I haven't felt this alone before, sitting in an Irish pub, down one guinness with a Kilkenny waiting for the band to start.... Though maybe not really a blessing, Tham God for providing me ppl to waste away the night with while consuming booze waiting for the band

the edge of water

i realise now that with a new finland exchange wordpress up, this place may just wither and die
for those who dont know abt the wordpress its
http://goingtonorwayohwait.wordpress.com/



anyways random song to set the mood
have you ever been haunted,
the way ive been by you

and so just like that
we round out a chapter of my life
with more whimper than bang

please remember me more fondly than i deserve

goodbye fair elva
adeiu my gentle friend
you illuminated my darkness
but even light must have an end

i wished i could cradle
your heart in the palm of my hands
but you were promised to another
even before our adventure began

so keep shining keep flickering
over yonger hills that lie
be blessed, be happy
may your life go kindly by

this weeks favorite song while studying

I feel like russel crowe's character at the end of proof of life And it really kinda sucks

was thinking/talking over msn about the whole predestitnation armenian/calvanistic broohooha

and several thoughts just came and i wanted to take them down somewhere, so im posting here,
i think teh middle ground im taking is one that we are presented with free will,
and granted some of choices do have overarching consequence for example if we reject salvation,
or today choose to go out and commit some heneous blasphamy

but i think at the same time, God takes either option we do choose and somehow still woves it into the scheme of things

its like perhaps RPGs where NPC dialogue has no effect on the game ending, but just flavours the journey???

but at the same time, i lesson i learnt by getting thrashed by AI at chess has taught me one thing

that it may take one mistake to doom us,
but that usually happens mid game instead of late

and sometimes even incrementally
a small group of bad decisions add together to doom us 20 moves down the road

maybe lifes like that
we keep making the stupid and bad decisions
and they eventually add up, and God has to come along and pull a miracle


whose to say that thats not His plan

maybe we should stop communicating for awhile?
people who have a propensity to run away probably shouldnt egg each other on

I'm not pissed, at least I don't feel pissed, Then again, I'm not very good at feeling I guess I just underestimated entropy, or overestimated you And perhaps, things don't play out like in the movies, and I won't get a happy ending

been listening to everywhere i go by lissie, far too much to be healthy
sometimes i wonder if im emotionally imbalanced, my favorite christmas song is florence and the machine's cover of last christmas

sometimes i wonder what life would be like if we could live in a society without expectations,
without obligations without disappointments
where we could just be, without having to worry about the utility of our actions


been seriously contemplating every few days about just burning my bridges and cutting all ties,

ignoring emails and calls and smses( well more than i usually do)

i doubt it'd make a difference
well maybe it'd inconvenience some, like theyd have to worry how they'd get another sound man on a sunday or something, not like i give a shit at this point

its not my job to make sure that there is someone around to do sound
of course it would be nice, and the proprious thing to do,

but im getting tired of doing the nice thing

whats our worth anyways?
they say doing sound is like a toilet bowl,
aside from how disturbing an image it is,
its always been my favourite analogy

sigh didnt mean to rant,
just that i dont want to hang around a place i dont want to be in dec, but i fear i may be too nice to tell them to bugger off and solve their own problem
i guess its my fault for not telling them sooner

E if u read this, you should totally check out the watchlistentell channel... good stuff

nearly teared listening to this song on repeat...
if u can believe that.

i think all artist should strictly perform on randomn streets and parks
screw mtvs and big stages

Everywhere i go- Lissie
And i fall on my knees


Tell me how's the way to be

Tell me how's the way to go

Tell me all that i should know



And i fall on my knees

Tell me how's the way to go

Tell me how's the way to be

To evoke some empathy



Danger will follow me now

Everywhere i go

Angels will call on me

And take me to my home

Well this tired mind

Just wants to be lead home



And i fall on my knees

Tell me how's the way to go

Tell me how's the way to see

Show me all that i could be



And i fall on my knees

Tell me how's the way to be yeah

Tell me how's the way to go

Tell me why i feel so low



Angels will follow me now

Everywhere i go

Angels will call on me

And take me to my home

Well these tired eyes

Just want to remain closed



I don't see clearly can't feel nothing no

Can't you hear me?



