Can't wait to try this!
and move there!
2012
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One of many reasons how bears could be better than human.
Click here for another one. 'Moon bear suicide' makes me want to bury my head in shame. Bile farming is such a loss to the hope for humanity. Another reason is personal. I have been overusing the term suicidal. If the moon bear knows why, he would rip off my bones from my body.
RRRRAAAAAWWLLL YOU PUNY HUMAN!
"The marriage of linden blossom from Benedict's native Germany with frankincense from the Holy Land and bergamot from Italy creates a subtle and dignified fragrance, befitting a man of finely cultivated tastes. Barely perceptible is a nuance of citrus, and as it evolves, a discrete hint of musk. The overall impression is one of understated elegance. A slightly astringent and balsamic quality makes it a soothing and refreshing aftershave."
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| Benedictus |
- All that is gold does not glitter,
- Not all those who wander are lost;
- The old that is strong does not wither,
- Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
- From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
- A light from the shadows shall spring;
- Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
- The crownless again shall be king
JRR Tolkien
- Except this:
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| Chicken Risoles |
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| Here's the not-so-sweet detail: that's the drinking glass that I 'borrowed' from my dorm's dining hall |
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| another not-so-sweet detail: that's the empty bottle of a hair-loss tonic that I put on myself 6 months ago. |
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| brings you back to sweet-lady mode |
And here is one thought about flowers: real flowers live and die. Cool, if you contrast them with plastic flowers.
'What a brilliant video! ... It's cute to see kids as grown up. But kids shouldn't be grown ups. I like how it ended.'
- Cooray, D
... While I was feeling such a mess, I thought you’d leave me behind.
While I was being such a wreck, I thought you’d treat me unkind.
But you helped me change my mind ...
A friend called me last night. We both entered the university together around 3.5 years ago. Both of us came from the less popular high school in Indonesia, but of course, no place can ever beat Pontianak's suburban-ity. He went on majoring in Engineering. After so long a time, we updated each other on life, and oh shoot... there it came along: post graduation plan.
I wished I could mute the world when he told me how his job application was going on, his strategy and his telling me how he was glad with his Engineering degree. If he knew how I am actually doing now, he would feel really guilty of saying those. It's like munching a cake in front of a beggar.
Three and a half year, and I am still trapped in this identity crisis, constantly living in denials and dreadful uncertainty. I survived this whole apocalypse of future planning by worrying so much, until I could not take it anymore and consoled myself with this idea: 'screw the success and the money, follow your passion'.
But, this is why I am trapped.
Yes. screw the money and the narrow definition of success, but can I ever have self-esteem? There is no passion without talent, and almost certainly, without a character. And this complication is courtesy of my identity crisis. I am afraid I am just finding excuse for myself, believing that there is such thing as ' young spirit. I saw it works in the 1950s movies where youths just ventured their life to find their passion. I am 21 year-old living in 2010s, the era of meritocracy, where good is never good enough. I can say 'screw the money, and follow your passion', but I cannot deny how self-indulgent I would be. Everyone starts off very early in building their careers so they can relax later when they are 40 something. And even if they can't relax until they are 80 something, being fettish as they are, wouldn't the effort give them self-satisfaction? If I keep on being like this; going against the current (by not working as hard as everyone else) and wasting my years in vagueness; how would it be when I suddenly wake up in my 40s, with children to feed and debt to pay. What would I tell my children about hard work and character?
'As long as we are happy and as long as we are together', again, like in many movies. But I have witnessed myself how impossible it was to be happy when you had to live with so much financial limitation. There is no such thing as happy poor family, except in movies and classic novels. You can farm and feed yourself in the past but not today. You got to work for it and how would you find the time to enrich yourself for something that does not pay when the bills are waiting to be paid?
