Why Would I Write

  • Pay To Die

    I’ve always told people who asked that I intend to leave this world when I’m forty. I figured that at that age, I would have experienced everything I would have wanted to experience and it would be a good age to go. But when I first started saying it, I had a long way to go. It hit me recently that forty isn’t too far away. Eight more years, that’s less than a decade.

    I still think it is a good age to go, but I was recently asked – what if you’re really happy and successful when you hit forty? I really don’t know. My plan at forty would be to do all the life-threatening activities like bungee jumping and skydiving and hoping one of those activities would kill me. But if you think about it, people don’t die that often doing those things. There’s probably a higher chance of my body developing cancer from smoking or my liver failing from drinking too much alcohol before that.

    In case you’re wondering, I’m not planning to kill myself. I just don’t want to be old, sick and a burden to people around me. Also, I’ll save a lot of money for people who plan to take care of me. I won’t have to let them decide if they should pull the plug on me. I’ll be too young to develop the usual old age debilitating illnesses. They can also save even more money with no funeral!

    Insurance. Why are people so comfortable with partaking in a business that is predicated on its customer being ill in order to reap any benefits? It’s kinda crazy if you ask me. For the longest time I didn’t bother with insurance because I thought it was a waste of money. I mean, it still is a waste of money – if you live the remainder of your life without being treated for anything major, you’ve essentially given away thousands for nothing. If you do end up using the insurance, it’ll be worth it. But it’s pretty much a gamble – like playing the lottery, instead you put your health on the line in order to win it. Anyway, I still have an insurance plan, but at least it has a savings component so I can get some of that cash back even if I don’t fall sick. I just have to be old enough to withdraw it.

    Today, I went to visit my grandmother in the hospital. She’s not doing too well. I’m not sure what’s going to happen. I hate jumping to conclusions but chances are high that she’ll be parting this world soon. She’s had a long and good life, and this may be a heartless thing to say – but she’s going to be happier when she’s gone. I hope she has a speedy recovery or passes away painlessly. Love you, grandma.

  • Peace of Mind


    Peace of Mind by andreasrocha

    I dropped my backpack and sword to the ground and fell to my knees. The view was glorious. Up here, the air was fresher. The leaves were greener. The rocks – rockier. The tranquil silence complemented by the sound of rushing water in the distance. The Waterfall of Ages was a sight to behold. After days of trudging through mud, sludge and feces, this brief respite was heaven-sent.

    I was on a mission to rescue a princess from a tribe of forest trolls, and it was taking a lot longer than expected. They had managed to escape with her when they abandoned their temporary camp after they heard that I was on their heels. Their tracks continued on towards the waterfall – a once sacred site for the forest elves, it had been abandoned for decades and was now known as a safe haven for the scum of the forest. Until today, nobody ever visited the area unless they were outcasts, on the hunt for drugs, or both.

    I drank from my canteen and got up to my feet. I wanted to make more progress before night fall, I had to find a place to rest before those nocturnal bastards came out looking for me. I picked up my backpack and slung my sword over my shoulder. It was time to make a move.

    writing prompt from Reddit: Peace of Mind

  • The Shiny Disc

    I remember when Apple first announced that they would stop putting CD drives in their laptops. Back then I thought it was in idiotic thing to do – I was still a heavy disc user back then. Listening to music on CDs, watching movies on DVDs and burning files to CD-Rs. I was like, this was never going to fly, what are Apple thinking?

    Fast forward to this morning, there was someone in my office asking around if anybody had a CD player – she wanted to test a disc she had. Unfortunately for her, nobody had a drive. I looked around the room at everyone’s laptop – not a disc drive in sight. I thought that was pretty insane that nobody had one available for her to use. Then I started thinking about my own media habits and realized that I haven’t used discs in a very long time.

    At home, I have a PC with a disconnected drive. The drive is sitting there in my computer’s case, but it’s not plugged into the motherboard. Why? When I was building my PC many years ago, I made a conscious decision not to plug it in because I hadn’t used it in a long time.

    The DVD player at home is still hooked up to the TV cos my mom knows how to use it to watch movies, but these days she’s getting her shows over Astro anyway.

    I remember when I got my first DiscMan – I was so happy that I could finally listen to music without having to rewind cassettes. I could listen to songs on repeat conveniently (previously, I used to record blank tapes of my favorite song repeated so I didn’t have to rewind to binge on the same song). It was a game changer for me. Over the years I continually purchased CDs to expand my music collection. It was when MP3 players became affordable, it became a game changer.

    Now, I don’t even touch the CDs I own. The stacks of burnt CDs with music that I have sitting in my car? Untouched for years. These days I stream music from my phone via Bluetooth or I listen to it off a USB stick that’s perpetually plugged into the player.

    RIP optical discs. It was fun while it lasted.