And i fall on my knees

And angels will call on me

Now everywhere i go

Angels will call on me

And take me to my home



And angel will fall on me

Everywhere i walk

Angels will call on me

And take me to my home



And angels will call on me

Now everywhere i go

Angels will follow me

Now lead me to my home

was intending on posting about two seperate points today, but then i had a nice cool long bath,
and i effectively forgot about the more angsty (though profound) point i wanted to talk about

actually tbh, abt that point, i only remembered that i wanted to blog it since it was so profound

well i guess the profoundity is lost

anyways today i felt like posting on the importance of wonder

i know ive talked about it before, but i was thinking about it today
and i realised how awesome beholding is and how it actually is our initial purpose as creation

you know how that disney song goes
i can show you the world, shining shimmering splendid

an invitation to behold the world together, something apparently romantic and endearing

be mindful of the fact this is sung by a character who a few movie scenes earlier bemoaned his place in the world as a street rat

but who quotes disney with any credibility
so here is the biblical perspective:

man was made so God could share creation with us (read genesis please)

and perhaps i would go so far as God made us in pairs so we could behold creation together

i think thats why, art, music, nature and beauty in general is made to be appreciated with others

and no im not advertising for any young attractive females who might be looking for someone to behold creation with
although i honestly wouldnt mind meeting some of them

why must i be on the outside looking in??

anyways recently i picked up a douglas coupland book, player one by sheer flippancy and i am so enjoying it

maybe its the postmodernist bent, maybe the loss of faith he writes into his characters, but whatever it is...

and one thought today:
what if our lives didnt have a story, no metaphysical narrative running through reality,
just a sequence of random events that aside from the trivial mean nothing, no moral backtrack,
no punchline, and definitely no happily ever after
what then?

we're trained to think as if at teh end of the day, we'll go somewhere, do something, achieve some meaning
but what if there isnt that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow

a quote from the book im reading that i love love love:

those key moments that define us probably fill less than three minutes

and u probably can see why im loving it

wow another post today, must be the weekend mood
my weekend mood is quite different id expect from others
i hate weekends, and i cant wait for them to be over.

why?
because there's only so much that can go on in school to hurt me socially or emotionally?
and in generally i dont come out feeling more refreshed on weekends?

its tiring playing the good churchgoer, and being all cordial since ur supposed to love people you dont really like; very often i get tired from having to censor the bulk of my wayward and judgemental thoughts when i hear some incoherent sermon. (I never figured out why we're taught to listen to every sermon like its precious, i mean sure God can speak through fishermen, but when He does, i bet the people listening noticed the difference, and i'll listen when i can see the difference)

sigh another tirade

so anyways what i actually wanted to blog about was prayer.

i had this random question run thru my head
does prayer only work forward or does it work backward

most people.... well actually i have no idea how the main population think,
but i shall assume (since i like to play the contrarian) that they think that prayer only works forward
ie. you have to pray before an event in order for your prayers to have any effect

i was wondering however whether praying after the said event would work too i mean since i suscribe to the theology that God is outside of time.

It is i must admit a very enticing stand since it helps explain if God can save people who lived before Jesus' time. However passages such as in daniel, where daniel's prayers hasted the angels trip become a problem

i of course believe that we pray because it makes a difference. what difference and how, i have no fixed opinion on. I refuse to believe that God cant act on his own agenda, since majority of our prayers probably arent very spiritual at all, and i also dont believe He only acts when we prayer, since the church obviously doesnt pray enough, and thus it probably would have died out if God had to rely on people praying. I do believe that prayer can and sometimes changes Gods mind, but whether this contradicts with omnicscience, hmm, maybe our prayers work rather as a justification for mercy, which would be congruent with Abraham pleading for Sodom and Gomorrah, or how the Israelites needed blood on the doorpost, as if an angel of death couldnt differentiate between Jew and Egyptian (i see the blood on the doorpost as a justification for mercy).

I do believe that it pleases God to pray, and also we cant claim to care alot about something if we dont pray for it.

as you can see i believe in many paradoxical things at once, which is fine with me since im truly a postmodernist.

