the scientist

there once was a boy who wandered aimlessly until someone gave him a sand grain and showed him how to use it, and he became good at using it. he found his sand grain to be good and beautiful: "you dont know how lovely you are!" and he boasted to ten people of how good and beautiful it was, until it fell upon a stone and turned to dust.

he was happy and so he picked up the stone and it became his new him: "i had to find you, because i need you," he said to this stone--it was bigger and much tougher, and no one out of a hundred could show him a better one. he trusted it much more than he trusted the sand grain, for it lasted much longer and he set it apart. until eventually it, too, broke. under a rock the stone crumbled.

but the boy was not disappointed. he was ecstatic for he found something better and even more beautiful which he took for his own. and he became very proud of his rock, for nobody around had a better one. many came and were in awe of the boy's rock. yet many were also jealous, and they threw their stones at him. but the boy lifted up the rock to shield his body, and all the sharp stones bounced away like grains of sand... and for once in his life he was so sure. then he put his trust in the rock. for a long time his rock served him well, and soon he realised it wasnt just a good shield but a great sword; "tell me your secrets. ask me your questions!" he said, and he crushed their stones with his rock. nobody out of a thousand could face him without fear. then one day he swung his rock upon another. with great surprise he saw his great rock shatter into a million pieces, for he had hit a boulder.

the boy cried. but his tears were of euphoria, for he had found a new him. this boulder--it was even better and yet even more beautiful than anything. it was perfect. he remembered his rock, and with greater trust than before he placed it in the boulder. and it was well placed, for the boulder was everlasting and everything that face it was pulled everything apart like numbers, figures and puzzles. many came and were in awe of the boy's boulder. yet there were a ten thousand times as many who were jealous and they threw their stones and rocks and boulders at him. but his boulder was the strongest, and all the sharpness pointed towards him became blunt in the presence of it and he set it apart.

an eternity went by, and many more appeared in his presence, in awe of the boy's boulder, but now there were also a million times as many who were against him, for he looked at all stones, rocks and boulders put before him as if they were like the rest before it which were all destroyed in the presence of his own. all his enemies detested him and his boulder and they spat at his pride tried to stone him, the more the boy knew he was invincible, and the more his enemies grew, and the more the boy was convinced he was immortal. by now there were a billion times as many who were against him as before, and the boy knew that every single one of them were one and the same--like the rest before, unable to produce anything worth standing against his boulder.

then his boulder was crushed under a mountain. there were a billion cheers, for the great pride was finally torn. but the boy was unshaken, as he had in him the ultimate joy of victory, what all his enemies would reluctantly but eventually learn--that he would conquer the mountain for his own, and because of that, become a trillion times harder to defeat. the boy's enemies cried out, "who can defeat one who wields mountains?"

until he saw another someone holding sand grain and the boy's mountain crumbled into a thousand trillion specks of dust, each one impossibly small and insignificant. and it took him back to the start--to back as he was. no mountain, no boulder, no rock, no stone, no sand grain--just dust. this time the happiness was real.

ps 19 may
this is responsible for the "skeptic's disease."

what is it

irony

melodies of the clock and of history

fill the sea behind the mind's eye

eagerly perceiving the ungathered

the gaze it penetrates every veil

doors are locked but they do not stop it from devouring all

even bricks and mortar are reduced to an ocean of easy

in which it swims with flair like the penguins black and white

and the million shades of gray in between

to understand but not be understood

is a power undesired

a yoke that chains it's heart to rocks heavy and grounds unmoving

o, how it yearns to free it's hands from it's pocket or part it's lips
to recite the stories still untold

lo, the song of numbers do not add up

as the illustrations of reality fail to match the lyrics of the fantastic script

even as the rules of nature bow down in it's midst

that impossibility is impossible and nos can be yesses

yet it must be enslaved by the dark carousel of cyclic contemplation

producing artificial limits
to be placed on a vessel of surely unlimited outcomes

a perfectly imperfect vessel even pessimism himself cannot douse

weeping is lifted by admiration of a construct rebuilt from selftorn abuse

o, how it fancies to shred every and all into comprehensible truth

lo, itself it must eventually tear
and with the greatest fervour and harshest teeth yet

so let heaven be witness to the irony of ironies
as the weight of this one weighs heavier than any iron

