worn me down to my knees

i wonder if it is possible to plunge into a midlife crisis far before the midline of any life; a rift in the self due to some major anagnorisis occuring far ahead of schedule because of forcefully accelerated thought?

by choice for swifter learning and greater understanding, or increased value per unit time, essentially greater knowledge gained in one lifetime; by cost, brutally but necessarily a shorter psychological lifespan left to discover what remains.

when a catastrophic event occurs in a person's life, only one thing can push him over the cusp of sanity--his own thoughts. a sorry interpretation of the latest world from behind the eyes holds a power so fearful it mires even those among the most footed of minds. ironically a rationalisation of brain chemistry in depression owns a leash so reliable it can rescue even the most spineless of them. by fire be burned; by fire be purged.

if i figure the lesson of my disaster to be that my own mind is both my poison and my elixir then i must soon find the fulcrum in the scale of intuition and ignorance, lest i slide irreversibly in either direction--wherein both cases i suffer in the very same pit of a life crisis, dug and fired by my own spade and flame.

i listen to susan boyle's 'how great thou art' on loop at half speed for the past hour and i wonder if that road i walked away from so many years ago still lies paved. the one i have been on for the past two years is, but i no longer see what i love seeing far behind nor up ahead and it worries me deeply that this path is but an orbit of a star i could any time suspect to have been dead since the beginning. i respectfully refrain from digging further.

suppose i drop everything dear, forsake my clothing and forget my gold. suppose i get on a camel's back and try to ride through the eye of a needle... is that what i need to do in order to uncloud this aberration in my life's trajectory? or would i simply then be fulfilling your parable because i would fail miserably?

two thousand and nine, in the year of your day; one opens and one closes and i am still an unaimed turret, so in these last days i ask that you help me grind my lens back into focus, so that i may find that balance. so that i may find that fulcrum, to ground me in the one that is about to open, and from this may i also be a fulcrum to those around me for all the days in the one about to open, two thousand and ten, in the year of your day.

ps 14 jan 2010 i dropped half of everything and created a space in my heart.

cogito, ergo amo

Love Part Quatre

i tried thinking about it a month ago but could only come up with what i felt then was suffice to conclude those thoughts. either i subconsciously misled myself into a cheap and convenient ending or i simply arrived at a suspect deduction put forth with insufficient proof of depth. i am loath to admit either but i would much rather be a bad persuader than a delusional psychopath. forty five minutes on the bus and another two hours alone in my head, james-san. i think, therefore i love. let me now produce the workings of a thought...

and tell you about the hypothetical:

someone who tries to smile when they are sad and dares to frown when they are happy, looking good either way, looking good even without trying, someone who has empathy, someone who lives upon structure and sees the merit of law, someone who respects ethics and practices morality, someone who will fight tooth and nail for those values, someone who will fight tooth and nail for their friends' dignities. someone neither driven nor aimless, nor filial nor rebellious. someone who isnt lazy, someone who speaks without thinking, someone who gives but refuses to take, someone who is generous with their heart, someone who loves everyone and still has more of it to love every animal. someone who is reliable, and predictable, someone who is hot because they are warm, someone who likes being liked, someone who isnt happy until everyone else is happy, someone who is sad when everyone else is sad, someone who doesnt steal anything but the hearts of the people around them,

someone who has all that i do not have. but then you already arrived at this conclusion 10 years ago when your teacher asked you this question. what does this mean? it means you are smarter than m it means your primary school is better than my primary school...

such is not the end to this intellectual escapade; i believe there are many who can tick all the boxes, but rare is that someone who is not only everything that i am not, but also who knows that, and above that accepts me in spite of, despite of and because of knowing who i am not--therefore truly knowing who i am; therefore truly accepting who i am.

ergo the right one for me is the one for whom i am right. QED.

(bet your teacher wouldnt have said you were wrong if youd just told her that instead. or maybe she wouldve slapped you. funny either way.)

love in contradiction

Love Part Trois

We cry with them, for them, but mostly because of them
they are endearing yet they irritate our skin
such they make life difficult; they also make it worth living

we accept them wanting to change them
the ones who dumbfound us, the ones who we find dumb
those we toil much to understand, but end up taking hand-in-hand

we toil for them, we bleed for them
bloodied knuckles brush sweat off brow
the ones we fight with, and the ones we fight for
but verily i say to you: this is really, simply amor.

we let them take everything, but more for we still sacrifice
the ones who take while never saying thank you
until its too late when they see your point of view

we stick together, moreso when opinions differ
us who speak the mind, never free from verbal blunder
but us who cherish, may no word rip asunder

we like them and then we really like them
yearning that they see us, and in us what we are for
admiring them through windows, while hiding behind the door

we want to stay till kingdom come, and secretly fear the day it ends
enchanted by fires of passion in havoc but plagued by thoughts of pessimists amok
happiness and relationships also happen to the cynic; its all part of the human dynamic

we want to remember them, we try to forget them
boy or girl who couldnt stay or he or she whom we pushed away
photographs we keep to this day rekindle the pain that we want to allay
but pain is there to help us grow; how much we can handle is another point, though

we hate the hurt but we keep dishing it out
crossing the stars, or worse, worrying our mothers
so come share us our shoulders; for none tonight cries under the covers

we adore them sometimes and sometimes we hate them
those who give us happiness, those who incite our anger
this poem grows me weary, so to rhyme this ill just say salamander

we see our friends, our parents, our children, our partners
they take so much yet we have more to give
if one has trouble comprehending, then one has very much more to live
but if they who read this and aloudly say
with great conviction, the word touché
then dear readers, this moment, on the twenty-sixth of december
the message of Yesterday, you need not me, to again deliver.

on christmas drunkenness and acting cute

group convo with sis and mum:

seriously jiang zhen de.

rules

so i met my mother at the station and we walked home

"greg, i got half day tomorrow you know, so how? what should we do?"