Being a postmodernist i also have no problems not answering my own questions, since not all questions have answers, at least not on our side of eternity.

Is it wrong to be christian and a postmodernist at the same time?
well the bible doesnt say its wrong (hehe, of course postmodernism is quite a new ideology) but many prominent christians tend to think so, since christianity is kind of about absolute truths,
and being a postmodernist tends to put me at odds with the majority of fundamentalist christians (whom i obviously look down on)

then again, some say postmodernism is over and the new post post modernists, tend to take authority at its word....

well anyways, the whole gamut of beliefs and differing theologies dont exactly make the case for fundamentalism. How can all of these slightly differing truths be absolute, unless one is right and the rest well-meaning but mistaken and how am i to know to know which one is the correct one?
the local theology? (any search algorithm programmer would tell you that while it is understandable to mistake the local maxima for the global one, it is WRONG)
the one that agrees well with my worldview?(the exact problem with theology nowadays and in the past, so much of it was shaped to match the contemporary world view, that alot of what we belief to be solidly biblical is actually just enlightment philosophy)

or did God just intend for different christians to believe different things
doest seem to agree with i am the way the truth and the light

some people would pull the faith card, but exactly, why not have faith that God meant for me to be a postmodernist?

so anyways, i guess i'll just continue to pray,
admittedly less than i ought to, and more that my brain tells me is logical to.

walking back to hall in the rain today,
i realised how much of a blessing it is that God causes it to rain on both the just and unjust.

i love rain
but that aside, if blessings were exchanged for browny points,
bad christians like me,
disfunctional christians who fail to be just, sometimes by shortcoming, other times by design
would find ourselves in a much more arid environment


Thank You God, for being beyond fairness and propriety
that grace is more for the sinner than the pharisee,
and that making the book of life is different from making santa's mailing list.

one question, how do you really be good for goodness sake, if you get presents under a tree for it

i dont want whatever ur peddling anymore
please go away and let me alone

So what are u setting the stage for?

For some reason I felt really deflated just now

Gosh this really is becoming a place to complain about the weariness of life

Right now im struggling with two sentiments, one of fatalism, one of apprehension of life, neither of which I know is very Christian

Part of me is hoping that like some cheap greecian theatre, God will somehow appear in the midst and everything will turn out right
Deux Ex MAchina, it sounds cooler than the idea it Actually suggests....

The is still humor in the world,
It's just that the time between laughter seems to be dragging long and thin

sometimes I just wish I could it burst out laughing, or cry uncontrollably,
I think both acts while not particular to humans, is probably the most humane in our repertoire.

I think of the emotions, I find resignation and despair the most beautiful, well mYbe relief makes it to top 3 as well

Don't get me wrong, im not masochistic, or sadistic (contrary to popular belief)
It's just that other sentiments are just so fickle and easily shaded by circumstance and mood

Despair cuts straight through our mental and emotive walls,
The hollow pit in our stomach, the crushing weight of reality
The utter bleakness of it's countenance....

I think maybe Gods love is a lot like despair
In how we dont really feel it per say but are consumed by it, nearly crushed by it

If despair is so present it transcends feeling,(IMO despair is more an experience than a feeling)
Resignation probably is one of the most subtle

I think its feels so much like apathy that though the common expression of resignation in literature is that of a sigh, and a shrug, and a deflated posture,
I think it's a sigh we feel the least

It's not strange I guess that relief follows these two closely, if it does at all

Perhaps it's strength as a sentiment arises from the magnitude of the formers
Sometimes so powerful, it takes days for it to register

