lesson of the day:

do not cut apples on the chopping board you just used to cut garlic

the lack of updates has really been eating at me this few days. i keep clicking “new post” but then getting stuck. i wonder if it is really what i might have mentioned before, the lack of mental stimulation in berkeley? but that can’t be true, considering the fact that i am actually in berkeley. and i don’t want that to happen, just falling into reading and studying what i am supposed to read and study… i want to think. i don’t want to eventually fall into the rat race of adulthood, and eventually having the same reaction that so many adults have to philosophy – why think so much about things that are not relevant at all?

i hope i’m still thinking, and i think i’m still thinking. taking my daily little 15 – 20 minutes walk back home, i think i’m thinking. i wonder why i’m still playing the little game that i used to play when i was a kid – jumping over lines on the pavement, trying not to fall into the cracks. it is almost addictive. if i even look down on the ground, i would almost immediately start avoiding the lines on the ground. i would speed up when the lines are close together, and take bigger strides when the lines are further apart. perhaps i do that cause i’m bored. but if i’m bored it must mean i’m not thinking.

well but then again, i know i’m thinking. my psych 148 seminar on babies’ statistical learning is not easy at all, and definitely requires a lot of thinking. studying research papers requires lots of convoluted thinking, i realized. it is sometimes pretty hard to wrap your mind around it; definitely not as simple as A shows B shows C. but i know that this thinking is definitely different from what i did in the past. this thinking is so academic, so domain specific. it is not like the past, when i was trying to answer the big questions of the world, the questions that you may never have an answer to. or at least about human nature or the “unwritten rules” of the world.

i really hope i am not getting older. ki friends, if anyone of you still read this – tell me if you are still thinking what we had thought about 2 years ago.

can’t help but notice that the previous post sounds angry.

too many.

was surprised to see the flurry of activity the few days ago, did not really realize that post was that commentable. i can definitely see how facebook and blogs are similar in the sense, cause in essence, one would be putting oneself out into the public to be seen, read and judged. and no doubt, if i were a reader of zi lin has gone fishing and a friend of zi lin, i would have immediately thought to myself, “hey what is she talking about? that is being so hypocritical, laughing at the people who do status updates on facebook. she is essentially doing the same thing as them, isn’t she? since she places her blog address on her msn nick!”

but being zi lin herself, i would beg to differ. i do not deny that when i blog, the fact that others would be reading it is always at the back of my mind. knowing this definitely changes the content of zi lin has gone fishing, but it does not necessarily mean that i am writing for my readers. i would be strangely arrogant if i actually blog for my readers, since i am obviously not some amazing writer or pretty girl with pretty pics to upload. js is mostly right in pointing out that blogging is a way of organizing thoughts, because i feel that it creates a necessity of writing in a coherent manner. though i must admit i do not always do that. and so i digressed.

i beg to differ because of what i see as the crux of facebook – the “in your face” of it all, and the prime example being the news feed. elaine is right in pointing out that blogging has an extra step of placing my blog address somewhere accessible, but i think that makes a world of difference. i have never had the idea that i am publishing my thoughts to all my friends, unlike facebook, where status updates are readily accessible as long as friends happen to be there at the right time, and made even MORE accessible because it is a central site that everyone logs into – bringing new meaning to blog-hopping i guess. on my msn nick, it says “zilin.wordpress” – one, in making sure that it is not a link that can just be clicked on and voila, and two, you literally have to type it into a browser to go to that page. certainly, it is not as hidden as a blog address that no one knows about, because i feel that if my friends are that interested in knowing who i am and what i am thinking about now, i do not see a reason in shutting them out. and i often realize that acquaintances who visit my blog find it as a conversation point.

anyway, yes i know it is true that people can choose not to read certain status updates, but i just have this feeling that it is almost similar to me telling you “hey don’t think about an steaming cup of coffee now”. you just can’t help it. we are all suckers for one-liners cause they are so easy to read. twitter’s amazingly popular.

blogging is a lot more dense, and much more easily ignored.

well and though while writing this i had you guys in mind, it was an entry that i wanted to write.

post-script. and no i wasn’t laughing at people who status update. i do it too!

facebook asked me what’s on my mind. many things. too many to place into a smart-aleck status update, one that will make it seem as if people actually care about what is on your mind by commenting or liking it. well for some, it does not even have to be smart-alecky. i guess once you are popular enough, people naturally care about what is on your mind so pretense is not necessary. kind of like when you are a famous artist. you work like crap to become famous, then after that you can produce crap and still make it seem amazing.

