I'm totally against preaching my worldview. So I'm writing this to myself, as a mental note.
The trouble with doing things primarily for the money you earn or the prestige that comes with it is that your life becomes rather empty after a while. Say several years, a decade, or more, but it will feel empty eventually.
Everyone knows that the standard of living here can be high. (keywords: can be) Many feel the desire to earn more so that they come across as more successful, more reliable, etc. But to use that as the main justification for the way you live your life... it sounds convincing at first, but when you think about it again, you may start to feel a kind of hardness forming in your heart. That is the feeling you get from squeezing all your life's goals, childhood dreams, unfulfilled desires, into one narrow path called the career ladder.
If you've got a bread-and-butter job, count yourself lucky. Lead a simple life and don't pretend to be rich by hankering after great food, great holidays, and so on. Most of the older generation i.e. our parents and grandparents understood this.
Everyone sees life through different lenses. I've just presented life through my lens. Pick a lens that suits your worldview the most and be contented.

We always have choices.
We just need to open our mind to it.
^_^

The curation of the Suits' soundtracks is a masterpiece. I especially like Season 3's soundtracks, and some of Season 2's. Season 3's soundtracks really tugged at heartstrings and made me wanna melt into a puddle of feels. 

Enough gushing. Here's my current favourite.

The intro is vaguely reminiscent of an evil ritual, something that could be appropriate in a Macbeth movie. And then bam, it moves into a soulful classy guitar riff. It was playing for a pivotal Litt scene in Season 3. 

The song reminds me of how trying to do good in an apathetic and amoral environment can be futile. The (tragic) hero is trying to do some good but he's short-changed because he sacrifices some integral part of himself to the devil, or perhaps the outcome isn't as good as he wants to be because it's thwarted by somebody evil. 

And with that in mind, here's some thoughts on the elections halfway across the world.

I think apathy is gripping the nation. It is difficult to grasp Trump's stance on certain moral issues because he only says things to please. The fact that he's gaining so much momentum shows that a significant part of the electorate doesn't really care about what's right and wrong. One thing that is constant is that he wants to, vaguely, rebuild the economy and make America great again. It is a slim promise but he sells it well enough. It shows that some are willing to cling on to a promise of wealth regardless of the candidate's moral compass. 

Democracy works best if the electorate has a strong moral compass. Right now it is messed up. Too much absolutism, too little consideration for the broader values that they should want their presidency to stand for.

Mike Ross yells in Season 2, "There's such a thing as right and wrong!"

Those are golden words. 

Some advice to young students today (but really, it is just advice for myself because I'm only writing it here)
But I also think it is very relevant to students today, because everyone's shouting about creativity and liberalization. Yet for some reason I don't really care if people read this. I have opinions but I don't really care about whether anyone appreciates it.



I love this song. So glad I discovered it.
It reminds me of the time I was a teenager, when all I loved to think of was how school was too regimented for my liking, and too boring. Sure it was intellectually stimulating, but in the end it was all the same because all you really had to do was to be book smart and exam smart. I remember very well all my angst about this, because I was too scared to drop out of school. Because I was the same as everyone else, I wanted to succeed and I didn't think I could succeed on my own without school, because I didn't think I could be a college dropout genius. It does take a tremendous amount of creativity to do that, and honestly I've never had much creativity. Haha. So I sensed we were all being squeezed into little boxes but I didn't know any way around it.

I must sound like an ungrateful Gen Y entitled kid but hold on.

I've emerged quite unscathed from schooling. Maybe I'm understating it: I've benefited from it. It may not be perfect but it is still probably the best way to educate masses of people. There is an age-old bond between society and order. Society can't thrive without order: just look back in history. So it is probably natural that we should learn this order from young. That said, I admire people who make the decision to home-school (just make sure you don't screw the kid up); it's very risky, but I think it can be very rewarding.

Just remember that what they teach in school isn't everything. It may be futile to force your individual, subjective, wildly different ideals on the schooling system, because what one student wants from the schooling system, isn't the same as what another student would want. Everyone (everyone who has the guts to think honestly and sincerely) will have different ideals. It's impractical to say, force schools to have mandatory meditation lessons, painting lessons, etc. So take non-schooling time to think about what you really want from life, what you really want to learn more about, who you really want to be. I think it's really important to know what you stand for.

I would also add that this individual quest would be, well, an individual one. You can't expect your teachers to give it to you, because everyone would think differently. If everyone thought the same, they'd just be sad little boxes that are all the same. So yes, I've realized that I should not have been blaming the system for anything. The real solution would be to look in the mirror and ask myself those same questions. And ask yourself if you agree with what you're learning in school.

One problem is, sometimes you feel too burnt out by the sheer amount of work to even care about these questions. I certainly felt like that. As for that the only solution would be to know your limits; push those limits, but always come back to yourself after that.

omg suits season 5 episode 10 just broke my heart
i feel like all the characters are friends living inside my mind now

Okay I feel I need to write something more to explain my liking for this drama haha.
There are many great proverbs in the English language that we've come across, but the two that are most relevant today are a) truth is stranger than fiction and b) the best revenge is living well yourself.

(a)
I think most people can identify with all the characters at some point in the show. That's strange, isn't it, because the characters are fleshed out quite well already, so how could a person possibly identify with all of them? I think that humans are very complex in real life and they have many sides to their characters, and they have a lot of history that resides in their inner psyches. So truth is stranger than fiction, because at times we could be behaving like Louis, at times Harvey, at times whoever. And stranger things happen. I think this show teaches a lot.

(b)
Louis:
I have a love-hate relationship with him. But his character has really changed a lot over the seasons, for the better. I can identify with most of the times Louis was a bitch to Harvey/Mike/anyone else (except for season 1), because he is a very sensitive individual. Can't blame him for being emotional, or navel-gazing, or petty. He's just like that. And at least he lets his feelings out rather than let them fester into something worse inside his mind. It's very human to want revenge, or even if you can't have revenge, it's very human to want to get back at people in the tiniest and pettiest ways. But what redeems him in my eyes is that he has that basic ability to be honest about himself, to look at himself in the mirror and know himself for who he is, with a lot of help from his friends (he actually doesn't show this quality until quite late). So he has learnt the hard way, several times, that he can be petty and navel-gazing, and he tries to put it right. While it's human to want revenge, it is then basic humanity that makes us stop ourselves from exacting cruel revenge on people based on small provocations.

Harvey:
He's an unapologetic badass. And I can identify a Hamlet-complex in him (thanks to my Shakespeare class!). I've grasped, by contrasting him with Louis, that the best way to live your life is not be so petty like how Louis is. It usually only backfires on yourself. The best revenge is to live well, and Harvey does that extremely well. People come at Harvey from all corners, but he nips the problem in the bud and then brushes them off, and then continues living his badass life. Not bad! Even gets a little boring after a while, that's why season 5.
But he can be very insecure without the people he relies on the most, i.e. Donna and Mike. And I love it when he jumps to their defences when they're threatened. I love how he loves his father's records.

Jessica:
The Queen... what else is there to say? Love the scenes where she refuses to let people bully her-- she just quickly thinks of a way to let their bully plan backfire.

Donna:
Enormous amount of empathy... that's why she's so popular! And always a step ahead of other people's emotions. And selfless too.

-end of fangirling-