1,629km Disappears.

Long-distance relationships never get easy.

I’ve been together with Cherane for three years, going on four now. Even though it’s not a particularly long time, it has become a pretty unique relationship, with its own unique set of challenges.

Every chance we get to be together becomes extra special. The idea of just having breakfast together, one that many couples take for granted, becomes that much more meaningful. It gives me new appreciation for what we have, but it also becomes that much painful and heartbreaking when the time comes and we have to be apart again.

That’s what I did last weekend. 1,629km between us disappeared for 3 days and 4 nights.

It was wonderful, and it wasn’t enough. It’s never enough, to be honest.

Taking off from LCCT. The benefits (or is it a disadvantage?) of having only the kit lens to play around with.

Cherane stretching and warming up before her netball practice.

We decided to have a barbecue on Friday night.

It was a very easy and relaxed night.

Oh yeah, she can draw real good. Do check out her blog if you have the time.

How Ganaesh Needs To Find His Groove Back.

It’s been almost 6 months since I last wrote here.

Make no mistake, I have been writinglah. Some of them even got published in one form or another. But when I talk about writing here, it’s for this blog. It’s probably the only place where I can write without having a specific goal. I can write without it being be about a product or a service. I can write here exactly the way I want to.

So why don’t I write more often?

When I started blogging way back in 2004 (almost 10 years ago, good Lord!), there was a certain effortlessness that came through in my writing. I could construct paragraph after paragraph of complex sentences without thinking twice. Wordiness was never an issue. I personally didn’t know how it happened, even till today.

I had some people who followed my blog on the strength of my writing, even when my insecure self starting changing blogs; first on Blogspot, then to Blogdrive, then back again to Blogspot before having my own host (which died after existing for about two months).

I eventually ended up here, and I have stayed here ever since.

The me who wrote at age 19 will never come back. The me at age 26 will never write as fluidly or as effortlessly as the me at age 19. This is the irreversible truth, and it’s something that I must accept. It takes more work now, I’ll admit. But I think that’s due more to the rust and the cobwebs in my thought process more than anything else.

Then again, I don’t really want to write like the me at age 19. He covered his inexperience with life under a veneer of long complex sentences. He made a misconception that verbosity equals intelligence. He liked to beat around the bush too much.

The me at age 26 still has oh so many things to learn about writing, though. He needs to get back the spark that he had once before. He needs to get over the fear that people will end up finding his work boring/dull/not good enough. He needs to realize that the experience and life lessons he has gained since then can help enhance his writing, no matter what the topic may be.

So I’ll write. I’ll keep on writing. I hope I can write as consistently as I want to, but who knows. How could I possibly stay away? It has, for better or worse, defined my life over the last 9-something years.

This blog might end up being more random than it ever was before. It’s just me trying to find my groove back. Some might be serious to the point of being dry, others might be pure fluff. But that’s the point; it’ll be me just writing away, about something or another, looking for that spark, that zeal, that passion back.

I’ll get that fucking spark back. It’s long overdue. I think it’s starting to get tired waiting for me.

A Different Kind of Fatigue.

I woke up today, in a darkened room. That’s normal.
I felt sick to my stomach. That’s not normal.

There was a time, not too long ago (probably last week, I reckon) when I enjoyed relished “the art of the troll”. Just one well-placed, well-timed response to an article, situation or discussion had the potential to change the tone of the entire discourse into something totally different.

Thing is, the satisfaction I get from a successful troll becomes too fleeting for me to properly enjoy it. I keep seeing the ugly side of humanity come out so often that I begin to wonder if that fleeting satisfaction is even worth anything.

This morning, I got tired of the whole thing.

That trolling action. Does it inform? Does it correct a mistake? Does it elevate the level or the quality of a discussion? Does it contribute anything positive or enriching? I haven’t seen that yet. What I have seen instead is people getting angry. I have seen people get worked up. Their arguments falter. Whatever good points they might have gets completely sidelined. The replies become more and more irrelevant, in the quest to one-up the troll quotient of the reply before it. They become a sexist, a racist, a bigot. Nothing gets achieved. One side laughs their ass off, another side screams bloody murder, yet side group sighs in defeat.

The discourse completely breaks down. Yes, I am guilty of all of the above.

We lament the moronic actions our politicians take, and bemoan the death of intelligence among Malaysians when it comes to responding to serious issues, and yet we can’t resist the urge to come up with replies and hashtags that just fast-tracks whatever serious discourse we might have about… whatever, into a complete and utter farce. The cycle repeats itself, again and again, a cycle that fuels itself on cynicism and skepticism. Repetition becomes the norm. We become jaded too fast, too soon.

Even radio personalities do this.

It stops me from gaining more knowledge and accomplishing goals that I know I must accomplish. You could say that I’m just over-thinking the entire issue, and I shouldn’t get my panties in a twist. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am just over-analyzing the situation here. Does it make anything I wrote down here any less relevant?

I’m tired of getting a momentary chuckle at the expense of others, is what I’m saying. I want to know more, find out more. I want to enrich this generic life I have into something unique, not muddle it up even more with vapid drama and trolls and inflated egos.

I can honestly tell you. I have absolutely no idea what any of this means. It’s not an epiphany by any stretch of the imagination. Who knows, maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and “become normal again”. Right now, I’m exhausted by it. It makes me tired. It saps away my strength. It distracts me.

I’m not growing up. I’m not getting old. I’m just… tired of this.