"christmas eve not public holiday meh?"

"noooooo la! half day lah. oh ya my boss gave me some wine." i carry the paper bag. it has two bottles of red. sui.

"aiyah why never think...should go and take tomorrow off whaaaaat..."

"you think i dunno ah? i want also cannot. they already announce to the whole office 'anybody who take half day off on the eve will be deducted as one full day,' heyuh what kind of rule is dat?!"

"suay.."

"SUAY SUAY KIO AH!"

oopszxz.

the three p's of paramour

Love Part Deux

"If loving you with all my heart's a crime, then I'm guilty."

when i heard this real mushy and corny song on the radio some 6 years ago, i thought to myself: wow, this is a real mushy and corny song! but today i kind of see the lyric differently. recently i was thinking about the meaning of love, and then this song popped in out of nowhere and gave me one of those eureka moments. the concept of love and crime suddenly appeared to me like similar concepts; i started to draw parallels between them...

law enforcement often describes the three contributory factors to an alleged criminal's guilt regarding an alleged crime: means, motive and opportunity. i started on the supposition that lasting love probably has symmetrical attributes vis-a-vis actual crime. i ended up with a whole bag of surprises:

means -> passion
if the means of a violent crime refer to weaponry, then the means of a true love between persons is the fire that burns between their hearts. say it in french: PAH-SEE-onh. oooh, so atas. it must be true! at the start of any relationship, this is known as sparks or chemistry; it appears spontaneously and seemingly crackles without effort, but after young love, this fire becomes the responsibility of both partners to maintain. if it lives long enough to mature, it does so beautifully, like a smouldering coal that bears no flame but is still pretty fucking hot if you know what a barbecue is like. hmm sambal stingray o wait i digress. if the fire of passion dies out, however, they have a problem. if one party is always having to provide more fuel than his/her counterpart, they have a problem. if one party is afraid of fire, they have a problem. call 995.

motive -> purpose
im certain that personality does not play a major role in loving relationships, insofar as to the ability of incompatible personalities to break bonds and actually cause relationship failure. what is relevant instead is willingness for compromise brought on by maturity of thought, which is a feature though more available to some kinds, is not exclusive to any personality type. when two lovers know and can agree on the shape of the path of their relationship, by extension, they also know its destination. obviously the journey is for two; it bodes well that the both of them know where they are going and how they wish to get there (the best buses obstensibly being trust & compromise). i would say then that the unions of such couples indeed have acknowledgeable purpose and are bound for longevity.

opportunity -> proximity
if the opportunity for theft is simply money on a table with no prospective witnesses in the vicinity, then proximity is that magic factor that makes a relationship either real enjoyable or plain shitty and headed for the dumps. long distance relationships rarely survive--they might if the passion and purpose are concrete, but they usually crumble otherwise. it seems like petty reasoning, but this is extremely real. people break up all the time because they couldnt keep the fire alive across thousands of miles and fully-booked schedules. any relationship forged in the convenience of close proximity (school/office romance) should be built with sturdy foundations of the other two legs. if circumstances in life were to somehow change as they always do, and that third leg called proximity was yanked out from below a relationship, well then, youre screwed. c'est la vie. the sad thing is that you wouldn't even be that sad when this inevitably happens because, it doesnt feel like there's much left to be lost at that point...

means, motive, opportunity. the trifecta of crime guilt. passion, purpose, proximity. the three p's of paramour. they function like a three-legged coffee table. a good table is balanced on all three legs. i realise this can be rather cold to read and appreciate, but i am who i am; i see faults and fiery aftermath before most people can just see the hairline cracks so this is my two cents. some would say that it is quite rewarding to always have a table around; the same some who use it till it breaks and then just go and get a new one (which reminds me i need to go to ikea one of these days). and then theres some who would rather drink coffee off the floor waiting for the right one to come along and build a good lasting table with.

pretty depressing shit. let me summarise in a joke that will not make you laugh: a good coffee table is balanced on all three legs. a three-legged coffee table with one short leg is perfectly fine once you know which leg to stuff a magazine under. a two-legged coffee table stands fine, but i wouldnt put too many cups of coffee on it. a one-legged coffee table is just ridiculous while a four-legged coffee table is just you trying to be funny with me. a zero-legged coffee table is actually a disk that i am about to throw in your face!!!!!

double standards

i am walking home the other day on the usual route by the huge monsoon drain. the ground is wet from an earlier shower. from a distance i notice a crow on the railing up ahead. i remember thinking how pestilent crows are. such vermin. they are pretty noisy too.

i start to draw close upon that crow, and i can tell it knew too. i can tell with each mounting step of mine that the crow begins to think harder and harder on whether it should stay on that railing or fly away. i am getting real close by now, like, less than five metres. the crow lowers its perch, as if to say "come any closer and i will spring off at any moment." and that really intrigued me. for some reason it feels that i might not come close to it after all but instead step away, giving it space, and thus the privilege of staying its comfortable spot on the railing. however it must know that the chance of that happening is extremely low, considering humans like to walk in straight lines. crows are clever--it must have known this. this crow has the audacity to assume otherwise--that i would somehow defer to its personal space. outrageous! i am human, and i walk in straight lines. you know i am coming. you know my path will inevitably lead me to cut into your space, and yet you hope i mightn't. your defiance is respectable. but you look at me from the corner of your eye, judging me, assessing me, still trying to appraise the level of my threat to your security. compare your stature with mine; the weight of your arrogance is most impressive. but i am most unimpressed.

you are entitled to your right to life, but somehow i despise your want for the right to privacy. you are but a raven. you are harrassment, scavenger of the ground, carrier of death...; what is your justification for want of more than your survival?

