the shadows drifting across our ceilings

A secret the spoilt, cynical kids never tell you about:

Especially the restless ones, have this ability to cut any emotional commitment off when the itch arises. Work is weary? Quit. People are tiresome? Cut them off. Why resist anything but the satisfaction you have already intended?

 It’s a thin line.

I am grateful for a job, for the ability to be productive, for the independence it allows me. I am appreciative of the support they have provided, the experience and knowledge I have gained, the tolerance it builds.

I’m not sure why, then, I feel like I’m selling out. The work may not be the most inspiring, but that’s life, isn’t it? What else is success and ambition but the reaching for our illusive potential?

I am thankful for the good and healthy working hours, the chance for my beliefs on work to be re-constructed in a manner closer to the base of reality, the relative space the train ride home affords for me to read. To not have to worry about money, to not need to roam the internet fruitlessly for a livelihood, to not have to despair over grueling interviews and inevitable rejections.

“With each decision, we tell ourselves and the world what we stand for.”

From seeking something we are passionate about, we settle for something that maximizes the time we can expend in that passion. Our souls are not compromised, when we know what we truly are.

Every day before work, I tuck my kindle back into my bag. I draw it out on the train, eager and grateful for the brief time we have together. Lunch is a dilemma – is food really that necessary? Yes, it always is. Emails come in. The clock ticks. And the ride home is a tired and bitter reunion after missing a part of ourselves.

From what little time we find for that passion, we settle yet for narcotic thoughts of what could have been.

“We define ourselves by our actions.”

That tiny, secret part of who we are lies dormant in everyday life. But it is fragile, and the current of pushing and frustration tears at the memory of it. One day in the future, it would have dissipated. All feeling is lost, but if nothing was felt, was it ever there to begin with?

Imperfect memory, please, stay, tell me more.

Anticipation can be rather underrated at times. I like when it comes as a soft feeling of delay, whether it is looking forward to the warmth of someone’s presence or for a short shining moment, being able to imagine a myriad of open possibilities. In gentle doses, I find the feeling rather delicious, such as in my recent attempts at reading serials according to their original release timeline. It has been an exercise in discipline (which I admittedly don't have much of), but the outcome is a disproportionate sense of wonder and satiety – especially in works like Middlemarch, The Pickwick Papers and Black Box (a short spy story by Jennifer Egan I highly recommend. Reading it periodically makes the suspense utterly gripping). 

I have also been prone to bouts of guilt when using a kindle. It is especially acute when in the midst reading a book, I realize how much I am actually enjoying it. While I still visit bookshops occasionally, I don’t feel quite as safe leaving the house without the e-reader. It has become this dirty little secret, and if books had eyes, they would all be staring accusingly at me right now. I try to justify this by saying that books are the mere physical embodiments of a piece of work, and the content – its soul, so to speak – is what really matters. But the fact is I buy/borrow less books, because of which authors get less compensation. Sadly, the thrill of finally being able to read everything (it certainly feels that way) is wilfully trampling over whatever pained regret I feel.

I wonder if it’s natural, that when we get older, we also become more cautious in decisions and more materialistic. Not in a money-grubbing way per se, but by becoming more status conscious and more driven toward financial security. Some people earnestly seem to be looking to prove something – as if by working crazy hours and being paid relatively more, other things in life will fall in place. I’m not disputing this philosophy (it’s their business, after all). It’s just that I wasn't sure how to react when I realized this little facet of a friend - when someone you thought you knew becomes just that – only someone you thought you knew (if that makes sense?)

Today, I went to visit my grandma in Johor again, where I found an old photo of my mum in her student days (turtleneck sweater, large horn-rimmed glasses etc). In it, she is smiling happily in what looks like her dormitory in Newcastle (thick books on the shelves, an atlas on the wall). But intriguingly, behind the photo is a note from her addressed to my dad, the first part of which says: 
“To Chan, 
With Warmest (3 degree c) Wishes and Bright (Ahem!) Skies
Always.” 
It’s strange and wonderful to know this side of my mum. 

