Vanity Thy Name is Mankind

narcissuss
Originally uploaded by neonangel.

330am...caffeine in system. was rummaging in my hard-drive again. am always surprised to find forgotten files from way back.

i called this pic "narcissus" apparently.

ah. the young salad days of being a pretentious git of an artist. :)

back history time:
My desktop which i am rummaging in is my trusty Mac G4 bought in the Year of the Dot-Com, 2000. It was my first taste of major, adult-like expenditure...what a way to blow $5000 man.

I bought it without any knowledge of how to use anything beyond Microsoft Office, Internet explorer and e-mail. I bought it 'cos 3 former school-mates said,"Won't it be cool to set up a graphic design/ web design business? We will so be in demand with the dot com frenzy!"

You know...I am still flabbergasted that we actually went and did it....set up company, survived one partner going off his rocker, inter-partner tensions and merger with a programming company where I learnt the art of Counterstrike and 10 000 new reasons to hate Shenton Way life.

you know what's the funny part?
we started the company........with only ONE person, P, knowing how to use all the relevant software.

the mad "business (koffkoff!) plan"?

1: we all move in together into a flat in orchard road which will double as office. (am absolutely shocked my parents let me stay with 3 strange guys whom i barely knew. am shocked i actually found nothing wrong with it. i did distinctly remember telling them if they started running around starkers or if i heard gross noises or strange one-night-stand women walking around, i was SO GONE.)

2: We all work in our day jobs, and then we moonlight at night

3: While we get projects in, P would coach us nightly in the art of Photoshop, Fireworks, Dream weaver etc (hence the need to move in together)

The thing is...of course...once the projects came in, P had no time whatsover to teach any of us esp cos you know....WE ALL STILL HAD FULL TIME DAY JOBS. geez. We were all like sleeping 3 hours every day for at least half a year. Good thing days of torture in architecture trained us in that.

Client pressure, desire to save face and a whole lot of coffee can do wonders in speeding up the learning process I tell you.

I still remember the first presentation we had....and it was before the CEO of a big time ad agency too. Stupid P who was supposed to be there had to bail out, leaving me and a quaking "other-just-as -inexperienced partner" to bluff our way through.

Wah lau. Those were some strange days. Anyone who did the dot-com in 2000 probably has equally far-out tales to tell.

I see my year of "drop-out, tune-out" foray into dot-comming as my personal Woodstock. Its the closest Generation X had to a hippie era of rebellion after all!

just like them aging hippies, i guess I still carry anti-corporate, anti-typical lifestyle sentiments in me. Quite fond of them actually!

was a lot crazier about the whole alternative pseudo leftist lifestyle before though. I once wrote an anti corporate ethics article called "Screw Your Powerpoint Presentation". I even wrote a diatribe against sickeningly boring couples called, "The Revenge of Hello Kitty and Dear Daniel".

It had this great bit in it:
"I donâ??t want to see people in mediocre relationships as much as I donâ??t want to have them. Dear Daniels and Hello Kitties of the world, stitch yourself a mouth, split up a little, and get a life beyond each other PLEASE."

oooh ouch......bitchy little girl alert!

good grief.

Seeing those articles again in my hard-drive....That's like digging in your wardrobe and finding those dreadul 80s outfits you used to find "cool".

Heh. Oh memories of horrid 80s outfits...that deserves a whole other blog.

funny to imagine God watching over me in those years. He must have been watching out real hard. I am amazed at the nonsense I lived through and learnt from.

Vanities.... all those past vanities of various kinds. Mostly minor, some major....all vanities nonetheless.

God must have shook His head a million times as He gently paved the way. You just gotta Love the Big Guy. :)

a lot of change can happen in 5 years that's all i can say.