Should he eat the dog - The poor little boy

The poor little boy was inspired by learning how to clean candle holders. If I weren't shown, then I wouldn't have known that can just pour hot water to melt the candle wax.

Did the poor little boy eat the dog? What do you think?

*

That is the question posed by the story is should the poor little boy bring the dead dog home to his mother to eat?

Yes, because the dog is dead and now there is no more dog, and there is only meat.
Yes, because his mother is hungry and the boy is filial.
No, because a filial son should not bring home the moral dilemma to test his mother.

No, because what if they become addicted to the taste of sweet meat and then will go dog hunting one day?
No, because the boy killed the dog, and one should not eat anything whose killing was done by one's own hands - like a tiger in the zoo should not be fed live prey - it'd awaken the animal instinct.

Yes, because if the boy was resilient, the animal instinct wouldn't be easily awakened or at least, it won't be perpetuated.

Yes, because the killing was unintentional, and now a dead dog is just a dead dog.

No, because the dead dog was meant for insects to eat, and everything has its own place in the world. Dead dog feeds maggots. and humans don't eat dogs?

Yes, because humans used to eat dogs prevalently. and the story was set in once upon a time.

No, because nowadays, it's inhumane to eat dogs.
Yes, because it's a dog, it's not a human. It's inhumane to eat pigs and cows too. And grasshoppers and cockroaches.

No, because a dog is closer to humans than to the animals reared for food.

Yes, because that's by today's standards? Ethics evolve across time.

*

The above is my dilemma as writer of the story. I quite often write and think of the consistency of the characters in this manner, but in the case of the poor boy, I couldn't resolve it for myself, and think it is better to invite the reader to decide... so I left the ending open.

By the way - By the way series

By the way series of photographs are taken by the way - I was travelling on a road, and I take the pictures. Many of which are from philippines.

My photos are usually unedited because I'm too lazy to edit. So the cropping may be strange. And the colour of the photo may be a little off depending on how clean the car windows were.

Thought long about the title of the collection, until "by the way" occurred to me. I like it, because of the double/triple meanings. Cheap thrills keeps the boring day going.

This part is true - Spaces

Spaces... loosely based on falling asleep in class.

Debated about the title: Spaces or paces, which is an anagram for space. but decided on spaces because of the spaces in time, spaces in between paces, spaces in between consciousness, and spacing out in class...

This part of the story is true:

I had to wake up this morning to check my emails and my bank account on the internet.

Because I don't have to travel to work nowadays, I just wake up every morning and pop on the computer immediately.

I remember someone asking before, where does all the time go to? The time we save from not needing to mail things and using word processors and travel to the bank. The time saved from modern conveniences.

So I printed a book - All the people imagine

So I printed a book. You can find out about the book here. It's a slip-shot website that I created about the book and its collection details.

I haven't directly addressed my book production in both meekfreak/sneakspeak. Perhaps I don't know how to begin. I don't quite yet know why I'm addressing now. Perhaps I think I should address it because it's just this huge personal episode for me, but this has happened in such a rapid cascade of events that I don't quite have the time to think what should be said properly, or what are the answers that people want to hear. What do you want to know? Ask me. Or else I don't know what should be said.

Today I spent about half an hour, waiting underneath a tree. I was listening to some Thai pop rock and thought about how lucky I am. When I was home, I found a green caterpillar on my arm. I hope that there aren't any caterpillars in my hair. I flicked it away and then picked it up with a piece of toilet paper, and then I carefully threw the toilet paper out of my bedroom window. I knocked my head against the back of my window, because I was standing on the table so to reach as far out as possible. Poor caterpillar. Displaced. I hope it doesn't feel too lonely. I hope it is not even aware of how lonely it must be.

And I was scrolling around the internet, looking for something to read but I didn't find any. Then I thought that meekfreak/sneakspeak are also huge personal episodes for me, so I'd just try to write something, in case anyone wants to read.

I left my job about 5 months ago. I printed a book and am running out of money. Today's newspapers' headlines were about how the jobmarket is going to suck for the next few months. My mother had asked me if I regret leaving my job. If I were still at it, I would have been there for 2 years come 12th Dec. I remember such things. But I don't remember the birthday of my best friends. I've concluded that I'm a workaholic. But I do love my friends. I don't even remember the birthday of my grandmother. But I do love her. This is a picture of my grandmother.


It was taken a few years ago, when she was healthy enough to make dumplings for the occasion. Those were the best dumplings I've ever tasted, and I suspect, they will be the best that I'll ever taste. I don't know how to make dumplings. But I recently heard about why Mr Qu Yuan killed himself. Apparently, if I remember correctly, he did it to protect his ideals. He believed in the country he worked for (he was a statesman/advisor to the king), but because he knew the country was going to fall, and if he was to watch his country fall, his ideals would smash against the rocks like waves on the shore. So he smashed his head instead, against the rocks of the river bed. Now we all have dumplings to eat. I'm taking for granted that everybody knows dumplings were what the people made to feed the fishes so that they won't feed on Qu Yuan's dead body.

My ah ma is very proud of me that I have printed my book. She doesn't understand English but she would sometime surprise me by knowing some alphabets and understanding snippets of English conversations.

I told her, that now that I've printed the book, I feel that it's no big deal. I have no reason to act humble in front of my grandma, but I really feel that it's a matter of going to the printer with some essays and paying them to print. Sometimes, I have this strange tendency to trivialise my accomplishments. But then again, at the same time, I also know that it's been an arduous undertaking and it's arduous in a way that it cannot be fully articulated, and therefore, perhaps, the effort deserves no further validation. Are you confused? I beg your pardon. I am confused too.

How do I feel? I feel about one hundred levels of emotions that I cannot accurately discern apart.

Some friends reminded me that they are happy to see that the book is finally out. I have been talking about it since forever. (I have records that I wanted to have finished a book more than 5 years ago.) I am embarrassed that it is done so late. But I am comforted that I have friends who are with me for more than 5 years, and who are simply happy for me to see that I've fulfilled my "dream" of producing a book. and to remind me, that simply to have produce them is success already, even if I just stuff them underneath my bed, and then underneath my corpse in my coffin when I finally die.

Indeed. Perhaps now I can say, with this little bit more credibility, if there's anything you want to do, just do it. (I may add that after you do it, you may feel that it was nothing much too, but then again, you may be different from me - you may feel great, or you may feel shittier. Even I may feel different about it tomorrow.) But just go and do it lor. It's not hard to start taking the little steps towards it. It's like stepping stones across a torrent river. Looking at the river - it's fucking scary. But just concentrate on the next stone and worry about the next next stone later. If anyone asks me for any advice, I think that's the best one that I can offer up now.

Some very patient friends, I cannot thank them enough, had to suffer my repetitive questions, that were simply begetting reassurance under the pretence of being rhetorical. How wonderful is life to have people like that around.

