Overdosed.

i haven't written a post for a LONG-LONG time.

after reading this, you might learn why.

i've just gotten my new 40" LCD a couple weeks back,
and i've been watching tons and tons of movies non stop.
thanks to the internet these days, i almost
can grab hold of anything i want. and thank God
to the latest video codec of Matroska, movies
file size are really small. A movie might only
take up to max 400MB. download time might
only take less than an hour.

i know, this is crazy.
especially when i'm in the entertainment industry,
i'm killing my own.
but-hey, what can i do?
i'm bored.

we are all.

i guess that is why when we've got free time,
we indulge ourselves in various virtual,
like video/board games, facebook, internet,
movies, music, book, clubbing, drinking,
smoking, drugs, sex etc, etc.

all these are the modern civilization activities.

just the things we do, when we are bored.
entertainment.

but what happens now when yr bored of these things
too.

on Jan 2010, i wrapped up most of the projects
that i was involved in last year, so I had time
to catch up with my reading and movies.
i flooded myself. over-flooded.

i was reading atleast 100 pages a day,
watched an average of 3 movies a day.

i was going crazy. i sort of over-dosed myself.

i hated stories. i was sicked of them.
every plot/scenarios felt so cliche and corny to me.

and i thought since that i've felt that way,
i might now write an awesome story
that might break away from all the convention stories!
break away from the corny scenes, predictable
endings, manipulative openings, sound+music tricks,
etc, etc. i will break all the rules, and invent
a new form of stories. a fresh new story!

but nothing. i couldn't write. i kept
trying to start the engine of my creative
brain, but all i felt was just a silent-white-blank
space. yes, literally, that was exactly how i felt.

silent-white-blank-space.

in my sleep, i was having nightmares of crazy plots
and scenes. sometimes i was inside the scene,
sometimes behind the camera, sometimes quantum
leaping into characters i was witnessing.

waking up in sweat, i felt extremely tired,
mentally. think this might even resulted me
of getting more white hairs too.

woke up this morning, heard a sad news,
a close friend's cousin just passed away.
car accident. three of us used to hang out
together when we were teenagers.

he is my age.

and this got me thinking.

i think you can imagine
what was going through my head
that very moment.

i wanted to do something.
how can i be feeling bored?
how can i? life is too short.
life is not just about indulging
in fiction stories? stories stand
as a reason for us to learn about
life. not escape from life.

so today, i decided i should just go
out. not sure what i'm gonna do.
just gonna get out from my room
and feel life. besides, i've got a
love story to write for my company
which will be due soon. guess the
getting out, might give some inspiration
to write.

i tried asking some friends out,
but sadly, they all shared the
same hobbies as i have at their homes.

sigh. what can i say?
most of the friends i have will be hitting 30 soon.
and none of them are in the similar industry i am,
so they don't get the awkward jet-lag timings we have.
when we're busy, we are intensively stressful,
and with the little time of break we have, we will rest.
but when comes a downtime, a long period of no shoots,
we'll feel extremely restless and will have the urge
of wanting to do extreme-crazy-fun things to balance
out the stressful work we had. and add on to the low
pay that we're getting, we need to party-out to take
away the depression.

my problem is, i should be hanging out with the people
of my industry, but i'm bad at mingling with new people,
so i end up hanging out with the same-old-set of friends
from high school.

so i don't blame them.
one man's journey,
is one man's experience.

so i'll have to adapt.

later that night, i went to a friend's place.
we walked around his housing area with
another friend while i sipped on a can of Guinness.
i tried to feel the walk.
we were walking, but we weren't walking together.
it's not them, it's just me.
my head was elsewhere. nowhere.
all conversations felt pretty pointless to me.
all things that were said, had been said.
all jokes. laughter. insults. awed.
it's not them.
it's me.

i feel i'm entering this phase,
where i either have to fully plunge into it,
or just come out of it.
either way, the results will have 2 consequences.
good/bad

but definitely, not equal ever again.
will never be balance again.

now, am i being too philosophic?
too dramatic?

i blame the stories.
life is full of stereotypes.
what's new? we are all the same.
i am like you.

i want to connect with people,
yet i feel reluctant too.
'fraid to see myself conversing in cliche.
i analyze too much of reactions to my actions.

i've been down this road before.

i'm a living contradiction.
i want to think/live simple
but i'm not. i want to voice out
the words, but sick and tired of
my own whining. i'm sick of everything,
yet i want to be in love with something.

the walk with my 2 friends was cut off
short due to rain, maybe God also find
my usual routine of finding answers through
other people is quite pointless.
as the old saying,

"you cannot change the world,
but you can change yourself."

so ended up back at friend's place.
i confessed to them that i was bored,
and their advise to me was to either play board
game, read comics or just watch movies.
i told them that i needed to get out.
they didn't understand. their solution to me
was to find 'hobbies' to burn time.
to enhance my skill. to seek more knowledge.
haven't they realized that i've been doing
that almost my entire life. we all have.

i lost patience to explain. i snapped.
it was difficult.
i didn't quite understand it myself.
i was feeling kind of frustrated.
knew it'll just ended up like a debate.
too tired to win, to lose,
to be attacked, to be cheered.
whatever, whenever, if-ever.
i just wanted to get out.
somewhere. anywhere.
to breath.
even if i have to do it alone.
so be it! alone that's what you want
for me God, alone i will embrace!

thus i drove to the furthest
starbuck i know, grab a hot latte
and started driving in silent.

hoping to find answers.

but nothing.

i don't even know if God could
provide the answers to me.
i'm sure He can.
maybe just not yet.

i was then driving near my house area.
i suddenly remembered the 3 of us;
me, my friend and the cousin of his who
just passed-away, used to walk around this
area. i remember the days we had when we were kids.
hanging out, with no directions in life.
we didn't had a car, so we walked for distance,
and talked for hours. about everything. about life.
heh. all our actions were based on boredom too.

after hours of driving aimlessly,
i realized there wasn't any place to go.
i wished there was a quiet place to think,
beside my room. i'm tired of being a hermit.
i needed to feel the world. wind, grass, air.
none. there wasn't one. every corner of the city
was build with something. then i realized,
i'm trapped in a city.

i guess we are all. most of us just don't
realized it, or choose not to think about
it.

maybe holiday helps.
i see people traveling quite often.
coming back from one, they
will plan for the next one. then another.
maybe.

an hour later, finished sipping my latte.
i parked outside a pub. tempted to just
walk in and grab a Guinness. but i knew,
this will just be another of my holiday.
maybe.

with no answer, no resolution.
no solution, i drove home,
in defeat.

i took a long shower. longer than i usually do.
i let the hot shower ran through me.
the water felt good. warm.
i just stood there.
silent-white-blank-space.
feeling dead.

every story provides solution.
i'm stressing now, how the hell am i
to finish writing that 'love' story,
when i don't have the solution for it.

this is a major problem for a scriptwriter
when he no longer believe in the resolutions
of stories. he has a 3rd act, but no solution.

there is none in real life.
i dont't want to write another corny feel good
ending, nor an art house film no-solution depressing ending.

maybe i'm truly overdosed with stories.
maybe i'll recover if i stop stories for awhile.
but what else is there? nothing.

none.

i thought i had a wake up call from life,
after hearing the death of a friend,
to go out and seek life outside of stories.

but there's nothing out there.
none. out of desperation, i've returned
back into my room watching and reading again.

escaping from what's truly outside,
which is nothing.

none.

-chinyew