Tuesday, 27 December 2011
Ambition?
All our lives, we have thought of being someone; fireman, lawyer, teacher, famous (somehow this is a career these days), actor, scientist, singer, academic, wife, mother, father. All our lives, we navigate through the maze of day-to-day living hoping to reach the finish line of our chosen paths, hoping it is everything we have hope it would be and maybe more.
However, all our lives (at least for some of us, fine, just me then, you perfect annoyances), we also seem to fall down rabbit holes halfway through the proverbial maze only to be lead to a completely different maze to begin anew. Some of them come at certain checkpoints in all our lives like when we realise certain childhood ambitions are more fantasy than reality (or when our hypothetical vocal coach says her cat’s wailing has a better shot at Broadway than our voice), when we finish the different levels of schooling, when we get fired or like a sadistic plan of some greater power, when we reach the end of a maze. Others may be less predictable such as a significant death, an inexplicable change of heart, or the sheer boredom of excelling (dedicated to all my overly brilliant friends).
Either way, down the rabbit hole we all fall...
I know what this sounds like. It sounds like I am quitting this blog and I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that given how dead quiet it has been here. The funny thing is I have been so busy studying this past year (and just graduated this month. Yay me!) that I have not had much time to think and hence write about my thoughts. (Would this count as a proper use of ironic? I can never tell ever since Jagged Little Pill was released.) I haven't even posted up my results from my final semester released early this month. Well, I’m not planning to close this down just yet. That said, I don’t foresee too much time writing in the near future either due to my further studies commitments ( I’m still not sure how smart am I for doing further studies...) . So what is all this about then?
Well, I believe anyone who has been following my blog long enough knows why I generally write. You would not be mistaken to assume that I have been feeling blocked lately. I don’t have much motivation of late to do what I am being paid to do. I have dread, but not drive. That, to me, just does not seat right, especially considering what I am dreading to do is closely related to what I will be doing for the next year (more like a minimum of four, but we’ll get there when we get there). I have had four days of rest already but my fatigue still looms heavily on my shoulders, so I am beginning to wonder if this mental blockage is due to the other part of my mind that I have not been in touch for a very long time; the part that loves to write. At the very least, writing might clear my head a little more.
For me, as a child, I never really had a concrete idea of what I wanted to be when I “grew up”. Every year, I would randomly spit out three agreeable occupations when the teacher asks me that question. I would not bore you with them but to hint that my blog is autobiographical by nature. I will however neither confirm nor deny your speculations or suspicions (because where’s the fun in not teasing?). And I have been in that constant state of uncertainty up till college and occasionally through my undergraduate life.
I had a brief fascination with psychology but nothing became of that after my parents refused to fund that. (Interestingly, both my childhood close friends ended up with a psychology degree.) After that spun another two years of adrift-ness sponsored by my A-levels before I was pointed to my recently completed course and I became known as that maths guy (Disclaimer: No one has actually called me that, partly because everyone in my class (of EIGHT pure mathematicians) is that guy....). A course which I intent to follow up (in Statistics anyways) next year with an Honours year and if conditions are “ideal”, a PhD to follow.
While in writing that sounds like a solid plan, I question it probably more than I should, especially in moments of uncertainties such as this. During those two years adrift (and occasionally when I was younger) I began to also cultivate a love of writing (from writing blogs like this) and the life of a writer in ‘the big city’. (Those living in pristine, cultured environments, not the boozy ones.) It’s a dream of folly but what better to dream of? However, I realised that the lack of inspiration and imagination evident from my short stints writing would prove to be detrimental to my career as an aspiring author. Hence I remain until today an occasional writer of my own blog as a compromise between dreams and reality.
For some reason, every time I begin to reconsider my life’s path, I turn to writing. I’m not sure why, but I just do, no matter how illogical a choice it may seem to be for me. Maybe it’s the very minimal amount of writing one does in a degree of mathematics, maybe it’s just one of those dreams I have that I’m not close to ready to let go of, maybe it’s just a mental oddity that I was conditioned with.
(Enumerate, enumerate, write!)
All these leads me to wonder whether we were all born by some grand design to a destiny (I have been spelling this as density twice already! My scientific dyslexia is getting worse) of one true vocation, or is it all just a game of trial-and-error until the end. I know many of us did not end up being what we thought we would be as a naive 5 year old, but how many of you have stayed on the straight and narrow path you envisioned as a sensible individual? How did you distinguished between the true calling from all the rest? Or does it even exist at all?