then again, i am but a man. i am discrimination, destroyer of the earth, agent of murder, vessel of untruth, child of apathy, lover of gold...; what is my justification for want of more than survival?

el capitan judged the iceberg;

why didnt the chicken make it across the road?

you reach the curb and you do not cross. have you not heard of road-crossings? you never told me you had.

i apologise,

i probably just never asked. now you tell me you have crossed a road before, such as this, but just not quite? i cannot tell if you lie; you never answer directly. you fear the traffic, don't you? grow a pair, you only live once. then again, we also only die once.

i apologise twice.

hmm, but really? you died before and yet you still live. i've got you now. you have no reply have you? you have heard of road-crossings. of this one in fact, and no other chicken lived to tell the joke did it? i chuckle. you like statistics, you just hate being part of it. you like telling stories, you just hate being one of them. i get it. you tell me you aren't a chicken. so you are a peking duck? but those still get cooked just the same, they are just burnt twice as crispy. are you still sure you are a duck? oh, ducks can just fly across the road? now you have my attention.

so do it.

oh, you can't fly, can you. i chortle. you can waddle just like the rest of those peckers. stop pushing? how else can i get get you to cross? pull? how about i just hold your hand and cross with you? you don't want my help? oh, right, because you dont need it do you? i snigger. apparently there must be some otherworldly force beyond your control that stifled your relentless efforts! duck? typical chicken, morelike.

but then you nod, and point towards the other side of the road at the black-and-yellow post. it is a stoplight, and it is red. oh..it has been that way all this time i was mocking you hasn't it?

i apologise thrice.

green tea

this is how it goes: you get blocked nose, then it gets runny, and that runniness goes down your throat wiping out entire protective layers in your nasal passages, leading to inflammation and discomfort that quickly degrades into dry coughing and smelly farts. ok maybe the farts are caused by something else. so anyway, no idea why or how green tea works like an expectorant for me but that would be good right now because i neeeeed it.

9 cups already. strangely addictive stuff. super bitter; why do i like it? ill have to start adding salt soon.

more or less the same!

there are the simple observers, and there are the patrick janes and dr houses--the obsessive analysers who just find it amusing to go that extra step and tell everyone what they see behind the wall of words and quanta of quirks. and other people just cant stand it when it is explained to them what kind of person they are, based upon inspection of their words, actions and choices.

they just cant! like my friend christopher who had on more than one occasion told me to "shut the fuck up, greg!" whenever i sieved out and showed to him the viscera of his subconscious. and it always occurred to me right there then that 1) i was right, 2) he knew i was right, 3) he didnt like the truth, and 4) he didnt like that i knew it before he did. actually thinking about it now there's probably 5) he prolly just wanted me to shut the fuck up. whatever. HA.

back to the point, which was...uh. see la i forgot. somebody on msn interrupted me with a shocking yes/no question(haha you know who you are!) that imo should by no means be left unanswered (the people must be educated!), unless of course the answer is yes and for some reason one's closet is locked from the inside.

back to the point on human personality, i think all of man may be filtered down four channels. and i know it's not exactly in line with my view on mentalities as written in the glass, but i am a man of contradiction, so sue me. wait dont im not. oh what i did it again, fuck me! whatever la huh, sometimes its just out of sport that people like to classify things to make stuff neater. and it feels good to do it--just dont get out of hand and let these personal constructs become anything more than a source of amusement. so without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, yours truly breaks down mankind into four quarters:

1. "less is more."  » minimalism.
2. "this is just right for me." » boring.
3. "more is more." » interesting.
4. "more is still not enough." » very interesting.

if you were smart, you wouldnt have allowed yourself to be classified in such a demeaning way (see, i didnt contradict myself after all). but then again, if you were smart you would be out there making millions instead of slacking around the computer. speaking of millions: now since we live in a world of the post-industrial age, the undeniable presence of capitalism, globalisation, industrialism and other fantastic words like that requires that i tell you now: whatever group you placed yourself in, you are actually in the group below it. im sorry if you are disappointed. dont be sad, your mother still loves you. if you however, originally placed yourself in '4' then you are either extremely honest or extremely special.

oops there i go again analysing people. sorry!

aphasia

needle, i light this table. it i mucho mucho hey. i red the arrow they lips. they lips. lo i brain i strength wasp hotel rainbows like-twins they. plus i tin singular benedictum they pinks me aboutness. gluteus dense below innermost i makeshift cogito id is blind hope.

i hold shake mucho scarlet rightrightright to bleed.

gluteus i pink they mucho. id est torture--they notemént this shake.

torture. i know it well.

ps 14 feb 2010
h v d g

ps  17 aug 2010
STOP TRYING TO DECIPHER IT

ps 14 feb 2011
happy valentine's day g!!

love.

the right one for me is the one for whom i am right.

work out your own theory of you. if you dont like it, make it nicer then change yourself. when you finally realise how wrong that is, accept that theory and be glad you figured yourself out.

ps 18 jan 2010 i just need a quiet place to hide this quote by henry rollins.