Money can never buy happiness, but I learnt that it can buy things that make you happy. As a kid, I was not allowed to buy books because good books were too expensive, so mum had to made up a reason that reading spoiled my eyes. Mum was never interested to read anything because we need to save up and if she needed to have a break from working, she would prefer something free : sleep. No enrichment of any forms. When we had family vacation, she would arrange for the cheapest room, cheapest meal, cheapest place to shop, free entry places. That's why I never liked family vacation. When it was supposed to be refreshing and bonding, it just gave all of us stress and tiredness. I'd rather stayed at home.
People say this is shallow. That's how middle class people like me get desperate for self-efficacy. And looking back at how I was raised just saddened me. Perhaps that's how the identity crisis came. I am in the sea of people who were so proper and well-educated.They read good books and watched good movies as a child or went for a ballet or dance class or sport, they heard about their parents' job, they have stories about their parents. They have self-esteem, they know what they want in life. I see this people around me. And I want to be like that, can I not help it? It was such an awful life, can I not have something better?
I am not blaming my parents for this, they are just as unfortunate as I am, if not less. I just find it hard to make peace with myself. I am a bit traumatized with my decisions in taking Physics in NUS and selling my soul to S company for 4-year scholarship with 6 year bond, and living in constant denial to this day. I want to slap you, me-from the-past. I hate you , I really really hate you.
And my friend who called last night, this is what you've done to me. Not your fault but the timing is really not right. (that's how anti-social people exist!) I have test on Monday and I have not been studying since last night because of this. I panicked and started looking for jobs only to get more panic attack and as usual, until I exhausted myself.
Dear Lord, I do not know what will happen to me today. I only know that
nothing will happen that was not foreseen by You, and directed to my
greater good from all eternity. I adore Your holy and unfathomable
plans, and submit to them with all my heart for love of You, the Pope,
and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Amen.
It took 3 days of sleep deprivation, a morning class, a 50%CA test and of course, a very good friend to make me see. Let this be the day.
*March*
I like pop music, but usually not for long.
This ,however, is one of the timeless track on my playlist, been on my top 25 list since I got it.
I would take time to really listen to this song, and let my thoughts go along with the beautifully narrated lyrics. Amazing, how this simple and humble song moves the soul. Vitamin M, yeah!
Mindy Gledhill is an indie musician. She is a Mormon and I think a lot of her songs took root in her faith. Hence, beautiful. Check her blog . This song, for example, is about self-acceptance, something I am struggling with. That's why I find her songs very uplifting. Hers was not a light feel-good message, neither it is an angst. She used a lot of metaphors in her songs. Everything that we deal with in life, be it our struggles, our aspiration, our happiness: these are just like other things in life- they are special, but only when you look carefully what lies beneath them. In a way, it makes me think that every single thing in this life is trying to communicate a consistent message, about goodness and our quest for it.
I also like her 'hourglass', which she wrote for her son. She has a beautiful family. Perhaps that's why she knows. :)
God bless good indie musicians. Deliver them from commercialization. May they be joyful in the things that matter the most.