Or, maybe, I’m just watching too much telly instead of actually putting in the work...
However, all our lives (at least for some of us, fine, just me then, you perfect annoyances), we also seem to fall down rabbit holes halfway through the proverbial maze only to be lead to a completely different maze to begin anew. Some of them come at certain checkpoints in all our lives like when we realise certain childhood ambitions are more fantasy than reality (or when our hypothetical vocal coach says her cat’s wailing has a better shot at Broadway than our voice), when we finish the different levels of schooling, when we get fired or like a sadistic plan of some greater power, when we reach the end of a maze. Others may be less predictable such as a significant death, an inexplicable change of heart, or the sheer boredom of excelling (dedicated to all my overly brilliant friends).
Either way, down the rabbit hole we all fall...
I know what this sounds like. It sounds like I am quitting this blog and I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that given how dead quiet it has been here. The funny thing is I have been so busy studying this past year (and just graduated this month. Yay me!) that I have not had much time to think and hence write about my thoughts. (Would this count as a proper use of ironic? I can never tell ever since Jagged Little Pill was released.) I haven't even posted up my results from my final semester released early this month. Well, I’m not planning to close this down just yet. That said, I don’t foresee too much time writing in the near future either due to my further studies commitments ( I’m still not sure how smart am I for doing further studies...) . So what is all this about then?
Well, I believe anyone who has been following my blog long enough knows why I generally write. You would not be mistaken to assume that I have been feeling blocked lately. I don’t have much motivation of late to do what I am being paid to do. I have dread, but not drive. That, to me, just does not seat right, especially considering what I am dreading to do is closely related to what I will be doing for the next year (more like a minimum of four, but we’ll get there when we get there). I have had four days of rest already but my fatigue still looms heavily on my shoulders, so I am beginning to wonder if this mental blockage is due to the other part of my mind that I have not been in touch for a very long time; the part that loves to write. At the very least, writing might clear my head a little more.
For me, as a child, I never really had a concrete idea of what I wanted to be when I “grew up”. Every year, I would randomly spit out three agreeable occupations when the teacher asks me that question. I would not bore you with them but to hint that my blog is autobiographical by nature. I will however neither confirm nor deny your speculations or suspicions (because where’s the fun in not teasing?). And I have been in that constant state of uncertainty up till college and occasionally through my undergraduate life.
I had a brief fascination with psychology but nothing became of that after my parents refused to fund that. (Interestingly, both my childhood close friends ended up with a psychology degree.) After that spun another two years of adrift-ness sponsored by my A-levels before I was pointed to my recently completed course and I became known as that maths guy (Disclaimer: No one has actually called me that, partly because everyone in my class (of EIGHT pure mathematicians) is that guy....). A course which I intent to follow up (in Statistics anyways) next year with an Honours year and if conditions are “ideal”, a PhD to follow.
While in writing that sounds like a solid plan, I question it probably more than I should, especially in moments of uncertainties such as this. During those two years adrift (and occasionally when I was younger) I began to also cultivate a love of writing (from writing blogs like this) and the life of a writer in ‘the big city’. (Those living in pristine, cultured environments, not the boozy ones.) It’s a dream of folly but what better to dream of? However, I realised that the lack of inspiration and imagination evident from my short stints writing would prove to be detrimental to my career as an aspiring author. Hence I remain until today an occasional writer of my own blog as a compromise between dreams and reality.
For some reason, every time I begin to reconsider my life’s path, I turn to writing. I’m not sure why, but I just do, no matter how illogical a choice it may seem to be for me. Maybe it’s the very minimal amount of writing one does in a degree of mathematics, maybe it’s just one of those dreams I have that I’m not close to ready to let go of, maybe it’s just a mental oddity that I was conditioned with.
(Enumerate, enumerate, write!)
All these leads me to wonder whether we were all born by some grand design to a destiny (I have been spelling this as density twice already! My scientific dyslexia is getting worse) of one true vocation, or is it all just a game of trial-and-error until the end. I know many of us did not end up being what we thought we would be as a naive 5 year old, but how many of you have stayed on the straight and narrow path you envisioned as a sensible individual? How did you distinguished between the true calling from all the rest? Or does it even exist at all?
Or, maybe, I’m just watching too much telly instead of actually putting in the work...
Monkey J
19:18
0 commented
19:18
0 commented