And the excitement now lies in what people think about the stories, how they can stand up for themselves. Can they stand up for themselves? When you read them, don't just read into how it has been a fierce undertaking for me, read them for themselves. I hope they stand up for themselves. They are my children. Now that they've been put to print, I can only hope that they'll be independent and make a living for themselves. That's me - I'm a mother like that. Of course I hope that they'll be accomplished in their field. But if they're not, I can't help it either, right? I will be disappointed, but I will not be ashamed. Is that how mothers feel like? I bet some mothers feel ashamed. I hope I won't feel ashamed.

On occasions, I likened my anxieties and the entire experience as a crab (crab eat rotten meat) that sits on my heart and tear off and nibble at the throbbing muscle that's probably sickened by the paranoia and the panic that ran amok. I don't quite know how the analogy works. But I don't want to explain too much.

These are just some examples of how I feel.

My sentiments about putting the book together, accompanied by my instinctive rambling style, could be compiled into a fucking telephone directory - and it may be just as boring to read. The way ahead is curious, exciting, and as scary as... the first day in primary one, except that I'm not in primary one, and there's nobody in my class, and I'm 26 and I am aware of how crazy I feel.

I take comfort that my loved ones and, those who love me, are standing outside the classroom, peering through the window, wishing me well.

The strange thing in my case, is that I am also standing outside a classroom, looking at my children - the stories - perform their first piano recital, or oral examination, or taking their first baby steps - performing for their audiences - who may or may not be my friends who are watching me outside the window of my classroom. It's like living in a M.C. Escher world.

I wish them well, too, and even though they may be like the caterpillar who doesn't know to be afraid at all, I sure am nervous like hell. I did write them, afterall.

I take a deep breath.

Come on, wish me good luck. Luck - one could always do with more good luck.

To the cockroach - The Snake Renter

The Snake Renter, is loosely written in response to the teachings of yu dan on zhuang zi. Bought a set of 5 vcd that was on sale ($15) that featured 10 half hour lectures, on taoist philosophy. I figured I'd never get down to reading it, and the internet doesn't say much. and even when I'm going to read, i need to read in english, and when zhuangzi was in mandarin, it's actually nicer to understand it by the mandarin language first hand...etc. it was a good purchase.

The snake renter is inspired by what yu dan said about this zen teaching:

(禅宗有这样一句话，叫做)“眼内有尘三界窄，心头无事一床宽”。眼睛里要是有事，心中就有事，人就会看得“三界窄”。三界是什么？前生，此际，来世。只要你眼里的事化不开，心里成天牵挂着，你就会把前生来世、上辈子下辈子都抵押进去。但是，如果你胸怀开朗，心头无事，用不着拥有多大的地盘，坐在自 家的床上，你都会觉得天地无比宽阔。

Which translates loosely like this:
眼 eye 内 inside 有 have 尘 dust 三 three 界 world (lives) 窄 narrow，
心 heart 头 head 无 no have 事 things 一 one 床 bed 宽 wide.
If you have a little thing bothering you, then even the three lives (past life, present life, future life) will seem narrow. If you have no care in your heart, then even the bed will be wide to you.

Then one recent night, i lost sleep because before I slept, I saw a baby cockroach at the foot of my bed. I tried to catch it with a box, but it was too fast for the little box and my clumsy frantic incompetent self.

Snake renter because renter means:

rent·er (rntr)

n.

1. One that receives payment in exchange for the use of one's property by another.

2. One that pays rent for the use of another's property; a tenant.

He is one that receives payment - for the cockroach's money and the woman's company.
But he pays rent too - to the woman by being her food. And that he dies - he never owned the cave - he was also renting it.

I don't think it's because the snake is stupid, but he was just acting according to his nature/character (as a personality not the attributed stereotyped characteristics of a snake), as was the cockroach, as was the woman. And the story developed in this way because nature took its course.

I dedicate this story to the cockroach that was under my bed, and as is in my nature/character, I wish for it to be gone by yesterday!

Real brain worms - The earthworms

Secret Report - The Earthworms was actually written in 2007, i just didn't post it up then, I think because i was lazy to edit it. Apparently, this morning, I heard the radio reported that a woman had a worm in her brain. It's quite common. I don't remember if i did any research on it beforehand, but here are some links from goggle anyway. This is a good and informative video, on how common the parasite is, how it gets transmitted, and that there's actually a medicine you eat and kill the brainworm. The below, the video on the woman reported this morning, i think, less info, more hoo-hah-near death experience my life got meaning now-thing.




The idea of the brain worms... well, i suppose the brain-shape and the bumps are like very worm like. The secret reports resembles the reports i wrote, e.g. The shit king report, in 2006.

On a personal note - Mr Creosote

Mr Creosote got his name from a Monty Python character, from Monty Python's The meaning of life, who was repulsive and puked and ate and... you can watch the video on the youtube below. He drives me nuts!



hm... MINDER's Mr Creosote is different though, turned out that he is slimmer. But somewhat disgusting too. Kept the name as a little tribute, link, whatever. hmm... maybe he's a younger version of monty python's original, or a very distant cousin's very distant kid. Whatever. Been meaning to write this story since sometime in Sept/Oct, following USED II: MINDER - an introduction, but it was too hard for me to just keep working on the same story line just for the sake of it, i'll just end up rushing it and it won't be nice to write/read. So, apparently, USED shall be written as a series whenever the time is right.

On a personal note, the snot-falling-on-the-sandwich-held-in-mouth bit was inspired when I had a sandwich in my mouth and occupied hands and my nose was itchy. BUT i didn't eat my snot. Not that it's poisonous. or that I am against anyone who ever did eat their snot, but I personally did not.

The Oct 06 Essays: X - Oh my King Sisyphus!

Oh my Sisyphus! is this riddling piece of thing that well... erm... is riddling. I had the vision described in there. Up til the part of the Dali fairy. Maybe it's about how everything is futile.

Robin Williams (actor) and Che Guevera (revolutionary) and my mother (mother) and Salvatore Dali (artist) and I... we all do everything in futility. and Sisyphus is everybody's king. Except my mother is a little deviant here.

The essay below is written in the way that explains... who is sisyphus... again. I had referred to him in the first oct 06 essay. It's already Nov so I want to put out all the Oct 06 essays. Here's a little trivial about my personal life, today is a special day - 5 Nov 08 - I have been jobless for 4 months.

Oh my king Sisyphus! I should open a bottle of something and drink to him today!

Oh my King Sisyphus!

There has been a lot of mystery shrouding about the myth of Sisyphus, but he is undoubtedly one of the recurring heroes of my joblessness.

Sisyphus was a king of Ephyra (Corinth) in Greek mythology. It is rumored that he was a cruel king, but he is more famed for being the craftiest of men. He was a liar, a strategist, and a master of deceit.

Things seem to start going wrong for him when he went to tell Asopus (the river god), that Zeus (the sort of king of gods) was dating Aegina (the river god’s daughter). Then Asopus got angry with Zeus and Zeus got angry with Sisyphus. So Zeus asked Hades (the god of the dead, also Zeus’s brother) to chain Sisyphus in hell, but Sisyphus made a lot of noise about how Hermes should have came fetch him instead of Thanatos (death), and then tricked Thanatos to chain himself. After tricking a few more people here and there, Sisyphus went back to the human world to stay for a few years and enjoyed himself. He was finally carried back to the underworld by Hermes (who seems to be the god of many things including the cunning of thieves and liars).

