REcently, I have a lot of rage
realized I am sometimes an extreme angry person
with no place for these anger to get dissipated
no proper outlet
Wondered if I have an inadequacy when it comes to loving
why, I wondered,
did my mum name me thus
am a buncle of contradiction
their conflicts sometimes threatening to
tear my one-ness apart
What a torture to live with..
I am extreme happy and positive
and then there is that twin side
when I become crazily depressived and pessimistic
sometimes I wonder where my energy come from
at others I try to find that blackhole which sucks
and vibrate bad vibes
I feel peace and at ease with the world
I also feel existing is sometimes an agony
so exhiliarating and so tiring
burning and turning to cold ashes
the pendulum swings this way and that
I'm tired. tired
of blinding flash and then plummeting darkness
why can't I be stationarily grey and stable for once?
BE Bloody normal!!!!
I don't want to be multiples--
like my sis be a whole person
By: Nippy | Tuesday, January 30, 2007 at 6:51 AM | | 
I am quite shaken by a traumatizing bus ride today. Two African American women were going to beat up another woman on the bus all because someone's toes got trode on. It was really freaky. They were really agressive and hey I have seen fights on S'pore MRT trains before, and I remember that story of the crazy man that slapped another man for being a bit squashed up. But I don't think I've seen anything this dramatic and frankly, quite as scary. I wonder why people get so worked up over such a minor issue. Hey come on, someone's toe got stepped on, we've witnessed and experienced it all the time.
"Bitch, bitch, you fuck with my cousin. You're fucking with me!" Exploded all over the rear end of the bus. It was really animal anger in the voice if can imagine what I mean. That kind of voice you only hear in movies when someone is going to get beaten up real badly. And they didn't just quarrel, they tried to shove each other but thankfully the bus was so crowded they couldn't get at each other. There was not enough space for a fist fight. But they body-language were so agressive. The other woman was going like "Alright. ALright." But their response was "It's not alright..blah blah (more taunting)" Cellphone calls were made (loudly) about how she met this "Bitch" on the bus."
I wondered about what I would or would not do if a fight borke out. Recalled the "by-stander effect" and feel scared by our inability or unwillingless to do anything out of fear and self protection. The scary thing was everybody was looking away as if not wanting to acknowledge this, and even the men standing around seemed pasty-faced and scared. Tough question, but I wonder if I would have dared to do anything--thank heavens things never got to a stage when I would have make that decision. But really, I don't think it is easy to look at our cowardice in the face and hear in the back of our mind that famous quote going "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.." I won't even classify myself as a "good" 'man' in the first place nor the incident as "evil" for that matter. BUt not going into the theoretical relativity of "good" and "evil", just looking at this incident at its face value. If I honestly felt powerless in this case, when faced with soemthing massively more terrible can we choose not to turn away? WHy do we even bother looking at the cause of evil, ask ourselves with bitterness why things like the Holocaust can happen. The answer, too terrible for us to admit is just staring at our faces, afterall it is just so much easier to pretend and will the whole thing away. Evil, is really not that metaphysical. IT is easier to blame a satan than to admit we cannot stand up to do the right thing when the test comes. "Ignorance is bliss"-- no matter how we achieve this "ignorance' it is still easier to live by than the moralistic "duty of good men" which is so much easier to recite than to put into action. WE can go 'tsk tsk tsk' everytime we see something horrifying on the news but when put to teh test I fear for my own response. Could I have lived with myself if I did turn away?
By: Nippy | Monday, January 22, 2007 at 11:01 AM | |
...A new side of Buddhism was revealed to me there. I grasped the life of the Buddha as the reality of the self which has broken through and laid claim to a personal life. For Buddha, the self stands above all gods, a unus mundus which represents the essence of human existence and of the world as a whole. The self emobdies both the aspect of intrinsic being and the aspect of its being known, without which no world exists. Buddha saw and grasped the cosmogonic dignity of human consciousness; for that reason he saw clearly that if suceeded in extinguishing this light, the world would sink into nothingness....