Ive been moody alot lately, I wouldnt lie by saying i totally have no idea why,
I do know why in parts, but they just dont seem to add up to enough to justify how fustrated i feel

perhaps the weariness of life is getting to me
perhaps the humors are out of balance

met up with an old church friend, well the term "ex-church" friend is more accurate actually
and i realised through him how many of us whom i thought settled down somewhere arent so settled anymore

perhaps when we left, we left our hearts behind

but there isnt anywhere to go back to
or at least isnt much to go back to
being a nomad is wearying

sometimes i just feel like running
well more figuratively anyways
physics tells us that if we run fast enough, we'd eventually leave the earth
i think that'd be nice
to float around in empty vastness and not have to bother about all the shit thats down below

a friend told me that he has started to doubt
and asked how do we know that wad we believe in, that which has been distilled over time
is in fact the truth or if the truth has be lost through all that merciless boiling
let me get it clear, he didnt stop being a theist, he was doubting the collective tradition of christianity that we have today

i didnt get a chance to answer him then
but for my own sake i shall attempt to here

well let me start of saying from a intellectual standpoint
we dont
thats the whole postmodernist bent
we have no absolute proof
all the stuff that people went around giving lectures on to disprove dan brown
well they did have more grounds than a fictional story perhaps
but yes, the dead sea scrolls though a brilliant archaelogical find could very well be a hoax by some  16th century artist just as how the shroud of turin is now thought to be.

so where do we go from there
well we start from a standpoint where believe that Gods is real, and he is good, and he is loving
(be it from personal experience or whatever means of getting there) (of course we believe in his omnipotence and omniscience and so on....)

and for a moment, just a moment (although these moments are far too frequent for me)
lets assume that the stuff they preach in church is misguided misinformation, truth passed down through centuries and warped alongst the way by impotent men who saw to it to color it as they pleased.

well faith is trusting God to speak out of the chaos
and if we believe that God is real and still works,
we believe that he will redeem his word, and his church (although i grimace as i type this)
faith is believing that God will still let Himself be heard above the noise and the subjectiveness of the clergy


i guess faith is also trusting God to find us a home
and to deal with all the angst

It's scary really,
How we get so used to our bindings and fetters,
And let our dreams and hopes shrivel up inside

Do our chains become part of us,
Our weaknesses and faults making up a bigger slice of our ego than we dare admit

Soar, fly? With all this dead weight of past failures, social constructs,and responsibilities?

Sometimes I think I begin to think I understand wad the old one meant when she said God allows our dreams to die before fulfilling them
There's no way we could with what we are, with so much dead flesh still alive

I've asked so many times why I'm still here, when I want so much to out and leave,
Could the metaphysical really intersect with the unpleasant and the mundane?
Could the kingdom come in the midst of all this?

Jesus asked Saint Peter "do you love me?"
His reply was in effect, only as a friend

Im beginning to realize how much I identify with that,
And I'm a lousy friend at that

I've got another confession to make

I'm your fool

Everyone's got their chains to break

Holdin' you



Were you born to resist, or be abused?



Is someone getting the best

The best, the best, the best of you?

Is someone getting the best

The best, the best, the best of you?



Or are you gone and onto someone new?



I needed somewhere to hang my head

Without your noose

You gave me something that I didn't have

But had no use

I was too weak to give in

Too strong to lose



My heart is under arrest again

But I'll break loose

My head is giving me life or death

But I can't choose

I swear I'll never give in

I refuse



Is someone getting the best

The best, the best, the best of you?

Is someone getting the best

The best, the best, the best of you?



Has someone taken your faith?

It's real, the pain you feel

You trust, you must confess



Is someone getting the best

The best, the best, the best of you?



Has someone taken your faith?

It's real, the pain you feel

The life, the love

You'd die to heal

The hope that starts

The broken hearts

You trust, you must confess



Is someone getting the best

The best, the best, the best of you?

Is someone getting the best

The best, the best, the best of you?



I've got another confession my friend

I'm no fool

I'm getting tired of starting again

Somewhere new



Were you born to resist, or be abused?

I swear I'll never give in, I refuse



Is someone getting the best

The best, the best, the best of you?

Is someone getting the best

The best, the best, the best of you?

Has someone taken your faith?