As a punishment for his trickery, and especially of his betrayal to Zeus, Sisyphus was ordered to roll a huge rock up a hill. Before he reached the top of the hill, the rock will always escape him, and he had to begin again, and that he does for eternity.

Some people say that Sisyphus and his rock is the sun that rises and sets everyday. Some people say that Sisyphus is the tide of the treacherous sea. I say that Sisyphus is my soulmate for the tormenting ebb of the joblessness that dwells in me. Then again maybe the sun theory is all bogus, and he is just moving a rock around in the underworld. Nothing as glamorous as the sun would be true punishment, for Helios and Apollo must have their own ideas of their own realm. Similarly, there is nothing as cool as the tide of the treacherous sea that will be considered punishment. So, I am forced to conclude that Sisyphus is punished by just moving a rock around and is my soulmate for the tormenting ebb of joblessness in me. It is tormenting because I know that jobfulness is futile and boring. That jobfulness is pushing that rock up and joblessness is the time when he chases the rolling stone down the hill.

How great and capable is Sisyphus to trick so many people, but how dearly he is to pay with such a punishment. Will he one day stop for good? He must trick the nearby underworld dwellers to hold the rock in place for him as he goes gallivanting and exchanging name cards with me.

With technology and progression I’m sure that over the years he must have tricked some of his descendents who became engineers and architects to build him another system to move the rock.

And marketing executives to cheer them on and accountants to figure out the costing and the profit, and cooks to feed these buggers and event managers to entertain these people, and poets and songwriters to sing the futile lives of these people and teachers to teach the children of these people…

And I, the jobless, to feel tormented and touched and untouched and left out.

(For who am I trying to kid? Sisyphus is king. Free of his boulder, he is still king.)

The Oct 06 Essays: IX - At times it just makes sense...

At times it just makes sense... is about well, driving. the title is taken from a charles bukowski collection titled "you get so alone at times that it just makes sense". It's a book of poems i bought from tower books when it was still around.

Written at a time when I was driving in my parent's pickup. I'll talk about it in the essay below.

The phrase "rusty-more-rain-harbouring-sky"... has a background. I wrote many years ago, looking out of my hostel window, with reference to the night sky that's about to rain. Back then the phrase was "Like a fist clenched in restraint, like the rusty sky harbouring rain". something like that. Been wanting to use that phrase for a long time. Still want to use that phrase properly... I have pictures.

The rusty sky looks like this.
Loved the view, the houses always look like they're from a xmas card. This is when the lightning flashed across the sky...

Wonder who's living in the room now... It's been so long ago.

How Xiaobai got its name

Xiaobai means “little white” and is my parents’ white pick-up truck that I drove around especially when I worked for my parents’ company.

It is a pretty old truck, it has been around for about fifteen years, but it does not look so old. It is from Nissan. My brother used to drive it to school when he was 18, but after a while he is driving another car now. So, the pickup is generally at still my disposal, and I like it very much. There is something about Xiaobai that makes me feel that it is heartbroken, but since it doesn’t say much, I won’t probe. Maybe it is about my brother, but I feel that I shouldn’t interfere.

Xiaobai has analog car locks, such that everyone except the driver should lock the door before slamming it close; the driver’s door will have to be locked with the key. This is so that we will not lock the door with the keys inside. Also Xiaobai has analog window winders, and a squeaky accelerator pedal.

There was this one time I fetched my mother with Xiaobai, to Cycle and Carriage, where they fix Mercedes cars. My mother made me go inside with her, and I parked Xiaobai next to the Mercedeses, and it was drizzling lightly.

At the end of the ordeal, my mother was fussing over me and an umbrella, and I said without thinking,

“No time for that, I have to rescue Xiaobai.”
“Who is Xiaobai?” she asked me back curiously.
“The pick-up.” I said, surprised at myself that I called it Xiaobai.
“Rescue from what?” she asked me again curiously.

I shared this feeling with Xiaobai that inherently, we feel nothing wrong with ourselves and we are proud of who or what we are. When juxtaposed with people or cars that look glamorous and dress nicely and feel expensive, they sometimes make us doubt ourselves. Sometimes, when we compare with a lot of them, we feel inferior and out of place. Just as if we place a pretty looking car in the middle of Xiaobais’ alikes, it will too feel out of place and perhaps a little useless because pick-ups are hardy and can do many things pretty cars cannot.

It does not matter if the rest of the cars at Cycle and Carriage were snooty or were bullies, but Xiaobai will sure feel uncomfortable when all of them were of the same kind.

There are some people who think it cool and bohemian. There are some people who really think that driving a pick-up around is quite cheapskate. But driving a pick-up around is actually neither cool nor cheapskate, or both cool and cheapskate.

That’s one thing I miss most about my previous job, driving Xiaobai around.

The Oct 06 Essays: VIII - Sometimes I rest my forehead

Sometimes I rest my forehead is a description of a fantasy of self-mutilation. Sometimes visions of stabbing myself in my face occurs to me. No I haven't done it yet. I never imagine the pain. But there is usually blood. I dunno why I think of it.

I suppose, sometimes, I don't know why I do things but I do.

I shall make it my latest thing to ask people why they do things. Why they write they they draw why they sing, why they take photos. WHY. email me if you know why you do things. that are not for the money. unless you wanna go into why you need the money for? that'll just be a mess of knotted snakes having sex.

I dust my keyboard

Packing my room has become my therapy, and writing about it is growing into an obsession.

Yesterday night, I was trying to reach rock bottom of a sadness that I feel that I should deny no longer. I don’t know why I feel sadness for, and that is probably why I have been rejecting its onset, and every few days, I feel miserable, but I wipe it away with joblessness and job hunting. I presume it comes from existential anxiety largely, about what I don’t want to do with my life and what I want to do with my life, but I truly don’t know. Well, to stop these random onsets of unhappiness, I figure that’s what I need to do. Mourn irrationally.

I don’t know why I want to stop these random onsets of unhappiness, but one of the reasons must be because I have visions of myself stabbing my temple with a katana. I envision that the katana will go in cleanly, and come out cleanly. That seems to be the property of katanas, neat and clean, and usually spurting blood, but in my vision there’s no spurting blood. I wish I have no blood sometimes. Anyhow, I suppose I want to stop these random vision onsets because I have lost control over them, and it is torturing me.

Last night, instead of going to bed when I had nothing to do, I was compelled to dust my keyboard. My computer keyboard that is, the one that I am typing with right now. Looking into my stationery supplies, I find some paint brushes and I had to use a pretty small one to get in between the keys. If you dust around in between the keys, I presume you too would find the dust to roll into dust balls that look like laundry lint, but grosser.

I was surprised by the amount of dust beneath the keys of my keyboard. The particularly dirty places where around the backspace and the enter keys. Either I am right, or I was just tired by the time I got to them. Anyways, it was really pretty dirty. If I laid out all the dust balls, I presume I can cover about six computer keys’ at least.