"It is no surprise to me that hardly anyone tells the truth about how they feel. The smart ones keep themselves to themselves for good reason. Why would you want to tell anyone anything that’s dear to you? Even when you like them and want nothing more than to be closer than close to them? It’s so painful to be next to someone you feel strongly about and know you can’t say the things you want to."

i died.

i go to bed at 4 am morning of 27th and i get hit by sleep paralysis again. same ol' same ol', except somehow i decide now would be the first time i try snapping out of it by sheer will. of course it doesnt work. i can barely control my breathing, and i cant even tell if what i am seeing is my room's ceiling between the gaps of five-ton eyelids or just a hallucinatory memory of that ceiling. "mind over body" is underexamined and overvalued. i decide to surrender and within what felt like seconds the grip fades and i am re-released into REM; this usually repeats a couple more times but this time this is it--no more random awakenings for now.

how could i be so naive. it cant be that simple. i now enter a dream. in this dream i do something terrible. it is abhorrent. i cannot remember what exactly because i am about to fail at writing this down the second i wake up in the afternoon. i do however remember feeling remorse, but strangely zero regret. maybe it's because in waking life i always try to make unshakeable choices. but in this dream the point is ever so sharp because for whatever i did prior to the last recallable event i am now facing the death penalty for it.and i feel no regret.

i remember now that in this dream i am wearing my saf uniform. maybe there is a connection somewhere. or maybe that's irrelevant. i dont know. i will die soon because of my sentencing and i feel no regret. people are hanged all the time, especially in this country, for questionable but reasonable points that supposedly justify. while on one hand i find it embarrassing that we arent already abolitionist i also accept that we probably never will be. under this realisation i neutrally resign to the fact that in my lifetime we will carry on hanging certain criminals like we take out the garbage. right now i am that trash, and i will be taken out soon, and i am pressed that i am not depressed...

a day or two pass in my dream and they let my family in to see me for the last time. they are sad. they cry for me. they are not ready to let me go and i understand why. people around me have always been more emotional than i, and i, always more rational than they. ive already come to the terms of my impending execution, and to most, it would understandably seem abit too quick. more than a tad disturbing, i admit, but i blink the thought away. after all, i die in the morning. i should probably make the most of my last hours; ive done enough thinking in the latter half of my life.

i dont know or i cant remember what happens between then and now, when i am being led to the white room. it is a lethal injection facility. i know it should be a dark house with a wooden beam and a noose but this is my dream and since ive have been watching too much american tv for the last 7 years, in my dream, singapore carries out capital punishment via lethal injection. and thats final!

at this point standing in the doorway i remember scenes from a movie the green mile in which deathrow inmates struggle from their cell all the way to the kill bed and have to be strongarmed by six full-grown men, lashed down to the gurney with leather straps, and prepared for the needle. again i blink this away: hey, at least i can hold myself together better than that guy can... right?

probably.

i am bound to the gurney but for whatever reason my head isnt (dreams are rarely logical) , so i crane my neck to look down on myself. i realise im not getting out of this one. the technician injects the yellow water into my IV line and i see it flow down the tube towards my arm.

just before the chemical reaches my left median cubital the whole idea of death runs me over. within this last split second all these questions hit me: this would be my final end? no more touch, smell, taste, sight, hearing? no more family? no more friends? no more laughter? no more tears? no more writing? no more typing? no more thoughts? sans everything.

i dont want this! i dont want to die yet! I DO NOT WANT TO DIE. i thought i had come to terms with it. i thought i made myself ready; now i am nothing better than that guy in the movie that i scoffed at! i try to will my arm away from the incoming yellow chemical but its useless--i am completely bound. to fate. the last moment is too extreme even for my subconscious, and i wake,

heart pounding i can feel it in my ears, but undoubtedly it's still beating fine. i am alive.

"fuck, fuck..shit. FUCK!" am i...crying? i breathe some words into the pillow. "Jesus" was one of them. dreams never really affected me that much, except when i dreamt on a couple occasions some person(s) close to me had died. and ive probably died many times in multiple dreams before but today this is different.

this time's is no accident. it's not a trip-and-then-fall-from-15-stories death. it's not a stabbing from a kidnapper that appeared out of nowhere. its not from a car that speeds up from behind me. its not from the fangs of a huge snake that wont refuse to take its eyes off me. its something about being executed by the Law, that your killer is not really your killer, and that the blame for your imminent death can never be placed upon anyone else...except yourself. execution... is like suicide. yes i finally understand now. capital punishment is forcing a man to take his own life. the idea is abominable. after this dream ill never again see the death penalty in the same light. i retract what i said 9 (or 10) paragraphs ago. i cant possibly still be sitting on the fence of compromise for this one.

my heart hasnt slowed, and i feel drained. i feel stupid. did i delude myself into thinking i could be ok with accepting death only to start disintegrating at the last moment? one of my greatest fears is to one day learn that there is no such thing as an unregrettable decision, that careful contemplation is no more superior to spontaneous carpe diem, that in living my life i chose the wrong way. at the moment the only thing i can conceivably fear more than such a revelation would be to continuing walking that same wrong path despite knowing better. i laugh at that man and now i am him, and i change the road sign instead of make a turn. hypocrisy epitomised. i hope i die for real before that day comes.

heart pounding i can still feel it in my ears, but undoubtedly its still beating fine. my eyes have dried. i am alive. thanks for the second chance.

right now sounds like a good time

coke coke coke

so its last friday and mum comes home from work with goodies and stuff and opens the fridge and she assplodes from the kitchen

"GREEEEEEEEEGGGGGGG!"

"What."

"What 'what'.? I come home never call mummy ah?"

"Orh. Mummy."

"Why you buy Coke again ah? I told you to stop buying Coke right? Buy your stupid Coke put here in the fridge then no space to put anything."

"No space cos you got 30 avocadoes inside."

"NO!" (most matter-of-fact NO ever) "Your stupid Coke block the whole fridge. I keep telling you don't buy Coke. So much sugar all sugar sugar. LOR SI, know, really."

"WAH LAO EH Coke Zero® la no sugar la..."

"NONSENSE!"(again said with such conviction that i was convinced for 1 second) "Coke Coke Coke everytime Coke. Diabetes then you know!"

"Coke Zero® la no sugar la sweet la but no sugar la bo nao ehhh..."

"Simi bo nao. Li ka bo nao ah." (we both start to laugh)

"Noooooo shuuuuuugerr...noooo shuuuggerrr."