The following was written by Ted Hughes to his son. If you are reading about him or if you already know him, then you know what tragic stories had been around his family. Despite his defeats, or perhaps, it is because of the defeats, he could write something like this:
When I came to Lake Victoria, it was quite obvious to me that in some of the most important ways you are much more mature than I am. . . . But in many other ways obviously you are still childish — how could you not be, you alone among mankind? It’s something people don’t discuss, because it’s something most people are aware of only as a general crisis of sense of inadequacy, or helpless dependence, or pointless loneliness, or a sense of not having a strong enough ego to meet and master inner storms that come from an unexpected angle. But not many people realise that it is, in fact, the suffering of the child inside them. Everybody tries to protect this vulnerable two three four five six seven eight year old inside, and to acquire skills and aptitudes for dealing with the situations that threaten to overwhelm it. So everybody develops a whole armour of secondary self, the artificially constructed being that deals with the outer world, and the crush of circumstances. And when we meet people this is what we usually meet. And if this is the only part of them we meet we’re likely to get a rough time, and to end up making ‘no contact’. But when you develop a strong divining sense for the child behind that armour, and you make your dealings and negotiations only with that child, you find that everybody becomes, in a way, like your own child. It’s an intangible thing. But they too sense when that is what you are appealing to, and they respond with an impulse of real life, you get a little flash of the essential person, which is the child. Usually, that child is a wretchedly isolated undeveloped little being. It’s been protected by the efficient armour, it’s never participated in life, it’s never been exposed to living and to managing the person’s affairs, it’s never been given responsibility for taking the brunt. And it’s never properly lived. That’s how it is in almost everybody. And that little creature is sitting there, behind the armour, peering through the slits. And in its own self, it is still unprotected, incapable, inexperienced. Every single person is vulnerable to unexpected defeat in this inmost emotional self. At every moment, behind the most efficient seeming adult exterior, the whole world of the person’s childhood is being carefully held like a glass of water bulging above the brim. And in fact, that child is the only real thing in them. It’s their humanity, their real individuality, the one that can’t understand why it was born and that knows it will have to die, in no matter how crowded a place, quite on its own. That’s the carrier of all the living qualities. It’s the centre of all the possible magic and revelation. What doesn’t come out of that creature isn’t worth having, or it’s worth having only as a tool — for that creature to use and turn to account and make meaningful. So there it is. And the sense of itself, in that little being, at its core, is what it always was. But since that artificial secondary self took over the control of life around the age of eight, and relegated the real, vulnerable, supersensitive, suffering self back into its nursery, it has lacked training, this inner prisoner. And so, wherever life takes it by surprise, and suddenly the artificial self of adaptations proves inadequate, and fails to ward off the invasion of raw experience, that inner self is thrown into the front line — unprepared, with all its childhood terrors round its ears. And yet that’s the moment it wants. That’s where it comes alive — even if only to be overwhelmed and bewildered and hurt. And that’s where it calls up its own resources — not artificial aids, picked up outside, but real inner resources, real biological ability to cope, and to turn to account, and to enjoy. That’s the paradox: the only time most people feel alive is when they’re suffering, when something overwhelms their ordinary, careful armour, and the naked child is flung out onto the world. That’s why the things that are worst to undergo are best to remember. But when that child gets buried away under their adaptive and protective shells—he becomes one of the walking dead, a monster. So when you realise you’ve gone a few weeks and haven’t felt that awful struggle of your childish self — struggling to lift itself out of its inadequacy and incompetence — you’ll know you’ve gone some weeks without meeting new challenge, and without growing, and that you’ve gone some weeks towards losing touch with yourself. The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn’t live boldly enough, that they didn’t invest enough heart, didn’t love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.
Brace yourself (and myself), for another storm is coming. You got suck into the torpedo. All you could do is to brace yourself, your inner child.
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| Add caption |
One's cologne can really be an offense to the sense, and I am not being naggy.
I was having my breakfast and then someone with a very strong perfume walked behind me. I can smell the 'sweetness' of the aroma from when she was still at the other end of the table. And then she was passing right behind me. I was eating a slice of bread. Suddenly, the strong bitter-sweet aroma rushed into my nose and the bread tasted like perfume.
Be careful of how you smell. People could die, no.
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| Look at the pro wrapping! |
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| I'm going to sleep with Pooh Bear on my head now :) |
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| I hope it won't turn me to a panda from not getting enough sleep :p |
Tumblr is difficult. So I am back here.
Thank God it is a cloudy Saturday. I am listening to Putumayo
Records' French Cafe Series. If only my bedroom is not as messy as it is
now, everything would be perfect.
I want to finish my homework soon and go out! By myself, though. So there is a chance that it would turn to be a disaster.
I really don't like to admit this but I really have not been productive since last Friday evening, and been going through roller coaster of emotion. That's where I got the dark circle instead of not having finished my works.