There was a point, when I was scooping out the dust balls, when I asked myself if I knew what I was doing. It must be pretty ridiculous, dusting my keyboard at 3 am in the morning, with a little paint brush. Then, as I was scooping out a little piece of potato chip, I knew that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Is my keyboard perfectly clean right now? I doubt it. I bet I will at least need to turn it around and give it a few good pats on the back to knock out what’s left. Yet I don’t suppose that I will do that. It will be interesting to pour sand or soil into to the keyboard and some seeds to grow some grass or tiny flowers.

The Oct 06 Essays: VII - Central Themes

A central theme to my writing is that "Happiness is in the details." Chanced upon an essay before about how happiness may be found in the details and that idea has been ingrained into my system. I think it can be noticed across many of my pieces that I'd zoom into some details. So that's where I'm stemming from. I probably find the details interesting to imagine. and I probably think that people may find the details interesting to read.

The below essay briefly mentions the essay, but is mostly about what I think about idling. Most of the time when I write something that's meant to be read, I write from the point of view of a persona that don't expresses exactly what I believe in. Even though it may sound very much like me, there are some things that I will write that doesn't express my sincere feelings, so that I can write things for dramatic or comic effect. I used to hate it when people assume that somethings I write on meekfreak reflects my sincere state of mind, because the works are obviously fiction. But i've come to terms with it now. It's okay if people want to attribute that. It's up to them to do whatever they want.

Even the Oct 06's jobless persona expresses things that are not really me. 'cos the essays were written to be read. The persona may be very close to heart, but it's really not what I'm thinking exactly. The Oct 06 essay's "jobless persona" will continually both marvel and kaopei about being jobless - in alternating essays. It's to show the dilemma, really, and to demonstrate the contradiction more coherently. But when I'm really writing about jobless being nice, I'm already thinking about how being jobless sucks, but the persona haven't thought about how being jobless sucks so to continue ranting about the persona's topic of the day. Oh well, this is getting boliao to explain.

Anyway, I think that being jobless is really nice and not nice. It's got 2 sides. It's not easy for everyone to be jobless. To be on extended leave is one thing. To be jobless by choice is another thing. There's tremendous pressure. E.g being jobless, one must be very resilient to many people accusing him of "wasting his life". I think the essay below explains it quite well. If you're thinking of taking a break from work, you should read the below before you act recklessly. It's not as easy as you think it's going to be.

This year, 28 October is a Tuesday.

28 October, 2006 (Saturday):
Lin Yutang and the Cult of Idleness

Reading what I wrote yesterday, I am laden with a sentiment of irony for I am jobless. Maybe it was because I wrote it on a Friday night and what I felt last night closely resembles what I feel every Friday night after work. I wrote with so much advocacy, and puzzling conviction.

Coincidentally, I was packing my room today and I came across a copy of an essay by Garrison Keillor, “In Praise of Laziness” that was published in Time magazine from issue of September 10, 2001. (I purposefully list the date of the issue, to show you that I really did find a copy of this essay, and lead you to believe that I am really packing my room.) In this essay, Keillor talks about not working, and praises not working. He was on a five week vacation.

This essay is particularly important to me, because Keillor taught me one thing with this essay, that is, “Happiness is in the details.”

An indolent man awakes in the morning and thinks, “Wow. A shower with shampoo with aloe in it. The orange juice not made from concentrate. Seven-grain toast with butter. Jamaican coffee. One Across: A waiteress (slang),” and he gets all giddy and happy.

The idea of happiness being in the details influenced me a lot ever since I read this article. The above passage changed my life forever. It was like I opened a door to a new world of happiness. It is true, the happiness is there, you should try to find it if you haven’t already. I thought this was such an important message that I tried to tell as many people as I could so that they can open the door to this happiness too. In fact, I made photocopies of this essay for my friends to read it, and it was a photocopy of this essay that I found.

Reading this essay again, however, I certainly have mixed feelings about it.

Keillor spoke about this doing nothing after a five week vacation, and he professed himself to be an authority on the subject of indolence. I have been jobless for about seven weeks now, and taking away the time I have spent applying or looking for a job, I must have at least five weeks and one day of doing nothing, therefore, must assume higher authority in talking about doing nothing. If you are not persuaded by what I said about money yesterday, and rightly so, because I’m jobless, then at least give me a chance on the topic of idleness.

I profess myself to be a tormented member of the cult of idleness. I believe in the true value of not working and leisure time, and how leisure gives rise to many good and beautiful things of human beings or being itself. Sitting around, not doing anything related to your real occupation, doing things you simply to enjoy, dancing around, taking photos, eating chocolate, etc. I am tormented by my guilt and as a human, I too want to belong and relate with the larger part of rest of the world, who are seemingly jobful.

This entire essay, that I am writing or that I am writing on, is an example of how idlers always have to account or substantiate for why we are not doing anything. It is as if people need to convince others that doing nothing feels good, and people should go for something that makes us feel good. Try it, you’ll feel good too! This obviously points to that there is no convenient tolerance for idleness that we can take for granted. It is like by default, idling is wrong.

The conscience of my beliefs is stolen, and with it, my heart. Finding a good job with high prospects and therefore high acceptance by my jobful peers, will take away my dreams of a good life, and so, I am tormented.

If Bertrand Russell’s opinion that people should work for around four hours of work each, then maybe the world will be a nicer and better place, was taken more seriously, then life should be easier for me. But perhaps Russell was painting a blue print for a utopia and the only way for me to retain my beliefs is to be disgruntled, and do it despite of myself and then everyone else.

Then there is Lin Yutang and how he managed to hide in his philosophies on the importance of living in midst of everything that happened around him. I am especially taken to Lin Yutang, because he is Chinese, and so am I. He advocates the ancient poetic Chinese idling and we share a pride that we, Chinese, thought of it first. Reading him makes me feel that all the Taoists and the ancient poets will be supportive of the wisdom in my decisions. That makes me feel less afraid, but lonelier because I’m wearing jeans and watching tv everyday receiving and sending sms on my mobile phone and not wearing layers of chiffon, going to a waterfall to drink a merry wine, enjoy the company of the moon and tying some messages on a homing pigeons’ leg.

It dawns upon me how wrong it is for me to be persuaded by them blindly and how great they think it is to do nothing. This is because all of them are already great achievers in their field. Keillor, Russell, and Lin Yutang who advocated, in one way or another, idling, were good entertainers or writers and therefore, rich enough to idle. If I had the opportunity to achieve so much, it is okay to not feel anymore tenacity and feel as ‘above it all’ as them about achieving and working. I, on the other hand, am jobless and not already famous. Even Tom Hodgkinson published a few books on idling already.

True, I am not starving or down to my last dollar, but I am not secured either.

Therefore I must insist that I understand at least one thing better than them, and that is the torment of the idling spirit. I already understand the important of idling and loafing, and how meaningful it can be, but songs like the importance of being idle by Oasis and most of the literature makes doing nothing sound too easy. This is quite bad impression management, if you think about it. We should tell the world that it's hard work and hope that they will give us a break.

