Thoughts

It’s Called What’s It Called

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The other day, someone asked me, “Are you happy with life?”
Without thinking much about it, I said, “Yes”.
He continued, “What makes you happy?”

I was stumped. I didn’t know how to respond. It’s something I never thought about. I just assumed that being happy was good enough. I didn’t need a reason why.

You see, I’m easily content – at least with most things in life. I’m not the pickiest eater. I don’t have the strongest preference for particular cuisines over others. It all depends on my mood.

If I’m hungry, I’ll go to a restaurant that doesn’t have a queue. If I’m not that hungry, maybe I’ll explore and try something that I haven’t had in a while. Other times, I simply return to my comfort food, chicken rice.

When it comes to ambitions in life, I don’t dream of being rich and successful. As long as I don’t have to worry about food on the table or having a place to call home for me and my family, that’s good enough.

If I have enough disposable income to fund my hobbies, great! There’s not much else to ask for.

Perhaps I’m speaking from a position of privilege and what I’m easily content with, is something other people can only dream about. But there are also people who have what I have and yet they want so much more to be happy.

Long story short, I guess I can say I’m happy because I’m living the life that I’ve always wanted. Could I be happier? Of course. But so can everybody.

I was too lazy to ramble on about my thoughts, so I simply replied, “Because I’m not sad,” which was also true.
He didn’t let up. “What makes you sad?” he continued.

Again, I was baffled.

I could have given a vapid reply like people and pets I care about passing away and breaking up – but those things make everybody sad. It doesn’t make me special.

I’ve been thinking about it over the past few days and I couldn’t think of anything. Maybe the saddest thing that could ever happen to me right now would be Hot Mulligan breaking up. I would be devastated.

But then again, did I need a special reason to feel sad? I’m just a regular human being, like everybody else. I’m not more important than anybody, in fact, I’m probably less important than a lot of people in this world.

He wasn’t asking me for a unique reason to be sad, yet I was searching for one. Why did I put myself through so much pressure? I have no idea.

In the end, it didn’t matter, as other people arrived and our conversation was drowned out. I took my drink elsewhere and participated in shallow chit-chat with other folks. Perhaps in the future, I’ll be able to answer with certainty.

Are you happy with life?

Less Calls, Replacements

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How many times can I write about having terrible memory? I can’t remember and I’m not bothered to check. Is old age a valid excuse for not being as sharp as I once was? Maybe. Or have I been filling my head with important information that pushed out all my trivial thoughts? Unlikely.

I can still recite most of the lyrics to Stan or The Way I Am even though I haven’t purposely listened to the songs in ages. Those words remain etched in my brain. Why is it harder to remember the lyrics to songs I listen to now? Probably because I put in much less effort.

There are only so many things I want to spend brain power on these days and memorizing lyrics is not one of them. Also, it’s not a very useful skill – unless you perform covers for a living. The only time I find it useful these days is when I’m driving. I get to keep my eyes on the road.

I think memorizing lyrics was a product of the time – back then we didn’t have powerful computers in our pockets. We had to rely on magazine cutouts, album booklets, or transcribing songs on our own. Before I had a CD player or access to MP3s, I would patiently wait for a song to come on the radio so I could record it on a blank cassette.

Then I would play, rewind, and repeat the recording to my heart’s content. It allowed me to listen to songs until I could write down all the words. I have no idea when lyric websites started popping up, but that’s what I did back then. Shit was wild.

These days we just pull up Musixmatch/Genius on our phones. Are we too reliant on technology? Or just making the most of what’s available? I mean, what’s the point of people spending their lives researching and advancing technology if nobody fully utilizes it?

Imagine you work your whole life on something important and life-changing, but people decide not to use it because it makes them ‘lazy’. What would life be like without remote controls or escalators? Maybe we’d be really jacked as a society. Who am I kidding, we’d still find ways to be lazy.

Like the other day, before I left home, I put my wallet in another pocket of my pants instead of its usual spot. As I was walking out of my condominium, I felt different. I put my hand in my usual wallet pocket and noticed the wallet wasn’t there – it was sitting safely in my other pocket.

I was convinced that my wallet wasn’t with me. So I turned around, retraced my steps, went home, and searched for my wallet in my room. It wasn’t there. I started to panic. I looked in my bag, it wasn’t there. Maybe it was in my car, I thought. So I went back down to the car park.

Checked my car, and nope, it wasn’t there. Where could it be? I thought to myself. So I started patting my other pockets. Lo and behold, the wallet was sitting right where I had placed it earlier.