Last year was also like this around this time in September. Last week it was like this too during weekend. Ah, so was 2 days ago and yesterday. I am really tired actually and am telling myself to stop thinking of what's real and I actually know how weird eveything has been wired up in my head but still I believe it. I wonder if taking pills would rest this case. Can I? Shall I? Should I?
I was thinking of writing something in a form of fiction to help myself to comprehend my situation. I cannot articulate this feeling, this emotion, neither my cognition (and if it exists), it is too complex that I get even more upset when I try to talk it out because those were all wrong choices of words. Perhaps I am processing everything too fast that I got lost in track to trace how the rationality took paths in that. These things, everything, they always come in a click click to me but then I cannot describe why they did.
Is it "irrational"?
So anyway (see I stopped thinking there), I am reading Dr. Jeckyll and Mr Hyde to see how people write this kind of novel.
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I hope I can learn to shift my frame of thinking to something else and not on myself. If you ask me now, I really cannot like anything that I am now and I cannot rest the fact that I cannot accept myself as I really am. That is what makes the ugliest person in the world.
But yes, to be fair, so many more good things to be happy about actually, and to engross myself with. I am supposed to pray for Legion of Mary's retreat which I decided not to attend due to my antisocial-ness and high level anxiety when I 'feel' I have not worked enough. So I better be good for the rest of today and work really hard. And today is mother Mary's birthday. May I love her. I want to. I am so cold-hearted that I don't get the warmth and the romance of loving this important figure in my religion, to whom devotions have unceasingly been resounded by almost everyone I am meeting more often now. Happy Birthday Mother Mary. Can I rest my head in your embrace? :,(
Ah, child, dear one
slumber now...
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Upgraded to Miss Bella Monica BASc. Cool. Congratulation!
Thank goodness for Disney Princess movies!
The 'in every girl' phrase make it tricky to prove them wrong, for the very reason that I have neither right nor might to judge what's within. But ha, I am a girl, too! I know who's in here.
I am really fond of Ursula. She has a very strong voice and a confident lady too! Call me weird, but I find her evil laughter very contagious. I am always cheered up by her laughter. You should watch this video before you judge me:
However simplistic the plot and the messages the movies were presenting, there were actually so many take back lessons from them. Surprisingly, most of this came from the villains. It is in their lines, their songs,
P.S. Scar is not one of Disney Princess Villain, but just to complete the list with variety.
Just as what Father Cajetan explained wonderfully in his book Humility of Heart, the only difference between an angel and a devil is in their pride. Everybody has pain, everybody is dealing with different types of hardship and challenges in life. We all know the princesses' problems. But who says the villains don't have their own side of story? At least everybody likes the princesses: the birds, the rats, the cute rabbits, the owl, the yummy looking sea creatures (oops). But look at the poor villains. They sing no Merry Poppin's kind of songs, Cinderella's ugly stepsisters don't even have a talent to sing. If you watch The Little Mermaid, you will see how Ursula only eats two small shrimp and look at her body! And if someone would tear upon a Disney Princess movies, it must be for watching how these villains died, sometimes brutally, with everybody being so happy about it.
It is their pride that makes them suffer, I know. Just as much as I sympathize with their anger, their envy and their loneliness, so is my sorry for them. There is no straight and bold infinite line stretching from and to plus minus infinity to divide between the princesses and the villains. Life gives you smooth circles. Be it of small or large radii, once you are not within, you don't belong. Even if you manage to get in, with what you have, no matter what effort is done, you are nothing but a shade of contrast. So demotivational no. Actually no. If only the these villains understand what a heroic movie it would be if they fight against their natural tendency to be bitter.
Not to become a princess, not that, at least not right away.
Ok, time to look for a "Disney Villains Support Group" out there.