It is not easy to idle anymore and idling is definitely not the easy alternative to working. To me, it might be the more meaningful alternative to working, but I have a real choice to exercise here. The pressure, the responsibility, the dream of idling, the headaches, the lack of money, the parents, and everything that matters torment my idling spirit. Give me a break, doing nothing is not inherently bad, like doing something. Inaction is the lack of action, and action is the lack of inaction.

I think I am truly struggling with myself, and caught in between the choices that I feel for but dare not exercise. The underachiever, who can achieve more, struggles to underachieve.

I am, at this moment, bitterly jealous and horribly unsatisfied by myself.

The Oct 06 Essays: VI - ?

Can't think of any link to other pieces. Just put this here for reads. It's about money. I think the second most toughest part about being jobless is the money. The toughest part is the people thinking that not working is like I'm a useless.

Death Matches

There are compensations to being jobless, you know. For the lack of money, I get a lot of leisure time. Lin Yutang, who wrote on the importance of living, educated me not to waste my leisure time, and I must treasure, appreciate it, and use it wisely.

So, yesterday in a bid to maximize my leisure time, as I was packing or cleaning my room, I also watched a Chinese movie on a DVD that my friend lent me. This Chinese movie is about a fighter who fought death matches for fun. And here I was packing my room for fun.

As I watched the characters batter each other with force and skill, a spontaneous questions came to me, and the internal dialogue is as follows:

“Do the fighters get money out of this?”
No, it doesn’t seem like it. (The best fighter becomes bankrupted.)
“Do the fighters get some product sponsorship or endorsement fee if they become famous?”
No, it doesn’t seem like it either. It looks like they are just fighting for fun and glory.
“Why do I think about money so much?”

I don’t know why I think about money so much. Perhaps it is because I don’t have enough of it. Or it is because the modern day fighters are all fighting for money, because nobody really cares enough to give them any glory. Or it doesn’t occur to me at all that fighting can be fun. But noticing that I think about money so much makes me feel a little embarrassed and guilty.

In religious Taoism, there is a money god, or the god of wealth. I am not sure if there are also money gods in other religions. With all imagined prejudices aside, from my professedly amateurish point of view, I think this is telling of at least one thing: the religious Taoist thinks money is governed by gods of fate, and money is like the wind, or good weather, or good marriages (also governed by gods).

The Taoist’s ideas of many things are governed by gods of fate. There are gods who dictates the natural forces, for example, and there are many Earth Gods (土地公), a Goddess of the Sea (媽祖), and a Thunder God (雷公) who also judges filial piety. There are also many other gods, like Confucious (孔子公) who will help with good grades and academic achievements, and Guan Yu (關公) is the God of Justice. These pagan gods are manifestations of the forces of nature, and with the Money God (财神爷) alongside, we can begin to imagine how the Taoists envision money to be as fluid as the weather or as Justice. We pray so that these forces will work with us and not against us, or we pray so that the Gods will be kind to us.

Like I said about putting the prejudices aside, and just looking at this phenomenon as some socio-ideology or something similar, we can notice this and wonder together.

I did not read George Orwell’s “Keep the Aspidistra Flying” where Gordon fought with the money god, but I heard he lost the futile fight, because he thought the money god will take up the fight, from start to the end, he was just fighting with himself. What a waste of time for Gordon, so let us not busy ourselves with this imagined antithesis. The Money God will not fight with us. If you were a god, do you think you will fight with a human? Who do you think you are? Will a God of Justice fight you? Will a Thunder God fight you? He will either punish you or reward you, and you better take it easy.

Back to why I think about money so much. I think money is the new denomination of modern society. In order to understand across cultures or another person money is universal. Whether one denies himself of the influence of money on his decisions or lets money dictates all his decisions, one has the option to use money or money’s expression to explain his actions.

Q: Why did you buy that?
A: Because it was cheap.
Q: Why did you buy that?
A: Because I am rich.
Q: Why do you ignore him?
A: Because he is poor.
Q: Why do you hate him?
A: Because he is rich.

This is the new world that is driven by forces of money, and instead of denying it, I must recognize it. Only with recognizing it, can I recognize its limitations. Like with the death match fighters, I can recognize that they might be fighting for glory or dignity. There are also things like integrity and fear for life, or dreams, or art, or food, to fight for. When we recognize the power of money and accept its influence and how you can use two dollars to eat another ice-cream or buy another old man a cheeseburger, then can we tai-chi the force of money to affect change. Then can we harness it with like how we harnessed the wind to move the sailboats. The masters or heroes of this fashion are the Gates couple and Sir Shaw Run Run.

If we make money the embodiment of greed and all things bad, we are forcing ourselves to go against money. It becomes a death match of good and evil within each one of us. This is the reason why I will feel the sense of guilt when I think I think too much about money.

When there is a death match, one must win, and one must lose, and it becomes a struggle to be good and poor or rich and evil. This is an unnatural antithesis! This is unnecessary! Maybe I want to be good and rich! Maybe you want to be good and rich!

My brothers and sisters of the human race let us not fight the futile fight against the Money Gods. It is unnatural to fight. Let us not impeach ourselves against ourselves, but accept the humanity in money and end the struggle.

Birthday treats - Kusudama Fairy

Kusudama Fairy is written for my good friend Lay Suan, who has the same birth day as me. I always find it very interesting how we became friends under the circumstances we met. We share a lot of similar opinions, e.g. we both usually count down to our birthdays, and that this year, we both didn't really. Anyway, she makes kusudama as gifts and gave me this kusudama.


Kusudama is well explained in wiki here.

The Japanese kusudama (薬玉; lit. medicine ball) is a paper model that is usually (although not always) created by sewing multiple identical pyramidal units (usually stylized flowers folded from square paper) together through their points to form a spherical shape.

Paperunlimited features many pretty kusudamas, and this post in particular features a similar one from the one I received, saying that it's a traditional kusudama. Which fits the story well.

Mio TSUGAWA’s site, features many diagrams and how tos. I find the following important points to improve skills of folding very good. It makes me want to seriously pick up origami.

# Get the skills of deception.To do origami is continuation to make a margin of errors.To pretend that works are beautiful is important skills.
# Don't be much serious.
# If when you will complete the work, you must show it off to everybody, be proud of it , and boast about it.

Also, a lucid dream is when one is aware of being in a dream.

The Oct 06 Essays: V - 面线、红鸡蛋

面线、红鸡蛋 is just a liner that is so short and that I shouldn't link to it, but I'm writing low on things from chaMOTOM that I can link with the Oct 06 essays.

It's the way chinese cook mee sua and 2 boiled eggs (dyed red) on birthdays. And that it's a very touching thing to have.

Excerpts from 27 October 2006 (Friday): Happy Birthday

It was my twenty-fourth birthday a few days ago. A friend on chat messaged me on the eve this is our conversation:

He: Happy birthday.
Me: Thanks.
He: Are you going to celebrate?
Me: I don’t know.
He: What is the point anyway?
Me: Well… it is an excuse to spend money without guilt. (Now that I’m jobless, I’ve been painfully thrifty.) I can go get drunk!
He: What is the point of getting drunk anyway?
Me: I don’t know.

