From a Great Height

First row, baby, first row

2006-06-21T10:02:00.000+08:00

Is there really anything better than a ticket to a gig you've been waiting your entire life to see?
and FIRST ROW?? and not just the seat next to the aisle either, but right smack in the middle?

I very much doubt it.

Sad to report though that the gig is just about the only thing going right in my life. At least with the ticket, there is a high certainty of its taking place but there are so many things in life that are unexpected, and cannot be satisfactorily explained or reasonably accounted for; I really do thank my lucky stars every single night.

Non Sum Qualis Eram

2006-05-08T16:02:00.000+08:00

I know it's been a long long time since I've last posted. Thanks for the emails asking if I'm alright etc. It's quite cool to be missed when one is away. Nothing much happened, life-wise. Everything else is still pretty much the same, but life has lost most of its "blog-ability" appeal for me. I dont go around looking for things to blog, nor do I think "hey I should tell someone about this" when I see somethign nice or cool, or just different. Most of the times, I'm just trying to get home in one piece.

I'm not trying to be depressing or anything; just laying it out as it is. Life has become more and more routine for me. I wake up early (6:18 to be exact but anything before 7am is equally painful) to travel about one and a half hours (give or take) to a place where everythign is so routine you can set the clock by the things I do. I'm not complaining or anything; I appreciate that the routine provides a focus for one's life and makes it easier to put it together if it should ever fall apart but sometimes I find myself using the routine as a crutch rather than a focus. For example, I use it as an excuse not to do certain things (like meeting up with friends on week nights: i just can't do it).

Reading what I've just written, I sound so depressing! Like I've just lost the will to live or somethign. That's not true! I've still got plenty of things goign for me. I have a job that pays (more or less) my bills and and the sometimes-frivolous purchases. I have pretty ok health (though i'm still smoking) and family are ok. So yeah, things are not exactly despondent or anything bad. But yet, something is different: In an effort to get home in one piece (through the traffic/crowds etc) everyday, somehow I dont stop and look at what makes the day different from the previous day anymore. I recognise that and I want that to change. I want to be able to tell the days apart from one another. I want to be able to say I dont have any regrets should I get run down by a truck. Sorry, is that too morbid?

I want to accomplish this not by having different things happening, but more about feeling differently about things each day. I'm not sure if I'm getting coherently across to anyone. I just want to feel more. I've been thinking too much; I need to feel more.

There is no God

2005-11-29T20:25:00.000+08:00

I came across this article a while ago and it's very interesting. The author has an interesting position on the issue of religion, particularly atheism and agnosticism. I've always thought of myself as an agnostic. My family isnt, though so it's actually curious why I'm not. I've never been too interested in religion from young, not actively anyway.

As I got older, I realise that I dont really mind if there is a god or not. There probably is, but it doesnt matter to me. Something from a philosophy class long ago always stayed with me: Levinas, a devout Jew, tried to prove that there is a god using the following analogy: (Warning: the following is an extremely simplified explanation, from what I can recall from class)

if we think of ourselves as finite beings (which we of course are), there has to be something beyond that subtends our existence, much like an island cannot be identified as such without the waters surrounding it. In this way, we can think of God as infinite, since by negation, he cannot be finite like us. And the only way we can exist is because there is an infinite beyond what we know.

Levinas tried to take the intellectual route (ie logic, negation, conclusion and what not) to prove his faith. I like the way he argues as intellectual reasoning is the way to get to me. But I also recognise that as interesting as it is, it seems that he is using apples to measure oranges.

In the article however, the author is instead actively believing that there is no god and the notion of belief has always been interesting to me. I think a distinction has to be drawn between belief and faith. I've always thought that belief meant a kind of confidence in something more or less concrete, whether it can be proven or not. It seems more shakeable than the notion of faith, which we always associate with blindness; we say "blind faith" but not "blind belief." But the author's belief in a non-existence of god is interesting since it's hard to prove what isn't there.

Maybe the author is just twisting words around to create new impressions and new viewpoints but isnt that exactly what thinking entails, no matter if it's religion or politics? How can one steadfastly stick to a point of view without considering the others? With a bit of logic and common sense, it's hard to understand why people refuse to consider "the other side." Does the adamant and almost stubbornly blind refusal to recognise other viewpoints make yours any more true, or you a more devout person?

I would think that the reverse is more likely to hold true but that's just me. I may have been so far gone to the "other side" that arguments without an immediately recognisable structure of reason and logic will inevitably fail to illuminate me. This is why, I'm also, right now trying to find a book by Immanuel Kant that i think I should reread. It's called The One Possible Basis for a Demonstration of the Existence of God.