I wish one day Facebook provides for the option for disabling the news feed updates. I am not going to 'kill' my Facebook account (unless I am in my crazy lady mode), precisely because I have no strong opinion about it. I do not check upon it every 5 minutes and make very limited use of its infinite feature of self-broadcasting. I am still using it for messaging people and it always comes to my dismay that everytime I logged in, the first thing is to be stampeded with mundane self updates from the 700ish 'friends' I have on my account. The 700ish figure is the mistake of my youth and one of my small project this vacation is to unfriend at least 2 people everyday, of whom I do not need to know about. I should be ending up with only 10 people when the project ends.
Anyway, the news feed showed me updates about a cousin of mine who had just graduated from her elite high school in Jakarta. I understand that she was the top graduate, wins the prom queen award and was having a great time with her handsome boyfriend and many friends. Numerous status updates, comments and tweets links followed.
Of course it's a different thing to know about this good news from Facebook, compared with her writing me personally through email or even Facebook message. The action of the earlier means is more of drawing the attention to oneself, to be sought by others rather than actively outreaching to others. And it's an illusion to the one standing on spotlight. I didn't go about and browse her Wall, it just so happen that the News Feed appeared that way when I logged in. All this Facebook News Feed and Tweeters thingy provides the virtual stage for everyone to be a celebrity of their own world. And almost everyone, the majority if I may say, is deceived without their pausing for a while and thinking of what is it actually that they were doing when they posted status , be it mundane updates or mind blowing achievements, pictures, shared videos. The last time I posted status was when I just came back from a service project in Pohsarang. And then I was thinking, "I must be quite desperate.".
Everyone thinks everyone else, at least someone, is interested with every seconds of their life, with his or her being with so-and-so in the park gazing the sky, with his or her opinion about everything. I am not saying that we should turn down the idea of sharing things more efficiently. Let's not generalize things, there are things that fall to the category of information (worth sharing). It is the mindset that one's life is worth sharing as a set of information and facts , and now I am talking not only about Facebook and its social media counterpart, but also the shallow instant get together orientation HTHT like in typical local school orientiation. We have to think again of what it means when wise men of old days talked about 'sharing lives'. We are tearing the message of the complex fabric of self-giving and selflessness, letting the phrase stand on its own and then wrongly misinterpret it.
Below is the transcript of a high school graduation speech that I wish my just-graduated cousin and friends, and also my adolescent self listened to. I have to admit that I hold a certain sentiment towards adolescents, youths, and the immaturity of their characteristics. That's because I know no better adolescent better than my past, and how much it has put me to shame :p Anyway, teenagers and youths are just younger version of ourselves. Hence, the speech applies to everyone. Haha. Watch the video here.
Speech Transcript:
Speech Transcript:
Dr. Wong, Dr. Keough, Mrs. Novogroski, Ms. Curran, members of the board of education, family and friends of the graduates, ladies and gentlemen of the Wellesley High School class of 2012, for the privilege of speaking to you this afternoon, I am honored and grateful. Thank you.
So here we are… commencement… life's great forward-looking ceremony. (And don't say, "What about weddings?" Weddings are one-sided and insufficiently effective. Weddings are bride-centric pageantry. Other than conceding to a list of unreasonable demands, the groom just stands there. No stately, hey-everybody-look-at-me procession. No being given away. No identity-changing pronouncement. And can you imagine a television show dedicated to watching guys try on tuxedos? Their fathers sitting there misty-eyed with joy and disbelief, their brothers lurking in the corner muttering with envy. Left to men, weddings would be, after limits-testing procrastination, spontaneous, almost inadvertent… during halftime… on the way to the refrigerator. And then there's the frequency of failure: statistics tell us half of you will get divorced. A winning percentage like that'll get you last place in the American League East. The Baltimore Orioles do better than weddings.)
But this ceremony… commencement… a commencement works every time. From this day forward… truly… in sickness and in health, through financial fiascos, through midlife crises and passably attractive sales reps at trade shows in Cincinnati, through diminishing tolerance for annoyingness, through every difference, irreconcilable and otherwise, you will stay forever graduated from high school, you and your diploma as one, 'til death do you part.