Now, the above exchange makes me look like an idiot. That’s how the cynic makes everyone else feels unless you agree, or pretend to agree. Damn them and their fucking rhetorical questions. If the point in celebrating or getting drunk is of any relevance, then tell me what is the point of wishing me a happy fucking birthday?

***

The funny thing is that about half a year ago, I resolved to a friend that I will be jobless by my birthday, and I fulfilled that. Half a year later, on my birthday, I am jobless and it is meaningless as well.

The Oct 06 Essays: IV - Environmentalism

Environmentalism is based on an idea that will dawn upon me once in a while. That is, all the development that we have, the computers and internet and pollution, is actually an extension of nature.

There's too much talk that it's machine vs nature. I feel sorry and sad for the trees and the trees that die. One day, in the Oct 06 Essays, I described how I decide that we're not against the environment, we're part of it. I still feel sorry for the dying forests. It's just another way of looking at it, I suppose.

Wrote Environmentalism when was walking in Orchard Road and heard the construction sounds. I thought that they sounded like screaming rocks. If rocks could scream of pain, surely it'll sound like the sound they make when they are cut with diamond blade. Screaming rocks or iron or whatever. If anything inanimate could scream of pain, it'll be the sound they make when diamond blades cut through them. Or the sound they make when they're burnt with a welding fire.

Not the first time I wrote about construction sounds. It's also mentioned in the Quality of life.

Nature and a Red Plastic Bag Abomination

At this point it is important I feel, to share with you a new point of view that dawned upon me only just, and I don’t know why it occurred to me so late.

One jobless day, a few weeks ago, I went down town to the busiest of the business district to watch the crowds rush around. I sat there in the middle of buildings and watched the shiny tall buildings and the giant television screen blasting advertisements. I watched them and listened to the noise in the wind, and heard faint rumblings of a road construction somewhere not too far from me.

After a while, I walked to the Singapore River to watch the ebbing of the water flowing from the sea or to the sea, I do not know. The ripples and the sunset soothed me, and I was calm enough to wonder about the dead leaves and red plastic bag floating on the water.

A grey tabby cat came to stand beside me.

On another jobless day, sometime two weeks ago, I was watching a documentary on li jiang, china. There is an ancient town in li jiang, where people still reside. This ancient town is built upon the network of the li jiang river that runs through the place. The roads are curved and bent to the river, and not parallel grids. The people respect the river, and drink from it in the morning and wash in it in the afternoon. This li jiang ancient town has a river, and this li jiang river has an ancient town.

As I was watching tv, maybe I fell asleep or for some other reason, my consciousness went out for a while. When it came back, I realized that li jiang old town was the desired piece left of my jigsaw puzzle of understanding what is going on.

Somehow, somewhere, at some point in time, we human beings came to think that technology is at odds with nature. Some person, full of awe or jealousy, marveled at the industrialist opposing the nature, or vice versa. Now by that theory, makes me feel that living in a plastered room with clothes hanging from the back of my door and typing into a computer I don’t understand how it works about typing, makes me feel unnatural.

Look at lijiang old town, and how she came by across the so many years from a farmer village or something. Look at me now, living in my town, and how I came about from a town like lijiang old town.

The thing is, I think everything is a actually natural progression of nature. We keep thinking that humans are violators of nature, like a superpower who exist sub naturally, like an abomination, but truly, the computer we type into, the ceaseless advertisement from the super tv screen, the literature that we read, are just natural progressions. Just as natural as the viruses that are sent to disrupt our physical body, and the computer viruses that are sent to disrupt our piece of mind, industrialization and commercialization are sent to disrupt the old nature.

The ebbing of the human crowds is as natural as the ebbing of the water in the river. The giant advertisements are like the sunset on the river. The road constructions are as natural as the wind that carries their voices. The fallen leaves in the river are, as the fallen red plastic bag, natural.

It is often awkward to realize though, after the long time of thinking about how man made we are. Yet, the truly, we are what happened and are happening. Maybe the ozone layer will mend itself, or humans will extinct ourselves before potable water runs out. Whatever way the natural progression of things will take us, we must humbly execute and stop thinking that we are above nature’s fate and recognize the greater forces. With recognition of the greater forces, we can once again reconcile with the world we live in, and love everything we love without feeling guilty.

The Oct 06 Essays: II - The kite flyer

The Kite Flyer... expresses sentiments from when I went kite flying when I was picking up a new hobby thing, when I was more recently jobless. The photo was taken in Hang Zhou, on a bridge on the West Lake, around evening. Friend and I were on our graduation trip. We sat on a curb to watch the old man fly kite for a long time.

Then we were inspired by him, and his reel that had ball-bearings and was cool. So, we went to buy too.

Below, part II of the oct 06. The connections with the kite flyer are:
1) both written during periods of joblessness
2) about new pastimes
3) one of the kites I was recently flying is one of the kites I found in the description below (in red).

Maybe I should have bought more things on my graduation trip. Or maybe I should go for another one. *shrugs*

Germany’s Gateway to the World

About one or two weeks ago when I thought that I was about to be offered a job, I panicked and thought about the ideal time to start work. That was when I stopped forcing myself to send out application letters to stall the dreaded interviews. I think I did not yet come to terms with the not working and the start working.

You know how after a serious romantic relationship, you cannot immediately plunge into another serious romantic relationship? That is exactly how I feel. Yet another part of me, for fear of joblessness, kept on pushing me to go apply for more jobs. Somehow I was telling me that I should at least find a fling, a temporary job or something part-time. The other parts of me just want to stay home and watch bad tv.

So when I thought about the ideal time to start work, I did not have an answer. My friend told me that I should be expected to take up the job immediately, starting work as soon as possible.

“Really? I can’t say I want to start two weeks later?”
“What do you think? You think you can just say, sorry I need to clean my room first, give me a few weeks, thanks.”

Regardless of whether I had wanted two weeks, or if they would have given me if I was offered the job, I realized that I really want to clean my room.

Besides, I needed a new pastime. At least that’s what a lot of people have been telling me.

“Ju-Lyn, you know what, you should go get a hobby.”

Maybe I say I’m bored too often, though I say I’m bored because I am. But anyway, I thought, so many people can’t be wrong. So I decided to look for a hobby. I can’t swim, so sea sports are out, and dancing doesn’t interest me. I’m jobless so I can’t go for anything expensive, and I don’t feel creative about thinking up what new hobbies I could try out. So, one boring evening, I decided to pack my room. For the people who recall having ventured into my hostel room, you can try to imagine how bad my home room is. I’ve lived in here for 12 years and never had to move out of it. I was such a sentimental you know, pretty much everything that doesn’t rot, I keep. I even kept sweet wrappers. I seemed to like to stuff things out of sight and forget about them.

Anyway for the past few days now, I have been packing my room. It’s strangely therapeutic. I think I am beginning to understand now why some people want to do it every week or so.