"Stop buying your stupid Coke."

"Coke Coke Coke?"

"Yah. You and your Coke Coke Coke."

karma chameleon

so this has been at the back of my head keeping me up till 3 and staring at the ceiling for the past 4 days. need to write this down once and for all so i can sleep tonight.

it seems like the hindu cycle of causation is being taken too literally nowadays, such that altruism as a potentially rewarding way of life is reduced to a bastardised teaching of giving to get. that somehow there is a cosmic auditing company keeping tally of our thoughts and actions, and adding up their value in supposed virtue is already quite dubious. that we are to accept that our futures yet unwritten are dependent on the dividends of our deposits in those karmic accounts is bordering on ludicrous.

assuming even that the concept of karma is sound, it has never even been taught in hindu scripture that all our supposed dues be paid in the same lifetime. in fact it has been explicitly stated that that is impossible--that one lifetime is simply too short for one to experience all your karmas, and as such some will overflow into your next life and by extension any supposed fortune or misfortune befalling you today might and very likely have been due to actions from a past life.

of course now we are to acknowledge the concept of samsara. which if i did, i'd hope i wouldnt be a roach in my next life because id hate the way i walked, smelt and looked. i'd find the nearest Baygon canister and eat the nozzle.

but then i'd just be reborn as a human eventually, with no knowledge of past lives but somehow still under the crux of my past lives; a fucking curse i say. assuming i then became a devout hindu and followed the teachings of gautama buddha to the T, racking up a bitchin' list of good deeds, it would all have been for someone else, who according to the samsara is actually me but according to honest opinion is really fucking somebody else. and that fucker better be a nice guy too lest my next life be weighed down by the heavy hand of the cosmic PriceWaterhouseCoopers,LLcP (limited liability cosmic company). obviously the concept of causality in samsara was conceived as a/an dis/incentive. really now, are we supposed to be good for the sake of others' happiness or our own? this kind of crap really fucks with my head keeps me awake at night.

then the vedas talks about exiting the curse of the infinite cycle by attaining nirvana which i would liken to having a bafunkajillion orgasms simultaneously but also consecutively in a time period of negative infinity. and we will achieve nirvana when we finally accept our situations and wish for no more of impermanent things, like money, fame, power etc. ahh conformism really sums it up: wanting what we think everyone else wants. chameleons of the same colour.

funny how karma encourages its own perpetuation and destruction, that on one hand it ensures the propagation of the samsara knowing people are inherently sin abounding, and on the other hand challenging them to transcend the wheel of fuck...which is mindblowing considering if everyone was nirvanic,

HOW THE HELL CAN WE CONTROL THEIR ACTIONS WITH THREATS OF BAD LUCK NOW?

on the certainty of survival with the expectations of failure part deux

so many have fallen trying to escape into the other expanse--and so it was. hopes erased, dreams dashed, bones broken and crafted wings crumbled for what other than the simple achievement of sharing in what the eagle possessed. borne of a rejection of the notion that they were not to have what they were not meant to have, based upon the thousands-year-old covet that all of man shared (well almost all of them), or probably more simply that he didnt believe what fate narrated to his ears. "i shall not be prisoner" and the boy heard.

he was only able to see their situation in the black light of his depression; truth revealed like a mirage on a veil over their eyes. and he saw himself as prisoner and convinced his son that they were both to leave. by innovation, twine, feather and wax he produced the tools that would free them. "i shall not be prisoner" and the boy heard.

with the tools they both left, and the older realised his dream for freedom--a large dream no less, which however and unfortunately spiralled inward in all directions because his son had a bigger dream, for then the boy had ball and chain, now he had wings, but next he wanted to be with the angels. "stay away from the sun" and the boy heard. but he did not listen, for he had bigger eyes than mind for the expectations of his future glory.

and the certainty of his survival became then solely part of his father's memory:
the boy was given wings but he lusted for the halo, a mistake so grand even his own death could not remunerate the tills of fate, and the debt cascaded down to his father, to be written into a new chapter of the old man's book of what-ifs and should-have-beens.

what if i had not hoped, for my son would not have learnt to hope, for he would then not hoped for more than was due to him? would it have been better for us to remain prisoners in that tower with legendary dreams of the sky or be now free men who pursued it to the bottom of the Greek sea?

my apology for future transgressions

i am sorry but that is just how it is how i was made in the beginning to how i remade myself from the pieces into a harder colder steel that bends in thoughts and words but never in actions a steel that reacts to darkness and warmth just like but no longer quite the same a scaffolding steel without which i am a shack on shaky stilts that threaten to give in and collapse me into a pile of nothing and nothingness is what i would not necessarily choose even if my other choice was death so go easy on the judgement or otherwise try not to look so confused because this i tell you though still in present will be past when i do transgress against you in the future--i am and have already apologised so i am moving on with or without your forgiveness since i rust just the same either way

ps 17 jan 2010 there is no way this could ever work. what was i thinking.

ps 29 apr 2010 i invoke this today. the amount i do, though big to me, tends to be little to some. i invoke this post today.

please excuse me

Do you see me standing there in the corner? I was alone. I always am at these big parties watching you, watching everybody, wishing I was more outgoing, wishing I was dressed up pretty...

Wallflower, I'm not here, no one sees me. Wallflower, I'm by myself, please excuse me.

But there you were standing in your own corner, your eyes were wide, tired, fading, just like mine. We could be the best of friends I'm sure of it. But I'm too shy to cross this crowded room. Besides...

Wallflower, I'm not here, no one sees me. Wallflower, I'm by myself, please excuse me. Help me leave this corner of the room I'm reaching out to you cause I've got things I could talk to you about and we could be wallflower friends, 'til the end. Wallflower friends 'til the end I'm sure of it. Wallflowers, we're not here, no one sees us... Wallflowers, we're together, please excuse us.

ps 20nov apparently i am a wallflower in denial

ps 2jan this is a song by priscilla ahn. please click the flower.

ris low 1, nerds wearing specs 0.

