Chronicles of Iridescence, Chapter 74: The Worrying Strategist with a Heart

Sometimes I feel like a worrying strategist.

Perhaps having some prowess in strategising, in military affairs and knowing quite a bit about warfare on all terrains, but never being able to fully utilise that potential or being able to make a concrete decision, always wondering if the opponent is doing something outside of his calculations, or if the decision he made is wrong.

And with that Heart of kindness and concern, his worries intensify, as the lives of many good, brave and loyal soldiers are dependent on the decisions he make.

While not as drastic as determining someone else's life, it does affect the next most important thing to me - my own.

This is a rather irritating thing to have, sometimes...Or was it because there was fear in there somewhere?

After trying, diving in and doing what you thought best (and sometimes a little of it based off the good advice of others), then failing or slamming into walls time and again, it can feel a little difficult, apprehensive to pick up the notion of trying again.

There are times I wonder why I'm so terribly affected by this, and I realise that perhaps this is the first time I was ever being really serious.

Maybe that's why I don't want to mess it up. In the process of wanting to make sure it goes well for the other party AND myself, treading gingerly on the ice seems to be the order of the day.

Until somewhere along the seemingly perilous path, you realise that you're missing something in that as well - The joy in having small blessing, like being just one step, one tiny step closer.

Being able to just miss that ball by a few less inches. Being able to talk one or two times more to the girl you love, being able to feel less stressful for half an hour after you receive word of the deadline of your next project. Being able to save $5 more this month.Being able to commit one less habitual sin. Being able to make that one more call you couldn't make. Being able to pray for that one person for five more minutes earnestly. Being able to wish that person happy for a month (before your dissatisfaction sets in again) even though you sometimes feel you won't be a part of that happiness.

But even then, I sometimes question if it's sufficient to just feel that way. If these blessings are all that I can ever have.

Why can't I have more? Being rid of that habitual sin once and for all? Being able to have a superb grasp of my time? Being able to memorise verses in the Bible and remember the locations of the most trendy places in town? Being able to draw closer to the King in a greater way than before? Being able to be closer to the people I want to be closer to, in a more intimate and greater manner?

But yet again, I'm frozen by the concept of greed. Am I asking for too much? Is it too much for me right now to ask for strength that can help myself AND others? Was it too much to ask that I can be a part - a greater part - of the happiness of that one person? Is it too much that I ask for strength to be able to overcome certain things in my life?

I do know the difference between "I want it!" and "I want it now!", mind you.

What's more, this dilemma isn't new. Sometimes I wonder if praying for it like that was a sincere prayer. Wanting it, but not wanting it too much because you think it's greedy. Quite the silly conundrum, isn't it? Normally people shouldn't be having this problem. If you want it, means you want it. If you don't want it, means you don't want it.

And there are certain things I definitely want...Things closer to the core of my heart. Things that would glorify my King and ALSO taking care of my happiness and progress.

Things are happening...At least I think they are. I believe they are. I hope they are.

Because my King has come true for me a few times in small amounts. Sometimes I wonder if this is all meant to be a slow accumulation. A testing of my resolve. A burnishing of my armor and shield. A trial by the fire He puts people true to test them.

And perhaps it is. After all, while I see progress, I still see and hear/observed....hindrances. Or perhaps something that tries to block my hopes and in turn accuse me of listening to the wrong voice.

But in accusing, whatever scheme that voice has in mind obviously backfired, because there are only two kinds of beings that would do such a thing, and none of them were my King.

As always, my Liege, give me strength and wisdom. Give me power to overcome. Help me build up a steely resolve to change and progress. Grant me the capacity to accept changes and love people for who they are. Bestow upon me a heart of maturity through various things.

Let me believe my happiness can also come from someone else's happiness, and vice versa.

But more than that, help me build up a heart that's after you.

Loathing

I hate myself.

I hate how I act differently from how I feel.

I hate how it feels like I'm a puppet on strings, my actions, words and thoughts being manipulated by something else, while my heart is the only thing that remains true.

I hate it how when certain people are speaking to me, and yet I'm unable to fully look at them in the eyes either because of my being feeling manipulated, or simply because I'm just too nervous.

I hate it that I said one thing before this because of my uncertainty, yet now feel like I need to say, or declare another because I've confirmed it. In a way, it feels too late.

