The Music Has Left Me...

I'm back. For a while maybe? I don't know. A lot has happened. Life changing type of stuff. Career, love, family ... all of it. Lots has happened. So much that I can't even bring myself to articulate the whole *ordeal right now.

Perhaps I'll leave that book length of a post for another day.

For right now, lets just say what the subject suggests. The music has left me. My guitar lays in my room gathering dust - every once in a while, I pick it up and sing to myself songs that I jam all the time: U2's "Running To Stand Still", Hootie's "Let her Cry", Sheryl Crow's "Strong Enough", Live's "Dolphin's Cry", Muse's "Time Is Running Out" and sometimes I try to play some of my old songs. But it feels contrived. Like I'm trying to push for something that's not there anymore.

Has the music left me? The strength and satisfaction I used to derive from putting pen to paper and belting tunes (covers or my own) just doesn't seem to be there anymore.

And that's a sad thing.

A Train Running Through My Mind.

What happens with you when you have a deluge of thoughts / concerns running through your mind? I guess what ensues are all the standard symptoms:

1. Can't sleep.
2. Disconcerted feeling in your head like a headache that just won't go away.
3. Become boring / uninteresting / moody company
4. So on and so forth.

Sometimes I look at the peers who are contented being where they are, happily ignorant of opportunities surrounding them and utterly at ease with who they are and how they will be. To put it a little crudely, they are like the Cave Men in Plato's Cave. All they see are their shadows on the wall and that is their only truth. When one of them figures out that all his life, he has actually only been seeing the shadows, would that make him happier than the guy who doesn't?

A more recent example would be The Matrix's RED PILL or BLUE PILL. 

Sometimes I really wish I was more of the Blue Pill guy. The guy who's happy just looking at the shadows. But alas, I'm not. It's like I'm doomed to walk down the 'realer' road all the time. Thus subjecting myself to all the 'real' pain involved.

Oh well. I'm just waffling. I been doing that a lot these days.

I'm out.

"They just don't understand me..."

I'll make this short.

You know  how people always say, "My Family just doesn't understand me." 
The way I figured it, that statement should be, 
"My Family just doesn't understand me the way I want to be understood."

My stance has always been this: your family will always know you in a way you will never begin to comprehend till the day you have a family of your own. Even then, some people just never figure that out.

But there are times, when you do feel like you're left out hanging on a lurch when it comes to family. That's undeniable. I've felt that way for a while now. Especially with my current career endeavours. For the first time in my life, when I try to consult anyone in my family about what I want to do or what I am doing, I see a truly blank expression or a idle glaze spread across their faces. I mean, I get the generation gap stuff, but I didn't think that would apply to my current path of career of start-ups etc.

Everytime I've tried to get some sort of input on an idea I have or just my overall plan - I usually get, "You don't have to explain yourself to me. As long as you know what you're doing..."

I guess that means I have to know what I'm doing then innit?

Of Life / Writing & Short Films

of Life / Writing ...

I was on the verge of abandoning this blog. However, recent events and a fair amount of soul searching has launched me into the act of blogging again. Who knows how long I'll keep at it this time. But one thing's for sure, this particular entry is likely to be a loong one. :)

I haven't sat down to write anything that is non-work related in yonks. Take my entry dated Sept 21st 2007, that 'potential play' in the making. I never got further than what you see in that entry. I haven't been writing blogs, stories, plays, ideas, songs for so long - I'm not even sure if I can anymore. The last thing I wrote was the song I wrote for Anrie. And that was during the early bits of us dating. We've been together 1yr & 8mths now. Based on that timeline, the last time I wrote anything 'creative' is likely to be at least 1 yr ago!

That sucks.

I haven't done any acting either, which I miss terribly. Since I finished Frankenstein In Love in Nov 2006, I have had to turn down - 3 musicals, 2 acting gigs on TV, and 1 play simply because I don't have the time. I have managed possibly 2 open mics which sustained my appetite for a bit but at the end of the day, I still end up missing doing the things that I love.

Which brings me to my regular dilemma, passion or stability? This is a common problem that I suppose many people have so I realize I'm nothing special at this juncture. But the point is that I have been struggling with this idea for the longest time. It has influenced all of my choices for career and life. I took up TV production and did my stint at Popiah Pictures right after I graduated because I loved movies and film and acting - doing Production seemed like the logical choice!

But when I found that Production is kinda like Philosophy and Literature. It's all fascinating and terribly intriguing to appreciate it but once you have to depend on it as a source of income - it becomes a whole other ball of yarn. Don't get me wrong, I still love it and wanna be a part of TV/Film Production but I want to do it on my own terms. How, when, who etc...will be determined when I figure that out.

Thats when I decided to accept Joel's offer to work in YouthMalaysia.com. Being a young start up company with loads of potential - it's the perfect training ground for me to do new things, learn new skills and figure out how to apply all that I learn to what I want to do. The pace is not as crazy as it was during my stint with Popiah but its been dawning on me that its just as all consuming. The best way to put it would be: If Popiah was a 100 metre sprint to the finish line, working at YM.com is like 10 km marathon. And what I'm discovering is I don't have that much stamina to keep going as strong as I would like.

There are ups and downs. As cool, noble, fun, exciting and perfectly sound the situation I find myself in right now with YouthMalaysia.com is - the inescapable truth is that: "This ain't it yet." There's something missing. I don't feel the vibe or the mojo. Or at least, I haven't made it my own yet. And that's a problem.

However, therein lies the heart and soul of my problem. I'm not sure exactly what it is I want to do. It's not clear cut like I want to be a lawyer or an actor. I could try and make it clear cut by just deciding that what I'm doing is the proverbial 'it'. Unfortunately, sometimes that's not the way it works.

Perhaps my next blog entry will be a list of things I want to be able to do for a living. And upon putting it all down, then maybe something will click. Who knows?

of Short Films ...

I have just recently completed and submitted my 2nd short film ever made. And its also for BMW Shorties. The plan was to continue making shorts after the 1st one but I guess I let work get in the way. However, when I heard that Shorties was coming up again - I decided what the hey... and I went ahead and did it.

I have to say though, unlike the first one, I didn't pour in my entire heart & soul into this one. I treated this more as an escape for the claustrophobia I was suffocating in not being able to do the things I love. That being said, I absolutely loved the creative process I opened myself to while doing this. I absolutely went with the flow and just let the creativity river take me where it wanted to go! Unlike the last one in which I had a very specific idea and I was being very ambitious.

This time, I just picked 3 interesting people. 3 people who don't really know each other. I put them all in a situation like '1 guy trying to go out with 2 girls' and then I let their characters bounce off each other. It was that simple. And I have to say, I love what I came up with. Should know what becomes of it with regards to the competition in another month or so. But honestly, I am just glad I made the Short. :)

I'll post it up here when I figure out how to do that. Or YouTube it. I'll keep y'all updated on that.

The CommonJack signs out.