Back To Camp

I'm going back to the army tomorrow. For two whole weeks, I'll be in camouflage and hanging with a bunch of guys I only see once a year. I have met a few of them in 'real life' but those fleeting moments don't amount to much. I use 'real life' because in the army, it's not quite what people are used to. I tell people that going back mostly means using a part of my brain that I don't use at work. Or sometimes not use my brain at all. It's the army, so you just follow instructions. It can be as simple as that. Tomorrow I need to report in uniform with my field pack at 0730. Step 1. What happens next is purely up to my officers and sergeants. I'm in the logistics side of things and we're meant to support the big guns heading out to battle. Water, food, ammo and medical. It isn't as exciting as it sounds. Usually there's quite a bit of prep, a lot of waiting, some confusion, then a flurry of action, and then it's over. There's lots of cookhouse and sometimes canteen food consumed in between.  Out in the field, we'll have rations. I usually consume too many oversweet fruit bars. I also have a tendency to come back injured or diseased. The injury is back related and the last disease I picked up was a fungal infection around my toes. It happens. In addition to all these, there's a lot of silly conversation. I am looking forward to chatting about government issues, housing prices, car troubles, wife and kid problems, holiday plans, stock market options, people we don't like in camp, the old ways of doing things, the new gadgets we have, and whatever else the newspaper flipping throws up. I am not looking forward to waking up at 5am, the long journeys to camp or the work emails that'll pile up. This is the Singaporean life.  

Stuff You Learn From The Walking Dead

Lessons from watching three seasons of The Walking Dead over two weekends:

1. Tie up loose ends - When you've got the chance to sort things out, do it. If you miss the chance it may not only not come around again, it may literally bite you, kill you and have you resurrect as a zombie. Carl didn't kill the zombie who was stuck in the mud outside the farm and what did that walker do? Attack Dale. Morgan didn't whack his zombified wife wgo later ate her son Duane. One may be afraid to deal with the problem at the right time, but you gotta just pick up that rifle or steak knife, pluck up some courage and stare the problem in the eye before fixing it. Andrea should have whacked Philip's one good eye when she had the chance. Fewer people would have died and she wouldn't need to go through all that drama.  

2. Accept what cannot be changed - whatever it is, if you can't fix it, don't waste your time, effort, tears and energy to change it. Unlike a clogged sink, there are some inevitabilities one must simple accept and move on with. Like Herschel who kept his zombie wife, stepson and friends in the barn thinking there's be a cure coming. Nosirreebob. Just let them go or shoot them in the noggin. 

3. A zombie apocalypse changes people - It's an emotional roller coaster that's takes a mental toll regardless how strong you may be. Poor Rick started seeing his dead wife, his kid Carl became a stoic psycho in the making, Carol grew well hardened. Herschel's kid wanted to end it with a dinner knife and asked her sister Maggie to join her. Unfortunately, therapists aren't really readily available during the end of the world. So look out for the signs and talk to one another. 

People can also change for the better in times of crisis. I am speaking about Daryl. From redneck sonofabitch, he became a trusted champ at camp. He tried his darndest to find Sophia, and he whack so many walkers with his trusty bow and arrows. He just needed the right leadership to straighten him out. And when he had to choose between his asshole misguided brother and his new family, he eventually returned to his friends. 

4. There's almost always a way out - You gotta keep looking and figuring out the possibilities. You never know what ingenious solution that grey matter of yours comes up with when put to the test. It may mean ripping off a zombie's arm and using the sharp edge of bone to pierce same said zombie's brain. Daryl started hallucinating about his brother taunting him when he fell off Nervous   Nelly into the ravine, got pierced in his sides by his own arrows, and attacked by two ugly walkers, but that didn't stop him from trying to save himself. 

There are probably more insights but this is all the writing there's time for on this train ride to work. 

Winning At Mahjong

I tend to lose at Mahjong. I was introduced to this game by some good university friends who decided that it was about time I shun my inhibitions of time-wasting and mental anguish. They decided to teach me to play without the 'teaching fees'. This means we went through the rounds without any monetary wins or losses, just affirmations of the right moves or bad decisions. Ego boost or ego crash. But the illicit pleasures of gambling crept in soon enough, at low values of course. In fact, the current bunch of like-minded tile-tackling addicts I play with have not expressed any dire need to increase the 20-40 cents 5-double tolerance. Not yet. 

Competition aside, it's the peripheral activities that make playing the game so enjoyable. The conversation, the food, the drink, and even TV form part of the distractions to concentration. Welcome distractions, otherwise one gets too caught up in the supreme gambling fetish versus participation in the social buzz. The conversations go on about anything and everything. That is what I believe is the hook. Winning is great and losing sucks but being with friends, telling stories and random eating and drinking are the proverbial icing on the cake. 

So even though I tend to lose at mahjong, I don't feel like I have. Maybe this what old people want. Am I there already? Yikes.  

A Mad Men Snippet For Happier Living

While ironing I caught a random episode of Mad Men in season 5. The team was getting an award at some dinner. Megan, Don Draper's wife, had her father Emile there, at the same table.

“I always thought that you were very single-minded about your dreams and that that would help you through life,” Emile tells Megan. “But now I see that you skipped the struggle and went right to the end.” “It’s not the end, it’s the beginning,” Megan says. “This apartment, this wealth that someone handed to you,” Emile replies. “This is what Karl Marx was talking about. And it’s not because someone else deserves it. It’s because it is bad for your soul.” “Don’t pick at me with your politics because you hate that I love Don,” she says. “No, I hate that you give up. Don’t let your love for this man stop you from doing what you want to do.”

(Most of that paragraph came from another website, www.pajiba.com. Lucky me, not having to recall all those lines.)

Wow. Now that's TV trying to teach us something. Rare but possible, haha. Megan marries Don, and her dad thinks she's lost her spirit.

It's an important lesson for all of us, not to lose ourselves. We all have dreams of some kind or at least ambitions we want to fulfil. A hobby perhaps, something that keeps us happy, a personal contentment.

I remember telling my primary 4 class that I wanted to be an astronaut. Well that's not gonna happen but I would still like to look at the stars and get lost among the pin pricks of sparkly lights. A telescope would help.

Maybe not losing our dreams too much is key. Life takes us on the usual route for some of us - school, work, marriage, house, more work, kids. (I say some because who am I to judge your circumstances). Along the way we figure out certain things. That we like to draw, a nose for wines perhaps, a flair for cooking, a vision for origami, an eye for photography, a dexterity for number puzzles, hands and legs for tree climbing, musical fingers. Whatever it may be, an activity, physical or mental, that activates our happy centres. We should try to keep some bits of these in our lives, if we don't already pursue what some might say would be our true calling.

The Mad Men example I suspect exemplifies the sacrifices we tend to make as we jump into various life stages. Even love may prevent us from being at our fullest and oddly enough, happiest. It's scary but makes sense. My mum left her home and school to come to Singapore and had me and sister. I know she regrets not having spent me time studying than taking care of her family back home in Ipoh and then here. A childhood missed. She's pretty good with art and did some of my praised pieces in primary school. Well, we tend to figure out our regrets when we aren't in control of circumstances.

So do something. Today. Watch your kids and figure out their talents. Teach them not to forget. We need a happier planet.