sometimes people write smart-alecky status updates, or even emo ones. and it is strangely weird when no one responds to them. i would think that they would be clearly disappointed. and sometimes i think it is important to consider the time of the day. like you would not want to status update a brilliant sentence when it is like 4 am for everyone, unless you are somewhere in america and still have friends who care about you in singapore.

well clearly, i belong to the people don’t really care what i think category. maybe that is why i hardly do status updates on facebook. there is an inherent fear that it exposes myself to judgment, like “HAH! no one responded to your status update, you must really suck.” i guess that is what facebook is mostly about, putting yourself out for the world to judge, and then boost/lower your self-esteem according to how popular you are.

and among other things on my mind, friendships are high on the list. are friendships something one actively works towards? or something that happens naturally? i have this idea that friendships are really based on opportunities, and that is probably why proximity friendships are more common than not. as much as you would like a person to be a friend, how far can you go before you just become annoying or seemingly in possession of an ulterior motive?

somehow i think it is pretty unnatural to want someone to be your friend, when he/she is not already mostly around.

perhaps it is cause all i have are proximity friendships.

saw this on my friend’s facebook today… and i liked it.

there’s a little truth behind every just kidding,
a little curiosity behind every just wondering,
a little knowledge behind every i don’t know,
and a little emotion behind every i don’t care.

humans are such bad liars.

just realized that blogging is actually a strange phenomenon – it only occurs when one is emotional or thoughtful, seemingly causing a biased representation of oneself. it being an extension of the person is more of an inaccurate portrayal i guess? but zilin has gone fishing still has its drawing power on me, somehow making me believe that anyone who reads this blog carefully would really be able to see through a substantial part of who i am. which brings up the question of why anyone would want to put oneself out there for people to see through so easily – a hidden desire to be understood?

and perhaps this is just one of the many things i will never be able to explain fully as much as i want to.

i once again return to the quote i recorded on this blog about a year ago -

we’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone.
only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion that we are not alone.

- orson welles

sometimes i tell my friends that this quote really touches me like no other quote did, but they are shocked. they comment that it is such a pessimistic view – zeroing on the words “alone” and “illusion”; but i really beg to differ. i have no qualms about directly agreeing with the first sentence – we’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. and i think the most contentious part would probably be “we live alone”. i guess it really depends on how one sees it. for me, i think it is definitely a truth because no matter how well people around know you, or read you, they are never you. we get close to people, our family and our friends, to the point that we can perhaps read them like a book. but can we really say that we know them in entirety? would i dare to say that anyone in this world, besides myself, knows me like i know myself? i certainly would not. no matter how close another person is to us, there remains a gap in understanding that can never be bridged, merely because the other person can never know all your experiences in life, or all your thoughts and desires. so yes, i do believe that we live alone.

going back to why i disagree that it is a pessimistic view, i think it is because i see the words “love” and “friendship” – the “illusion” that we have created is one that is beautiful, an impossibility that we still continue to hope to achieve. though we know that we are alone, we make it a point to create this beautiful “illusion”, giving ourselves up to love and friendship with faith and trust that we can really be beyond alone.

but how do we trust?

what is it like to live without romantic love? zi lin has gone fishing admits to being one who falls easily for others, perhaps that is why it is usually surprising to people around me when they find out about my current attitude towards love. falling easily for others otherwise means that i almost always have someone in my mind, and it has almost always been a staple in my life, to go to class each day looking forward to seeing someone – it makes days and thoughts go by so much more excitingly and interestingly. which of course begs the question of what happened during my rgs days, but i do not really recall much of the love life then… perhaps when removed from the sphere of guys i really had the ability to not have anyone on my mind. such a characteristic has made me find it weird when people tell me that they have never had crushes before, or have no one in mind – prime example: js. LOL. being attracted to others is just so much part of me that i find it hard to imagine that some of my friends have never felt attracted to anyone before in their life.

however, in recent days i have perhaps realized that there may be a more extreme version of me in others – the inability to live without being in romantic love. for me, attraction has always been a pastime, something that made days go by more interestingly, it was never really about loneliness and companionship. 9/10 of the time, i would hardly even have any contact with the guy in mind. but i think there are some who require this romantic love as a form of combat against loneliness… almost as if at every point of time, there has to be someone in mind in order to live out the day together. but is it really different? perhaps it is merely that my attraction is not as deep as that of the others.

life sometimes makes it so hard for some people to live, i feel.

oh my freaking god.

i am still reeling from the number that appeared on my new ikea weighing scale.