Being Enough

Having enough and being enough are two different things. Though they may differ completely, being enough is pretty hard to define isn't it. How do we enough being define, when it is already difficult for us to define "being me" haha. Well for me being is just another branch that reaches out from "have". It's about how we feel ourselves as a person, and eventually what defines whether we have enough. 

Have you ever felt good enough? When you look into the mirror and see yourself, are you happy and proud of who you are? Have you ever felt that what you are doing in this world is good enough? Your career, its progression, where you are right now etc. And similarly to the previous post, this world seems to always make us feel that we can never be enough. Always chasing for something better.

Which is nothing wrong, I think growth is essential in life. Without growth, without movement, we're all stuck in a place that we can never get out of, unless we decided to hustle forward, or... Slowdown backward. The problem is however, when the world seems to push us too much and too fast out of our comfort zone. When we feel good enough about ourselves, the world will always try to find ways to make us feel like we're not good enough. And so on. That's my observation.

There are times where I feel that we're chasing for the wrong things in life. Or that the world has designed a path that it is asking us to follow, to chase for these wrong things. Some of us have seen through this and decided not to follow the path and walk on our own designed paths. But the world will somehow make us feel uncomfortable, and eventually we leave our own paths.

People who walk on their own are deemed insane.

Or is the the other way round? That the insane ones are actually the sane ones instead.

I'm still struggling to define the word "enough" in my life. Sometimes I feel like I don't want to be great. I just want to be enough. Enough of everything. Financially enough, happy enough, satisfied enough and so on. But now that I'm still struggling to define that word, I'll continue this journey to give it a meaning. 

Never Enough

Right this is a continuation of my previous post, about how at times I feel that we live in a world that is designed to make us feel that we can never have enough, and never be enough. 

It's quite a terrifying thought sometimes, how I met quite a lot of people who seem to never have enough. Even though in my opinion, they already have enough. I thought to myself, are they just craving for more, or are they just oblivious to what they already have? And how as I move along with life, this is no strange thing to me. It felt very common. Which makes me question myself if this world makes us feel like we can never have enough. And it's a terrifying question to ask, to be honest.

We seem to always want more. We want a better house, a better car, a better phone and so on. Seems like when we're happy with what we have, the world urges us to get something better. Well of course this doesn't apply to everyone. Especially me. Cause I've been practising minimalism. I do not want to get new things unless I really need them (ie they are broken, lost and so on).

My dad once told me that people are becoming more and more reliant with money. Which is why I really agree with the Chinese saying of "Money isn't everything, but without money we can't do a lot of things". And being in the working world for 5 years, meeting people and so on, that statement has become more evident. People seem to... Never have enough. And they seem to want more.

Which then leads me to the question why? Why do we do things even though we know we can't do it, or will make our lives more difficult. Why do we get/want things even though we know we can't afford it? Is it greed? Is it just a irrational thought that we have? I'd say it's ungratefulness. 

Ungratefulness for what we have, craving for more, suffering in the end, and the cycle continues.

Okay continued to part 2 about being never enough.

Enough

Perhaps the world is designed to make us feel that

we can never have enough, we will never be enough

Digging Saturday

Chandelier at the wedding

Hello, I just got back from a short trip to Jakarta yesterday! Well I went there to attend a wedding, my customer's daughter to be exact. But since the wedding is at night, I went for a short day trip to the South of Jakarta too. Went to Paperpot records to do some digging and also went to have some good vegan ramen at Yoisho ramen at Gunamarwan. Both places I've been wanting to go to!

Digging some treasures! They are at Blok M Plaza Level 4 by the way

So I reached Blok M at about 2:30 PM I think. Went straight to Paperpot to do some digging. They have A LOT of records haha. I couldn't pick a lot. And I regretted that I didn't pick some of them eeep. Well I picked two records: Both are classical music haha. The first one is a collection of brass music from a brass festival in the UK. Another one is James Galway playing the Mozart flute concerto and also his clarinet concerto but played in flute. It was my first time digging and it was a meditative experience.

I was in such a focus zone. Couldn't care what's and who are around me haha.

Anyway I was just digging when one of the staff (I think the owner? From their instastory) came and asked me if he can recommend me some music. He was just like "tell me what kind of music you like" and it happened that they were playing some nice house music earlier. So I pointed to him the music "that was playing" HAHAHA. But he kindly recommended me some music and damn I love the recommendations. Also we have a bit of convo about the many different kind of jazz and house genres and how small their differences are. Genres always confuse me hahaha.

Hope to come back one day again!

Next I went to for a late lunch at Yoisho ramen. I wanted to go to Bluezone center to try their impossible meat burger but stupid me, I didn't check their Saturday opening times and they are only open at 6:30 PM on Saturdays :( So I went to Yoisho ramen instead. Have always wanted to try them too! From some of the vegan instagrammers in Jakarta. Thankfully they have 1/2 portions of their ramens and so I get both of the soup and dry ramen (Mazemen).

