is

You are all about tomorrow. The moon has your name

memorized: the curl of your back, your face, an open book.

— Vona Groarke, Tonight of Yesterday

Just spoke to my parents about Turin. My dad literally said "I'm hungry" right after I informed them, and my mom questioned the ways and means in which I will finance my trip. Before I said some smart-ass thing like "prostitution" or "loansharks" I realized that irony is a trait I inherited from only one side of the family. It's like, "Son, we want you to develop as a person, but not like this, because of reasons. Anyway let's change the subject."

Money is, like, totally dumb and lame. Also I am incredibly mature and thoughtful and the paragon of filial piety.

That said, I would like to remind myself that I need to emancipate myself of all my limiting factors, because these limiting factors have been limiting me for the past 20 years — 20 years marked by limits, the factors of which I would like to be emancipated from. (Thanks, I also have remarkable logic and a terrific knack for sentence construction.)

I am so fazed by the idea of "scholarship" and "academia." It's such a weird but obvious thing to pursue when one forgot to develop a useful skill as a child, like carpentry or stone masonry. Another thing that's weird is how people take me seriously when I mention "librarian" as a potential career path. Maybe I should just sign on with NLB and be the assistant curator of the "This Months' Picks" shelf, and perhaps I will lead a fulfilled, self-actualized life. 

giving

'That cock knew the weather was going to change,' said Clare.

— Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles

It was a weekend of cats. After Saturday's rehearsal, I was led by accident (some would say a weird feline psychic force) to the open spaces at SMU, where I set my eyes on a calico with caramel coloured arms and a drizzle of fudge swirled into its back. "Hello," it meowed (I'm making up the story as I go along.) "Hello," I replied. In the cool late-afternoon breeze we looked into each other's eyes, searching for an interspecies commonality we could, so to speak, fraternize over. 

Shortly, I became acutely aware of the strange posture I adopted, the large volume of traffic around me, and how the cat delighted in watching me make a fool out of myself in these public spaces. Later on, I splurged on a pair of expensive Klipsch earphones — this was the the cat's doing. 

I should also mention that my neighbourhood had been blessed with a litter of kittens which have now grown up into adorable, angsty, sensitive and needy pubescent cats. They have been sort-of adopted by a family living on the ground floor, but then again, ground floor units have always taken upon themselves the well-being of these "community cats." This very same Saturday, I spent the entire evening playing with these beautiful things that I will term "pre-cats." They almost ruined the Doinky Doodles (I hope google picks up on this) stuffed-toy thingums that I hung on my bag, but it was for a good cause, so,  whatever, I guess. BTW I've only ever said "I love you" to a cat, so there you go, that's the story of my life.

and

The signs all point to one direction: I'm actually pretty dumb! So, why didn't anyone tell me this earlier?? Why were you all so damn nice about it? "You're brilliant" "These results are not indicative of your capabilities" "Can you lend me your notes" Lies! Fuck, they were all lies! And it feels good to type this!

taking

There is a particular day I have been dreading this month. 

I'm not one to believe I'm results-oriented, but I have been groomed all my life to care about fulfilling targets and objectives, no matter how arbitrary their basis, or how much I am aware of this but cannot shrug off the weight of this Asian, middle class upbringing. I'm more interested in the process. Or rather, I'm interested in being interested in the process. 

But let's deconstruct our understanding of "process" and "result." It is evident that both are components of a general linearity, with clear — at least with provisional semantic clarity — demarcations between beginning, middle and end. What, then, is the difference between the two, if the supposedly "mutually exclusive" preoccupations of "process" and "result" are derived from the same linearity of thought — a linearity that, if I may so dare to posit, necessarily functions in a framework of closed-mindedness? 

I have been groomed to receive results, and to believe that what we reap is what we have sown. The past few years have shed more than sufficient evidence to persuade me otherwise. I'm not bitter, because framing experience in terms of "effort" and "end", "process" and "result", is not a fruitful way to live. The way we rationalize the external world paradoxically counterpoints the experiences of our inner landscapes — for example, emotions have no other logic except the enigmatic one which they appear to operate by, and even then we constantly surprise ourselves. There are questions we will never answer — and hopefully will never find an answer to — about the separation of heart and mind, visceral experience and cerebral processes (my resignation to using this word in conjunction with "cerebral" is telling of how deeply ingrained the concept of a 'process' is within whatever is rational, even secure, to us.)

It is epistemologically interesting to me that the instant in which I know of my test scores (an anticlimactic point in this piece of writing) is also the instant in which I am infused with the knowledge of the future. I say "infused" because this knowledge cannot be taken away, yet this knowledge is so diluted as to be diminished, simply due to the fact that it is ultimately as significant as the other random events that the direction of life seems contingent on. I am foolishly invested in a dream that I know will not materialize, but tragically more so on humanity's shared illusion that to believe in a dream and act upon it will, with certainty, expedite its own materialization. 

finishers

past the bend of light, the shadow of stones,

the fog of July, shapeshifting the planes

because they take off while I think of Truth,

dense obscurity, the wind through my teeth,

these darkening thoughts, no grammar exists,

I is you me one, these are the mysteries,

the mysteries of Blank, bikes in tawny lanes,

broken telephone, few are the mysteries,

these words in my head, few are the mysteries

yes this is an

Came across this video from the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, held last year at the Sydney Opera House (I believe), which I enjoyed greatly, because this sort of event obviously will never happen here. It's like, sure! Bring in Fascist dictators here to benefit from the medical treatment their oppressed citizenry will never receive! We're not that comfortable with flying in a Marxist academic though. We don't know why but we hope you will be satisfied with the bullshit we're answering you with.