No, commencement is life's great ceremonial beginning, with its own attendant and highly appropriate symbolism. Fitting, for example, for this auspicious rite of passage, is where we find ourselves this afternoon, the venue. Normally, I avoid clichés like the plague, wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole, but here we are on a literal level playing field. That matters. That says something. And your ceremonial costume… shapeless, uniform, one-size-fits-all. Whether male or female, tall or short, scholar or slacker, spray-tanned prom queen or intergalactic X-Box assassin, each of you is dressed, you'll notice, exactly the same. And your diploma… but for your name, exactly the same.
All of this is as it should be, because none of you is special.
You are not special. You are not exceptional.
Contrary to what your u9 soccer trophy suggests, your glowing seventh grade report card, despite every assurance of a certain corpulent purple dinosaur, that nice Mister Rogers and your batty Aunt Sylvia, no matter how often your maternal caped crusader has swooped in to save you… you're nothing special.
Yes, you've been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble-wrapped. Yes, capable adults with other things to do have held you, kissed you, fed you, wiped your mouth, wiped your bottom, trained you, taught you, tutored you, coached you, listened to you, counseled you, encouraged you, consoled you and encouraged you again. You've been nudged, cajoled, wheedled and implored. You've been feted and fawned over and called sweetie pie. Yes, you have. And, certainly, we've been to your games, your plays, your recitals, your science fairs. Absolutely, smiles ignite when you walk into a room, and hundreds gasp with delight at your every tweet. Why, maybe you've even had your picture in the Townsman! [Editor's upgrade: Or The Swellesley Report!] And now you've conquered high school… and, indisputably, here we all have gathered for you, the pride and joy of this fine community, the first to emerge from that magnificent new building…
But do not get the idea you're anything special. Because you're not.
The empirical evidence is everywhere, numbers even an English teacher can't ignore. Newton, Natick, Nee… I am allowed to say Needham, yes? …that has to be two thousand high school graduates right there, give or take, and that's just the neighborhood Ns. Across the country no fewer than 3.2 million seniors are graduating about now from more than 37,000 high schools. That's 37,000 valedictorians… 37,000 class presidents… 92,000 harmonizing altos… 340,000 swaggering jocks… 2,185,967 pairs of Uggs. But why limit ourselves to high school? After all, you're leaving it. So think about this: even if you're one in a million, on a planet of 6.8 billion that means there are nearly 7,000 people just like you. Imagine standing somewhere over there on Washington Street on Marathon Monday and watching sixty-eight hundred yous go running by. And consider for a moment the bigger picture: your planet, I'll remind you, is not the center of its solar system, your solar system is not the center of its galaxy, your galaxy is not the center of the universe. In fact, astrophysicists assure us the universe has no center; therefore, you cannot be it. Neither can Donald Trump… which someone should tell him… although that hair is quite a phenomenon.
"But, Dave," you cry, "Walt Whitman tells me I'm my own version of perfection! Epictetus tells me I have the spark of Zeus!" And I don't disagree. So that makes 6.8 billion examples of perfection, 6.8 billion sparks of Zeus. You see, if everyone is special, then no one is. If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless. In our unspoken but not so subtle Darwinian competition with one another-which springs, I think, from our fear of our own insignificance, a subset of our dread of mortality - we have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine achievement. We have come to see them as the point - and we're happy to compromise standards, or ignore reality, if we suspect that's the quickest way, or only way, to have something to put on the mantelpiece, something to pose with, crow about, something with which to leverage ourselves into a better spot on the social totem pole. No longer is it how you play the game, no longer is it even whether you win or lose, or learn or grow, or enjoy yourself doing it… Now it's "So what does this get me?" As a consequence, we cheapen worthy endeavors, and building a Guatemalan medical clinic becomes more about the application to Bowdoin than the well-being of Guatemalans. It's an epidemic - and in its way, not even dear old Wellesley High is immune… one of the best of the 37,000 nationwide, Wellesley High School… where good is no longer good enough, where a B is the new C, and the midlevel curriculum is called Advanced College Placement. And I hope you caught me when I said "one of the best." I said "one of the best" so we can feel better about ourselves, so we can bask in a little easy distinction, however vague and unverifiable, and count ourselves among the elite, whoever they might be, and enjoy a perceived leg up on the perceived competition. But the phrase defies logic. By definition there can be only one best. You're it or you're not.
