A Man Goes on a Journey - Through His Cluttered Mind

This is strange: I'm supposed to be really busy this period, but I've actually found time to blog more.

Earlier this year, it felt like a good week when I managed to write something, anything, at all. Then when it took two weeks, I didn't feel bad either, because I was genuinely tied up and I actually gave more thought to what I wrote.

This time around though, I'm not thinking that much anymore: I just wrote what I felt and whenever I felt like it. Reading some of that output though hasn't been satisfying: I think I thought I have been thinking less. In fact, I think I've been plagiarising a whole lot more.

And that's what I think I want to talk about: My Plagiarism.

Most written work are derivative in nature: they originated out of one source or another. For example, you will find that most themes have their roots in the Bible, whether intentional or not. Brother kills brother? Read Genesis for the story of Caine and Abel. Small guy beats the odds and thrashes big guy? David and Goliath. There is little in terms of thematic structure or plot that hasn't been written about before.

As an aside, I once wrote sometime back about how it was viewed that all stories take one of two forms. To reiterate, the two forms are: "A man goes on a journey" and "A stranger rides into town". It is too much of a stretch of generalisation to apply such a cookie cutter approach to stories. Using the idea of themes instead of plotlines (which is what man-journey and stranger-town fall into) should be the better way to go.

So why am I coming to this topic then? See, I'm beginning to see that this blog lacks a solid thematic structure: it is trying to be everything and nothing at the same time. I thought giving it the name of greyscalefuzz (used to use that nick in IRC chats I think) was appropriate: generally, it was kind of grey and fuzzy what I thought I wanted to blog about.

The theme? To call it a log of my personal thoughts and happenings seem to fall short in describing it. It's not really about my personal thoughts: it is sometimes about the thoughts of others, and my interpretation of something else I've read or heard or seen. It's rarely my idea or my thought - hence the derivation-driven quality of it.

And it certainly doesn't record much of what's happening (though, of late, I seem to be dumping some of the frustration I've felt at school). I don't meticulously bore people or myself with what's happening in my life. If you really want to know, I woke up this morning, feeling hungover without having drunk anything, brushed my teeth, spent my morning with Ron walking through the flea market, etc etc. Oh yes, come to think of it, if I wrote about Ron's life though, it DEFINITELY will be an interesting blog, but alas, I can't live his life (as he so succintly reminds me everytime, I haven't quite sufficiently screwed myself up enough).

So... the theme again? How about calling it a photoblog? Somehow that doesn't work either. I don't take photos often enough. And I only really start snapping when I'm on little trips overseas, either by myself or with others, but I tended to be more prolific whenever I went on trips by myself. I like some of the photos I've taken, but silly Shutterstock kept rejecting my batch submissions. See, you have to send in 10 photos, and have at least 7 of acceptable quality. Everytime I submitted (twice), only 6 passed their selection criteria. There were even photos which passed through the first time, but not the second (and here I wonder why). So alas, my photos aren't quite stock-photo quality, and I can't call this a photoblog much (not enough photos, no camwhore here I'm afraid).

Food blog? Forget about it. I'm the last thing to being a foodie: I just eat what's on the table. There are four words in my food vocabulary and they are Sour, Sweet, Bitter and Spicy. For one thing, I think Ms X has given up on educating me about the intricacies of French food and the fine dining experience. Food in front of me, I eat. Only care that it is something I've eaten before and it doesn't smell too strongly of garlic. Menu in French? Ok, point here, give me that (of course it helps when I can recognise words like Oeuf, Pomme de Terre, Poisson etc). Oh, okay French-idiots, it's Egg, Potato and Fish respectively.

How about theming this a blog expounding on political ideals and ambitions? Denounce Lee Kwan Yew! Singapore's an autocratic country! Enlightened Despot! Benign Dictatorship! The PAP sucks and all that crap!

Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Ha.

I'm just not interested I suppose. I think its fine and all to discuss politics, especially in the arena of the blogging world, given the freedom of expression. But I sometimes don't really care: this little island will take its time to change, and no blogger or other person for that fact can complain enough, write childish Today articles enough, denounce the government from unheard-of American universities enough, hold ineffective demonstrations enough, and a whole lot of other enoughs to accelerate the pace of change in Singapore. It just takes time, and you can already see that it will get there. So patience: the course of politics is not for you or me to alter.

Ah, I digress again. Ok, let's call this the 'Ah, But I Digress...' blog. Shit, doesn't that make a cool name for a blog? Oh, and speaking of names, have I told you about how I came to call this blog 'Greyscalefuzz'? I've not? Must have been busy, and sure as hell, this week was really loaded: I had to send another ton of applications, sift through my dings, go to Markstrat classes...

Yup. I can definitely do that with my blog: Digress. But that's as good as saying that I cannot focus on this blog, and to no small extent, that is very true. I don't focus.

And I think that's why I have friends who read this: they find something they like somehow.

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Focus. I once dated someone who wrote a little poem to the Straits Times about concentrating and focusing. The thing is, we didn't go out for very long: in fact, it was more like 2-3 dates and then I never saw her again. Some things just didn't feel right about it, and I was distracted with things at my university at that time.

So it was with some surprise when I read the little poem in the Straits Times and I remembered her. I didn't try to get in touch, nor made any attempt to find out how to.

I think there are people in life that you just lose touch with, and when given the chance to, you don't quite bother to make the effort to catch up. For, after all, what can you say that is going to make any difference in what you did? (okay, so I didn't call, but here I am now!)

There were times when I passed an old NS friend or other on the street and the face became instantly recognisable. But I never did initiate any form of contact: I always recall the bad things about any relationship where I don't stay in touch, and my NS days weren't exactly the glorious fantasy that is Army Daze (for one thing, I was in the Navy).

So what of it? Lose touch forever? Rather that than an awkward smile and nervous laughter: I always laughed too loudly - it's very unlike myself.

Lose touch forever.