Friday, 20 July 2007
baby there's something on my mind tonight, there's a reason to believe that we almost had it right...

Okay, so this strange thing came to me today, it's going to be a very long and analytical entry, so stop here if you can't stand reading such entries, it's just my ranting, and I rant about weird things that i actually THINK about in the dead of the night.. for all it's worth its 2.45am and i have school at 9.. ah well.. the joys of life.. indeed.. lets start with something that triggered my thinking today.. Sierra (a huge ass game company), has decided to shut down my and about 500 other gamer's love. A game called ARC, it's old'skool, challenging and demands skill. The reason, though left unsaid, is clear.. it's gotten old.. its a minority's vote against a majority's DOTA or WOW or whatever it is these days... a full entry of my thoughts can be read here.. i took pains to write that mind you ... and then it triggered my thoughts about ... something else... here goes,

Did you ever wonder... what's the true reason to success? People always say it's commitment, dedication, uhm, money, connections? I don't know.. I'll tell you what I think it is.. success is driven on pure dedication.. to put every ounce of your mind, heart and soul into something you honestly believe in.. Something YOU believe in, and not what he, she, or her friend has told you... By pure dedication, I don't mean by waking up and saying.. 'Hey, today I'm going to do (-insert here-). Even though you do it, one day of dedication isn't going to do any bullcrap, unless you consider going to bed thinking 'omg today i stopped being a slob' a big achievement of your dreams... Everybody has dreams, me, you, him, her, it, that old man playing the clarinet in the underpass.. Not every dream is going to come true, because dedication is driven on willpower, and willpower is driven on sheer belief.. to believe that you have the power to do something is one thing.. Everybody has the power to do something, right? I've got the power to stab my best friend with a knife.. what stops you? Conscience? Fuck no... cos' honestly, conscience is very easily bypassed.. no matter what the bible says, i've stopped believing in that, i'm sorry i'm not a good catholic, never was and i'm not going to hide that fact.. a fact's a fact.

ANYWAY, lets drive back on track here.. it's not conscience you know.. conscience and belief are similar if you think about it, but belief is more powerful, because conscience is something you don't control, it's like that nagging feeling at the back of your mind when you forget something you desperately want to remember.. belief is driven by your own sheer ... whatchamacallit... personal self? Well you either get what I mean or you don't ... So its like.. say I have the power to stab someone, lets not even say my best friend, say my enemy... Why don't I? Because i'm someone who believes that I won't live with regret and guilt, that I have spilled a man's inner blood and taken his life into my hands.. It makes it all the easier to just walk away and forget.. Sure, tempers flare, it's human nature.. the most powerful element of all, dangerous. You can't control human nature, but it's like.. pretty harmless.. so long as you know how to believe. There comes a point where it goes between human nature vs belief.. believe me or not, belief will win. Picture this.. You're in a 5 by 5 m room with your greatest enemy. The only way out is a door behind you.. which you are leaning on.. you have an AK47, fully loaded, with the safety catch off.. it's trigger-finger sensitive.. one little squeeze and his skull will shatter into a million pieces and splatter the walls. What are you going to do? If you're going to get away with it with no charge whatsoever if you kill him? And if you can walk away freely, without getting slammed by some hidden kung-fu move from your enemy? I'd walk away.

Killing takes a fragment of someone's soul. Serial killers have no soul, because everytime they kill, a fragment is gone, it becomes a mind-game. But those who walk free, who have never shed a man's blood on their clean hands.. it's different. Say.. let's use me. I hate the feeling of regret, and regret for simple, small incidents such as giving up a mini-dream, just something i've wanted to do.. With that, i know and i believe that if i had the guilt and regret that i took a man's life, no matter how cursed that life was, and no matter how grateful the world would be, a life is a life.. and no-one has the right to take a life.. makes sense? So what i'm saying is that.. if dreams are driven by belief and dedication... every hour, there will be someone working on a dream.. because they're dedicated, believe in themselves, self-willed, and because they know not to hold back..

Everybody's given at least one shot in making a dream come true.. it's just whether they know how to make it or break it.. For every beggar playing the clarinet in the underpass, every cent that goes into their makeshift collection box can make their dream come true. For every criminal that walks out of the gates of the prison, they are given a second life, to make it would be to walk out, never look back and never give up no matter how many times they're rejected.. to break it would be to walk right up to the prison gates, knock, and say you want back in. It's an easy mistake, anybody could make it.. the sad part of life is that everybody makes that mistake along the way.. but that's life isn't it.. not all dreams were made to come true, not everybody was created to believe.. I don't mean that you can't change it.. Mindset is a fun game to play.. but deadly, mindset is like a game of battleship.. every ship you hit opens the catch and your mind widens.. yet every blank piece of ocean locks the catch in, and you would need to reset, and to try again... lol.. not everybody's gonna understand this.. my mind works weird at night.. hmm..

Well so i was thinking.. man it's going to be SO difficult to get through TP.. let alone look ahead at uni.. but i realised, that i've got no willpower, and no belief at the moment.. at least not on this matter.. uh-oh.. lets talk about TP later.. another analytical bit just crossed my mind..

Hey hey, it's bringing me to where i work.. Hmm.. Changi Airport is supposed to be a world-class hub, claiming over 250 airport awards world-wide, 7 time best airport, top 30 busiest airports in the world.. you'd expect alot.. maybe that's how it is on the outlook. Lets zoom in.. Terminal 2 Level 3 viewing mall.. ahh fish n co, whups, sorry, wrong restaurant. Oh lookie.. pasta fresca.. yummy.. mmhmm.. the place looks pretty decent, looks pretty well managed and maintained on the exterior.. nice gold tablecloths.. uniformly dressed staff, wait, zoom in, what's that i see, an untucked shirt! Oh.. well.. it's a little crowded.. it might have came loose from running around going about duties.. hmm.. decent.. oh wait, stop, this is where i work... And for the best part of this, here comes the analogy.. =D..