"Q: Some people say that you don't know what you're doing and have dragged our country's reputation down with you. What do you have to say to these people?

A: Can I tell them that they're bull-sh**ing? Please take a look at yourself in the mirror, as if you're not disgracing yourself. Is your English really that good? Can you really speak that well? Can you write that well? Do you think you can stand on the stage and portray yourself?
No, I don't think so. You're just somebody behind a computer, a nerd wearing specs, typing away. Just a coward."

:(

the smell of life

when i was 9 our science teacher asked us..."do smells have weight?"

i shouted "well milady, apparently you have not experienced my fart, which carries with it the full force of a runaway train. tell me if that doesnt have weight." well i didnt really say that. wish i did. instead i was perplexed into deep stupor. i still remember her condescending smirk laced with a couple of those smug chin lifts and corner-of-the-eye lookdowns. ya la ya la u smart la. atas bitch.

and the truth eluded me for years--because the answer could not exist. the question was...inherently flawed. suppose if we were to ask ourselves, 'do smelly things have weight?', the answer would be obvious. yes, even supermodels' gym clothes weigh something, even if the ladies themselves dont.

and then any uneducated simpleton would challenge "yes smelly clothes have weight but does the smell of smelly clothes weigh anything?" tersely put, ammonia (or hydrogen sulphide--the stuff of which legendary farts are made--i know my farts ok) molecules DO have weight. realise then that we had just started swirling down a different drainpipe because this answer is still not compatible with the original question.

"yes smelly clothes have weight and the ammonia molecules that make it smelly have weight but does the smell of smelliness of smelly clothes weigh anything?"

SHUT UP! SHUT UP! DIE! SHUT!!!

at this point i hear a click in my head (no, not aneurysm bursting). can i apply this question to our other senses? do images have weight? do tastes have weight? do sounds have weight? then i ask the fifth and the last and realise how terribad the question really is--do tactile feelings have weight? eureka. of course they dont. things we experience have weight. the experiences themselves weigh nothing.ss

so why is it that i believe that my memories are worth more to me than anything material? why does failure and regret feel so heavy? why is it that i believe i would never trade my experiences, including and especially all the bad ones, for tons of money, good looks and a restart on life with a blank, wiped slate? if im lucky i'll have an answer in 12 years.

the glass

water in a glass. air in a glass. weve all heard of the pessimist and the optimist. just two--perhaps too simple and elegant? :)

and said in a way to inspire optimism in the many who have chanced upon this nugget of wisdom, by making the pessimist sound ridiculous. ahh..but whatever was so bad about the ability to anticipate the worst, save for the possibility that it might eventually be all one ever could see? willful blindness: an extreme scenario; and i could say the same for unguided optimists.

but now im just getting hung up on another false dichotomy, because we really are a world of many and while

the optimist might say "your glass is half full",
the pessimist would say "your glass is half empty" and
the enviromentalist would say "is your glass recyclable?" while
the philosopher would say "your glass of water is tecnhically not really there", followed by
the communist, who would say "your glass is actually our glass". but
the polemicist says "there is no issue with the glass. it has always been about the cup". to which
Lara Croft would say "my cups are Double D". not forgetting
Ris Low, who would say "your glass is half boomz and half shingz" and
the engineer who would readily inform that "your glass needs ╥*r²*(H-x) more water". next,
the jaded man who says "fuck your glass" and
the feminist who says "your glass is a phallic contruct. i refuse to answer this question" as
the buddhist says "in my past life, i was a glass of water". so
the singapore govt would say "we shall take our shit and our piss and treat it and pour it into your glass" right before
Chase says "dun care what water... your glass A-list anot?" and quickly after,
the Marxist would shout "your glass is the symbol of oppression on the water which is the working class" and
the fascist, "your glass is half of whatever I tell you it is" and then of course what we imagine
Jesus would say: "your glass overfloweth."

amen.

folly in the black and white

which came first, the chicken or the egg? isnt it funny that nobody asks "which came first...egg or the chicken?". maybe that's really not important. what is is that creationists answer: the chicken and that evolutionists say: the egg (the first chicken on earth hatched from an egg that wasnt laid by a chicken).

us silly humans... always looking for a way to categorise the world into discrete packets of understanding. people tend to forget the great continuity of our universe and its infinitely many shades of grey between the black and the white. we cant possibly classify every known object and/or concept into its own category--that's a paradox; neither can we take everything and draw a line to split them in twain. but that's what's been happening with civilisation lately, or maybe its a just a late observation.

bad questions have since the beginning been the basis for endless debate filled with poison and ill logic, where each struggling side finds refuge only in demonising those of the other. people find beauty in simplicity and accord grand worship to its apparent elegance. whats underneath is but terrible ugliness in the unnecessary reduction in the terms of all such discussion. should the death penalty be abolished? should gays be allowed to marry? creationism or evolution? is terrorism ever justified? euthanasia? does singapore need freedom of expression? questions like this with the ability to plague the fabric of society have also always carried the option of the reconciliating answer, such as, for one of them, the postulation that Adam and Eve were really...just monkeys that gave birth to better and better looking descendants.

trivial attempt at conflict resolution? or could it just have been a trivial conflict to begin with?

one born from the simplicity of human mentality. primitive thinking--that everything must be one or the other, reduced to the great binary theory of everything, that social and economic freedom must mean anarchy and that social and economic restriction must mean facism, that you must be against me because you are not with me, that you are my enemy because you are not my friend, that you hate me because you dont agree with me, that i must be cursed because i am not blessed, that i am ugly because nobody told me i am beautiful, that i am a failure because i have not succeeded.

but even a coin with two sides shall one day land on its edge, every battle, a possibility to result in stalemate. and every rainbow be seen to have more than seven colours and every question worth asking be receptive to more than two answers, and every fool, know the ability in him to open his own eyes to the greyscale in a world so caught up with the folly of black and white .

i love

i love...