Shoyu ramen at the foreground, mazemen at the background

The soup one has a shoyu base (wanted to try their miso but they ran out of soy milk which is homemade! Must be famous I guess). The shoyu soup was light but has a heartening feel to it. The dry ramen is a green chili mazemen and it is such a genius combo really. Slurped both bowls quickly cause I was hungry, and also they were both delicious haha. I wanna try their miso ramen one day! :)

Always feel out of place here

Before heading for the wedding, I went to Kem Chicks at Pacific Place to do some shopping and also to buy back some bread for the fam. Meh, I always feel out of place in the SCBD area. Like everything was so glitz and glamour kind but... I'm not that kind of person heh. But anyway Kemchicks is really complete. But of course it is expensive to shop there too haha. Just bought the usual soy and almond milk for me. And also tried hazelnut milk now haha.

After that I went to fetch one of my workers and we went for the wedding together. Congratulations for the newlyweds! Also the reason why I ate before the wedding is of course, I can't eat at the wedding as there's not much veggie option except for fruits and pudding. #veggielyfe #vegetarianproblems

Alright that's all for my short but kinda sweet Saturday. Man, it's been so long since I blog this style. You know, just talking and describing how my day went. Just like those days in Singapore where I would talk about a particular scene or happening of my day. I think I should do this more. Okay I will see you soon. We're halfway through October now, hope you're having a great October so far! :)

Getting Rid Of Things

Can't really think of a title for this post but yeah, it goes along something like that haha.

Recently I came across a thought. In this world where we are plagued by a lot of negative emotions, life may seem like a hell to live in. We're constantly bombarded with worries. Sometimes we're burned by anger, and other days we're fed by annoyance. How can we become a calmer and more mindful person? And what really gives a rise to these emotions that we feel?

I started to ponder this. You see I can make you eat healthier food, I can make you avoid a certain type of food that is harmful to your body, and we can see changes and results in our health. I can give you medicines and I can give you treatments, and we can see your health improve gradually.

However, there is not way I can make you think a certain way. There is no way I can make you to stop worrying, to stop being angry, to forget about the small stuff and so on. There is no way I can take out that unpleasant thing that is circling through your mind. There is no way I can take something out of your mind, and put inside it. Because we are the ones who hold the key to our mind.

Remember there was a time I posted that we live in a terrifying world where we can put things on people's mind? Like extremist thoughts, and we can even tell lies to people so that they will believe them. Ultimately the mind is a very powerful thing. It's like a garden, whatever we put inside will grow with us. But we too have the power to cut and let them die. If we want to.

There are a lot of times in my life where I try to get rid of such feelings. I realised how hard it is to do so. I just find it funny how we have steps and directions to improve our health and to keep out body fit. But we don't seem to have a lot of ideas and how to improve our mental health hah. Well there are drugs we can take to cope with mental illnesses. How about before we need to take them?

So far for me... Meditation helps a lot. And I am in a conquest to be mindful and to train my mind. Meditation seems to be a good method to do so. And it's been going well I suppose.

So yeah, it is important to take care of our own body, and our health, because this is the only place we have to live in! But I think we have overlooked our mind. We can destroy our body by the unhealthy habits we keep on doing. But our mind can destroy us without us realising it. No?

Sensitive

This is a really random post and also a weird one you can say. I've been having insomnia again this past month. Since September to be exact. I would sleep at about 6 AM but nowadays I would fall asleep at 7. Even though I go to bed at 5-ish. During my grandma's cremation, I thought I would be able to "reset" the sleeping time by not sleeping the whole morning and only sleeping a few hours here and there on the way home. But nope, didn't happen. I slept at 6 AM again.

I have no idea why, and all the measures have been carried out. Like chamomile tea, switching off lights in my room, not using phones before bedtime etc. Not sure if there are things inside my subconscious mind that don't allow me to fall asleep easily. There is however one thing...

I realised one strange thing that has been happening since my time in Singapore - I always have insomnia on two periods of the year; the solstices! The summer solstice on 22 June ish, and winter solstice on 22 December-ish. I will always get insomnia during this period and I have no idea why.

So I am wondering if there's some weird universe even going on in this period and I realise one thing - it's the fall equinox 2 weeks ago! And also I realised I did get my fair share of insomnia during qing ming back in April, which is the spring equinox. Holy moly haha. I am sensitive to the movement of the earth! Isn't that cool haha. Okay for the equinox part I'm not sure because I'm just experiencing this kinda this year. But yeah, I always get weird ass insomnia once every few months.

For the solstice part it has been proven. I remember back when I was in poly, I always have difficulty sleeping in June, no idea why. There was a time back in 2011 I think where I didn't fall asleep at all for the whole night and go to Poly still. Hoping to reset my time at night, only to fall asleep in the evening and then waking up again late at night and the cycle continued. But thankfully it was a Friday so I had a good sleep-in on the next day (a Saturday).

Not sure what is happening in my body but yeah, maybe I'm just sensitive to the movement of the earth. Equinoxes and solstices are quite a major event of this planet. They signify the movement and tilting of this planet, that result in changes in the duration of a day. Perhaps this has an invisible effect on my body, my soul and my spirit. Who knows man. But it's just an interesting observation.

