an excerpt from a book im reading
bits of me are falling apart by William leith
humourous, but i have no idea why im reading it
since its abt some middle age guys crisis

I stride on, holding today's baton. It contains the woes of the world, stories about guns, about young people with guns, about the nervous market, about this year's good exam results, which are the result of a con, a Ponzi scheme, and which, therefore, are not good exam results. They are bad exam results. The baton tells me about the death of love and the end of sport and the baton asks why.

The baton does not know.

The baton does not really want to know.

The coffee has made me waspish and edgy. But the endorphins from walking are making me loose and relaxed. A perfect combination you may think. It's like speedball, the heroine to make you loose and the cocaine to perk you up- I was going to say poor man's speedball, but thats not what i mean.

I dont do drugs now.

Now i do my 15000 steps every day.

Now im marching along, towards the river and supermarket, with its Alpine cupola, passing the specialist underwear outlet, holding the baton that contains the woes of the world.

'Why?' says the baton.

But the baton does not want to know. Everything falling apart, kids with guns, banks not able to explain where their money's gone, house price's crazy, monogamy on its last legs, levels of unhappiness soaring, levels of clinical depression off the scale, graffiti everywhere, perverts looming, children missing. What was it Joan Didion said? The centre is not holding, that's right- the centre is not holding, a quote from somebody, Yeats i think, not sure but I tinhk it's Yeats, Didion writing about the San Franscisco of 1967, telling us about the coldness and alienation that went along with the sex and drugs, and now things are the same apart from oen detail, which is that the coldness and alientation have a corporate feel, and my instinct here is to say things should be fine, but they're not, things should be fine, but we're not happy, really not happy at all, when you think about the fact that we're so incredibly comfortable it seems weird that we're not happy, but our comfort comes at a price, it comes at a high price. There's something murky and wrong about our way of life, something shifty and treacherous, and we can feel it, can't we, and it's beginning to tell, things are starting to give, things are starting to run out. We're eating away at the seed capital. We're using up the telomeres. We cant' go on doing things the way we're doing them, can't borrow any more, can't write anymore cheques. These are the woes of the world.

'Why?' says the baton.

But the baton does not really want to know.

And as i march along, approaching Bobby who is a heroine addict-turned-alcoholic sitting on a bench, sunning his wide red face - as i march along, I toss the baton into a bin, it spins satisfyingly and lands on the pile of dog shit the riverside dog walers have been considerate enought ot put into plastic bags. Shit in plastic - a greater environmental headache, I would have thought, than shit per se. Tell me I'm wrong.

came home just
visited navigators just now with nic
suprisingly comfortable group

so anyways
nothing like a big mug of homemade bourbon
one of the pleasures in life

just raed an interesting quote on the way home
the rich are getting richer, and more miserable, the poor are getting richer, and more miserable
so where is all the money and misery coming from?

now i wouldnt know anything about it
as ive been blessed to come from the middle class,
the bourgeoisie

ive always liked the ring to that word

but so realy where does all this multiplying money and misery come from

how could all the things i thought i stood for so easily become like chaff in the wind

ive been tussling with the question of identity for some time
well not really tussling
tussling would imply active resistance
well
maybe ive been giving it some feeble second glances

i think i can safetly say that one thing my generation lacks is a sense of identity
for one, we're part of a generation that hates labels,
well
at least i hate labels
i hate labels, stereotypes, archetypes and anything that follows.....
i feel that limiting oneself by saying that i am this or that....
seems to put a person on two dimensions
even the label christian, which is supposed to be a joy to bear, seems to have attached to itself all kinds of right wing fundamentalism that makes one cringe
honestly, i think we christians havent portrayed the best image of ourself and of the one we're supposed to stand for

yes yes, im starting the whole diatribe again
granted we are God ordained in this world
my point is that we arent doing our job very well

so moving beyond that, back to labels
the previous generation seemed all about labels,
you are what you wear
or what you do
or what you behave like
being the quintessential something
my generation inherited this trait in its own heterozygous form
we strive to be whatever the label is
but when its applied to us
we hate it

we realise for one that there should be so so much more outside of something we're called, or something we end up doing
we find ourselves trapped in a rut, knowing the trap ahead of us but unable to turn away

sometimes i wonder which is worse
becoming another faceless nameless title, an afterthought, a whisper in the wind
or the anticipation of it,
knowing that we'd probably amount to not much but not able to find anything else

in sophies world, which is a translation of a norweigean book by the way,
one point raised is that the trait of a good philosopher is the capacity for wonder
i think on that point alone i have no future in philosophy
maybe i did at one point
then i grew old
ok
maybe i just grew cynical

and it is true,
that despite all the pessimism that we can garner from the world around us
(ppl who insist that optimism is a natural state obviously dont know alot)
(disclaimer: optimism, well true optimism, in my opinion is a state which requires alot of work if one isnt ignorant of course and is only mastered by the best of us; if ur an ignoramus being an optimist is normal... i mean sure u shd be mourning the lack of depth of ur mind but u probably arent capable of that)
there is alot to be in awe and wonder about