~

je regrette part trois

i want to turn back time. 

i want to turn back time to when i was a month old, and i would enjoy being photographed because i no longer do.

i want to turn back time to when i was four, and i would colour inside the lines just like my teacher asked, instead of wonder why i should listen to anybody. 

i want to turn back time to when i was five, and i would slide down the fireman's pole on the treehouse, instead of hesitate till i left that place and no longer could. 

i want to turn back time to when i was six, and i would drink red yakult every day.i want to turn back time to when i was seven, and i would smile everyday instead of cry.

i want to turn back time to when i was eight, and i would tell my classmates that they would be reading the dictionary all the days of their lives. i and would laugh at them then.

i want to turn back time to when i was nine, and i would enjoy beating all the little kids at digimon all over again.

i want to turn back time to when i was ten, and i would befriend that boy instead of bully him. 

i want to turn back time to when i was eleven, and i would exercise more and eat better.

i want to turn back time to when i was twelve, and i would do the psle all over again, and i would enjoy doing it, and i would tell my chinese teacher off for humiliating me for getting a B, instead of sit there and take it like a loser.

i want to turn back time to when i was thirteen, and i would be less afraid of coming to school late. i would be less afraid of getting my hair cut by the prefects. i would be less afraid of everything. and i would enjoy school.

i want to turn back time to when i was fourteen, and i would tell that girl everything. and she wouldnt take two years to figure it out.

i want to turn back time to when i was fifteen, and i would do everything just the same. and i would do them without looking back.

i want to turn back time to when i was sixteen, and i would say goodbye to the first man who ever inspired me.

i want to turn back time to when i was seventeen, and i would make more friends because the ones i choose always leave me.

i want to turn back time to when i was eighteen, and i would work slightly harder at math. and i would work slightly harder at seeing things i should have seen. and i would forgive them. and i would forgive myself. a million things i could have done better. i would do five hundred thousand of them.

i want to turn back time to when i was nineteen, and i would work better as a team. 

i want to turn back time to when i was twenty, and i would take more pride in my actions, and show people what i am capable of. i would not waste my time.

i want to turn back time to when i was twenty-one, and i would learn how to drive a car. and i would learn how to ride a motorcycle. and i would learn how to play guitar or piano. i would do all this instead of wasting my time.

i want to turn back time but i cant. and so i do everything today without regret. amen.

rules part quatre

the purpose of the mosaic law as it turned out, wasnt to save jews but to prove to them that they were incapable of keeping it. after all, so flawed are we that we couldnt save ourselves even if our own asses depended on it. rules and laws do not teach the heart, only the body. the law, intended to be a scaffolding structure for the jews, became a stumbling block and iron curtain, preventing their own promised salvation.

it reached the point where God literally had to hand down a deus ex machina in the form of his son so that all the hopeless people may be saved. and yet they still shut their eyes to it. they did not see that the new age of grace ushered out the age of law, such that none of them needed longer to answer to disciplinarians. the law was meant to save them--it wasnt abolished; it was simply fulfilled that day at golgotha.

sure, its been written numerous times what one needed to do to enter the great kingdom. but really, everything that was listed are suggestions leading to the spirit of love. if there is no latter, then there is no former. and the pharisees followed the law to the letter, and yet they told squarely that they were were to be denied from heaven. why? because blind faith is not faith. one can follow all the rules and yet still fail, simply because one does not bother to understand why those rules exist. their hearts were always in the law and never in God. the more i read into the pauline scriptures the more i see this in religion today, especially my own.