With the passing of Dr Toh Chin Chye, we begin another wave of national-level reflection as — I quote from something I read over the weekend — we lose a generation of "ministers who cost less and deliver more." Well, OK, even non-nihilists will agree that we will all meet death alone. But issues such as ministerial pay, while worthwhile debates in our own right, distract us from more fundamental questions. A quick glance at the national papers reveals a worrying mercenariness embedded the psyche of our nation: disproportionately high salaries, clearing green spaces of heritage for "urban development", economic injury being the primary concern of the shrinking population etc. etc.

The fundamental question weighing heavily on my mind is: are we so worried about the economy precisely because that's all we have got as a nation? And as a corollary: were we ever a nation, in its political and sociocultural definitions?

ANYWAY to neutralize this entry, here's a video of a cat getting groomed.

analysing the ridiculousity that is Christina Perri's 'A Thousand Years'

Heart beats fast

Colors and promises
How to be brave

That's cute, starting a song with these insipid fragments. What does the line "Colors and promises" mean? Perri's being deliberately elliptical but this will probably elude her Twilight-lovin' audience.

How can I love when I’m afraid to fall

At first glance, this is a striking line because of its sincere questioning, as if negotiating the rough, ruddy landscapes of love and longing. On a deeper level, the cultural connotation of "misunderstood, skinny bitch" is poignant because the opening line "Heart beats fast" speaks volumes of the speaker's rich inner life.

But watching you stand alone
All of my doubt suddenly goes away somehow

Why? Why does "watching you stand alone" mean that your doubt "suddenly" goes away "somehow"?? This is where the speaker has erred. If s/he's standing alone, maybe there's a very good reason for it. It feels like the object of the speaker's sexual desire is brooding and introspective — the modern day Byronic hero if you would so generously admit — but this being a song from Twilight requires a consideration of complex cultural codes, most of which are deceptively complex.

One step closer

To?? To what? To whom? Where and whence?? How and why??

I have died everyday waiting for you

Cute lyrics! It feels a lot like it's saying (obliquely, of course) "hey come listen to this sad song while you drink that frappe, you'll look very attractive"

Darling don’t be afraid I have loved you

If you think s/he's afraid, it's probably RAPE. 

For a thousand years

I’ll love you for a thousand more

OH I get it now, it's a about handsome vampire singing to a girl that he loves. This love song makes sense to me!!

Time stands still

Perri employs the use of irony because time "stands still" but the speaker can still hold out for "a thousand years." I guess I am rendered asunder by the brilliance of her wit. 

Beauty in all she is

Do I have to ask: what if she were ugly

I will be brave

Uh huh

I will not let anything take away

Except her VIRGINITY, you thousand year old rapist.

What’s standing in front of me

Is this question even necessary? You're gonna have beautiful vampire children.

 

Every breath

Every hour has come to this

Ooooh anaphora. This song has literary roots in deep stuff like Dickens and MLK.

One step closer

Wait for it, wait for it...

I have died everyday waiting for you

Darling don’t be afraid I have loved you

For a thousand years

I’ll love you for a thousand more 

The chorus repeats itself for our listening pleasure.

diastole

I've always thought of myself as an observer rather than one observed, and upon watching a video of myself performing CPR on a (deceptively-named) "lifelike dummy", watching the focus shift to my hands, my shoes, my face, I began to understand that we are constantly beheld by a panoply of gazes, each determining, subjectively, our personhood through an ideological and gendered lens.

What are the politics of seeing? That I determine the cultural quotient, emotional capacity, or even the slightest paucity of weird sociopathic shit from a visual run-down of a person seems to unmask and describe the judgmental subjectivity of every knowledge claim I make about him or her. "She's friendly but she's the sort of person who posts pictures of her semi-naked boyfriend on Facebook."; "These are my good friends but they like bands like Nickelback"; "She looks in-bred." etc. etc. And on an exponentially greater scale, "The laxity of our immigration policies is an issue"; "The immorality of this group of marginal people renders them the Sodom and Gomorrah of our times"; "The massive devastation of these cities by the flooding is yet another sign of the end times"; "We need to groom dynamic youths to expand our economy."

To disregard the fundamental subjectivity of our utterances and claims, and even to insist on our soi disant objective truth, is to me an abhorrent vulgarity that epitomizes the ugliness of humanity. This ugliness is located where there is a privileging of one truth over another, or cultivating a condescending attitude towards anything that threatens a paradigm. Granted, there are several things in our collective consciousness that are categorically wrong, like genocide or torture, but to spring attacks motivated by a defensive need to hold on to bases of power, to "stability", is pretty dubious. Unless we actively seek to be reasonably accommodating, acknowledge that epistemological humility is not intellectual apathy, and love the humanity of Other People, it's quite likely that nothing about the status quo is going to change. 

I know I love to bask in my own ridiculousity, but there are things that we shouldn't feel uncool being passionate about. I guess it's a culmination of many events that have led to these recent, suckily structured and largely unoriginal thoughts. But writing is still quite the liberating experience that people describe, and that I remember, it to be.