Christ--like Buddha--is an embodiment of the self, but in an altogether different sense. Both stood for an overcoming of the world: Buddha out of rational insight; Christ as a foredoomed sacrifice. In Christianity more is suffered, in Buddhism more is seen and done. Both paths are right, but in the Indian sense Buddha is the more complete human being. He is a historical personality, and therefore easier for men to understand. Christ is at once a historical man and God, and threfore much more difficult to comprehend. At bottom he was not comprehensible even to himself; he knew only that he had to sacrifice himself, that this course was imposed upon him from within. His sacrifice happned to him like an act of destiny. Buddha lived out his life and died at advance age, whereas Christ's activity as Christ probably lasted no more than a year.
--C.G Jung ", Memories, Dreams, Reflections" pg 279.
The most moving words on not the 'truth' behind the religions but the place it has in our consciousness, less on the dogma and lessons than on the act. that psychology is not just a science--there is an aspect of spirituality about being human. This necessarily escapes theorizing. One of the first I've ever come across to suggest that the actions of both Buddha and Christ were meaningful on a very personal level and that does not make it any less great. Something I have never considered.
By: Nippy | Friday, January 19, 2007 at 7:06 AM | |
Hence you see this moon cycle(nice pun, I like) thing.
By: Nippy | Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 3:35 AM | |
I finally changed it and it is so much of a hassle I think I will stick with it for a long while before it gets a make over (again).
I am wrong about boredom--it is long drawn and enduring.. but eventually it still motivates changes. I guess boredom cannot last indefinitely given our nature..(mine at least)
ERm.. why this butterfly blogskin?
To My Jc friends: I am trying to act more girly.. (for some strange reason I think you will be interested in this answer..(haha why is that? I don't know?)
Hey feel free to read too much into it.. I love over analysing.. I welcome it with open arms!
[Yes it is about life and death, degeneration and renewal, see black and white? Butterfly and metamorphosis. And all that bullshit.. feel free to analyse until this blogskin is quite dead]
But the truth is , it is the first blog skin I saw and seeing that it is quite apt (oh I do like black cakground, I downloaded it. All very convenient.) And that is the end of the story--very unromantic isn't it?
But I can't seem to change that stupid teenage love kind of title..oh well.. A romantic WEird universe. {shivers} Something very wrong there....
By: Nippy | Monday, January 15, 2007 at 2:48 PM | |
(All that talk about travelling, life, and arrival, departures, chuck all that aside for now)Sometimes I really find that philosopher(wanna-be) side of me a total dread. Man what a prick. Sometiems I get so sick of myself rambling too. So for today let's just cut some slack, let our hair down ladies. Goodbye morbid topics, ponderings on death and meaning of life. Hello, to gosspis about whatever girls/woman (that in between state we're all in) really are most interested about.
Come on people it is the NEw year! A Happy new year to you all!!!
Whoever among us who dare admit to not being a gal/guy-watcher should just go out and start opening our eyes. Single or not, whether you do it openly or on the sly, come one admit it we all do it. Ok that's excluding my sister who never notices anyone and calls me se(4) gui(3). OK, I call myself se gui too. But really who doesn't like to look at good looking things especially when they walk around on feet.
There is a damn hot Korean guy( actually I have no idea if he is, anyway he looks like one so we just call him one for now) working at the theatre where I work in. God, is so unfair, but at least we can console ourselves that it is a feast for our eyes. What do they call it in Econs? Something that reaps social benefits? (ok go figure this one out yourselves.) And oh man it is such a joy to go to work and see good looking people. And then there are also that two actors in the musical--so gorgeous adn talented, and with such wonderful voices. We are indeed a superficial race, all that biology, psychology of it whatever, we love good looking people, don't we all) What better explanation for all that madness for cosmetics, slimming, beauty, fashion whatever if at the core of it all we're not really superficial people to a certain extent.
