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.