In a way, it feels like I really should have objected to one thing and agreed to another.

I hate it how I feel so impatient, really wanting that strength and wisdom to do not just that one thing closest to the core of my heart, yet knowing also that it takes time.

In the meantime, would what I wished for be taken away...?

Damn this feeling.

This is one time where I really hate the color green.

Yet, in the meantime, it feels like I've been blessed.

And again, it was done without me getting to know about it until after it was granted to me.

Will it happen again? Can I become stronger, wiser, more charismatic, more spiritual, more broken towards Him?

And even then, can my prayers for others, for the people I care about work?

Even now, I shall hope and pray for that.

Chronicles of Iridescence, Chapter 73: Breeding Mosquitoes

Stagnancy is the theme today, if you don't know it already.

Feels like time has passed...Flown, even. There is progress, of course, there definitely is...

But at what price? At what rate? At what level?

'Disappointment' would be the word used to sum this all up.

You know, praying for someone is good and all, but the debacle raging between being secular and relevant as well as being spiritual is now going on in my mind - Which one?

Besides, people want concrete help. Not everyone has a religion, let alone being a Christian. They want to see results. Facts. Research. Effort.

None of which I have anything to show for...I think.

And it just disappoints and frustrates me. What can be done to remedy this? That I can provide concrete help as well as spiritual aid to the people I care about?

Wanting to help is one thing.

Having people asking you to help them is another.

Sometimes when no one asks, you feel like you aren't that useful after all. No knowledge, no contemporariness, no looks, no charisma, no nothing except a heart. By the time you get the information, someone has already beaten you to it.

Because of various reasons, of course, but that's what gets to me.

A man wants to feel useful. He wants to feel like he can be relied upon. He wants to feel that he is the one you turn to if something goes wrong in your life. He wants to be able to make the people around him happy.

But I don't feel useful...Not at the moment.

My King, please give me more strength and wisdom....

Chronicles of iridescence, Chapter 72: No Time to (Insert Title here)

Been up to no good.

At least, my mind and my attention has been. Both were wandering all over the place, and you have no idea (or maybe you do, whoever you are) how difficult it is to bring them back.

In any case, it finally feels that they have settled after kicking and thrashing violently, wanting out again. The pens weren't secure enough, it seems, and time and again they sneak out through that hole in the fence.

But as the chinese saying goes, 亡羊补牢...Or as the literal translation goes - when a sheep dies, you fix the fence before it's too late. Feels that at least I've managed to put some planks and nailed them to the broken parts of the fence.

So yeah, I should be fine. It's just a process, I guess, no matter how painful it was or how I kept feeling like nothing's going right, in the end I kept clinging on. The last time I probably used tape, and now planks. Perhaps the next time will be a thorough fixing, and the next will be a renovation.

Then the next thing to do would be to hire more shepherds for my mind and emotions. It feels like this is going to take forever but...Who knows?

Spurts do happen.

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On a more relevant note, the title is an allusion to something I've been learning in campus.

Interactive storytelling, an intriguing concept of telling stories in a non-linear way. Basically you can have multiple endings, have different routes to go to and make decisions after going through procedural changes that have you leaping from one part of the story to another, sometimes veering onto a side plot then back again, the decisions you make affecting how the story turns out.

For avid gamers, familiar works like Dragon Age and Mass Effect as well as various visual novels (Clannad, Kanon, Shuffle!) would know this more. It's not just the games part that has me in a tizzy, but also the storytelling aspects of this module. It makes me feel a lot better about my choice for a major after realising that CNM is.....a multi-faucet discipline, to put it nicely.


It is also here, though, that I realise how small I was compared to the many talented people in the module. Their stories revved up my imagination like never before, working the engines until the fuel tank was running on empty. So many possibilities! So much potential! Such ingenuity for such a simple premise!


Frankly speaking, I had felt like a big fish in a big sea in terms of writing, but after observing and listening and reading project proposal after project proposal, I realised how insignificant I was.


Gotta read more. When I make the time, that is.


Perhaps then I'll really be on that road I've always wanted to walk on.

Dreams

Had a dream as I slept, just now.

Don't know why, but I felt like breaking down and crying suddenly.

Maybe it just has been too long since such dreams came to me, and to a point where everything else felt so transient, so dry. Every night as I pined for dreams as I did a long-lost lover, it came to me in blurred images, in darkness.

