umbilical chord progression

stage one: rock metal
it almost always starts out with rock or heavy metal. the sound is brutal and the beat, conspicuous. the entire structure is rigid, and the intentions, exceptionally clear. there is little doubt why youngsters are attracted to this genre, while the oldbies might also find it hard to shake off after piling on the years; this type of music is a sensory barrage--an auditory onslaught, if you will (and you will, cause i say so :)). in this indulgent age, its not surprising that this loud genre is the most popular of all.

the less hardcore would instead begin at gangster rap, if they did not transition from the overbearing noise coming from the amplifiers. here the music takes a diminished role, and the lyrical substance is brought to the forefront and becomes emphasised. here, the language is crass, and the content, primitive. all of it is still loud, but there is definitive storytelling, albeit of stories which have no more than fantastical value. stage one music is easily appreciated but hardly understood, as there is little to understand.

stage two: alternative
such music presents itself as a polished form of stage one: melody triumphs beat, and the lyrics take on a less serious tone, with lighter subject matters. one might observe a more conservative aura around stage two music, which does not provoke physical involvement, which is always paramount to stage one music success.

because there is a transference of priorities from physical to mental attention, there is a clear distinction between the first two stages.

stage three: lyrical abstraction
in a world of sensuality, the first two stages supply the demand of the five senses, but once in a while there are songs authored with lyrics so abstract that they became substrates for the imagination of the listener. such musical pieces are not plainly blank slates, as there is instrumental accompaniment and the lyrics themselves not nebulous.

more often than not, we may observe stage two-three hybrids with indulgent music coupled with ingenious prose. these are usually stage-three-creditable, as there is an unambiguous mental participation from the listener.

stage four: auditory abstraction
if it is possible to create multiple meanings from words, then it must therefore also be possible to create multiple meanings from sound. it is not difficult to write ambiguously, but to design music in such a manner as to be substantive yet freely interpretable is a feat known only to legends. it is with little doubt that most classicals fall into stage four. it is also with little uncertainty that this genre is not popular due to its lack of definitive structure; classical music rarely imposes. humanistic reasons easily account for the larger preference against it. because of its flexibility, it can only give to the listener what is asked of it, and an unfortunate rule of normal behaviour precludes the average person from the appreciation of music that does not tell him what should be heard or felt throughout the piece(a-la stage one).

stage five: intuition
this area is so abstract that its not even there (so philosopical!). in this area, any piece cannot really be called a symphony, neither can it be called a song. yet it is called music, and might even be akin to an artistic performance. it is apparent that at stage five, we no longer dwell on what the first four stages of music dwelt with. stage five is...beyond music. it is a dimension where even thoughts and dreams exist, and such existence is contingent upon the level of intuition to which we apply to anything we experience as creatures of the five senses.

if at each stage we progress as listeners by applying greater intuition to what we hear, or as songwriters, by creating pieces that are increasingly more accessible to the intuiting ear, then the highest level within reason, is stage five. the quest for a higher level would not only be nigh on impossible, but also virtually meaningless--

and we are back to stage one.

a tribute to the misunderstood

country and western

 wave come cry fly wry lie die

oh bring me back my wife go blind

do you see this life of mine

ching chong china wine, my you look fine

now would you be so kind today

brick break tally whack sing it if you may

sing it if you may

sing it if you may

~

hello, goodbye

today at harbourfront a woman walked by and i thought it was Chloé. i turned to look but i couldnt recognise her. it wasnt exactly the same.

meaning of life part sept

people might behave in certain ways, appearing to have a myriad of different wants and preferences, disguising the fact that they are in need of security in all aspects. but it is only after they have attained security that this artificial cloud is blown away, and they realise that they are still not happy.

i have thought about it for a while and have come to the conclusion that what people really want, under security, is actually to be useful. i find it difficult to believe that all the security and reliability in the world could satiate anyone's life. even the delusion of security is not enough. it is only through knowing that my existence is for some reason that i can really be happy.

i have found my reason for being. i can only hope that i can hold on to that reason long enough so that i die before i let go or it is taken from me.

on being a good son

lets go korea end of the year.