• i love how clouds look like paintings in the sky. i love how they come in so many shapes and colours. i love strong clouds and i love the nebulous ones too.
• i love the sun after a long rain. it doesnt burn; it just brightens everything. and the breeze...
• i love wet roads.
• i love sunday mornings when the streets are so quiet. when the air is cold. when even the birds are still sleeping.
• i love it when i wake up and look at the time and then realise i dont care what time it is because i remember it is saturday.
• i love rolling on my left side and going back to sleep.
• i love drinking cold water when im thirsty.
• i love drinking cold water even when im not thirsty.
• i love sitting on my lower back.
• i love it when i slog through the night and crash into bed face-down and wake up the next morning in the same position.
• i really love it when i roll to my left side and go back to sleep then.
• i love hot and crispy hashbrowns. they are crunchy and oily and they taste so good.
• i love it when i just finished a run and my throat is closing and my lungs are burning and my legs are almost frozen tight and sweat is dripping off the tips of my fingers but i know theyre all good things.
• i love mushroom soup.
• i love subway tuna with extra onions. and i love the onion bb after because it reminds me throughout the rest of the day of how good the sandwich was.
• i love it when the bus is coming and people rush and run and shove and i keep walking and still make it because the bus doors cant really fit them all at the same time anyway. why hurry?
  
• i love it when a pretty girl gets on the train or bus or walks into a room and im instead looking at all the guys who turn their heads or stare with the corner of their eyes or plain ogle with mouths agape.
• i love it when i get on the train and there are so many empty seats for me to choose from. it just makes me really really happy.
• i love the smell of new leather. i love the smell of petrol. i love nostalgic smells.
• i love nostalgia.
• i love nostrils.
• i love it when my friends laugh.
• i love my mother.
• i love to walk in the dark alone and think about things. things that matter and things that never. it helps if its in the park and its too cold even for the mosquitoes.
  
• i love wet grass.
• i love chicken. if all the world's meat disappeared overnight id pray that chicken didnt because it tastes so good. hmmm...herbal chicken soup :)
• i love it when i can see my abs in the mirror
  
• i love it when i wake up in the morning and all i really need to do for the rest of the day is to pee.
• i love that i enjoy thinking about things that few people care about.
• i love knowing so many things that most people will never know in their lifetimes.
• i love how i know i could never complete this list.

i love.

on losing the war

The 2009 Pishin bombing occurred on October 18, 2009, when a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a meeting in the southeastern Iranian town of Pishin in Sistan and Baluchestan Province. The attack killed 42 people including several notable Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution (IRGC, or Revolutionary Guards) commanders.

four years later and and the world is ...is it the same? from renaissance times: monarchal assasination, then anarchy, then racism, then politics, now religion. four years ago i would have thought terrorism really only sprung up after 9/11, if not merely because of increased media attention and thus my own ignorance then because of Afghanistan and then later because of Iraq.

today im not so sure; man has been killing each other since day one--only the reasons changed.

and the costs of the righteous or so it would appear, greatly outweigh the ease of which the minions of the super organism weve come to know as the Islamist assemblage are ready to end themselves in the fight against the coalition of the willing. how could it possibly end well for us?

on the certainty of survival with the expectations of failure

so many have fallen trying to scale the walls of her castle--or so it seems. blood, tears and sweat shed for what other than the simple achievement of success? no, for this battle, maybe for sworn allegiance to her kingdom? for simple recognition of some sovereignty in their own? could it even be that simple?

so many have fallen in wars, so it has been. so it is. so it must be. blood tears and sweat shed to scale castles of the world since the beginning when man took up the sword. and these soldiers leave behind their families, their first love, their temporary freedom, to fight for true freedom, true happiness. so many have died trying. their bodies long gone, memories soon forgotten. the question is, were this man's efforts ever recognised? is it even important if they are? after all, he failed to conquer that castle. and that is mostly what the peasants and the plebians would remember, that is if they even remember his name.

all for Helen. the height of her walls daunted many in the past but still they came in droves. they fell in droves. they came by the legions and they too fell by the legions. and the last came for her and he too bled blood and shed tears and sweat, and he too eventually fell in battle. and like Paris the fate of all future warmongers who live by the sword shall be slain by the sword.

the real winner must be the bard who never drew blood and thus whose own blood shall never be drawn. he is content with his song, his literature, his art, his solitude. he looks upon with envy at the warriors who enjoy fame, fortune, company and a place in history while he merely writes about it. his supporters pick up swords and fight for him, but he himself stands on the horizon behind the battlefield. his followers pull his wagon for him but the wagon never had wheels. even the king now offers him a sword and a shield to fight for his freedom but he brushes all of it aside and instead asks for the mirror, and to it the bard tells "without dreams, one can have no nightmares".

 ps 22 feb 2010 i think all that could await the bard's watchers and followers is only disappointment if what they are continuously waiting for is for him to pick up the iron; he is no warrior. and when they abandon him and helen stops watching and walks away, im willing to bet my hat that he as no qualm fading out to lonely black for all time carrying with him only his words that meant everything to him even though it was so, only to him.

choice or nature? that is not the question.

i find it personally enriching to dabble in the controversial, and this early morning i discover myself entrenched in a particularly amusing one.

homosexuality: is it a choice, or is it natural?