there are a million ways to love someone. i dont understand why people have to go to church to find out how to do it, especially from leaders who remind me so much of the pharisees. well i guess someone has to take the fall for the rest to be saved, after all, even the jews had to be sacrificed for the sake of the gentiles. seriously, there is so much judgment and so little tolerance. sometimes i am so ashamed. if jesus were still here in person today, every pastor would get an ass-kicking.

you and your rules. you exclude people from your flock. you wear nice clothes and drive big cars and though you give to the poor, you laugh at those who worship idols. you shun all those who are different. and you do not teach your people not to shun those who are different, you impose your laws on those who arent even under your roof. you enforce before teaching. you teach words of man, not words of God. bad that even your sheep do not know any better. worse that they depend on you to teach them. worst of all, you would deny all of this.

house

House: What did she hallucinate?

13: The content of the hallucination isn't relevant.

House: Not usually...

Foreman: Not ever.

House: We know nothing; the brain knows all...it knows what the problem is, knows where the problem is-

Foreman: It's a big logical jump from a body's immune response to the brain giving subconscious diagnostic quotes.

Chase: What about dreaming about waterfalls, running streams if you need to go to the bathroom?

Foreman: Sure. That's the same as the brain shouting "you have pancreatic cancer!"

House: Her subconscious is trying to tell her something. We need to eavesdrop...

Taub: She was screaming she was being sucked into a black hole, so...we should look for a tumour in her anus?

ohnoes, not haiku again

world pond

leaf in black wind

frozen torrents torture it;

resilient always

bright willow flying

nothing, everything, nothing

unforgettable

toad on lily pad

clockwise in stagnant water

world's worries now known

white hyacinth sways

stem and pistil unbeknownst;

brown stick insect knows

silver snail racing

connecting self and unself

neuron overload

pink calf crouches low

up springs narcissus' peacock

rippling passion

white egret landing

grey rock pushing back blue lines

seeing all that hides

a fearful fish swims:

scales of fate decide for it;

numbered are its days

butterflies by night

enshroud the morning glory

tangled up in vine

~

gossip boy

im disappointed in the gossip girl writers, in that so many of the ladies in there have the same vindictive streak. i mean, come on. why are all of them so fast to act on their emotions? its really not playing well with reality. aside from the mildly sociopathic georgina sparks we have the vengeful blair waldorf, evil grandma van der woodsen, the sometimes unreasonable vanessa abrams the annoyingly impressionable jenny humphrey and the plain annoying eric van der woodsen. COME ON not all girls are like that. yes, i dont regard eric as a boy since he acts like all of them.

and jenny, seriously. i thought she was a good one. lately shes become a dangerous bitch. i know it makes for good drama but damn it, who among the audience can find anyone left to look up to? every tv show should have at least a couple of characters to ground all of the crazy shit down and not alienate its most important viewers (*ahem*) with ridiculous crap.

thankfully i have lily bass to restore my faith in womankind. i think rufus and her are great together--in fact i think rufus is a pretty cool guy, notwithstanding i think hes making a stupid mistake right now. you stupid dummy. thank your God that lily isnt like the others. and since when did dan become the father figure with all the wise lessons?

and chuck bass. i always believed in his good side considering the ways of his cassanovic past. i always liked him somehow. now i am convinced. i think its because we think alike and we choose alike. actually i see alot of myself in him. well apart from the billions of money and suave charm and the hunger for success and the fact that my esfp friend isnt a hot chick. ok thats alot of exceptions but whatever.

i get involved when i watch tv. i get upset when shows finish their runs. its like i invested a part of myself and then one day everythings suddenly over and im lost and left behind. and then i start on a new series and torture myself all over again. im so conflicted and dramatic. damn it they should write a show called greg-san. it would be a comedy-soap-drama. it would have powerful women, hot chicks, respectable men, gays, lesbians and midgets. there would be much swearing, partial nudity and other questionable content. oooh, i already have one or two people in mind to cast for some of the characters.