"korea? i thought you say go holiday dont want to go anywhere in asia?"

korea can.

"you know i dont like all those cold places--why you want to go korea? skiiing ah. want to go skiing ah.?"

among other things.

"dont want la skiiing. so dangerous. i dont want to go holiday then have to worry about you all. holiday is to relax not worry."

dont worry la. die then die lor.

"talk nonsense. what? i give birth to you so difficult then you just die ah."

difficult meh i thought caesarean.

"talk nonsense. so easy then you go cut your stomach. how can you die before me. that is very unfilial. dont you dare."

so in order to be a good boy i must die after you...

"yes."

ok.

dream a little dream of me

sometimes i dream of a familiar sound, and i spend minutes trying to find the source of it, and i awake to the alarm clock. i look at the time and i know for a fact that it could not have been ringing for that long.

what is instantaneous or momentary in the real world, the dream world can stretch and interpret generously with respect to time. a man can lie in bed and in one second of sleep somehow enact what must be several minutes of dream. this may appear to be an acceleration of the mind in its dream state. but this does not explain the sudden loss in processing power when we finally awake. to me it sounds counterintuitive that the brain speeds up when it is supposed to be resting.

i believe that the brain can write and retrieve a bajillion tons of information in an instant; it is its processing speed that limits our ability to experience all of it in the same amount of time. in order to explain time dilation in the dream state, i posit that the brain can architect an entire dream world in an instant(the rules of which it does not need to create since those rules already exist our memory); the actual happenings in this world, occurs at a much slower rate--a bottlenecked speed which we call real time. seemingly impossible things like teleportation, morphing, flight, and lightning-fast object creation occur in dreams because the brain can create ideas faster than we can perceive them.

i believe dreams are not alternate realities but ideas that we end up living out in the dream state. and because our minds are so accustomed to the slow pace of time, we end up trying to experience these ideas as life on a timeline; eg. i appear in a dark alley. a large brown furry monster materialises. it chases me. i run. it catches up to me and grabs onto my leg. i brace myself. i appear in a quiet forest.

unfortunately we cannot prevent this or have it any other way, after all in real life, everything happens on a timeline. what this implies is that dreams are created as ideas, and that creation no matter how big, can be written to the mind in no time at all. however for it to have meaning we as humans are bound by the limit of processing it, and we can only do so by experiencing that idea on a timeline. so then our dreams are set and fixed by the unconscious; we should not discount the relevance of looking at our dreams as ideas we already have rather than as events that are continuously occuring in an external world (dream world) in which we are merely an observer.

in a dream, we are the observer and the observed. and when we awake, the dream itself becomes apparent for what it is--an idea.

this is what i believe creates weight and legitimacy for dream interpretation. what i do not believe is that dreams are an open and active channel for external influence(read active mind control, realtime exchange with the cosmos etc). if there is a possibility for prophetic dreams, those visions must have already been created prior to sleep, and only self-revealed to the subject during the idea-processing activity called dreaming. upon awakening, the dream experience is further intuited upon to reproduce the same idea but in concrete form; dreaming facilitates communication between the conscious and unconscious.

people lie to themselves in real life, but the unconscious does not lie--it is the ultimate truth to self. it speaks to us in dreams and show us in no uncertain terms the ideas, people and objects that preoccupy our conscious minds in waking life. it is reinforces to you your greatest fears, your highest ambitions, your warmest loves, your coldest hates, your most irksome frustrations, your greatest wants, your strongest needs, and by virtue of only showing you what has frequently been on your mind, it is necessarily honest to you regardless of your pathological need to lie to yourself in consciousness. unconscious ideas hold within them the list of things which actually mean everything or nothing to you; a hierarchy of priorities if you will.

so when people say, "Listen to your dreams :)" i somehow feel that they dont know half of what they are even suggesting, even though they are right.

