Signs of 'Maturity'
I normally go to my mum's office on Saturdays to:1) accompany her as she does her work.
2) study.
And she doesn't really need company because she has a friend who almost always works as hard as her.
I'm not getting to the point yet, so I shall. We were talking about The Unforgettable Memories, otherwise known as Yi Nan Wang, otherwise known as the 4.30PM channel8 show.
My mum's friend made this comment: It's highly possible that it's because of novelty, like the 'Eh this was a hokkien show, let's watch it' kind of notion.
Then I thought--Yes, I agree.
I'm quite tired of Mediacorp plots, and if there's a good show there's probably..Elvin Ng(is that his name? I think it is. He's known as Dinosaur, if that rings any bells/balls). If I needed a reason to hate humanity, or feel disgraced being a man, it'd be him. So anyway, I'm tired of
1) sucky plots.
2) sucky actors/actresses.
Back to the point about novelty. So yea, Yi Nan Wang is seriously a very unique show. At least it's special, and isn't like other shitty mediacorp shows. It's unique because..it just is. You see a lot of action going on in any mediacorp show, and that one episode could be a few days 'in real life'. But in Yi Nan Wang, an episode could be about one day in the life of this family, and that character.
In short, draggy. But it's normally peppered with a lot of humour, albeit dry humour. But still it's fun. I like it.
But I didn't blog today to talk about Hokkien drama serials. I'm going to talk about what could be interpreted from my mum's friend's statement(not that she was trying to, but that I did the interpretation, and I have a very unique way of interpreting things).
Teenagers are always doing things to try to establish themselves as a person, and probably 'find themselves', y'know, like, through meditation and stuff. In the process of doing so, they normally want to be seen as 'more matured'. They take after the adults they see, because they think that emulating adults would make them more matured, or at least appear to be so.
A good example of this would be perusal of the newspapers. When I was young, I saw one of my uncles reading the newspapers. He looked majestic. No, I'm serious, I was that young at that time. So there I was, appreciating how he read the newspapers, and how he flipped the pages, and how the pages rustle when they are flipped.
If I were more physically matured, I might have JIMP-ed. OK I'm not gay, but that view was orgasmic. OK I'm thinking too much, carry on.
So after that, I wanted to emulate him, and I took an interest in reading the newspapers(which was short-lived--I was too lazy to keep checking the dictionary for words). I tried to make the pages rustle that way, but my hands and arm-span was too short. But yea, an attempt to emulate was made.
Which makes me wonder why I didn't react that much last time when my father reads the newspapers =.=
So anyway, I'm trying to study the mind of a teenager, and why teenagers behave the way they do. Not that I don't act like that, but sometimes it's good to know why I react in certain ways to stuff.
Then I tried to link this up with teenagers who like to booze. Of course, I enjoy alcohol. I don't think I can ever get drunk anymore, because the thought of a certain someone of this era would stop me from losing consciousness or at least moral clarity of thought, but that's something I haven't experimented with, because I haven't been drinking for a long time.
I keep wondering why teenagers would want to drink beer, or the 'high-classed' form of alcohol that is wine/whatever they choose to call it. I mean, like, OK, you drink, full-stop.
You don't have to drink in front of your friends, and I think I won't ever drink in front of my female friends because
1) they might drink too, and stuff could happen if I were drunk.
2) I might be too drunk to do a thing should stuff happen to the drunk girls.
You guys know me best, I am too manly for the above two scenarios to happen. Or maybe..hehehe. OK anyway, that's why I don't want to drink in front of female friends. I was drunk once and I don't want that to be seen by my female friends. It's rather similar to crying in front of females, and that is bad because
1) I don't cry.
2) at least not in front of females.
Another reason would be that I think that drinking alcohol in front of females is a form of acting manly. It is, after all, a manly thing to do, to be able to drink alcohol in place of your girlfriend. And the 'WOW he can drink a lot, and now I'm wet!' kind of thing. I cannot agree with that.
I don't do things to attract attention of women, if I were to do things to attract attention, I do things the bisexual way, which is to attract the attention of both sexes. I'm not a sexist anyway.
But that's beside the point. I just think that drinking, is
1) a manly thing, and should be kept between males.
2) should not be used as a sign of 'growing up', though it is recommended for fathers to train their son's alcoholic tanking skills when they're more matured.
3) should not be a means of attracting female attention.
Real men drink alone/with male friends. Responsibility can be easily shirked: 'Oh FUCK I was drunk! I'm sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry', but damage done cannot be taken back by mere apologies.