aphasia part trois

~
a white wave sweeps all

washing everything away

and this watchman cries.
~

je regrette part deux

turn off the lights, sit in the corner next to the curtain. pray that time stops. maybe if it stops, everything will stop too. dont want for things to happen. dont want for things not to happen. dont want to make decisions. dont want to regret.

cant stop time. things will happen. things will not happen. decisions meaningless. regret inevitable.

ps 12 mar if anyone can stop time, let him teach me so i can stop mine.

the wonderful wizard of oz

this post would be too long if i provided a summary of the story, so ill just get on with the symbolisms and start talking about:

initiation
the cyclone which uproots dorothy and her house into the fantastical land of oz. its easily noted that this is essentially a dreamlike world which defies almost all the rules that applied to the real world of kansas, but therefore also gives the actress seemingly impossible potential. what is real? that which we are familiar with? i quickly draw the connection between the cyclone and morpheus' red pill, albeit that morpheus and his outstretched hands implied the possibility of choice, the cyclone is otherwise environmental and thus oftentimes unavoidable. it picks us up and throws us down into realms of unfamiliarity, leaving us lost to find our way back; for this philosophical interpretation of Oz, this unfamiliar place is our psyche...and the story, our struggle with self-discovery.

encountering the shadows
deep inside our personal world lie the shadows of our conscious selves, and as jung would note, the shadows adopt mirror opposite traits of the qualities we are comfortable associating our outside selves with. dorothy encounteres three archetypes of her shadow: the tin woodman, the cowardly lion and the scarecrow. they embody, respectively, her lack of knowledge, courage and heart. these three characters, of their own accord, wish to become complete; this would represent the force of the repressed unconscious. i could even surmise that the collective will of these three was the reason for the spontaneous creation of the cyclone in the first place. if jung were alive he would warn you never to underestimate the power of the unconscious, especially your own.

trials and tribulations
dorothy and her shadows met numerous obstacles along her metaphorical path to individuation--the yellow brick road. the wicked witch sends wolves, crows, bees to slow dorothy down and possibly encourage retreat. a religious view would portray satan and his demons as the witch and her chicaneries. in a secular image however, these hurdles would similarly be personal battles with the social systems of the world encompassing morality and ethical values.

i note that dorothy manages to overcome these predicaments with the help of her shadows, even though they are incomplete. this strengthens my suspicion that completion of the psyche is after all and end goal; these small hurdles thrown at us in the beginning are only the minor quests that we struggle to overcome and become reminded that we are not invulnerable and are always in need of assistance. the witch's plans are foiled, but she still manages to capture dorothy and her entourage with the use of more powerful proverbial snares: in this case, the winged monkeys.

power of the persona
dorothy witnesses the true usefulness of each shadow's qualities, as the tin woodman is revered as king among the winkies, the cowardly lion, ruler of the forest, etc...in life we cannot deny the fact that in different situations we become different people, or as jung would use the term, persona, latin for 'mask'. while this might seem to be specious misrepresentation, i see the discovery of one's strengths as paramount to the discovery of one's weaknesses. after all, it is not confidence and wit which befall us--it is overconfidence in our ability; not knowing one's limits. to be safe, dorothy must be able to wield her shadows to her advantage without becoming lost behind them--in essence, the shadows must be servile to their master dorothy who casts them and in no hurry shall one shadow need be more powerful than the rest.

intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
when the three shadows are finally provided by the wizard of oz with what they wanted the most, they are all contented to receive what only you the wise reader would note to be placebos: bran and needles for brains, sawdust for a heart, and a suspicious potion for courage. i note that dorothy's 'wizard' was after all, just an encourager in spirit; that though his help could not be weighed in reality, they had positive effects for dorothy and her party. some of us create our own wizards to support us, and though they might just be figments of our imaginations, they work for us, and as jung would say "what is real? anything that works, is real."

