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.