Tickets on sale at SISTIC from 3rd January 2012, 9pm!

Really really really really excited. :D

I hope that you have a year ahead worth remembering. A year of triumphs and victories. A year that would be better than the last. I hope that you try new things, learn new sides of yourself that you didn't know existed. I hope you make new friends, meet people who understands you. And most importantly, I hope that you would be happy.

Stay young, go dancing.

2011 has been a great year. Definitely not a year for the faint-hearted, if you stood in my shoes. First year on my own, paying my own bills and rent and taking care of things. Strangely, it is through this year, on my own two feet there I learn the importance of family and the fact that there are few people in this world who would love me as unconditionally as my grandmother. When I say unconditionally, I mean it. She believes in me no matter what and that is something I can't say for many others. So, in the year ahead, 2012, I would do my best to spend more time with her. I am familiar with the concept of man's mortality, and I want to have as much time with her as I possibly can.

If 2010 was about relationships and seeing others for who they truly are, 2011 was about discovering the person I am and what I am capable of. It was about learning to be me again and being alone with my thoughts. It has also been a year I chose and followed my own beliefs and values with no external influences. And it has been enlightening and incredibly freeing. I also found and decided what I would do for the next five years and worked out a plan to do that.

This was a good year overall. 

Haters are gonna hate.

My hopes for the next year include getting closer to my goals and meeting more like-minded people.

Life is good, by my standards. And I have learnt that my standards are the only ones that matter.

Face it, the only person you will have through your entire life is yourself. I have learnt it the hard way that when others say that they will be there for you "no matter what", it is most likely "no matter what until you tread on my toes". There is always fine print in every relationship except the one you have with yourself. And that is perhaps the one lesson I learnt over the past few days.

(I'm sorry if there is a passive aggressive overtone to this blog entry that is supposed to be uplifting and inspiring. I just lost a friend, not to death or distance, not the physical kind, anyway. It was the death of an understanding. I am still hurting, and it will take some time to heal. So please bear with me while I go through the motions of being bitter and angry because quite honestly, I don't know how else to deal with it. I have never meant any harm to the people I care about, even if I have never been the caring, tender type. But who is going to believe me? Over the past three days I have fought an internal war in my head of mind versus emotions and the verdict is that if I want to be at peace again, I have to let this go. I wouldn't and couldn't ever force my company on those that no longer want it. )

Have a great year ahead, person-reading-this. Life sucks sometimes but it will be okay again. Trust me, I know.

So this is the new year.
And i don't feel any different.
The clanking of crystal
Explosions off in the distance (in the distance).

So this is the new year
And I have no resolutions
For self assigned penance
For problems with easy solutions

So everybody put your best suit or dress on
Let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once
Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
As thirty dialogs bleed into one

I wish the world was flat like the old days
Then i could travel just by folding a map
No more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways
There'd be no distance that could hold us back.

There'd be no distance that could hold us back

So this is the new year

 

-DCFC

I shall choose my friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them
I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. For in the temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with others if he wishes, but only beyond his threshold.

-Anthem - Ayn Rand

A sense of bone-deep weariness. Both body and mind.

I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to an end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.

Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars.

I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man's soul, not is my soul theirs to covet.

-Anthem - Ayn Rand

We're not the same, dear, as we used to be.
The seasons have changed and so have we.
There was little we could say, and even less we could do
To stop the ice from getting thinner under me and you.

And when spring arrived
We were taken by surprise when the floes under our feet bled into the sea
And nothing was left for you and me.

We're not the same, dear,
And it seems to me
There's nowhere we can go
With nothing underneath.
And it saddens me to say
But we both know, well, it's true
That the ice was getting thinner
Under me and you.
The ice was getting thinner
Under me and you.

The Ice Is Getting Thinner - Death Cab For Cutie

 

And it saddens me to say
But we both know, well, it's true
That the ice was getting thinner
Under me and you.

I have been following Ayn Rand’s philosophy for a while now. Almost two years ago, I read The Fountainhead, and about half a year later I read Atlas Shrugged, which was to become the most important book for my young adult life.
While in the midst of deciding between the faith that I knew to be Christianity, and the conscious thought that there might not be anything divine or supernatural, I stumbled upon this philosophy of Objectivism and I never looked back. I went on to read Nietzsche and others, but Atlas Shrugged allowed me to finally see that what I have suspected all along was in actual fact, reality.

When I first read Atlas Shrugged, I was in a very difficult place. It was December 2010, a couple weeks before I moved out. It was a hard place to be, I was undecided as to whether I should go ahead with the move. The unknown was as scary, if not scarier than the known chaos of home.

I began to ask myself, what were my reserves based on? The answer was in my head the moment I asked the question.

Duty. Obligation.

There really wasn’t any reason for me to be with in that house that stifled my growth as a person, the refusal to accept that I am a thinking, logical adult human being, and the lack of respect for me as an individual who had self-esteem issues due to the long-term demeaning of my actions.

When I was reading, and have reached the middle of the book, and the line that will always remain in my mind.

“I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

It was as if all that I have hoped to be, the weight lifted off me. The weight that was obligation and grudging duty lifted and I was free.

Some might find this to be selfish. Well, I agree. I am selfish. If retaining my right as a human being to be happy is selfish, so be it. I am unwilling to conform to society expectations that I respect my parents for no other reason than the fact that they gave birth to me and fed and clothe me. I am unwilling to believe that the right of a parent includes ignoring the basic dignity and emotional needs. And I refuse to stay in a place that gave me nightmares and anxiety attacks just because I would be considered “heartless” by many if I left.

And yes, I am selfish. I believe that above all else, I need to live and be happy. Not at the expense of others, but despite others. I would not ask for sacrifice from others for my happiness, but neither will I sacrifice my own for them.

This is reason. This is objectivity.

It's Christmas Day, again.
I am not going to talk about what it is and isn't. Or that the birth of Christ was in another part of the year. I talk about things like these for the most part of my year.
Today I just want to say, have a great Christmas, and hold the people that you care about close to you. Not everyone has that, be it being able to spend time with the people they love, or finding worthy people to care for.

Merry Christmas, everyone and a brilliant new year.