If I had examined all my pockets in the first place, I could have avoided the whole incident. There was no need to retrace my steps, search my room, and make myself panic. Was I so lazy that I couldn’t frisk my own pants before doing all those things? Also, why couldn’t I just recall where I had put the wallet? It was barely 10 minutes ago!

How many times can I write about having terrible memory? There’s a good reason calendar and reminder apps exist.

End Of Another Year

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I started writing this post a few days ago but didn't have the motivation to finish it, so it's going to be my end of year and hello 2023 post. A two-in-one special.

It’s always fun to load up the previous year’s end-of-year post to see if I did anything I said I would do. Spoiler: I didn’t. But that’s okay. It’s just how life is sometimes. Life doesn’t have to be a constant state of progress. It would be great if it did.

A related image showed up in my Instagram feed recently:

Credit

Coincidence? Or algorithms at work? Probably the latter. That’s just how social media is. It used to where you’d get the latest updates. But if you follow too many accounts, it would be a mess if your feed wasn’t curated. You’d miss many posts that you’d care about.

On the other hand, only being shown posts that you care about creates a feedback loop. You like things, so the algorithm will show you more things it thinks you will like. Eventually, you’re shielded from everything else. This can be a good or bad thing.

Social media feeds are completely made up of what people you follow want you to see. And if these people don’t open up to you, you don’t really know what’s up.

Nobody’s life is perfect, but that doesn’t mean it’s terrible either. Life is a balance of ups and downs; there will be days you love and days you hate, and sometimes your feelings can change within minutes.

Life’s not a fairytale

2022 was an alright year for me. Overall, I’d say it was a neutral year, kinda like most years. The biggest win for me was my new (now current) job. Doing something I enjoy, working with chill colleagues, and having a positive atmosphere.

It’s been great, don’t get me wrong, but there are downsides too. Check out this table:

Negatives of my current jobBalancing factor
It’s not easyI’m no longer unemployed and I get to learn new things doing it
Lower take home salary (due to taxes and EPF)I don’t have to make manual prepayments for taxes and my company contributes to EPF
No more sleeping inI have work-life balance
Back to the office, terrible traffic jamsI get to spend time outside of the house, also I’m sometimes more productive in the office anyway
Expensive parkingFree coffee, fruits and beer in the office
It’s tedious to go for smoke breaksI don’t have to smoke alone, and smoking less is supposedly better for health

As you can see, even though I my job is great, it’s not without its downsides. But those downsides are neutralized by other factors. So overall, I consider it a win.

In terms of personal projects, this year was bad. I didn’t come up with new music or original YouTube content and haven’t been writing much. And I still haven’t played a live show since the pandemic. However, I’ve somewhat balanced that out by covering songs.

By making cover song videos, I learned to play and sing new songs. I discovered chords I never used. I also gained knowledge and experience in recording and video editing. I’ll be able to make better videos when I eventually create original content in the future.

I had some issues with Facebook Live which gave me a reason to move back to Twitch. It’s sad to say goodbye to all my Facebook Gaming followers, but until they fix their false copyright claim nonsense, I’m not going to bother returning.

I guess that covers what a neutral year for me is like.

To those of you who had a shit year, it’s okay. Look forward to the next one. One shit year doesn’t discount all the good ones you’ve had in the past. And nobody knows what the future holds. In the grand scheme of things, one bad year doesn’t even mean that much.

If you zoom out and look at your whole life, you probably have a lot more good or neutral years than shit ones. It’s just that we tend to remember the bad times more. Life sort of balances itself out that way. Unless you die before that. Then, that’s too bad.

If the year’s been great for you, be prepared for terrible shit to come your way. Or not. You could also die before your life balances out too. Then again, it’s not like you’ll care about what happened in the past once you’re dead. How can you care if you cease to exist?

In any case, while you’re still around, do what makes you happy. It’s your life.

Since we’re on the topic of the new year, I’ve got some goals for myself. Public goals to hold myself accountable.

  • Fully migrate this blog to goodnewsgeorge.com and give it a facelift
  • Post 12 blog posts (not counting this)
  • Create 6 YouTube videos
  • Record a 6-song EP
  • Play 12 shows
  • Create 12 pieces of original art
  • Go back down to 70kg and un-tighten my pants

We’ll come back to this post in December and see how far we’ve gotten. Happy New Year everyone. Hopefully, this year will be better than the last.