If you've learned anything in your years here I hope it's that education should be for, rather than material advantage, the exhilaration of learning. You've learned, too, I hope, as Sophocles assured us, that wisdom is the chief element of happiness. (Second is ice cream… just an fyi) I also hope you've learned enough to recognize how little you know… how little you know now… at the moment… for today is just the beginning. It's where you go from here that matters.
As you commence, then, and before you scatter to the winds, I urge you to do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance. Don't bother with work you don't believe in any more than you would a spouse you're not crazy about, lest you too find yourself on the wrong side of a Baltimore Orioles comparison. Resist the easy comforts of complacency, the specious glitter of materialism, the narcotic paralysis of self-satisfaction. Be worthy of your advantages. And read… read all the time… read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life. Develop and protect a moral sensibility and demonstrate the character to apply it. Dream big. Work hard. Think for yourself. Love everything you love, everyone you love, with all your might. And do so, please, with a sense of urgency, for every tick of the clock subtracts from fewer and fewer; and as surely as there are commencements there are cessations, and you'll be in no condition to enjoy the ceremony attendant to that eventuality no matter how delightful the afternoon.
The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life, is an achievement, not something that will fall into your lap because you're a nice person or mommy ordered it from the caterer. You'll note the founding fathers took pains to secure your inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness-quite an active verb, "pursuit"-which leaves, I should think, little time for lying around watching parrots rollerskate on Youtube. The first President Roosevelt, the old rough rider, advocated the strenuous life. Mr. Thoreau wanted to drive life into a corner, to live deep and suck out all the marrow. The poet Mary Oliver tells us to row, row into the swirl and roil. Locally, someone… I forget who… from time to time encourages young scholars to carpe the heck out of the diem. The point is the same: get busy, have at it. Don't wait for inspiration or passion to find you. Get up, get out, explore, find it yourself, and grab hold with both hands. (Now, before you dash off and get your YOLO tattoo, let me point out the illogic of that trendy little expression-because you can and should live not merely once, but every day of your life. Rather than You Only Live Once, it should be You Live Only Once… but because YLOO doesn't have the same ring, we shrug and decide it doesn't matter.)
None of this day-seizing, though, this YLOOing, should be interpreted as license for self-indulgence. Like accolades ought to be, the fulfilled life is a consequence, a gratifying byproduct. It's what happens when you're thinking about more important things. Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you. Go to Paris to be in Paris, not to cross it off your list and congratulate yourself for being worldly. Exercise free will and creative, independent thought not for the satisfactions they will bring you, but for the good they will do others, the rest of the 6.8 billion-and those who will follow them. And then you too will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you're not special.
Because everyone is.
Congratulations. Good luck. Make for yourselves, please, for your sake and for ours, extraordinary lives.
The term itself gives an impression of dilemma. It is so much easier when you find one of the answers comply with what you have in mind, even when you are not sure, somehow it gives assurance and helps you to build up the idea on even sturdier foundation. Problem solved. But complication starts when none corresponds to your idea. Something is wrong, the options tell you what you are supposed to think, and that it is not there, meaning you are lost, way too far from the right track or what is acceptable. And it is obvious that you can not have right and wrong answers at the same time. There you start confusing yourself. Even more irritating when it is a bonus question!
Deactivating my facebook account. It is like an act of strike for my disappoinment of life. Of the happy statuses that I could not relate with. Of difficult conversations I could not get in. Of shallow posts, be it emo statuses that is demeaning to emo people (HAHA), unimportant updates of life and so on.