It's real, the pain you feel

You trust, you must confess



Is someone getting the best

The best, the best, the best of you?

why i wont become an anglican

to put it in one word
tradition

perhaps this is the anti-institutional, anti-establishment part of me rearing its ugly head
but yes
part of me just shudders at the idea of the amount of authority we assign to concepts and practices that people develop and pass down through the ages

i mean granted, men though lacking intelligence in general do come up with practices and ideals that should be passed down for posteriety

but the church has done some nasty things in the name of tradition

we insisted that the earth was flat, and perscuted people speaking in tongues in the name of tradition
heck, if we wanted to be purist, we would have stuck with the catholic church of england,

even now, part of me wonders how in the name of tradition we can embrace gender inequality and racial lines

primes

been trying to squeeze in more reading now since my holidays started

ive realised ive got a particular weakness for fiction with subtle hints at mathematics
though the mathematics involved is often non-existant or distant limited to the characters professions.

anyways just recently read through a book called the solitude of prime numbers
quite a nice quainty story on broken, lonely people who are attracted to each other

i loved how the author toyed around with the idea of twin primes, how they exist in the infinity that is the contium of integers, and how such lonely numbers can be so close to each other, yet seperated for ever and ever

i guess 23 is a really lonely number since it is the smallest prime number barring 2 and 3, which is not part of a twin prime pair......

i figure if people were integers, we'd all be really lonely
since there is an uncountable infinity of reals between any two of us,
i figure that is probably true even if we arent integers

we'll always have an infinity of time and space between any two of us.

i just got rid of the tagboard

realised that some online bot was spamming it
i figure if the people who know me want to communicate, they know how to get me anyways

i think ive realised i need a personal assitant,

my lack of finesse and general awareness of deadlines and fine details is starting to get me in trouble

so yeah there is an opening
feel free to apply, walk in interviews are available too

looking back,
recalling how we wished that moment would last forever

we were younger then, and much wiser
so much wiser

its strange though how that one defining moment seems to only exist in my mind now
time hasnt been too kind

Sanctus Real - Whatever You're Doing

this song brought me a measure of peace i guess in the past few days.

But You’re always…. You’re always
You’re always
Out of reach

What the hell, I’m losing my marbles over
Something I can’t see
I’d build a bridge, but I doubt I’d be any closer
To where You’d be.
mt epiphany by inch chua

lifehouse- they dont write songs like this no more

Stop tell me where you going
Maybe the one you love isn't there
You're going under
But you're over it all so you don't care about all that I had to see
I'd watch you wait until you come around
Around

lolsssss
sorry quantum physics joke

a friend happened to point out to me that i dont update my blog
so i figured an update would be apt at this point,
although i dont know who would actually read this....
according to einstein, the definition of insanity is :
doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results
(which ironically seems to me like what some scientist are in the business of, although i suppose a little insanity in the name of science and progress isnt a bad thing, u must be quite insane to pursue science as a career)

but yeah, id be suprised if anyone comes here at all expecting a post, seeing how i rarely post anything

but well, this post is dedicated to the insane, and to those whom im certain are pure evil

so how have i been
i really dont know how to answer that one,
i dont have a simple straight answer to that,
and no number on any scale will do, cos my moods seem to lack consistancy

on one hand ive got quite alot going for me
at least accademically, which for singaporean students is supposed to be all and end all
but i dont really care

on the church front
i still wont ever be caught saying that ive settled down

spiritually i guess im not where i want to be (who is), but im glad ive made some progress
at least, i think im no longer resentful against God

emotionally and psychologically,
theres alot of discontent simmering under the surface
mixed in with an unhealthy dose of apathy, pessmism, fatalism and uncertainty

i dont blog much nowadays abt pessmism, or doubt, or inner dialogues
trying to keep that part of me to a minimum, although i figure it'll always be a part of me
i'll always be a cynic, always too intellectual for my own good
always indulging in intellectual priggery

anyways
only 13 year old pubescant teens have the right to rant abt all the angst and growing pains they go through,
no one wants to hear a 23 year old guy talk admit how lost he is
even though i sometimes wonder if we grow more lost as we age

im trying, with mixed results, to live more simply, to be ignorant even

who cares if i can see how much of a bugger the people around me are,
or if im all too aware of the social undercurrents, and lack of social justice
who cares if im painfully aware of the lack of love in our midst

it hurts to care, and im not ready for that again

im really sorry, if you were hoping to read this to gain some measure of solace, certainty or comfort
those are really scarce in these parts

forgive my new found apprehenshion for speaking anything
i just dont want my words to be empty anymore

and im scared out of my wits
afraid to care
cos caring hurts