the amazing essence of this question lies in the very true observation that before one man can even formulate his own thoughts and opinions to derive a strong answer to (i hope) represent his character and moral, he is first flooded with the already heard-of voices of the many who have spoken before. what pains a polemicist like me is not the substance of those opinions, but the blatant illogicity upon which they were designed--the substance behind the substance.

therein lies the stunning enjoyment i derive from this terrible question--it bears no value save for fueling fallacious arguments in a case of homophobes trying desperately to rationalise the undesirable amidst their perceived ideals, in a world that is inherently flawed, vis-a-vis homosexuals who are forced to reply with polar opposite responses in order to defend the state of their sexual orientation in society; to label homosexuality with the word choice definitely implies a possibility for change while to call it nature renders it, perceptively, unchangeable, or at least that there is no reason for such because that which is exterior to the realm of choice is also external to the considerations of morality (ie. because only the unnatural may be immoral).

and so on one hand, they who believe that gayness is a choice are almost surely anti-gay, and they who believe otherwise must surely be gay. this is truth, insofar that there is no reason for providing an answer other than to (1) attempt disparage the other side or to (2) defend your position on one side. make no mistake--both sides are guilty of these idiocies.

this is also truth because almost all arguers are bad arguers. if there's one thing ive learnt about human discussion, it is that people of all opinions are, fundamentally, blundering fools who spew forth seemingly verbose rhetoric that upon simple analysis speaks more to their misaligned state of mind than the related truth and meaning of what is important and at hand.

though i am aware that sexual orientation is resultant of base genetics and factors present in prenatal development, i also know that all sexual behaviour is contingent upon choices by the individual to adhere to or allay these essentially natural proclivities.

this would imply that homosexuality is not immoral per se, because its origin is out of reach of individual choice, but because gay interaction is, then the question of morality applies. in case youre wondering, it is always morally right to act in accordance to one's own nature. additionally, a heterosexual woman must surely have been born heterosexual but it does in no way follow that she must have physical relationships that are heterosexual, for that is surely subject to choice.

meaning of life part deux

three years ago i wrote about my personal enlightenment about the great meaning from a couple of minutes at the loo.

today i watch an episode of heroes s03e23 and chance upon an albert einstein quote:

"The life of the individual has meaning only insofar as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful."

i pissed my pants.

science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind

its 2.24am and i just came back from a stroll in the park. i remember walking around the field on that newly-paved red running track, no, not the polyurethane tartan track weve all been accustomed to see at stadiums, but the more sobering kind i call concrete, and i say i remember because it was just 15 minutes ago mind you--why am i even explaining myself here? its my blog. and you should be asking why im walking around in the dark at 2am in the first place.

the night is cold and breezy. and one thing i always appreciate is the comfort i find in darkness and solitude where i can take in the surroundings and converse with my thoughts.  and the grass, oh the grass. i miss the army.

i slap myself.

in the early days of this blog i always found my thoughts circling in the soup of religion and society. and after a two and half year hiatus i am back and i still am fascinated by it. if those two years in the army taught me anything, it was the tempering of my cynical views. tonight i still think about religion with the exception that i see no soup. i see a toilet of messy contents teetering the edge of a hole so deep and welcoming and i find myself beckoned to the call of the flush.

i said i feel like pulling the flush, but even i am a man of reason. i have a faith and im not about to abandon it. its the voice of the world that trouble me, that show me how ugly even the word religion is. a world where people read with some special concern when loooking at the word Muslim, where people see the word Christian and think the annoying Mormon, the bible-selling door-to-door salesman, religio-political activism, hypocrisy, evangelical zealotry, anti-homosexuality and terrible judgement. while i, being a man of independent thought, loathe to subscribe to such blind stereotypicalism, am also a realist. and in the struggle to state my stand i find myself intentionally at a distance: a Christian away from the Christians. you say hypocrisy. i say where is the flush? because the moment i argue from one camp i become but another blind partisan of a battlefield so fraught with bias that i wish for the entirety to be washed away.

but im not running away from this one. i stand aside so i can clearly see the fingerpointing from the hands of the blind. as is with many arguments i try to reason, i find it much easier to find truth when neither pointing nor being pointed at.

from my center i see guilt on both sides. there is no merit in taking at face value the song of an atheist bigot but even in the worst of skewed rhetoric is a poem of truth, and the rhyme within it is derived from the fact of a few if not many Christians who follow their religion blindly. they partake in symbolic rituals that are perfect as such, but greatly flawed applied out of context. they believe in supernatural occurrences that many a time have natural explanations. therein lies the greatest travesty of many Christians who in their blindness (willfully or not) disregard science and substitute in its place their own misinformed interpretations of faith as evidence.

and when those atheists point i find it difficult to rule against them, for i am a man of logic; while science is far from holding all the answers, its very fundamentals encourage for the asking of simple questions that can blow holes through the religious fabric of even the toughest Christians. i describe tough not in the manner of intellectual robustness, but that of being very hard nuts.

when atheists and christians clash christians always lose. because in the field of logical argumentation the man of science is always more well-equipped. the problem i always see is christians desperately trying to bolster their force by supplanting their mere opinions for evidence (when they should be rising to the opponent with the ammunition of the new age) or even disregard the rules in its entirety, thereby only successfully persuading the invisible audience that they are all but terrible at the art of persuasion. when your job is to try to persuade non believers and you are shown to be useless at your job, that is a serious blow to the nuts, bro. on the other hand, the atheist camp can also momentarily step out of discipline when drunk with their general victory. they start spewing anti religious rhetoric that could be easily refuted by the other camp, except the latter is rarely geared for a sound defence. and it pains me because that is so easy to perform, but so easy to botch by a Man of God who has neither a semblance of Logos nor Ethos in an arena outside Bible commentary.

blind Christians, stop embarrassing me. dont let the atheists trample you. the days of martyrdom have long passed. use your God-given brains and let science help you.