Cold

I dunno why I'm drifting further and further away from the crowds or cliques of friends. Perhaps its the different level of thinking. Perhaps its different interests. Perhaps its just a personal need for a wide personal space. Life in NS has accentuated this aspect, given me plenty of time for observation, mental probing. But they say, 旁观者清。In joining a clique, gang, group, you need to inherit their bias-ness, their habits, and preferences. After all that is what is holding such a clique together, a clique with people of the same inclinations, or even if they were initially different, some 'compromise' would be needed, and that means giving up some of your own ideas if they were to clash with the group's. Perhaps thats the reason. I'm unwilling to give up my own cherished ideas. Maybe I think of myself too highly. I am all too aware that my current level of thinking processes, way of looking at life and thinking, have been greatly shaped by people whom I interact with. The more comfortably I interact with a particular person, the more I am affected by that person's ideas and thinking.

Clearly, it is a give and take process. It has taken time to me a accumulate a few people whom I can trust and talk to. They have shaped my ideas and thinking, in roughly the same proportion as the books as I read have affected my level of thinking. But at the same time, I am resistant to further attempts to try change my ideas. It is clear that it is harder and harder to find another friend to trust. Perhaps, it is just my attempt to cling onto old memories. Perhaps it is just that I am unwilling to accept the reality of army.

He stands aloof on the grassy plains,
'neath the starry nights and the pearly lune.
A part yet apart,
the burden of knowledge,
the weight of the mantle of power.
Silently he aches,
but there is only the rustle of leaves, and the distant whispers of the wind.