Can you believe that we are already 1/3 done with the year 2025? It’s crazy how time just slips by in a blink of an eye, while there are some day that feels like eternity (especially when I’m suffering in an exercise class and wondering why the hour ain’t over yet). Time is indeed so precious and finite, but sometimes we just forget how much we need to treasure it although I think I’m improving in this aspect over the years.
As I get older (obviously, everyone does), I start to realise how important the concept of time is in our lives. Recently, I’ve read a book about how someone (in the states) moved back to his hometown to be with his parents after realising that if he is only going to meet his parents once a year, he is probably going to meet his parents like 30 more times. The assumption was that the average lifespan is about 80 years, and the author was already 50. Even though I’m not a parent (and perhaps will never be one), all these books/dramas/movies I’ve been watching/reading about parenting make me learn to appreciate the time I spend with my family. Perhaps my social life did slow down quite a bit in the recent couple of years, I’ve been able to bring my parents out for meals on a more regular basis, especially on the holidays. Although we aren’t the ‘words of affirmation’ type of family, I still feel the warmth of family time, as long as we are not arguing with one another (it is inevitable when you’re under the same roof). I do plan to move out, hopefully within the year or next, so this extended time I have been spending at home is really something that I do appreciate and will appreciate more when I do move out. I can’t remember where this was shared, but there was this graph which shows the inverse correlation of time we spend with our parents/kids and finally in the later years of your life, with your partner. To be honest, for a bit of a second, I did get worried on whether I’ll feel lonely when I’m in my senior years, but nope I’m still not taking any action about it but yea, I had this moment and fear of ‘loneliness’ when I age. I do have a lot of hobbies and interests and a reasonable number of friends (I believe), but somehow the fear of ageing (and loneliness) is something that kind of worries me right now. Should I be reading this post in about 30 years time, hello future self, do you feel lonely?
The concept I have of ‘time’ has evolved many times across the years. Younger me would want to be the most efficient at all times. I’ll create study plans and timetables (though I might not follow), but I like the idea of being efficient and organized in my day-to-day. I used to be more proactive and ‘plan’ my activities/social life as I want to feel like I did something over the holidays, and not just laze around with nothing I can remember. During the holidays, I used to work part time because that gives me money which gives me the empowerment to enjoy (i.e. travel overseas). I remember how I would proudly tell the whole world that I’ll rather work part time than take on internships as I could earn more money from those jobs and my corporate life can wait, since I’m gonna have to do it someday or later. Although that decision possibly could have affected the more limited options I had at the start of my career, I always look back and tell myself that I don’t regret any of the choices I made. Though some were not exactly my choices but more of the results of ‘things happened’ and I just accepted and ‘come what may’ my whole life away. It’s funny how we such a rather laid back attitude towards life and career, I am still in a relatively average/above-average position in my career today (though I still complain a lot about, because somewhere in me I am never satisfied) and somehow still getting by. You know what’s the funny thing, some days I get by my ‘medicore’ life and tell myself ‘not to worry’ cause ‘track records’ (or as an afterthought) have shown that you will not regret the decision you made in the future. I guess my personality is just someone who glides and flow through, like water/liquid. Being able to adapt to whatever situation I’m put in – I can solidify, I can evapourize and at the end of the day, I am still me, I (like water) am still essential and have my utility somewhere on this earth. Gosh, how did I get so deep ><
I’ve not really been focusing on my ‘travel’ blog these few years. The post that I have started writing about my Japan trip is still 15% done and in the draft stage since more than a month ago and my Instagram posts updates is still stuck on day 2/3 of day 16. It’s funny how the reality is that I kind of lose interest in all these things but a part of me still wants to hold on to it cause I’ve been doing it for the longest time ever and it feels weird to just ‘stop’ all of a sudden. Yet, at the same time I find myself not having the motivation to concentrate and get the job done. It is not that I’ve been busy or anything, I just became very distracted with other things like Netflix and F1. And technically my interest in F1 started because of Netflix so I guess Netflix is the reason why I gave up blogging. Far fetched but could be true. I only have one pair of eyes and one brain which means that trying to multi task with writing AND watching Netflix is something impossible. The thing about writing is that it is one of the few things (like reading a book) which requires my full 100% attention (which is something I no longer enjoy). Over the years, I have become a habitual multitasker and find myself deriving more joy when I do 2 things at once (e.g. I crochet while watching TV/Netflix/F1 races, I bake while watching TV, I listen to audiobooks/podcasts while being in commute, and the list goes on..) Things that requires my 100% full attention: reading a book, writing this, watching a movie in a cinema – I don’t find myself doing this anymore. It’s funny how I know the problem but don’t bother to correct it because somewhere in my head goes like.. is it even a problem? I’m just a by-product of how the world is evolving and how tiktok/reels of 15 seconds video is screwing our ability to concentrate. Urgh. Coming to terms with that reality is too much and *pass*. I will never have the mental space to deep dive into any problem as the next distraction will always come along like (can you even remember what I started of my post with and how did I digressed so much.. again.) It’s painful to read the way I write and I know it because I often read my older posts and get annoyed with myself but hey, that’s still a style uniquely my own and I thought it might be nice to give my ‘readers’ a ride on my chain of thoughts because it’s always fun to have a temporary relief of your own problems and read about someone else’s life. i hope you’re still with me even though it has been 1,267 words of yapping.
