Tuesday, 25 October 2016

Writing for 10/25

Date : 10/25

Time starting : 5.27 p.m

Idea I am pursuing : Money and how we spend them

Time ending :  5.42 p.m

Even though they say money is not the most important thing in anyone's life, I believe it still holds a deep influence toward our lives in general despite anything else. Having no money at all is certainly a troubling prospect for anyone. Ironically, having too much money does not necessarily mean that a rich individual will be freed from all of his troubles. In fact, he might have more trouble with that much money but that is just a wild guess and a baseless assumption. We will never know until we personally ask someone that is in that particular position and still, there is no way we will be able to know hoe much truth there is in his words.

What I am going to write about today in particular is regarding how we use our money, the results of our hard-earned efforts in order to make a living which might not be the case for yet-to-be-workers such as myself who is still leeching off my parents. But, it is still pretty obvious that the things we spend our money on might be viewed as a waste of hard-earned cash by some parties and that will never change. I mean, we all have that desire where we really want a certain something where we are able to go to extreme lengths by cutting down the money used for basic necessities just to save money to get that very thing we wanted. We, humans are often weak to our desire and we can never hope to sate these desires unless we fulfill them.

If I am to have a position in this matter, I will say that it is wise to spend money on the thing you really wanted because that is what you hoped for. As long as this thing you are dying to have is not the same thing that will end up unused after just a week, then it is fine to get it. I am also one of those individuals that like to spend my allowances on having a good, fulfilling meal. I am quite the picky eater myself and I can spend quite the sum of money in order to eat out at least a few times a week. My mother always say this to me since she started giving me allowance ; "When it come to food, never be stingy with your money." From her perspective, she would not be mad whenever I spent like 50$ for a meal but if I spent 10$ for games (which she considered as "useless" stuff), then I am in for some nagging and lectures. In my opinion, the money we earned is rightfully ours (despite I am not in the right position to say so) and how we spend them is up for us to decide. We should not let other people dictate how we spend our money since that is our personal rights.

Monday, 24 October 2016

Writing for 10/24

Date : 10/24

Time starting : 9.45 p.m

Idea I am pursuing : Thoughts about online game (Dota 2)

Time ending :  10.00 p.m

Defense of the Ancients 2 or more popularly known as Dota 2 is probably one of my most played online game ever. My real-time statistics on the game shows that I had spent more than 4000+ hours in it and still have not gotten bored of it. So, what is this game about?. It is a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game which consist of 2 teams with 5 players in each team respectively. These 10 players will then proceed to pick the characters that they wanted to use in the current game. There are over 100 unique characters to be chosen, each with their own special traits, strengths and weaknesses. The objective of this game is to destroy the opponent "ancient" which lies deep in the heart of each team base, hence the title "Defense of the Ancients".

Some of the characters in the game are derived from ancient myths such as the Father of all Gods, Zeus as well as the infamous Gorgon, Medusa. It is really the same map that I played over and over again but truth be spoken, it never gets boring. Well, sometimes I do get bored and will leave the game untouched for few days before somehow magically started playing it back again. In the game, the most important thing is communications between the teammates. It is perhaps not exaggerating to say that cooperation is the most critical aspect to secure a victory. While outstanding personal skill might help the team to a degree, a synchronized, well-organized team always triumph over any individual star. There is this one saying in the game that I really liked which sounds as follow, "You already have 5 enemies that you are facing. Be careful not to make more". A constant bickering between teammates are an early sign of the inevitable lose.

However, the most appealing thing about this game is when it is played with friends. I admit sometimes it might get too "hot" since the game itself is pretty competitive in nature. We can spend the whole game blaming each other if everything goes wrong and yet tomorrow we will still play together like nothing happened. If anything, it makes the bonds between me and my friends deeper through just a simple game. Occasionally, we will enjoy having simply a fun game where we are able to laugh heartily despite losing the game. It is also a fun place to vent some stress and frustration where you can just throw out all the anger by whipping your opponents to oblivion. Therefore, despite my overwhelming amount of time spent playing this game, there is still more for me to learn and I doubt I will stop playing it anytime soon.

Sunday, 23 October 2016

Writing for 10/23

Date : 10/23

Time starting : 6.52 p.m

Idea I am pursuing : Getting through everyday life

Time ending :  7.08 p.m

There is no end toward the hardships and difficulties we faced as we go through our everyday lives. Yet, despite all these trials and tribulations, we managed to prevail to see another day and face the same challenges over and over again. I believe this phenomenon is due to the fact that each of us has our own way of coping with these everyday "trials". As they say, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Regardless of the method used, it is unarguable that this is probably the only way of being able to stand against life adversities. There must be a reason or a source of motivation to propel ourselves forward despite knowing the obstructions that will stand in our way. Hence, we are all champions for managing to emerge victorious against the overwhelming attempts of life torments to shut down our advance.