When I was packing my room today, I decided to do something drastic. You see, for the 12 years that I’ve moved in, I did not quite ever try to remove the things underneath my bed. You see, when I moved in when I was around 12 years old, I had a lot of things, amongst which, an unframed completely assembled jigsaw puzzle of Hamburg Harbor, Germany. It measures somewhat 50cm by 75 cm. It’s the 1000 pieces kind, but one piece got lost on moving day. For the past 12 years, the 999 pieces of Hamburg Harbor rested underneath my new bed. I always knew it was there. It always knew I was sleeping above it. For the past 12 years.

So, like I said, I had decided to do something drastic, I decided to clear out the space under my bed.

Before I got to the jigsaw puzzles, which was close to the wall, and almost furthest away from me, I fished out:
1 box of book marks,
2 kites,
2 brand new babies’ milk bottles,
1 florescent green golf ball,
1 bag of old textbooks (including my Secondary 1 Science textbook),
1 pair of terracotta figurines with dried moss bits,
2 bricks of white clay,
And many other things.

However, the moment I felt like Steve Zissou was when I pulled out all 999 pieces of Germany’s gateway to the world. I stared at the dust patterns that collected over the years. The dust accumulated dust. I dare not breathe... for fear of the dust mistaking my breathing as a challenge to attack me. I beheld it, like Zissou would his son, Ned Plimpton.

Then I took 1 hour to coax to break up the 999 neatly in 6 stabs and laid them on paper and kept them away in a box.

I proceeded to remove the piece of paper Hamburg was on, and discovered that the moment I felt most like Steve Zissou was when I found a Mickey Mouse almost completed jigsaw puzzle underneath Hamburg. I had completely forgotten about it. Although upon seeing it, I recognized it. It is 700 pieces of Mickey Mouse, forgotten for the past 12 years. I beheld it with awe, and made a strange face, like how you would the crayon pony fish.

Then I took five minutes to break it up hastily and stuffed it into another box. At the end of that, with all the monsters underneath the bed either packed in boxes, or strewn around, or in the trash bag, I mopped as much of the floor that I could with a rag and my brother’s golf club.

Finally, I marvelled at how for the first time in 12 years there is nothing underneath my bed.

The Oct 06 Essays: I - The secret of HK

...The secret of HK... is truly based on a friend who is an example of many others. It is centred around the theme of working and existential crisis.

Existential crisis, derived from Existentialism, is the psychologic panic and discomfort experienced when a human confronts questions of existence. This phenomenon, presumably, is common to technologically-advanced cultures, wherein physical survival is not life's priority. (excerpt from here.)

This theme is central to many of my other writings, for example, also Mr Monday. The Oct 06 essays explores the theme too. I was jobless then.

There is a perpetual dilemma with working and not working. On one hand of the dilemma is the idea that I don't feel like working because of the inherent lack of relevance work is to my interest and I should just do what I want because life is short. On the other hand, I feel compelled to work because there's social pressure. This second hand is explored in the extract from the first Oct 06 essays. Here the narrator/perspective is desperately making sense of being jobless. It is as desperate as how he describes the jobfuls are desperate to make sense of working.

26 October 2006 (Thursday):
I am Jobless (Extract)

These are the few reasons why people who have a job are deemed superior to those who are jobless :

1) I work therefore I am. – Identity affirmation
Think about the average grown-ups’ “getting to know you” conversations:
“Hi, I’m Ju-Lyn. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Hi, I’m Sisyphus. Nice to meet you too.”
(Awkward silence follows if there are no cards exchanged in which case both parties will read the card and are taken aback by the size of the organization the other is working at or the position of employment, or both. Since I am jobless, I don’t have a card, so I can only receive a card from Sisyphus, Ex-King/Founder of Ephyra, Rock ‘n Roller.)
“Here is my card,” Sisyphus smiles.
“Thank you. I must apologize, I don’t have a card.”
“Oh so what do you do?”
“I am jobless.” I hurry justify why I'm jobless, or change the topic, otherwise the awkwardness would crush the both of us. Asking about Ephyra which I cannot pronounce will only undermine my position further. “So Wow, you are a Rock ‘n Roller?”

Why do we pretend that the word “Manager” or “Assistant Executive” give us any insight to that person’s life. What the hell man? I don’t know if it is just me, but look, these two terms help me understand somebody much less than “Married” or “Single”.

2) Work is cool! - Barrier of self-preservation and retention.

The workers subconsciously think, “Look if I have to work, might as well establish some snootiness about it. If I am spending almost all of my waking hours being a “support officer” I might as well be snooty about it right? If I don’t be snooty about it, I might realize that I don’t want to work and don’t like it at all if I quit then I will have no identity I won’t know who I am so, so, so let me over-compensate, I will be snooty! Let me gang up with all the snoots in my department, and then organization, and then the rest of the working world. I will work because it is cool!”

The workers consciously think, “Better complain about work because that will humanize me and let people think that I’m not snooty so that they will gang up with me to bully the jobless. So that more and more people work and less and less people will remind us how good it is to not work and enjoy life I better get myself more liabilities lest in moments of weakness I will quit and enjoy life and regret when life will still suck I am going to buy a car now!”

I wish I did not care about being jobless, but I do because I am afraid to take the road less travelled. But also, more of a reason is because I feel so left out. I want to work and be thought of as cool too.

3) Those who work are usually Richer than those who don’t. – Materialistically, and Spiritually.

My neighbour owns two red Ferraris and some other red sports convertible automobiles that I don’t identify but I know that it belongs to the same family because they have the same license plate number.

The truth is I know I don’t want to own so many cars ever in my life. Yet, like a faulty neuron embedded into my mind, I am envious.

Suddenly, the rich are like the new idols. Like how Ozzy Obsourne or Kurt Cobain, or Thomas Hardy or Superman are idolized. Now the rich like Donald Trump, or Warren Buffet are like bloody superheroes. It is like we want to be as rich as them.

If you have a job, you are like closer to our idols than me, the jobless. If you are closer to our idols than me, you must be better than me, the jobless.

--

Now, with these reasons set in place, how can I not be unsatisfied?
I have no identity. I am not cool. I am inferior to you, the jobful.

The jobless 26 Oct 2006 arc & part III - Silverfish graveyard

Silverfish graveyard was written as part of a very large arc which I just found. It's a series of essays written from 26 Oct 2006. Just counted them and there are 10 essays in the 20 page document, some essays have sub sections. Silverfish graveyard is essay 3.

For the better informed, I am currently jobless again. Again, because I was also jobless when I wrote the 26 Oct 2006 arc. The essays had themes about joblessness and packing my room. Generally, they very much expressed confusion about whether working was important or not important, and whether I want to work or not. So, reading through the essays, I found that they were still very relevant to me. Over the next posts, I shall share them in parts with you, so you get a laugh or two; and mostly because some of the themes expressed were eventually distilled and embedded in my other pieces, which I shall try to draw the relevance; and partly because they're already written and they're readable. I write quite a bit that I didn't post up, though you'll find that they were written such that they were meant to be read.