You see, I am the one with problems here.
I am not someone who camps for hours on facebook. My account activity has been almost nil and I have no interest at all to make it better. Perhaps 'losing' too much alr. I am not interested with someone else's life, as no one is to mine.
Is it applicable for my life, too? Nah, nah. I have no life. Guh.
It is another ridiculous episode of mine. But deactivating it is quite like a suicide. There s a fear of losing everything, esp the pictures from previous parts of life which is a sign that I exist.
Facebook reminded me that these people will miss me, I found most of whom I came to complete loss of contact with. It reminded me again that things are especially complicated with the parents, almost no contact in 2 weeks already now. With the sister who I spent a lot of time with last summer. And even with the brother who stays in the same area with me. Gosh, what a broken tie. I am too lazy to be the one to fix it.
See, deactivating the account can be dramatic.
Until I found out that they had the option for 'temporary'.
To my defense, I have been having a series of mild illness. I have not been studying for my coming exams, and am not getting any internship with only 3 digit savings in my account. Call it a punishment for not planning my uni life properly, but really life is that unforgiving? And may I add, unfair? I have been nothing but bitter, been sitting alone at the corner of the dining hall when even the most unsociable boy that I know was at least sitting with a group of people.
"To whom can I expose the urgency of my passion?" -Stranded alien.
I don't have intuition of what it is that is happening inside my brain without cutting it open (desperate enough to think of how it can be done). And I wish my intuitive extrapolation of my future is wrong. I don't want to lose someone whom I ever really love. I wish I could look back to this post one day without wanting to change anything of my past. Knowing how inadequate and insane I am, this is the bitter medicine the Doctor prescribed to me. But why did He make me suffer from this sickness of soul, or put me in the endemic area in the first place? I don't understand this. And I am stupid enough to be an agnostic when I think of this, not Richard Dawkins kind of atheist, but also not belong to Heavens and Its association on Earth (in Singapore where I am, surrounded by His people)
I don't want to lose my religion, really.
First-thing-first thing, I hope I am falling to sleep. It s going to be 4 am soon. I hate this. Been a long day of self talk and self thought. I am tired.
"Because I am different. So don't compare..."
Interesting. Difference is the outcome from comparing per se. So how would being different hinder someone from being compared? It already happened!
Is this the best thing we could come out as our excuse at the brink of comparison? Is it our fear of comparison (and losing!) that brings us to this pursuit of being different?
If it is comparison (and fear of losing) that we are running away from, think again about the meaning of being different. Our fear is something out of the context of the fact that things (may I say everything) are comparable. We have all the adjectives to describe our comparison. In a way, everything is different and isn't it all just the same? And so much as the comparison is an ambiguous interpretation of subjectivity, it does not change the fact of what we truly are.
So why do we have to be different? Why do we have to change? Face it and anyway, nothing could change it, we are bad at some things and to be fair, good at some things (can always change the range of spectrum of comparison :P) . No matter how little the good ones are, isn't that enough consolation?
'Tis road I have been traveling comes to a traffic light. Been ignoring one after another warning sign and not pulling the brake. I am traveling fast and proud on the wrong lane. I kept the distance vast enough to make a turning back. To security I will go and not coming back. It is such a discomfort to look back.
But is there anything that hurts more than watching someone leaving you behind, disappearing from sight?
My security is an illusion in the desert. Guilty as charged, I am running away for my own comfort.
Red light is on. Quo vadis?
Time to redefine relationship. Tough, but be a man!
I came across this typical 9gag picture on my facebook news feed early in recess week. I was thinking 'I better not be the cat. Nah, it won't happen to me.'
Today when I was showering in the morning, I was trying to remember my schedule. I have a mid term test coming on 1 March. It s still February now, it felt like it s still 1 week away from March. Oh maaan! It is this Thursday!
I have no time to be emo!