intj part trois

wars. nobody fights to lose. those who dont believe they can win will surrender. the smarter ones avoid conflict. the stronger ones fight on; those who believe they can win are able to dump all their resources into this war. this eagerness to win is a speck that threatens to deplete its possessor--the bloodlust, so to speak, alienates the aggressive one from the other nations.

sometimes the drive to conquer is strong enough to overcome the perception of reality, a dangerous effect especially if that delusion is with respect to a military's assessment of its own warring abilities. this inevitably leads to the demise of such an organisation. through our marches of blood we are justified in power until we ourselves are overpowered. the problem is that a lack of powerful enemies willing to face the aggressor only leads to further growth of said aggressor.

we all fight wars, and we fight them to win. whether or not the country is weak or the country is strong, or if the country underestimates itself or the country overestimates itself, when countries fight, they fight to win.

my country doesnt win all the time. but every time it sends out its army, the army goes out believing it has already won. it doesnt come come home victorious all the time. but this army has long realised that by picking its battles, the wins have all been easy and the losses, trivial.

this army fulfills its own prophecy.

any country that manages to incite this army to war, is a country that has already lost ab initio.

ps 10th. fuck off and dont come back to this website

pps 10th. sigh

on cheap words and meaningless actions

i do what i will do. let my answer be solely my answer and my intentions, solely my intentions. should trouble befall, i shall be taken to full account--nothing shall share take my blame; should happiness arrive, i shall be afforded all credit--nothing shall share my glory. so come what come may, know that all was meant. all is meant. all will be meant by my choice.

i do what i will do according to my choice alone. not by my friend's. not by my clock's. not by my calendar's. not by my earthly responsibilities'. not by my financial situation's. not by my personality's. not by my mother's. not by the choice of anything that i am free of, as all that i do, i do because i meant to do it.

there will be no credit-claiming as there will be no blame-shirking. most importantly there will be no delusions as to why i say the things i say or do the things i do. i chose to. if i could not choose what to say, then what i say to you means nothing to you; if i could not choose what to do, then what i do for you means nothing to you.

i choose to give my words and actions meaning. i choose.

for dust thou art

anything that is reactive has the ability to release energy. if not in light or sound, then in the form of heat. the reactivity of substances can be correlated to their ability to produce heat. coal, oil, fat, paper. there will come a time when even our earth will be completely exhausted of reactive material. elements on the left will be combined with elements on the right, and they will remain that way because no other way would result in the net release of energy. in effect, earth itself would be completely devoid of the ability to release energy. it would be a finished world. it would be chemically dead.

from a nuclear point of view it would still be alive though. consider the sun, which does not technically burn hydrogen but fuses it. it is a process which creates heavier and heavier elements until iron is formed, and fusion can no longer sustain itself. these heavy elements float across time and space, and consolidate elsewhere, forming planets and other objects like earth.

upon this earth the heavy elements chemically combine, and yet more energy is released. it would appear that even on the infinitesimal scale, things naturally complicate themselves, and in the destiny of it, release energy. most of this heat is trapped to create a comfortable environment in which to propel the reactions of the world around, and this--this i would call a chemical chain reaction. this would be life itself.

when life ends, it would be at a time when this chain reaction can no longer sustain itself, whether due to a lack of heat to self-activate, or a lack of reactive chemicals to act as the source. when reactivity ends, life ends. it would be a finished world. it would be chemically dead.

a visitor to this dead world we see the most complex compounds possible; nothing more complex could be made without the input of energy from an external source. where would this energy come from? even the sun itself is no more.

now we exit the small stage of the solar system, and consider the yet untapped resources of the entire universe which still contains pockets of galaxies and systems with the potential for energy release. and these energy sources will continue to heat the universe and cause change even at the farthest reaches.

but what happens when even the universe can no longer sustain itself? everything contained in what we call the universe would be filled with complex substances and waste heat of incredulous quantity yet insufficient to initiate further progress.

the answer must be gravity. it is the only concept which can create change without the input of useful energy which we no longer have at the end of the universe. the universe itself must come back to itself eventually because of gravitation. it would take back all that heat. and everything--everything will come back as the singularity. we all know what happens next.

i am so excited

with this new gift