Wha..what happened?

2005-09-22T09:29:00.000+08:00

I'm not sure where the past month went and I'm sorry that i havent been updating at all. Let's see now. It's all a blur really. But I remember being tired a lot. Work is getting me down.. I have been to a couple of interviews here and there but nothing really concrete. Though I might be starting a freelance research/writing project soon with a production house. Hopefully. *fingers crossed* God knows i need the extra money, but then who doesn't.

I just took out an insurance policy last night. I'm not much of a financial planner but I felt real grown up last night cos I was asking questions about this and that, what ifs and what nots. I cant say that I totally understood the answers from my insurance agent (who is also my friend, which makes it easier) - I kept telling her to speak to me in English please - but I made some notes and stuff. Insurance is a scary thing..the amount of money that has to be committed every month makes me feel tied to my current job. I kept thinking what if I lose my job, how am I going to pay for the premiums etc. blah blah. But I guess in this world today nothing can be certain anymore. Gone are the days where you work in the same company for the same boss for 30 years. Now you'd be lucky to have a job even. They keep saying that the outlook for employment is really good but let's face it, how many more literature-philosophy graduates do you really need in the world?

God. I'm Bored

2005-08-15T11:45:00.000+08:00

Working for a big organisation with all the bloody bureaucratic shit like performance reviews and stuff also means that you will be sent for courses. Right now, I have to do 4 courses to avoid any questions asked. I'm at a photoshop CS course now and it's boring me to death. I'm not an expert at photoshop but I know enough here and there, bits and pieces. I actually signed up for the intermediate course but they wont let you do that if you havent completed the basic course.

This is why I'm sitting here bored out of my fucking mind, learning about shit i already know, trying not to fall asleep or stab a pen into my eye. Thank goodness i can surf the net on this console or I think I really will die. But nobody is online!! Where are you people!? Get online! I'm so bored!

It's only 12pm and I'm going to die very soon.

Where are the goddamn books!?

2005-07-31T15:06:00.000+08:00

I went down to the newly opened library the other day at Victoria Street. It is super modern, with all the usual conveniences and amenities that people are accustomed to. There is lots of space everywhere and thick carpets that your squeaky shoes can sink in. The ceilings are high and the walls are mostly replaced by glass you can look out of and admire the city outside. Everything is so super modern that it's almost clinical in its vibe.

The library has actually 15 storeys or something and my friend and I were just going up and up via the escalators, without actually realising it and finally we stopped on the 6th floor to check out this outdoor courtyard. By "check out," I mean we were dying for a cigarette. It's very nice and we just sat there smoking and chatting. After a while, I suggested dinner cos I was getting hungry. At this point, we realised that we havent seen a single. bloody. book in the goddamn building. In fact, it totally slipped our minds that we are in a library. Hungry as we are, there's no way we are leaving right now without seeing a single book.

So up we trudged and it turns out that the reference library is on the 7th floor. Like i said, it's nice but so clinical. We lost interest and left about 10 minutes later. There are lots of acclaim about the new library in the media. It's super modern; there are tons of rare books; city views; etc.etc. but I left the library feeling that it lacks a certain something, it's got no character. I wouldnt bloody know it's a library if it doesnt say so at the front. I guess what I'm saying is that it could be a bank or an organisation or anything, and I wouldnt be able to tell the difference. Is this what a library is supposed to be like?

Army of You

2005-07-18T17:12:00.000+08:00

I forget how crowded it gets on Sundays. I havent been downtown on weekends (unless it's dark) for a long time now. There are people everywhere, slowly taking their time strolling down the street. For some reason, this supposedly happy and peaceful urban scene drives me mad.

I dont think it's because I hate people as a rule, because that's just stupid. And it's not really about the crowds either. It's the quality of the crowd that is markedly different and more sinister somehow on a Sunday (or the weekend for that matter). On weekdays, I get caught with the office crowd in the mornings and evenings. This particular demographic, while significant in numbers, has only 1 or 2 objectives in their heads- depending on the time of the day. In the morning, everyone focuses on getting their arses to the office while in the evening, they all just want to get the fuck home. Which is good. I can handle that. They are merely a single-cell organism bred for 1 purpose and it's easy to walk in their midst, undisturbed.

The Sunday crowd- now that's different. Everyone has their own agendas; everyone has something different to do; everyone is distracted by 10001 things at the same time. And it's scary. Their senses are all heightened, ready to pounce on the latest fad, the bargain sale, the people they see etc. They talk, no- chatter, among themselves, whether it's with a physical human being or on the phone, it doesnt matter. To them, nothing is more important than to hide the fact that there is nothing inside. Without the frantic texting on the phone or chattering with their friends, they might actually have to face the world head on. There is an urgent need to be half-distracted the entire time. The kids are even worse. They are brats.

