Why Would I Write

Category: Thoughts

  • My Shell

    I’m not sure if it’s because of past experiences, but today I reminded myself of my hatred for being in extremely crowded places.

    I was walking around Chinatown today, and felt extremely uncomfortable being surrounded by so many people. There was a fear of being pick pocketed, being the victim of a random slashing incident and even being hit by a passing vehicle. It was mostly irrational, and I can’t really explain why I felt that way, but it was just what my mind was going through as I walked through the crowded streets.

    If it wasn’t a fear of something bad happening, there was the annoyance of having to slow down my walk when there were too many people standing in my way. I don’t know why people aren’t more considerate in public. Please don’t hog walkways. It’s like people standing on the walking side of escalators, and acting oblivious to people who would like to get to their destinations quicker. Is it so hard to a considerate human being?

    Maybe it was because of the weather. The stink of rubbish and sweaty people amplified by the scorching sun wasn’t helping alleviate my irrational thoughts.

    I like cities. But I hate crowds. I enjoy KL when everyone’s gone for the holidays. I stand at the back at gigs instead of participating in the mosh pit. I love being by myself. Am I turning into a hermit or a paranoid? Hmm.

  • Drinking Ain’t What It Used To Be

    Yesterday I was at a drinking party and I wasn’t the one making a fool of myself. It felt strange. Like I knew what it was like to be that guy and I was no longer him. Trying my best to appear sober, while downing more drinks than my body could handle. Talking out of line, loudly, and acting ridiculous.

    Younger George wouldn’t say no to that drink. At least that’s what I remembered. Younger George would never say no to any drink. After all, if it had alcohol, it was delicious and bound to be fun. I wonder if there’s a way to measure how many brain cells I’ve had destroyed by drinking past my limit.

    Then again, younger George has been through some shit. Fortunately for younger George, he had amazing friends who looked after his drunk ass when he went down. Honestly, those guys are all champs. Younger George didn’t deserve them, but they were there for him anyway.

    I remember during my initial days of clubbing – a group of us would have trouble even finishing one bottle of whiskey. Then we got more tolerant and could even do a single bottle between two people. Now I can’t drink that much anymore, also I believe I’m much better at controlling my intake. Because even though it was fun talking about the adventures of younger George, it only seems funny because I was being an idiot – and I came out of my incidents mostly unscathed.

    It took a serious car accident to make me realize how stupid I was but in reality, that didn’t need to happen.

    Anyway, I still enjoy some alcohol every now and then, but I can go for weeks without a drink. It’s not a necessity in my life. I’m equally happy having conversation over sips of hot coffee or tea, and a cigarette or vape in my other hand. There’s no need for the high of alcohol when you have the company of good friends around you. Younger George would have suggested afternoon drinks instead.

    “You’re a shadow of your former self! What happened to you?”

    It’s alright, I’m okay with having less ‘fun’ these days – at least my friends and family won’t have to worry about me every time I go out. Also, I won’t have to spend so long shitting out the previous night’s drinks in the toilet or wasting the day nursing a hangover. It’s a win-win situation. Farewell, younger George. It was nice knowing you.

  • Macroblogging and Dead Links

    Every now and then, I read through some old posts on my blog and go through the comments section. Commenting on blogs used to be a thing. I remember. That’s how I made some friends on the internet. These days, people just comment on the Facebook post about the link instead. If not comments, you just get likes or some reactions.

    I guess it’s just how things have evolved. Back then there was no such thing as microblogging. The only way you could update people about your life was through MSN nickname statuses or blogs. I remember, almost everybody had a blog back then. It was the normal thing to do. Now I think having a blog is probably out of fashion. But that’s okay, it’s my way of practicing writing and putting out whatever is in my head.

    Anyway, back then when people commented on my blog, they would leave links to their own blog so I could check them out. That was one way of meeting new people online. I could check out their writing and if I found it interesting, I’d leave a comment and link their page if I liked it enough. Friendships would live and grow in the comments sections of posts.

    I guess all the long breaks I took in between blogging kinda killed off the steam and interest people had in visiting this page. Blogging is kinda like the YouTube of the past. If content creators don’t constantly churn out new content, they’d be forgotten. It was even worse for blogs because unless you had an RSS reader or subscribed to email updates, you wouldn’t have any way of telling whether the blog had new posts short of manually checking it out yourself. At least with YouTube you get emails or notifications on the site itself telling you about new videos on channels you subscribed to.

    But then again, who has time to read these days? I’m blogging for an audience of less than ten people daily (haha) but that’s okay. It feels good to write anyway. And I might as well make up for all the times I didn’t blog in the past. I mean, keep throwing shit against the wall until something sticks right?

    I don’t even read many blogs these days. I do read a lot of posts on Facebook though. It’s the modern version of blogging. And I don’t have to exit Facebook to read them. I guess that was the Zuck’s plan all along – keep everybody on the site so they don’t have to leave.

    Anyway I was prompted to write this post when I was clicking on links left by people who used to comment on my blog and realized that they were all dead links. IMO blogging died when everybody started doing advertorials instead of content about their lives. Shout out to Albert for keeping it real!