For some people, they may only be able to endure the hardships simply because they are doing it for the sake of something or someone. Believing that they will amount of nothing if they can not achieve what they are expected to, these sort of individuals will work their hardest in order to surpass the expectations that had been set on them. Meanwhile, there are also individuals that simply enjoy their life regardless of anything bad that happened. To find joy in hardships is a really hard thing to accomplish and not many can manage to cope with life troubles this way. To be able to gain mastery over this is to be able to embrace the saying "Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it is about learning to dance in the rain,".

I, personally belong on the kind of people that manage to withstand life difficulties simply by having something that I am looking forward to. I remembered back when I was barely 13 years old and I was sent to a boarding school, far away from home. I was bawling my eyes out the first few week, unable to withstand the homesickness as well as living in a completely foreign place. However, my parents promised that they will visit me on every weekends (selfish on my part since the journey takes 7 hours back and forth but back then, I am just a snotty kid who knows no better) and this make me able to somehow cope with the sadness until I finally able to get all my stuff together.

Now, whenever I am faced with troubles or dilemmas, I will always remember to look forward to the time on the weekend after I had settled everything that is troubling me. If that is not enough, then I will simply remember the reason I am standing here right now and the individuals that had put their hope and faith in me. For this reason alone, it provides me a strong motivation to keep moving forward despite anything and I am not about to let these people down simply because some life hardships got the best of me.

Saturday, 22 October 2016

Writing for 10/22

Date : 10/22

Time starting : 7.18 p.m

Idea I am pursuing : The luckiness of living a normal life.

Time ending :  7.33 p.m

We, members of the modern society, or specifically, I, myself has or have always been taking what we considered as a normal life for granted. There is an old saying that goes as follow : "To be grateful in life, never looked toward the people above you but instead glance at the people living below you. Only then will you realize how lucky you had been". It is in human nature to comprehend only the shining part in everything they see without seeing the hardships nor efforts that had been sacrificed in order to obtain that shine which everyone envies. Often enough, we become envious or jealous toward those who have more than we have but fail see how there are also some people that wished to be living in our shoes, a much more better way of living than they are in at the moment.

Quoting from an all-time renowned footballer, Zinedine Zidane, "I once cried because I had no shoes to play football with my friends, but one day I saw a man who had no feet, and realized how rich I am". Even what we considered to be living normally might have been a life full of luxury toward those who are not as fortunate as we are. It is the same concept as of when we really wanted something new that we never have before, we often goes "Wow, that thing is really a piece of art. I really wanted it, it looks so beautiful!.". However, after we have that thing we yearned for, soon enough we will start tossing it around and be like, "Oh hey, this thing is nothing special to be honest." and before long, we will start to find a new thing to crave upon.

Perhaps it is true on how we will never realize how lucky we are until the moment we lost everything. Taking things for granted is in human nature, sometimes we can never help feeling that way too which I, myself, admit guilty of. That is why we should never be too greedy and whatever happens, always be humble and respectful of others. We never know if we will lose what we already have in pursuit of a much greater life. In fact, we will never know if we will still be living normally by next month or next week or even, when tomorrow dawns. Hence, to be able to live a decent, normal life is probably the luckiest thing anyone can ask for but not many will be grateful nor thankful for such a gift.

Friday, 21 October 2016

Writing for 10/21

Date : 10/21

Time starting : 7.39 p.m

Idea I am pursuing : Weekends and Stress

Time ending :  7.54 p.m

After a tough week, we all deserve that 2 days off in every weekend. The same thing apply to most of us regardless of who we are. They say, "All work without play makes Jack go dull,". Venting out our pressure and built up stress over the week is a pretty important part in anyone's life. How we let out all this stress, however, differs from each person. Some may just simply spend the whole day off sleeping, believing that nap time during the weekdays are really scarce if any. Some might just want to go out to somewhere that they liked to be while there are also that prefers to be hanging out with friends over the weekend.

Even if there are a slight or major difference in everyone's way of spending their leisure times, nevertheless, it is usually geared toward one purpose ; forgetting all the worries and pressures until the next Monday comes. Those 2 days on the weekend is a blissful rest time that everyone should take advantage of. It is kind of ironic when a person keeps complaining that he or she can not sleep at all during weekdays but still end up sleeping really, really late on their days off. Even though some people might have their own personal circumstances, I believe if given a choice, it is much more appropriate to rest during the weekend instead of toughing it out by working overtime or doing laborious work on what is supposed to be a rest day.