They are all scattered, mindless, useless sheep with no aim. They stop whenever they want; they change their minds 10 times a second; they bump into acquaintances whose names they cant remember and then cluster-fuck the only escalator exit while they exaggerate the details of their pathetic lives so as to impress the person they have not seen for 10 years. One would need an armour suit to walk through this mindless crowd of zombies. They are an army, even though they may look disorganised. They are powerful, though they have no idea of that yet. They have no use for the individual "I" and are allergic to that simplest building block of a sentient life.

Somehow they all look the same as well. There is a real danger of mistaking someone else for someone you know because every girl has the same coloured rebonded hair, the same perfect tight bods in even tighter tshirts and jeans. It's like a b grade horror movie. They are all copies of what they think the ideal is. And they perpetuate the idea of the ideal without articulating what it really is.

You know what it is? It's nothing. It's empty air. Choke on that, bitch!

But in that emptiness, there is a virus and it is spreading through the most innocuous means available. It's a mindfucker and a brainwasher, and there's no cure. Only when you look yourself in the mirror and utter the word "why?" will the curse be broken.

I quickened my pace and hurried into the menacing crowd with my head bowed and hands in my pocket. God only knows what will happen if I look into their blank eyes for too long...

I'm sucked into this web of consuming frenzy

2005-06-12T18:45:00.000+08:00

Over the past few weeks, I think I spent alot of money (read: too much) online ordering tshirts, cds, and other stuff. I think I'm beginning to be addicted to buying stuff online because there simply isnt the hassle of physically walking into a crowded store with 10000 people blocking your way and then waiting at the cashiers until your nails have all been bitten off.

Although buying online doesnt get you instant gratification, I think that it makes the long journey home from work everyday a little more pleasant. Every day for the past couple of weeks, I've been coming home with a sense of anticipation and hopefulness... "maybe today is the day where my stuff will come!" I must have almost gone mental last week when there was a brown package for me almost every.single.day. On Tuesday, my preorder for the latest Teenage Fanclub arrived from Merge; Wednesday was a Tshirt from somewhere; Thursday was the best: the 2 Mogwai tshirts that I really really wanted so badly came; and yesterday a canvas bag that I've ordered from WaronWant also arrived. It's been an action-packed week!

But the stupid thing is that the 2 mogwai shirts are a little too big for me, and I think I will have to spend more money to have the tailor alter them. Now I'm thinking seriously considering whether I should order this tshirt from KillRockStars, another one from here, another Mogwai and also there is this preorder for a DCfC DVD that I need to get in before my money runs out.

How did I stumble upon this consuming frenzy!? And to make matters worse, my mobile is acting up and switches on and off by itself. I need a new phone too!
GOD!

This Wall of Sound

2005-06-10T15:54:00.000+08:00

It's Friday today and feeling is slowly coursing through my body once more. If you ask me about something that happened from Monday to Thursday, there's a very high chance that I won't be able to recall it; such is my sad programmed robotic existence.

I'm all alone in the office now because my colleagues are on leave and i'm blasting. the. music. If any one were to sneak into the office, I wouldn't know: it's that loud. Or maybe it's cos i'm going deaf. I dont know. The official words for today are: "It's Friday, fer fuck's sakes." I love using that phrase. Too bad I only get to use that once a week.

It's going to be a quiet night tonight as well; I havent made any plans. I just bought the DVD Box set of Northern Exposure II and am looking forward to a pleasant night with it and my trusty Salt and Vinegar Chips (I must remember to stop by the supermarket later on my way home). My favourite Salt n Vinegar chips are from Marks and Spencers but they have discontinued the range (ah! the anguish). I'm going to get the Lays' ones but the best Salt n Vinegar chips I ever had are from Walkers. I brought back 3 big party packs (with 6 smaller packs inside..which makes it 18 packs of chips I brought back in total) from Manchester and finished them all in I think 1 week. It's disgusting. I dont have a sweet tooth but I have a insatiable craving for salt n vinegar chips. Which explained my sorethroat and cough that lasted the next 2 weeks.

I am feeling ok now but I still cough uncontrollably from time to time. Oh well.
It is weird not writing over at the old blog anymore but I guess when it's time to move on, it's time to move on.

Take out the Trash

2005-05-27T11:50:00.000+08:00

10 more minutes before I can go off. Good feeling about today. I recovered from a nasty sorethroat that plagued me for about 2 days and today is Friday!
What can possibly go wrong?