It’s coming around again
So don’t mind if I fall apart
there’s more room in a broken heart

And I believe in love
But what else can I do
I’m so in love with you

hello, stupid and rescue?
can you send somebody please?
coz i cant wait another minute
as my sunlight slips away

hello, why cant you help me?
you have something that i need
it comes somewhere from deep inside you
you just have to find the key

time it has gone and time will tell
what everybody knows
little do we know how to find
to let this feeling grow
give it some time and we will see
what stupid does for me

or i will find another way

-

An Electrico gig once more, please?

And we’re driving just as fast as we can
And we’re racing to outrun the wind
It’s just me and you
And you and me so wild eyed
So young, bright eyed and free
And we’re in a movie
The highlight comes when you kiss me

The stereo sings our song
And we don’t hesitate to sing along

–

Happy birthday Dan & Gosu

I found this while scrolling through an old journal. It’s from a verse-linking exercise we did in JC as part of a William Blake study for H2 Lit. We were made to link verses from different Blake works together and add in our own adjectives… to form our own interpretations. So you could say I wrote this, with some help from Blake heh. I love it.

Love (Or Lack Thereof)
From the darkness dread and drear.. fed with cold and usurous hand?
They clothed me in the clothes of death.
Singing breaks the still night air.. hark! Can it be a song of joy?

There in rising day, oh, the dismal care, the weeping child could not be heard.
Love! Sweet love! Was thought a crime.
Now, free from winter’s cold, the mind-forged manacles I hear.
Tomb-stones where flowers should be, such usage in Heaven will never do well.
Ostentatious, we cry, what the hammer? What the chain?

When the stars threw down their spears, the angel came again, albeit in vain.
Life with love does not exist, love seeketh only self to please, and the sun does never shine-
that free love with bondage bound.

I miss doing this sort of critical thinking. In the years after Mom left I was always so fixated on growing up and working on my future. As a young journalist at 19 I was interviewing ministers, writing on government policy, trying to get a scholarship and basically involving myself in things way beyond my years. Now I wonder where those years went. Sure, I may have gotten ahead of my peers on some counts but sometimes I wish I lived for the moment.

There’s this guy in this new place I work at called the faculty team, where I teach navigation to command school cadets.

He’s a junior instructor just like I am. Basically we’re kids teaching kids. Something like OGLs haha.

Well the problem is that nobody likes him. Nobody. He behaves a little weird… like he talks funny. He asks weird questions out of the blue, his eyes and mouth twitch a lot, he stares people down for no reason at all, he’s a bit of a social misfit. Nobody talks to him or hangs out with him. The only reason they call his name is when they need him to do things, or just because they want to make fun of him.

You might wonder how this guy does this OGL stuff. Haha, I wonder.

So last week I was paired up with him for a navigation exercise (we work in threes). He asked me to do almost everything the night before we moved out – waterproof the maps, do the math, get our protractors done – and I did it without complaint.

Yeah okay, he was being a little lazy and overbearing. I’m guessing he does it to other people as well. And yeah, with all these characteristics who would like him right? So everybody talks bad about him. He makes a real easy conversation starter, and a good topic whenever you run out of things to say.

One day he came to me needing help. Cos no one was willing to help him return some navigation equipment (maps, compass, protractor… blah). I was really torn coz he was so mean to me before, but eventually I just stayed to help him out.

That night I thought about it and decided to ask God about it, since I’ve started doing my quiet time again :) Before I slept, I read a couple of bible verses about love and I felt this peace that I really did the right thing to help him, and to be nice to him. I guess that I already know the right thing to do, and now it’s just a matter of how much conviction I have to do the right thing even though it’s so much easier to follow the crowd.

Maybe in the long run people are going to see me as weird too, because I’ve made up my mind to be nice to him, maybe even be his friend. Perhaps I’ll be less popular. But I shouldn’t be afraid of doing the right thing.

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” – 1 John 4:18

&later I found out that he was a barker boy…

If you see me at midnight
Walking the streets
You’ll know it was me for I cannot sleep
I’ve pushed away the dreams
And spoiled the quiet
I’m propelled by fear
And not the righteous

So have you been to a place like this?
To see your breath as it paints against the sky
The fever is near
I wish you were here

I’m thinking ambitious
I’ve got this feeling things will be alright
So go break a leg, right
Been given the green light
So go entertain them
They’re waiting for you
They’re waiting for you

So have you been to a place like this?
To see your breath as it paints against the sky
Feeling so right when things went wrong
The fever is near
I wish you were here

If love failed, then it wasn’t love.

I had a plan for a photoblog. Something like this.

But I guess I don’t really take that many photos now… plus I don’t really have the time to overhaul this place.

So this place stays.

Keep me on your feeds/bookmarks!

xo

I’ve decided that since I haven’t been writing much, I could do something else with this.

I’m in the midst of getting everything together so watch this space!