Give your bodies their well-deserved rest, they earned it even if you, yourself did not think so. Overworking is never a good thing. It simply puts so much unnecessary burden on both the mind and body. However, this also meant that weekdays are not the time where you must be slacking off. If you are not working hard on the days you are supposed to, then your rest days will need to wait. Simply putting measly efforts on the job done is often the reason why someone will need to work that extra length on their days off since they need to make up for the lost time on weekdays. With proper time and work management, anyone can obtain their long-awaited weekend without the need to worry about all the stress and pressure piling up all over the week.

Thursday, 20 October 2016

Writing for 10/20 (Marked to be Read #1)

Date : 10/20

Time starting : 2.54 p.m

Idea I am pursuing : Random talk about life

Time ending :  3.10 p.m

Life. What does it mean to be living?. A sage once said, "Fear not your death, but fear the fact that you might had actually not lived in the first place,". I believe everyone that are living on this world must have had that one moment in our lives where we pondered, "What is the reason I am living right now?. Why do I exist?. What is my raison d'etre?. Am I doing the right thing?". I, myself had experienced this sort of thinking several times. I believe life itself is a very subjective topic.  Despite everyone living their lives, most of us never had the same view on what we considered to be truly living.

If asked a person on how he or she define to be "truly living", some might answer "To reach the pinnacle of success is to be truly alive. When I made my mark from which people will remember me after I died is what it meant to be living." Meanwhile, some other individual might say, "To be rich where I need not worry about life expenses is what it meant to be living. As long as I am still struggling with financial issues, that mean I am not even close to be living. My life is still shackled by money and I can not truly be free until I become a millionaire". However, generally people will just go, "To be truly alive is to be living in the moment. As long as I get a decent job, manage to find my rightful fated soulmate, be the parents of respectable kids, managing to pay my life debts toward my parents, I am more than satisfied in my life ."

These substantial differences in ambitions toward their lives nevertheless proved how the definition of truly living is subjected toward individual perspective. The hardest part in anyone's life is to be forced living another person's life just to surpass or exceed a certain party expectations. That is probably the worst form of torture despite the wounds not being seen physically. Becoming someone that is not ourselves meant denying our very own existences. There are times when we need to put up a facade, true, especially when involved in a life-turning events such as job interview, meeting potential clients and so on. However, there are times where we will hang out with our best of friends or even in our family where we will be able to discard all this tedious facade and simply be ourselves. Hence, for someone that needs to be wearing another person's mask for the rest of their lives without the chance to be themselves are probably the saddest thing imaginable.

Wednesday, 19 October 2016

Writing for 10/19

Date : 10/19

Time starting : 4.03 p.m

Idea I am pursuing : Synopsis about a movie I loved and watched recently

Time ending :  4.19 p.m


It is kind of ironic actually how this movie that I loved is actually recommended by a close friend of mine. Before that, I do not even know the movie title or the fact that it even existed in the first place. This movie is titled "Kimi no na Wa" or in English, "Your Name,". The story itself is pretty fascinating to the point that I watched it over and over again.  The movie itself last roughly around 2 hours and it was an animated movie not a live-action one. The plot of the movie revolves around 2 main characters, Taki as well as Mitsuha and how they meet each other in a very mysterious fashion. At some points in their lives, whenever they wake up in the morning, they will find themselves being in the other person body without knowing each other. At first, they thought it is simply a dream and pay the problem no heed. '

The story intensifies by changing how Taki acting in Mitsuha body and the opposite affect the people around them. Mitsuha, being insulted by some of her peers due to her "classic-fashioned" way of upbringing by her grandmother after her mother passed away. Taki, in her body, made it obvious that she (or he, in this case) does not like being jeered at and scared away the students responsible for the insults. On Taki side, Mitsuha helped him gets closer toward his crush at his workplace, Miki by  appealing to Miki through her feminine charms.  Both of them did this out of their own will without knowing they are indirectly living the other person's routine, thinking it is nothing more than a dream.

As the story-line progresses further, they both realized that it is not a dream and at this point, Taki tried searching for Mitsuha. At this part of the story, Taki realized that Mitsuha lived in a district that had been ravaged by a huge meteorite falling at the area from 2 years ago. He realized that they are not living at the same time line and the Mitsuha he is switching places with had long passed during the meteorite incident. Not giving up, Taki somehow managed to switch place with Mitsuha again and warned the district residents, saving the life of many before the impending disaster. After 2 years, they were reunited in the same time line. I oversimplified the story and it might not sound as good from my synopsis but it is different when seen by your own eyes.