for the rest of us, we might respond better to extrinsic motivation, much akin to jung's philemon, his spirit guide which appeared to him though was not created by his unconscious. dorothy's guru was glinda, the good witch of the south who also repeatedly provided dorothy's party with assistance...

revelation
and the climactic truth that the tin woodman had all along been the most tender and loving, that the cowardly lion had all along been the bravest, that the scarecrow had all along been the wisest, and most shockingly that dorothy had all along possessed the power of the silver slippers to go anywhere she wanted, unimpeded. on first thought i was unimpressed that this implied the notion that the journey of oz was after all this, a moot struggle. then i realised that though the truth is that all of us contain the potential to succeed immeasurably, it is only the those of us to whom this truth is revealed that allow us to tap this potential.

it is not enough to know that you have the ability to succeed. you must believe it so. but believing is infinitely more difficult an act than saying the words "i believe." it must be proven to you before you can unleash it, as we are all skeptics by nature. and i bet glinda would agree when i say that the power lies about your own two feet. the person whose duty it is to prove to you your complete ability, is yourself.

je regrette

"The moving finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it."

-Omar Khayyam

meaning of life part quatre

9 pm dinner is bruschetta. tomato, toast, salt, parsely, evoo, raw garlic. oohhhhh...

feminism

i hate sexist jokes for two reasons. firstly, i hate pigs. secondly, they generate shame for the rest of the men out there who arent pigs. cant really avoid the latter. people are stupid and will automatically derive judging thoughts from worse observations.

i went to a ceremony of marriage vow renewals a couple months ago and was terrorised not by blatant asshatery but by the ignorant and worse kind. from a church leader: 

"A woman marries a man expecting him to change, but he doesnt. A man marries a woman expecting her never to change, but she does."

word to the wise, you idiots: if you dont have a vagina dont be fucking telling this joke in front of people who do. to top it off, some vows included phrases where the "wife" was to submit to her "husband". ok so even the bible wont support gender equality. but seriously, how many wives out there actually do that? and no, doing so simply to pacify your unreasonable man doesnt count as submission. that counts as being smart. and you cant really expect people to think youre smart if youre submitting all the time, especially when you dont have to.

see thats the problem with rules. i fucking hate rules. they are shit on a plate. they dont fix things. theyre just good at tying you up so that you dont mess up the status quo. and guess who set the status quo? yes the people with penises. and the problem with dickheads is that their brains failed to develop due to diverted blood flow from cranium to pubis.

sometimes its just better to have a woman in charge. if barack wasnt black i would have rooted for hillary. there are countless psychological barriers preventing women, afros, gays, etc from reaching positions of influence. now, consider the fact that if one of them can rise to such a position of their own accord, how great does it speak of their competence and ability to achieve the same level of success despite the shakier start and experience with higher hurdles? how great is the height of their future knowing the superiority of their ability thus far in time?

yet i am not a blind feminist. if i find any woman abusing the movement i will undo her just as easily:

there are few things that makes me more furious than discovering a bully. its when i discover a victim who sits on their ass and cries foul. fuck you. get up and walk, stupid worm. why dont you prove them wrong instead of right? then im furious when i discover a victim who claims he is better than a bully simply by standing up to him. well, fuck you too. you havent proven shit. go match a bully's ability and then claim glory.

and the following would apply to all people in positions of minority in any aspect: if you were born with weights around your ankles you do not go around making excuses for being slower than the rest. you do not go around telling the rest you would have won them had you not have been born that way. you do not go around telling the rest you are better than them simply because you have to run harder. you havent proven squat.

but if you do beat them, boy, do you deserve to shit on their faces.

back to women. do not tell me what a woman is or what a woman could be. i know full well that i know nothing about them so let no fucking man lecture me on this topic. and dont even start with gender roles because i already know all of it to be pure and utter bullshit.

ps.
let my anger with all of mankind be clearly expressed, for i will be just as angry tomorrow and also five years from now when i read this again and yet again and realise nothing in this world has changed.