Yet today, that lover came back to me once more into my arms and fed me with hope, only to leave me dry, disoriented and disheartened in the wake of her whirlwind arrival and departure.

The contents were simple, but by no means not meaningful...And often when dreams like this happen, it feels like change is coming too.

But why the weeping? Simple....

I wanted the dream to continue.

In another sense, I wanted the dream to have actually been real, that I had actually been awake and made that call and had that conversation.

It sounds delusional, but rather than looking at other things and realising that you had no part to play thus far in being a bringer of joy, I wanted that to happen.

But it did not.

However, perhaps it was a portent of things? Something of a smaller scale did happen to give me some hope.

At the very least, I won't be facing a complete wall on all five sides. I could still fly over the walls, albeit with a little bit of effort and faith in the King.

And it was a sign that the King had started answering my prayers....for others.

Thinking about that created tears of joy, mixed with a numbing resignation.

But perhaps because of such a vivid dream, things really will change for the better.

That's what I hope.

Anger

Needs management too.

Slammed my hands into a basin. No feeling.

Punched a wall. The pain lingered only for a day.

Felt sullen the moment I see some...things happening.

And I thought to myself: This is horrible, before proceeding to almost throw 'it' away by engaging in a foolish act.

But I see where this is heading...That winding path that looks deviously different and challenging, but actually makes you wind up in the same place.

Damn it.

Time for more action.

I can't stay like this forever.

Chronicles of Iridescence, Chapter 71: Master's Dog, Broken Vessel

Ever wondered what it means to be a lost sheep or a master's dog?

I just did, probably together with a whole bunch of people too. Approximately a few thousand, to be exact (or not, since that's only an estimate).

In any case, the message preached today in the House got me thinking about that. About various people I've met. People who are acquaintances. People who were simply classmates, grouping together for discussions and projects. People who I care for and really care about. People who I knew really well, like Tsoon Liang.

It got me thinking, even as I evaluated myself and other people that came to my mind, whether we had been too hard-headed and hard-hearted. Whether our faith was in our OWN belief of the King or in our OWN abilities and our OWN prayers.

Or was our faith purely just in the King?

Now that I think about it a little deeper, I realise that it really isn't easy to attain that level of faith, which is why I admire those people who simply placed their trust in the King and worked hard. It must have been really difficult, though, to attain that kind of mindset. How much pain did they go through before arriving at that state? How much suffering did they endure? How many complaints came out of their mouths and hearts? How many times did they rejected the notion of simply just believing in the King? How many times did they feel like giving up?

Do we keep trying to grab more or think that we ourselves are already good enough to walk towards the King rather than have Him walking towards us?

In the spirit of suffering, enduring and not giving up, it feels like the part preached today about broken vessels applied very well. Perhaps this is a period where, like Pst. Tan said, that we have to be 'broken' repeatedly to be true to the King. At that breaking point, or even past it, where we just cry and weep yet cling on with all we can, where our hopes and dreams are dashed to pieces and He is the only one we can turn to.

Trials and tribulations are not given, but allowed to make us stronger. But I've recently also thought that perhaps these trials and tribulations that any of us are facing in our lives right now could very well be something that the King allows to make us more broken to Him, so that He can speak a word into our lives and we can hear them. So that He can give us visions and dreams and we can see them. So that He can pour blessings into our lives and we can receive them.

So perhaps I shouldn't just let my heart die out like that, nor kill my emotions. The pain is still there. The suffering is still there. The doubt is still there, with various worst case scenarios appearing repeatedly over and over again in my head, and the drearier parts of my past coming up again to taunt and mock.

But perhaps this is indeed the test that I asked for.

To be moulded. To become a better person, a better (and real) man. To deal with the darker parts of myself as I am.

And thus, be broken repeatedly, time and time again until I can fully receive the King's blessing...As per what I believed in Him for.

And perhaps even more....

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So glad.

So glad that I saw....What I saw.

So glad that I couldn't help it but turn my head in that direction.

So glad that my prayers were answered, even if they played no humanely logical part in that happening.

So glad that happiness came on the day before, even if I wasn't part of being a provider of that.

So glad...That sometimes I just feel like crying. Half out of joy, and half out of pain.

But nevertheless, so glad.....