The only people for me are the mad ones

In exactly one month, it will be my five-year anniversary with the great Land of Oz. In tribute, I have written a letter to my 18-year-old self, in the hopes that a passing time traveller would pass it along to her:

5th July 2007

Dear silly, impulsive, 18 year old me,

How wonderful the world must look to you! The naïve gloss that comes with teenage hood – all bright eyes and easy smiles; how intoxicating it is to just indulge headily in that freedom. The freedom to rage and love, to refuse yet persist. And I know better than to counsel you restraint.

It is thus quite improbable that you would heed much of what I have to say (stubborn creature that you are, I doubt it would make much of a difference anyway). But I will still say this: loneliness is not a sin. Repeat it to yourself. Like sadness, it is maybe more akin to an annoying companion; inasmuch as the more you try to drive it away, the more it clings. Be as present as you can in your happy moments, so that when the sad and restless times come, you have something to weigh them against. And you do have a few perfect memories that even time cannot distemper.

The years will roll on, and the world will gradually seem to grow more austere and mellow. I will not lie: there will be times when you feel no heater is strong enough to warm you. Your silence will carry the world that happens within you, even when it's so far away. (Remind yourself in times like these – that if you can take the dark with open eyes, you will survive.)

Life appears to have a healthy sense of irony sometimes, doesn't it. But it doesn’t seem to be having a laugh at your expense, so just relax! Let it go. It doesn't matter what they think. The future may yet to be explicable to you, but don’t worry. Those answers will come.

In the meanwhile, be patient. The world is your autumn sonnet.

Sincerely, 

R 

P.S. Call home more.

It may well be that I have forgotten how to write. Quite often in conversations, on buses, in classes, I find myself drifting off and composing a monologue in my head. And sometimes I catch myself in a blissfully blank state, which the needless noises and stresses around don't seem to penetrate. I like my life here. Classes and readings take up most of my time, of course. And then there's the very occasional meal with friends. Or the time spent lounging in a Summer Hill room. But would it be too selfish to let myself wonder if something's missing? Find me, a voice inside murmurs.

Charlotte: I just don't know what I'm supposed to be.
Bob: You'll figure that out. The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.


Today is the 20th of September. Slowly, slowly, I am losing my way.

Fear of the Inexplicable

But fear of the inexplicable has not alone impoverished
the existence of the individual; the relationship between
one human being and another has also been cramped by it,
as though it had been lifted out of the riverbed of
endless possibilities and set down in a fallow spot on the
bank, to which nothing happens. For it is not inertia alone
that is responsible for human relationships repeating
themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and
unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new,unforeseeable
experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope.

But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes
nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation
to another as something alive and will himself draw exhaustively
from his own existence. For if we think of this existence of
the individual as a larger or smaller room, it appears evident
that most people learn to know only a corner of their room, a
place by the window, a strip of floor on which they walk up and
down. Thus they have a certain security. And yet that dangerous
insecurity is so much more human which drives the prisoners in
Poe's stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons
and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their abode.

We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares are set about
us, and there is nothing which should intimidate or worry us.
We are set down in life as in the element to which we best
correspond, and over and above this we have through thousands of
years of accommodation become so like this life, that when we
hold still we are, through a happy mimicry,scarcely to be
distinguished from all that surrounds us. We have no reason to
mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors,
they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abuses belong to us;
are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if only we
arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us
that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now
still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust
and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those
ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into
princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses
who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps
everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless
that wants help from us.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Sydney, ho!

Heathcliff was a psycho

I recently re-read Wuthering Heights again (during my exam period, no less. As if taking exams aren't stressful enough). I remember a time in secondary school when I thought it was quite a romantic novel, and sometime after the breakup with B that I relied heavily on Catherine (“a source of little visible delight, but necessary” continues to echo in my head till today). And I used to wonder in a typical adolescent fashion, whether I would inspire such depth of emotion in another. He was my dark Byronic hero, if you will.

But re-reading it again, I was quite horrified to find how much I have misjudged Heathcliff. He was a guy who killed his new wife’s dog to torment her for not being Catherine. And I know, I know, I shouldn’t be imposing contemporary societal values on someone living in a different period, but if I imagine someone killing Daiso just to watch me squirm, I might be tempted to wonder if I was one step away from being a victim on Saw.

