籬笆外的古道我牽著妳走過

so that's all of it. PDC, award ceremony and even chalet. all over. the dynamics of making friends knowing that in just mere weeks you will be forced into seperate directions is weird. no other better word for it.

just to get somethings out of the way. we were all slobs. seriously. i've never seen a place as messy. and girls ARE messier than guys. i literally lost my wallet amidst the chaos of the upstairs girls' room after leaving there during mahjong, and it took 2 people to actually see it among the debris. the guys' room, on the other hand, was relatively orderly despite the larger number of bags.

cycling for long periods of time obviously leaves a greater impact on guys than girls. though pasir ris park is a much more enjoyable route than east coast.

i cannot swim at all without googles. i have no idea how i survived that lap at BMT, googleless and ill.

it is not a good idea to jump on another person on a bed. the bed sometimes breaks. however, musking tape, in the absence of the much celebrated black tape, can work wonders of carpentry.

alcohol dulls your senses, and leaves you helpless. as such, excessive amounts of it is rather harmful. but seeing that i'm going to a state with a legal drinking age of 21, it might be a little more of a non-issue.

and with that randomness out of the way, something a little more serious perhaps. on tuesday night, i somehow managed to articulate the root cause behind all the random nonsense i feel all the time. emptiness, simple as that. i don't know how many of you have ever thought about this (actually, i supposed quite a lot of people do) but it is rather intimidating when one begins to think about why we exist. the fundemental question that really sits at the source of all of man's troubles. this gap that will forever stain our ever increasing understanding of the world around us.

i started thinking about that question perhaps too long ago. i remember when i was younger and much less capable of comprehending the complexities of things. i would, in the very quiet and lonely moments, suddenly be struck by the idea that i really shouldn't be here at all, that is, that i really shouldn't be alive. i was born, but what about before that? and what about after? this was around the time where i just began to be exposed to buddhism and its teachings, when reincarnation was a new concept, one i absolutely could not grasp. so i would just be stuck thinking about it, with the very limited thought process i had as a 11 year old, unable to sleep and wanting to scream out in fear.

and i think fundementally, the question never really left me. the insignificance of humankind in the grand scheme of things simply points towards an existence that is at best negligible and at worst pointless. who would miss us if the entire planet was to suddenly disappear? would there be anything left to miss us? and while we're at that, how did we come to be?

i think i finally figured out why so many extremely intelligent people turn to religion for solace. it's because religion attempts to answer these questions, and provides perhaps a substitute for the answer that can really fill the gap. i say substitute because religion is NOT the answer. it comes very close, and if you try to make it so, is a pretty good fit. but it isn't the answer. the answer is obviously beyond comprehension, much like how a 2 dimensional being would never be able to comprehend what a cube is. science will not provide the answer, and mysticism can only try to provide speculation. existentialist angst. i think that's the expression. such a painful affliction.

and so every once in a while, when things become quiet and things feel somewhat out of sorts, i'm hit with this awful emptiness that extends to my entire being. a kind of loneliness you know cannot be fought off. a kind of sadness that no amount of laughter can take away. how very very unfortunate.