For whoever is actually still active on LJ. I suppose this is just a more candid version of what most would have said/written in interviews/personal statements.

What do you think is your purpose in life? (your personal one, and not that of humanity/people in general)
How certain are you of it?
What you want to do/are doing to achieve it? (what form will it take?)

======

Some egs:
- I am sure (p<0.05 below critical value to reject null hypothesis), pending any contradictory evidence, that my purpose in life is to do research (in the field of ____ ) to contribute to the sum of human knowledge for posterity. To achieve this, I have taken up a scholarship with _____ (probably A*Star), will study ________ at _________, and will spend the rest of my life there researching _______.

- I have no !@#$%-ing clue what my purpose in life is, so I'll just muddle along doing whatever I like (eg. _______) until I find it (and that probably won't change anything either).

- I know I'm here to save the world and solve all its problems, so I'm starting by studying/doing _____. The first problem I want to fix is __________. (Followed by ____, ____, .....)

- I'm still finding my purpose in life, and actively searching for it by __________. In the meantime, I am accumulating knowledge/$$/power/____ to accomplish the purpose when I find it.

======

So yeah. Comments and serious/semi-serious responses are welcome.

I believe I have acquitted myself well enough, but still ...

Such costly wisdom, or perhaps, mere cynicism.


Goodbye. (And good riddance?)

Thus ends my fourth and last overseas trip with the SAF. Next destination: ORD.

"Why should I ask your name? In any case I knew it before you told me ... Your name is brother."

To survive 2009 with mind and sanity intact.

After not cycling for about a year, I now get overtaken by old men.

Name
          KOO YONG DE

Is authorised by the ARMED
FORCES COUNCIL to drive the                 CLASS 2B
Class(es) of motor vehicle(s) as
indicated.

This:


Reminded me of this:

Am soon departing for the sweltering heat of the land of smiles to stay at the camp of best canteen and 30 baht/hour lan centres till July ends, thus missing the pretty much compulsory post.

...


Dammit, losing coherence yet again ...

As usual, nothing goes quite as planned. Ahead lies assuredly gruelling recce courses and months of flying mini-UAVs in various disparate airspaces. Certainly a package to be treasured, but also one that leaves much work undone, undoable. Still, experience is everything.


"Why do you want to accomplish everything in the first quarter of your life? What are you going to do afterwards?"
- MAJ Seet, outgoing CO 1MI Bn


It is such an ambivalent experience meeting good men in the SAF. One is inspired to believe that they may yet salvage or at least mitigate the ______-__ness (pardon the lack of a suitable adjective) of an organisation filled with _______s (again, fill in appropriate noun). Yet, one is also struck by the feeling of such waste: what more could they forge outside?

1. Apply NUS Med
- Disrupt NS
- Save 1.5 out of 5 years of govt bond
- Come back as MO, which is relatively slackier?

- Still have doubts about medicine as future career
- Difficult to get in, esp since interview requires certainty
- 11 years deal
- Must make decision now; anything else would give extra 2 years of time to carefully think options through

2. OCS
- Relatively better deal than being a 3SG for entire duration of NS

- Must chiong now
- Tougher training
- Ultimately still meaningless

3. Medic
- One of the few somewhat meaningful vocations in NS: get to acquire some medical skills (eg. First Aid) am already interested in

- Combat medic is the shit

4. Other vocations/ASLC after BSLC
- Slackier trainee life?

- 3SG is the worst rank to hold.
- Meaningless and a waste of time

Where's the damned save point when you really need it?

We all go a little crazy during route marches, but it was a strange feeling singing, "this is home, truly ..." while trudging and splashing through the puddles and pools we had been avoiding for the past 12km.

Certitude remains, as always, elusive. But we'll all just have to make do.


愿主的平安与你同在。
新年快乐。

Sigh. From countdown till book out to countdown till book in. And again.


And I'm surprised by what I actually miss.

It's a different feeling seeing myself in the mirror at home.

这曾经是个遥远的里程碑.

And the first real intersections start just beyond this.

I can feel it already ... ORD is inching ever closer.

To survive 2008 with mind and sanity intact so that next year, I can resolve to survive yet another year with mind and sanity intact.


I suppose 'Happy New Year' to those who are going to have a happy one ahead, and to the rest of us, best of luck.

...

Why am I even posting this?

After declining all that crap for a few years, now, incoming unavoidable bullshit and inescapable ... people. I suppose it will partly be like OBS, just far worse, and far far longer.


"The real damage is done by those millions who want to ’survive’—the honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves ... Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth, and principles are only literature ... Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does."
— Sophie Scholl

Make some bets without knowing all the stakes, the odds or even the payoffs. After all, life is but a series of bets, and there are many that we do not currently know we can actually well afford to risk losing.



If last year was characterised by hesitant probing as well as a kind of semi-tortuous/depressive cynical/realist rationalism, then this year's motif has been a kind of determined, blithe recklessness together with a settled, irrational and extreme idealism.

Quaint, so very quaint life is.
And I have discovered the purpose of rain.


In stark contrast to the beginning of these two years (and my first post), I find myself unarmed without a camera. "I [found] that photos jolt memories of previous experiences, drawing one back to the emotions of the scene." And so photos are merely memory aids; relics to bring one back to the past. I remember weaving through the crowds as a candid photographer (and also entrenching an observer role), attempting to capture a scene. Yet the defining moments of a particular scene are often so fleeting, and realisation strikes only after it passes, and thus this mission was doomed to fail. I have little liking for posed photos: they are not genuine; merely an afterthought, a wistful realisation that a defining moment has already slipped out of reach.

If photos are so inadequate in capturing scenes, events or experiences, they are even worse at helping us remember people and persons. The 'defining moments' of (one's interaction with) a person are even more evanescent: a look, a glance, an expression, a tiny gesture, a posture, flitting words, unspoken words, a gaze, an attitude; nothing that can individually be substituted by a plastered-on smile, and much less so when summed up. Each of these are burned and imprinted onto our memories as they are experienced, almost as acutely real as the actual moment. These are from our perspective as a conscious individual and so encompass not merely the person we remember, but also a part of ourselves.

If you have only an empty scene, can your memories fill in the rest?


Yet when memories fail ...


This has been a work in progress since Sunday, but as it drags on, it becomes increasingly awkward and incoherent, so I think I'll stop attempting to refine/finish it. Since it would otherwise never see the light of day, shall just salvage what I can:

Dammit, now front tyre is out of shape. wtf.