So, let me talk about my new obsession (cause no one around me is interested in the topic and I am restricting myself from entering any community to discuss my interest further because I’m so afraid that I sink deeper) – F1. It has been 1 year and 1 month plus since I finished the entire season of ‘Drive to Survive’ on Netflix and somehow it really got me. This year, I paid for the subscription to watch the races ‘live’ and right now we are 5 matches in and I have watched every single race ‘live’. It doesn’t just end there. The whole F1 weekend sucks up a lot of my time away. There are 3 practice sessions of 1 hour each, though they are not really crucial so I watch them as a ‘by the way’ background music kind of thing. Then, the most crucial portion (apart from the race) is the Qualifying race – which determines the starting grid (how the cars are lined up for the final race). 4 out of 5 races this year had been won on pole which means that if you’re the fastest car during qualifying, it’s about 80% of the job done. The final race is about 1.5 to 2 hours long, and then there’s a whole lot of interviews, media, podcasts, and analysis which can be pre- or post-race race and then before I know it, I am spending so much time on it. I am so close to paying for f1 tickets and flying overseas to catch the races but somehow I am still holding back, but I don’t know for how long. I know the moment I start, it is something I might not stop and it is going to be a crazily expensive hobby but I don’t know. I’m still resisting for now. Well, the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ thing is that there’s only 24 races a year which means that less than 50% of my weekends are affected, which effectively means I still have 50% of the time to be spent on something else (if that something else exists). I’m yapping so much because it had been 3 consecutive race weekends which means the action and adrenaline is stuck within me and I just need somewhere to ‘talk’ about it, and hopefully I stop trying to convert any of my friends to join me in this obsession. It is also crazy how the driver I chose to support after finishing all seasons of drive to survive, went from being a mid-tier driver to securing his first win last May in Miami and is now a contender for the World Drivers Championship (WDC), the highest achievement any driver can get in this sport, and he was the leader in the charts for the past 4 races, and after race 5, he is second. If you’re a sports spectator you’ll understand all that adrenaline and anxiety while watching sports games and yea I do have that ‘experience’ cause I watch soccer (Man Utd has been a huge disappointment this season so I stopped following most of their matches), and I get so much emotions while watching and sometimes I feel it is crazy cause I don’t even get half that amount of emotions in my real life. Yea, so I have gone beyond just ‘race watching’ to following the social media of these drivers, seeing the various memes, the old videos, the social media content they put up and reading all the million and one gossip news about them because the moment you’re interest in something, YOUR PHONE KNOWS IT and now all my social media accounts are showing me f1 news even though I don’t explicitly ‘search’ for it. It’s that scary – how technology as the ability to morph and shape someone to be a certain way because of the ‘algorithm’ or artificial intelligence, or in reality, it is just their greed to influence you to think a certain way. As ridiculous as it sounds, I was expecting a trump victory back then because the social media I scrolled through convinced me that way. I can’t vote in US so I don’t really have an opinion apart from being angry with the tanking stock market, but whenever we discussed about the election back then, my gut feeling was always ‘it’s gonna be trump’ and then yea, cause I still scroll twitter and somehow influenced to believe it that way. Oh gosh look at my digression again. Anyway, the amount of social media content that is fed to me, I am familiar with the drivers and their families and girlfriends plus their racing history, likes/dislikes, to the extent like gosh, do I even need this information in my life? Nope, but the information just keeps flooding into my attention zone because.. I’m pretty much always on the phone too. Seriously, they day I quit f1 (maybe when my fav driver retires or get kicked out), I’m gonna look back at all these things that I’ve typed and think that it is so crazy or rather “I had been that crazy.” Who knows. He’s 25 right now and Lewis is still driving at 41. No one knows what the future looks like and 60 year old me might be reading this and laugh at myself celebrating like the 100th anniversary of F1 racing. It’s gonna be so wild.
Let me move on to hobby no.2 which is.. crochet. Crochet had been something that come and go in many random times of my life, depending on when I have the ‘feel’ to make something and for some reason, I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO STOP SINCE I was rekindled with this hobby back when I had covid the second time a few years ago. I remember coming across a video, saw an interesting technique which I had never tried before to make a bag. I ordered the yarns and needles (there are different sizes) And since then, I think I’m doing bag number 10 right now. Despite making so many things, I don’t exactly sell them or give them away because I don’t think my crafts are perfect enough for sale and no one (apart from my nieces) have told me they wanted something from me so everything that I made I just lying around the house somewhere if it haven’t been used by me. Anyway, fun fact is that because of all these DIY bags, I’ve not bought any bags for the longest time ever because if there’s a design I like, I will just make it anyway. But this hobby is creating a problem and I kind of of two boxs of yarn right now. It’s funny how I’m starting such a grandma hobby at my age but I don’t know. Such hobbies come and go but somehow it is here to stay for the past 2 years and counting.
Hobby no.3 which is pretty much on a downwards trend these days is baking. I used to do it so often during the peak of covid but now I think I bake about once a month or less. It’s not a very healthy hobby since I end up finishing most of the bakes myself, especially when it doesn’t turn out well. Oops.
It is Monday night and yep I’m going to end it abruptly because I didn’t plan this post and I ran out of things to say.
Something exciting is coming up – my country is having a once in 5 years election – and yea that’s the most exciting thing that is going to happen in my life for the next few weeks even though we more or less know (general consensus) that our ruling party will still be the ruling party but the campaigning period will be interesting cause we had a muted one 5 years ago during covid.
That’s it for tonight, I hope you didn’t feel like I wasted your time with all my yapping ;D