Hello again

New year, new phase in life. a new chance to do things differently.

 I have been away from the creative space for quite a while now, sometimes due to real-life responsibilities like household chores, but mostly due to laziness and the draw of just resting on the couch and letting my brain fly amidst all the usual Youtube content we have been following as of late. There's also the ever-present temptation of objective-driven console gaming (think open-world RPGs or sports games l), or the retro hits like Tetris or Dr. Mario wherein the only driving force is the acquisition of more points for its own sake. I don't play for points though, but maybe just for the sense of achieving something, which personally seems more fulfilling than being stuck in a loop with your neck craned over your phone, scrolling indefinitely through content tailor-made to keep you willingly (or unwillingly) engaged while the rest of the world moves on without you.

 Four months into a new year filled with much hope and promise, we suddenly find ourselves in the middle of ever-escalating conflicts around the globe, the latest of which hits home very hard due to the shock effect of skyrocketing fuel prices, which would inevitably escalate into higher prices of goods and services all around,

 It kind of boggles the mind when you consider that all of this was unthinkable just a decade ago, where everything seemed shitty, but at least was kind of stable in a twisted sort of way. But come to think of it, 2016 wasn't really that great a year either in this part of the world.. All of this brings about a certain longing for a past version of myself which was seemingly unbothered by everything else that was happening.

 Although I am definitely grateful for the stable situation I find myself in right now, I still often find myself yearning for simpler times and the things that moved my world. I guess I'm talking about my love affair with novels and drawing. I remember those carefree hot summer afternoons where I could finish an entire book from sunup to sundown. I fondly recall reading almost all of my father's books on the past world wars, both biographical and otherwise, in a span of a single summer vacation. My Robotech collection was (and still is) my pride and joy, having collected almost every novel bit by bit through my meager savings and thankfully completed by some hand-me-downs from my older cousins when they moved house. I still don't have book #19 The Zentraedi Rebellion though, but I wonder if it would be feasible to secure a copy eventually.. Bargain bins at Booksale are out of the question though, as anything of remote value from the Science Fiction section had long since dried up. Visiting the last two remaining major booksellers (NBS and Fully Booked) is an exercise in futility, as the former is now but a shell of its's former self, becoming more of a supplies store than a bookshop, while fresh titles from the genre are few in far in between in the latter. I would like to add that there are a lot of reprints of classics at Fully Booked though, with new edition prints of Harry Potter and the Dune series lining the shelves, with these titles maintaining a fleeting cultural relevance due to portrayals on movies and series, which we now mainly derive from streaming platforms as opposed to the traditional moviehouse sessions and free TV programming. This leads me to another point..

 The emergence of streaming services and on-demand platforms effectively killed the once-vibrant and very social experience of the Movie Night. This decline was further exacerbated by the pandemic which ground life to a halt that fateful year, and forced us to adapt our way of living, sometimes permanently. It actually saddens me when I see movie theaters being neglected or closing down. Apart from the loss of a part of my childhood, my thoughts also drift to all those people who lost their jobs and sources of income as a consequence of this change, but more importantly, the changes in the way we living which may not necessarily be for better despite the obvious tradeoff for convenience. Modern life is stripping away the human experience and is being replaced by automated conveniences which makes things more accessible but renders us more inert at the same time. I don't have the headspace or the drive to delve further into this particular topic, so I shall be putting that on the shelf for now.

  I sadly admit that I no longer have the writing endurance I once had to en much longer entries, but I guess I need to follow one of the points I made in this post, and just sit down and read a book. Like just might get a bit more interesting after all.

 See you on the next one (I hope).