Here is a good reason why females should not drink:
http://www.funnymotivationalposters.net/poster/alcohol.html
I think that most youngsters just want to be seen as more matured.
See the number of 'plays, concerts, musicals, etc'. I have jiro/near jiro appreciation for the arts and music, but only for my friends who are able to master/semi-master them. It is more fun to see your friends semi-master instruments though, you can laugh when they screw up, which should happen quite often if they are only semi-master.
People just want to appear more sophisticated than they are. It is interesting to see how far they would go to keep up with this appearance.
It's like school choirs, they sing, or perform, whichever word they prefer, weird songs that nobody understands. Hello, I'm Singaporean, I understand
1) Singlish.
2) Chinese.
3) English.
4) Quite a bit of Teochew.
5) A bit of Hokkien.
6) NOTHING ABOUT ITALIAN/FRENCH/GERMAN.
OK, you've hit the notes, you've managed to get yourself heard by everyone....
but no one understands what the fuck are you singing.
From this I can infer that art is not something meant for humans to understand.
If I have to master a whole new language just to appreciate art/music from one country, I'd be so busy immersing my life in 'art' that I won't have toilet paper to shit with.
Please sing something comprehensible, thank you.
As there are people who wish to appear more sophisticated and 'artsey-fartsey', there are people who think that body-art is an art. They want tattoos, scars, stuff like that.
I don't know females well enough, but I think that for men, it's a sign of 'Ah Beng-ness', and they relish in the fact that they have something to attest to their manliness. This is probably what goes through a boy's mind when he tattoos:
'HAHA I now have a tattoo, that means I've endured all the pain Life could ever give me, so now all the women should suck my cock'.
I guess that is their definition of manliness. Like the 'If you don't have at least one tattoo, you are not fit to be a man' kind of definition.
Of course, the idea of beauty and manliness is subjective.
Or is it?
There's HK drama coming up soon on Channel U, 10PM. It is about a rather plump girl. I don't know the plot yet, so I can't say for sure, but the point here is that...
she might think of herself as beautiful, but others would tell her that she's wrong, because it's
1) wrong to be healthy, because thin, skinny, is the way to go. Fuck healthiness, it's pointless to live long if you can't live 'beautiful'.
2) wrong to eat food during meals, because food is unhealthy and makes one fat, and getting gastric, shortening one's lifespan just to be thin and skinny is the way to go. Once again, fuck healthiness, it's pointless to live long if you can't live 'beautiful'.
There are people who think that they are living their beautiful life their own way. But they aren't, because their definition of beauty is derived from the society's point of view, and their definition of beauty.
Take me for example. I think that my pubic hair is manly, and that I am manly, but others beg to differ, because 'hair is disgusting, ew'. But like I said, they beg to differ, so they can carry on begging.
Oh shit that's a negative example.
Um erase erase. That's a negative example because I already have my own paradigm of how a real man should look like, and what a real man should or should not do. I sometimes try to enforce that on my other male friends, but I always fail because I guess I'm too extreme. I mean like no one would really go learn from me and dig his nose in public and wipe it under the armpit right?
OK never mind that's TMI.
So anyway I was talking about how people's definition of beauty is decided by society itself.
Look at the number of girls out there who think that skinny+fair+revealing+perfume = fucking attractive, drop-dead gorgeous, and they therefore:
Warning: below is the formula for ill-health, and possible rape
wear less + put on perfume + lots of whitener + DON'T EAT.
Here's something to chew on:
http://www.funnymotivationalposters.net/poster/perception.html
What can you get up with sexing everything up besides my dick?
Keep your cleavage to yourself, just because you have it doesn't mean you have to show it.
It's the same with my armpit hair. I have it, but I don't show it all the time right? And if you want to see it you'd have to look for it. Don't make things so ready-made for us, I'd rather hunt down a cleavage than be presented with one.
I guess that's another sign of people wanting to appear mature, hence they wear less. Even kids these days are wearing lesser. It is disturbing. Or perhaps I'm too traditional.
I think this is what goes on in a teenager's mind:
Wearing less is a prerogative given to people who can protect themselves, and I can protect myself because right now I am a teenager, and I have the power to protect myself because I am a teenager, and because I need to show off that I'm a teenager, I wear stuff that shows that I am a teenager, and that comes in the form of revealing clothes.
Or perhaps the:
If I don't wear less I'd be laughed at because everyone else is wearing less =\
The world is, like everyone already knows, screwed.
But at least I get to injoy the show(and take part in the screwing).
-- 6/28/2009 09:12:00 PM