It’s the same with Rochester in Jane Eyre, no? (Yes, I have a penchant for literature by old, dead white ladies) If you think about the novel as a movie made for modern audiences, it might go something like this:
Setting: at a Starbucks queue. Two stranger are chatting each other up.
R: You are the loveliest creature I have ever laid eyes upon. Would you like to come back to my place?
J: That’s rather forward of you. Are you normally like this with women?
R: Well, not really. When I was courting my wife… oops, I mean uh…
J: You’re married?!
R: No, no, no! Well, technically yes. But she’s a psycho! She doesn’t understand me!! And it’s not cheating if I bring women home, because technically, we still live together.
J: So you still live with your wife?!
R: No, you misunderstand me! I’ve locked her in the attic, which means I’m totally free to see other people. So… how about a drink at my place, sweetheart?

In any case, it has made me wonder how much of my thoughts on love have been influenced by these historical ideals, like the fairytale idea of love-as-rescue or how one can differentiate a Shakespearean comedy or tragedy by whether there is a wedding at the end. I remember reading a quote by someone saying there are two questions you have to ask yourself in life. The first is “Where am I going?” and the second: “Who will go with me?”, and that the trouble is when you get these questions in the wrong order. And if I have to be brutally honest with myself, I’m not exactly sure where I’m going. But even so, knowing someone who is willing to wander around with me, is wonderful in its own right.

So lately, I have been in limbo (not unlike Leo in Inception, where time stops and killing yourself is the only way out). I am at that weird point in time, where you’re at the brink of the bubble and reality. If I don’t continue studying, I’ll start working (something I have been eagerly looking forward to). But I’ll admit that studying for another year or so does have its appeal. I may be lucky to have that opportunity again, in a new environment. So why not? I am still uncertain as to what I want to do, and to have abit more time in incubation, exploring what the world has to offer, may be just what I need. It reminds me somewhat of that T.S. Eliot quote: “We shall not cease from exploration, and at the end of all our exploring, will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time.”

On a random, slightly guilty note, I came across a speech by Reese Witherspoon on some award show. “I understand that it’s cool to be bad, I get it,” she said, in a thank-you speech. “But it’s possible to make it in Hollywood without being on a reality show… And when I was coming up, a sex tape was something you hid under your bed… And when you take naked pictures of yourself, you hide your face! Hide your face!” She finished off by stating that she was going to try to make it “cool” to be a “good girl”. I must say that while I admire her stand, it’s nothing new. Women on reality TV shows are easy targets; always criticized for their misogynistic, bimbotic portrayal of women, feeding into that stereotype, reversing the progress fought for by feminist movement etc etc. I must confess that in principle, I agree with the cynics. But I also think women should be allowed the freedom to “be bad” if they so choose, and not fit into this dichotomous mould of good/misogynistic. If you’re going to be bad, go ahead, but do it for a reason (to flaunt your sexuality, to cut the dictates of traditional female passivity etc). I share the same opinion about being offensive in writing. If you’re going to be offensive, do it for a purpose.

What I am blaming though, is the system of advertising, media, and a culture that schools girls into being defined by their sexual appeal and then punishing them for it (the same media that turns girls like Paris Hilton into a celebrity in the first place). I guess what I’m trying to say is: If you’re going to be bad, make it mean something… other than self-sabotage.

And on a slightly less cynical note, here is a cute limerick on The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot (which I had the misfortune of reading last year).

I
In April one seldom feels cheerful;
Dry stones, sun and dust make me fearful;
Clairvoyantes distress me,
Commuters depress me–
Met Stetson and gave him an earful.

II
She sat on a mighty fine chair,
Sparks flew as she tidied her hair;
She asks many questions,
I make few suggestions–
Bad as Albert and Lil–what a pair!

III
The Thames runs, bones rattle, rats creep;
Tiresias fancies a peep–
A typist is laid,
A record is played–
Wei la la. After this it gets deep.

IV
A Phoenician named Phlebas forgot
About birds and his business–the lot,
Which is no surprise,
Since he'd met his demise
And been left in the ocean to rot.

V
No water. Dry rocks and dry throats,
Then thunder, a shower of quotes
From the Sanskrit and Dante.
Da. Damyata. Shantih.
I hope you'll make sense of the notes.

- Wendy Cope

Have a good week!

I know this directly contradicts what I wrote earlier. But if I read one more political article, I will just throw up over my keyboard.

The cooling off period starts now.