And for every partially, semi-, and very successful company, there is the man behind the hows and the whats.. for us, there's Mr Salvatore. Decent looking italian man, [little on the short side, but lets not be hypocritical here ;)]... take a closer look.. wait, 'Salvo, please button your shirt..' alright, it's safe now.. For the best part of what i've written above, it really doesn't apply here.. because.. no matter what you say, no matter how much he has earned, or how many branches he has opened.. I see very little dedication. In my humble opinion, his business is driven on the dough .. the ka-ching that you hear.. $.$.. that's it.. MONEY. I can back this up by saying he has little or no contact with the staff that run his restaurant, but don't hold positions. Heck, even the position holders aren't really talked to.. he only talks to his big man, the one who runs the outlet, and brings in his moneyy. And what does he say the first thing he comes? "Why so many staff" ....... Well Mr Salvo, look at the crowd, and for god's sake, work for a day with your ideal number of staff in your eyes, (what is it 3?) and survive WELL through this same crowd. Oh no, but you don't want to actually get your hands dirty.. not anymore, not since you have got this running..

Well .. for the best part of this, he wants a lower staff count, especially for part-times (oh work the full-timers more by all means, it's a pretty fixed pay), because they are paid HOURLY! Which would mean a few threads coming out from his pocket.. honestly, what is a few thousand in PT pay to a man like salvo.. Honestly... maybe peanuts are worth more.. he's rich.. frugal to some extent.. but basicly stingy in another.. Oh, he may seem like a man who believes in enhancing technology, but you don't fool me Mr Salvo ... that biometric punching-in device will only help you cut more costs in the long run.. how? BY LATENESS OF COURSE.. sign in late and i'll take a little of your pay away~! a little + a little + a little ... + a little = ALOT! everybody knows that.. even my little 3 year old cousin! Oh god am i sacarstic.. or am i just honest.. i don't know.. my head hurts.. techno music is bad for your ears.. and for that matter, he's not even kind enough to provide a collection of nice soothing italian music, and thus my head and my brain has to suffer on a workly(only when i work and visit) basis, straining to block the techno out (and failing). And while we're on that topic, the CD player provided is probably 2nd hand and cheap.

And man i'm TIRRRRRED.. let me refocus my mind.. oh yes.. now enough about the boss, good for him that his money-driven dream has gone this far, and i'll hope (though not very much) that his business will flourish and he can finally swim in an olympic sized money pool. Lets talk about someone of a lower rank.. (and corde, for that matter this isn't bitching, it's analysing.. in a bitchy way.. it's somewhat different..) Irene. The junior captain. JC for short. For what sums up what i'm going to say for all the lazy readers who skim instead of read, it's basicly pondering over how she got her position. Never in my life, did i hear of someone, who constantly whines at the manager to be let off early, to get a later shift start, to do this, to do that. I'm going to try to be unbiased here. Say it's my first day.. I would definitely respect someone who does their job, shows authority only when absolutely necessary, and does things with a certain amount of pride in them. Which I saw in Jasmine Tan when i first joined. Indeed, she changed, but respect is instilled, no matter what you say, i'll still respect her.. no matter how much less, respect is still, respect. I'd not see the same thing in someone who has a position, yet constantly whines, doesn't take the initiative to do something, and sends their 'pawns' to do all the dirty work (crumbing, and sweeping the damn floor.. cleaners are paid and treated better i believe..) ... Ah whatever, stop val. I aint going to the point of bitching today.. not tomorrow, maybe gonna make it not ever.. noo.. bitching is evil..

Ok, lets move on then.. I'm not up to the standard where i can talk totally unbiased for a prolonged period.. here comes another topic! Old'Skool.. Do you know why old'skool lives on? Because there are always people in the world who believe in what it's worth to protect what's good and gold. Makes sense? I hope so. Take a gold oldie band like ABBA.. and a currently popular band like FallOutBoy. What's the difference? ABBA has been on the shelves for at least 2 decades, and still sells.. FallOutBoy is what i shall call, short lived.. People tell you this song's nice, and you listen, and you think it's nice, and buy the album. Listen to it a few times yay the song's nice, listen longer and it gets boring. Having a favourite band/song is as close an example to following a dream that EVERYBODY has gone through.. mine's FFF(fiveforfighting). Not because anybody tells me that it's good, but because I think it's good. Because in the long run, what someone else thinks is worth NOTHING compared to what you think, because belief is all that matters.. well ... i'm getting really tired, and i think i've said almost everything on my mind.. and about to win longest blog entry of the year (yes roll your eyes.) but i just hope, that when the time comes for the turning point, to make it or break it, I hope i'm like the beggar in the underpass, to know that when a contribution is made to the humble collection box, to know that that's the time, to pursue a dream.. Right now? uhm.. maybe i'll work on dragging myself through a year at tp..

And now, here's a cookie for everybody who has successfully read the blog entry completely, without falling asleep... (reach here for the cookie) .. HAHA FOOLED YA. oh .. i need sleep.. i'm seeing stars.. and ghostly figures around the room.. eikes.. i sure hope i'm not hallucinating.. this is NOT the time for me to go dementiated. GROWL.


monster kealur wabbit ||| 02:42

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