Oh well I hope this insomnia will go away. It's quite stressful to not be able to sleep really. Especially when the sun begins to rise and my room is filled with golden sun rays. I can blame it on my weird sleeping habit. But I think I will have to stick around with this habit for quite some time.

Alright that's all for this random post. I will see you soon!

Clueless

It's the last day of September can you believe it! Well, we're entering October soon and for me, once we left September behind, time is going to fly really quickly towards the end of the year. Not sure why but well. Yeah that's how it goes. Then a new year awaits and it feels like time slows down again.

Anyway it's time to share with you some of the great music of September! Lots of them.

Great Music of September:

- Chris by Chrirstine and The Queens (or Chris?)

- Superclean Vol II by The Marias

- EP III by Yumi Zouma

- Young Romance by Roosevelt

- Infections of A Different Kind by Aurora (Surprise!)

- Rehat by Kunto Aji

- Dew by Pynkie

- Give Me Your Fire, Give Me Your Rain by The Paper Kites

- Time In A Tree by Raleigh Ritchie

Song of the month: I'm so spoilt for choices arrghhh! But... Clueless by The Marias, La Marcheuse by Chris, In Camera by Yumi Zouma, Soft Universe by Aurora eeep hahaha

Okay yes so as you can see there are a lot of albums being released this month! And they are all that I've been waiting for, and 2 of them took me by surprise really. Lets begin!

Lets talk about the 2 wonderful EPs released this month, which were both released last Friday. Been waiting for The Marias Superclean vol II since they released the 2 singles Clueless and Carino. This EP is so so good oh my goodness haha. I always imagine myself listening to Vol I in a nice warm comfy bar, and for Vol II I am totally imagining myself listening to it at a rooftop bar, overlooking a city with the setting sun on a Friday evening. Such great vibes, it's magical.

Yumi Zouma caught me by surprise when they announced that they are releasing EP III back in August I think. I really love Yumi Zouma since I discovered them back in 2015 through their first 2 EPs. We've been blessed with their awesome music for 4 consecutive years! EP III is another wonderful release from them that encapsulates their charm as a band. I feel like they've been releasing a consistent work and there's always their signature in every album, even though each album is different. 

Can't really explain it, I just love their music.

Next we have Chris by... Chris. Chris announced the new album back in July I think? After releasing the first single "Girlfriend" back in May. I really enjoyed her first album and after listening to the singles from Chris, I became more excited! It's such a groovy album and the songs in Chris are very err universal? There's a song to dance to, song to drive to, and song to just accompany you. Definitely in my opinion best pop album of 2018! And another album inside my top albums of the decade.

Roosevelt also released his new single back in July I think, and also announced the arrival of his 2nd album. Love his first album back in 2016 and his second album is also a fantastic one. I thought it'll be a suitable album to send off the summer. Even though I have no summer here haha. 

The biggest surprise for this month is Aurora's second album (part one)! I know that her 2nd album will be released in Autumn from an interview. She didn't say and do anything, I just received a Facebook message from her page about Infections of a Different Kind (the name of her 2nd album). I thought it was an announcement for the release date but no!!! It's the album itself haha.

Well this is Step one of the 2nd album. Step 2 will be released in 2019 or 2020? I read it on NME. Not sure if I can wait this long to be honest hah. Aurora's first album us such a masterpiece really. I love her voice, I love her personality, and how deep her music is. So yes this is one of the biggest anticipated albums of 2018 for me. Although to be honest I'm quite confused with the whole step one thing. I was expecting a whole album to be released. But no worries! Means we'll have more music.

Step One is already awesome by the way. I've been giving it a few listens and the more I listen and the more I listen to the lyrics, the deeper the connection I made with it.

Next we have The Paper Kites new album called On The Corner Where You Live. I really love the whole theme and concept that they are going with the album? And also the whole feel of the songs inside it. Reminds me of the 80s. It's very spacious and just grand. Give Me Your Fire, Give Me Your Rain is my favourite from the album, together with Deep Burn Blue and the title track!

Kunto Aji also released his (long awaited) 2nd album called Mantra Mantra. Been following him on Instagram and he's been sharing with us through his stories about the 2nd album. It's a great album I would say. Definitely an album that this world needs, where worrying becomes a part of our lives.

Also discovered a few new songs form Majestic as usual.The first one is Dew by Pynkie. I love both the original version and the lo-fi version! It's such a chill song, been enjoying listening to it while driving. Raleigh Ritchie also released a new song called Time In A Tree and it's such an emotional song. Especially the video! I can't wait for more new music from him and a new album too.

I discovered more new music from Spotify too. Hotel Delmano by Munya, By Night by Hushed and Infinite Games by Zola Blood. All of them discovered from the radio feature. Such an awesome way to discover new music that (somehow) Spotify knows you will love haha. Also... September will mark the last month of my 5k/month subscription plan. But seriously Spotify has changed my life haha. I am definitely going to stick with it. But as always, long live physical formats!

Okay that's all for the great music of this month. So many great music. I am looking forward to two released in October, that's Charlie Lim's album and also Robyn's new album! I think there isn't much releases I'm expecting afterwards but we'll see. So many surprises this year haha. Alright I hope you had a Superb September. Lets have an Outrageously-good October mwahaha. See ya!