an epiphany came as i was walking back to hall
what does God say about the labels
i mean sure, He labelled himself as certain things, if i may respectfully put it that way

seems strange
that in my "backsliden state" i can dare to talk about God

He calls himself love, and goodness and kindness and just and all that jazz
but when Moses asked who God was
i mean sure He called Himself the God if Abraham Issac and Jacob
but He also called Himself "I AM WHO I AM"

well that wasnt how my thought train flowed
i dun think im holy enough for that
but i think when we apply labels too easily
like
i am a student
or you are a cudgel wielding simian, the progeny of a toad
we tend to focus on the second part so much we forget about the first part
the miracle and burden of existance

the very fact that we are, as opposed to nothingness
i mean sure we can be all cynical about why we're alive

one of CS Lewis favourite books was Loki Bound a story in which the jotunn Loki was poised and a symphatising light... in this version, Loki opposed Odin not because he was malicious but because he opposed Odin creating men against their will

and while the irony of that idea is indeed appealing
it is also nonsense
there is no alternative to non-existance
there is no what would it be like
because that is nonsense,
if it wasnt
it wouldnt be like anything

of course there would arise the other impt philosophical concept, the question what makes up i
i think therefore i am? or that we are our emotions or our memories or the sum of both or that we are merely physical, carnal beings
i dont think i have an answer to that?
there isnt really an objective answer, each persons answer would be affected by his value system

but thats what makes up part of who we are
our diversity

we arent just our labels
we exist
and our whole is greater than the sum of our parts
usually the whole is greater than the sum of the parts
unless you're considering quantum mechanics
but as with anything, emergent properties exist only when u zoom in or zoom out

so who am i
i am not much
but also so many things
and more importantly than that
i am

so where do i go from there?

im blogging exactly because im currently slogging through a physics lab report that's eating up my insides
schools been ok? i would say fun, but it seems like a weird word to use since never before did i think mugging abit everyday, and keeping up with tutorials fun.
sure, i made some new friends and all, but nothing tight, at least not with anyone i didnt know before uni

someone said i shdnt stop blogging, that people read my blog because it's deep and thoughtful and stuff
well maybe that's because i usually dont dare blog when ive nothing to blog abt
as ppl who know me better understand,(yes thank you mr lian for knowing me too well so that you spill out stuff to ntu tabloids) i tend to be more reserved, keeping my thoughts to myself, that is if im thinking at all....
i feel as if ive just been going through the motions of late.

i mean sure, i think abt school work, and what to eat, and what to wear but its all mechanical, nothing deep or metaphysical, not that any of that seems to matter nowadays....

ive always liked indie movies that focus on the dialogue between a few people, you'd realise that very little of what is said is random, and even more meaningful than the lines are the words not said, the awkward silences and meaningful glances....

not that im anything like that, my dialogue tends to be trivial, and my silence even more absymal...

well, so according to mr lian, i look morose, am apathetic and nonchalent, am untidy, am reserved, am not good at teaching others, along with a host of other unbecoming tidbits that he so happily spilled out to a school paper.....
and i gave them his contact because i thought he would be politically correct while insightful
gosh
where to bury my head now.

you know if you were to ask me what i hate abt myself, id wouldnt be able to come up with alot...
i mean sure the list of my shortcomings is quite long
im not as handsome as timothy wan,
im not as bright as einstein,
i might appreciate the arts, but im far from the Renaissance standard of da vinci
im unfit, im introverted and reserved
im non-chalent and unsentimental
but none of those really irk, maybe
maybe because i dont care enough

but i think the one thing i really hate myself for is not having the courage to say what i mean and feel, while i mean and feel it, when it still matters

i probably posted these lyrics before but they're just too good

when you find your castle on the hill
with the bars on the windows
will you burn the bridge behind you
will you ever come out and see the sun again
or will you hide
and now how long has it been
since you've seen the light

make your way on the stairs
to the top of your tower
stone cold floors
hardwood doors
lead you to your room of plastic flowers
they still look the same
drenched in water
it comforts you to think that they're alive

it could have been easier than this
if you threw it all away
what would you miss
it could have been too much of a chance to take
the silence in your head would have to break
your grip is slipping faster
looks like you'll have to face yourself after all

step outside the shadows of your cage
strangled truth
stolen youth
is written on every line of every page
it's your story
do you want it back
you have to decide if it is worth it
swim across the swamp to the other side
run until you're out of breath
and when you look back they'll be nothing left
but a memory fading quickly

it could have been easier than this
if you threw it all away
what would you miss
it could have been too much of a chance to take
the silence in your head would have to break
your grip is slipping faster
looks like you'll have to face yourself after all

it could have been easier than this
if you threw it all away
what would you miss
it could have been too much of a chance to take
the silence in your head would have to break
your grip is slipping faster
looks like you'll have to face yourself
after all