And we can grumble and rant all we want about women's liberation from foot binding and all and still walk around talking about female power on those killer heels, but at the heart of it all it still all comes down to how we just love beautiful things. As if we have yet to figure out by now beauty is a socially agreed condition. Yes yes, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, but those conditions for things to appear beautiful is still social. You can't just be on your own in a cave and still have any notion of beauty. We all just like to think our sense of appreciation for aesthetics is inborn but really a lot of it is still ingrained, learnt from social experiences. IF you're alone in the world, there is no reason for you to think that anything is beautiful at all. Whatever for? What purpose could it possibly serve. IT is totally social, and so is its function.
But really, I didn't start my post today thinking about any of this. Really it started with a good wish for my special friend on that island country. I hope she finds someone special. BUt the word is of course FIND. We always say it without listening to what it says. It asks us to actively FIND not be found by someone special. You go girl! You will find him, but you need to start that search first, and if you know you spot him, don't think girl. Sometimes the philosopher doesn't help. We always neeed that impulsive bimbotic sides of ourselves too! Say goodbye to that philosopher side of yourself for the moment. That philosopher who takes the shape of a feeble old man in our consciousness, because he worries too much, cares too much, and is always reflecting upon himself. Forget that self for that moment. AS you champion lately, we are only young once, and this statement will not remain in the present tense all the years of our lives. (unless in a very metaphorical sense but there I go again, death to the philsopsher for now at least)
GLORY TO THE SURFACE, THE SUPERFICIAL, AND THE PRESENT TENSE.
By: Nippy | Tuesday, January 09, 2007 at 1:43 PM | |
And so another year has come and passed. We always say this but still it fails to sink in how these days whip by in a fury and disappear into somewhere I hope where all these past days, past moments still live with some kind of resounding meaning in our lives, that I am certain, at least it is a hope of mine. Days both good and bad, still have significance somewhere in time, in space, in memory, perhaps? Who knows.
2007, a jump in a number that adds up to these increasing years of our lives, and this one has come with a kind of calm. I was at Embercadero where they had a giant clock tower just like the one at S'pore river's Victoria concert hall, they had firework, a lot of cheering, and muddling around in the crowd, I see crazily high teenagers on top of a portable toilet jumping and grooving and felt myself rooted in relative calm watching the fireworks blocked by trees and heard an very loud and drunk "Why are there so many fucking treees?", a drunk girl trying to stuff porno down a woman's handbag. Very bizarre but really I felt calm. It was just standing there looking at that big clock watching that minute hand slowly inching up up to the number 12, and that wave of excitement that sweeps the crowd. There are so many things different about this year's countdown and yet at the same time there is so much that remains the same.
That was last night.
And there is that thing I realize about all these new changes and myself, so many things are still the same. There are still those rare moments I'm thankful I am alive (thankfully). Today. Sitting in my Uncle's car speeding down the freeway with the windows drawn down all the way, giantic gulls floating somewhere on the periphery of my vision and the wind whiping my face, a tinge of salt air of the Pacific. I enjoy these moments as a passenger, as a traveller, between two points. Between the start of my journey and the destination, between leaving and arriving, that state in between when you're on the road. I still remember that road to Pallisati in India. The drive from the Singapore airport that very first time along Treelined streets with sunlight streaming in like a fairyland. All those taxi rides in silence at night in S'pore. I loved those moments of calm and a kind of freedom to lay back and just watch things go by. You're not doing anything really, just being there. And then there was that very magical ride when I sat on the MRT and on the opposite side sat a whole row of women of every conceivable stage of womanhood. A pregnant woman, an old lady, a little girl, a student, a baby, all so strangely packed one next to the other, and had no diea how strange and wonderful looked from the other side. They must have wondered why that girl on the otherside was staring at them like that with such a strange smile or maybe they just thought I was weird.
So what is relevance? Not much really, I guess. But last night at the countdown, I wondered, why did all these people gather here to celebrate the coming of another new year? What for? Why do we celebrate it, welcome it with joyful expectance? Other than the fact that it is more fun than being at home, why stand vigil and await its arrival together? I guess it is all those moments like these, the random episodes in between our arrival and departure from this Earth which another coming new year promises, and the bloody surprise of it all. And that clear statement " I've been there."
Happy 2006/7 people, we've all been there!
By: Nippy | Tuesday, January 02, 2007 at 12:47 PM | |