Other than that, silverfish graveyard is largely autobiographical, or at least to a large degree more autobiographical than my other pieces. I really did find damn lots of dead silverfish in a corner of the room. They were grey flakes like dust specs. but they had feelers and wtf. The essay was structured loosely based on the scientific method.

Chanced upon - Mr Jiang

Had posted a sneak on Mr Jiang already so won't link this one, mostly because I feel lazy to. Found an idol of Mr Jiang in a remote place in the mountains. Cool eh?


Well, it's cool to me.

Unexpected pictures - Beach

Beach is an unexpected picture taken in Japan. Was with my father and associates on the way somewhere. Made a pit stop for the toilet or for lunch - I don't remember. It was at a restaurant by the sea. Saw an image and took the picture while waiting for something else to happen.

I like this picture a lot though it was taken without much deliberation.

My parents never brought me to the beach when I was young. Or at least, they did so few a times, that I can't remember. It's okay. They were busy working. I understand and don't feel sorry for myself. The only inconvenience that caused me was how I would need to make up the essays in primary school when the teacher assigned topics like that, "a day at the beach" or "a day at the park". I could do "a dinner at a restaurant" or "lunch at the market". But whatever. I bet damn lot of kids made up those stories too. The problem with making up those essays is that the teachers didn't encourage surrealism and they were too predictable and boring to make up and boring to write. I think they should encourage more free play, it would also make marking the essays more interesting and less of a chore.

The point of essays is just to teach grammar and construction, right? The same lessons can be learnt. The same derogatory red scribbles could be made.

A day at a beach.

On a sunny day, my parents decided to bring us to the beach. So we packed some sandwiches and went. But it was so crowded we took a long time to find a place to settle down. When we did, I built a sand castle with a pail that I brought. My brother knocked it over and I cried. Then I slapped him on the chest. He threatened to summon Hulk Hogan to come and kick my ass. I threatened to call upon Shera - the warrior princess who would come on her colourful rainbow flying unicorn. He threatened to summon He-man, who was the brother of Shera. I threatened to tell mummy he bully me.

Suddenly, a giant fish louse monster arose from the sea and told us to stop fighting. We were very scared and we cried and cried. He warned us to shut up. If not he will call Yokuzuna to come and sit on us. So we shut up. He told us to be good and not argue with each other any more. So we shook hands and be good. After that the giant fish louse monster sat down with us and we all played together.

When it was evening we were hungry so we waved goodbye to our new friend and my brother rudely said "byebye, you go and die" and the fish louse sat there and cry and cry until my brother go and say sorry he was just joking only and they shook hands but the fish louse got no hands but they were okay already. Then we said byebye again and go and eat dinner.

~The end~

(Teacher, if you want to know what happens next, next month tell us to write "a dinner at a restaurant" and you will find out more, because now I write long enough already tomorrow can pass up to you. Byebye.)

Why I love Magritte - All the people...

All the people was written before i got to learn about rene magritte. I do not know if I had before saw in any image the picture of a mermaid with a fish head and human legs. but it was not hard to imagine. Any defiant kid should have conjured up that image when they heard the answer to "what's a mermaid/merman?"

So, when I saw the picture collective invention (1934) by rene magritte, shown below, I wasn't surprised by the image per-se. But I was surprised at the remarkable similarity between the mood of the picture and the mood of my piece. As in it's so similar that people may conclude that I based the piece on the painting, but actually I hadn't done so, consciously at least. If he painted the picture after me, maybe they'll say that he based it on my piece. I think that's the disadvantage of being born later, and not in Europe/US/westerners' place, and in a time of over-population and etc...


Collective invention is a play on the concept of collective imagination. I couldn't find ready explanations of these concepts, but I think it sorta means that the concept, say the mermaid, is product of collective imagination, everyone imagines woman plus fish = mermaid. Collective invention is everyone invents it together? Gee, see the onlinedictionary.com definitions below. Anyone's got a definition in your textbooks please email me. Thanks.

i·mag·ine

v. i·mag·ined, i·mag·in·ing, i·mag·ines

v.tr.

1. To form a mental picture or image of.

2. To think; conjecture: I imagine you're right.

3. To have a notion of or about without adequate foundation; fancy: She imagines herself to be a true artist.

v.intr.

1. To employ the imagination.

2. To make a guess; conjecture.

in·vent

tr.v. in·vent·ed, in·vent·ing, in·vents

1. To produce or contrive (something previously unknown) by the use of ingenuity or imagination.

2. To make up; fabricate: invent a likely excuse.

Anyway, the original title "all the people" was from the lyrics of song park life by a british group called Blur that rings in my head every now and then cos i listened to it a lot when I was a teenager. (Actually, a recent commercial on tv uses the tune.) Anyway, it's a coincidence that "all the people" alludes to "collective".

So I think it's quite suitable that I change the title now to all the people invent. I debated about calling it all the people's invention. That sounds more concrete with less drama, so no. Calling it all the people imagine, will remind me of john lennon (also british)'s imagine all the people - world peace song. though I have my theory that imagination will bring about world peace and all... maybe that link is too far-fetched for this piece. Calling it all the people invent - will allude more directly to magritte's picture and thus, help to illuminate how to read the piece - in the surrealist fashion.

Thought very hard if I wanted to correct the punctuations on the piece, but decided not to, since some of the full stops are used as commas. and it shows the breaking down of the language quite authentically. All written with free association. I don't remember if I had made any edits, but I think minimal. For trivials' sake, I also spent about half an hour pacing around the house if I should change "type" to "write", but I didn't. Is this interesting for you to read at all? Didn't change the "either" too, cos i thought that was funny. Really like this piece, feel it's very original, consciously at least. Been called for it to be paragraphed properly, but i really don't know how to break it up further, maybe cos I like it that the text flows faster without paragraphs.

Just went also to read on London bridge if the water is indeed fresh water, turns at that River Thames is both salt and fresh-watered. Dunno how that works but what are the chances anyway. How ironic and apt to the piece then.

Albert! here refers to Albert Camus, whose the myth of sisyphus was promised to me to contain the argument against suicide. He's french though.

From rats to bats - Untitled 19/7/07

Untitled 19/7/07 is just a frivolous thing based on how my grandmother told me that rats become bats. Not as in evolution, but more like as in a life cycle. Like how tadpoles become frogs.

Science will disagree. But science disagrees with itself all the time. Maybe they're special and different from frogs and they change only when nobody is looking. So no transformation's been observed.

Truth is over-rated. It is important. But over-rated.

Man copy 26 Feb 2003 - Untitled

Untitled post on 25 Aug 08 features a picture (which I try to at least occasionally include on ChaMOTOM to break up the visual monotony of words) which I conjured in some photoshop in 2003.

Vaguely remembered not being much work, just playing with the brush and drew a couple of lines. Quite minimalistic, but so what. I like it. Not deliberately posted for any vague resemblance to the Olympic logo. Though perhaps relevance can be made if we stretch it a bit.

Any relevance can be made if we stretch things.

Just digging through my old files. Found interesting things. Maybe even about you. :)

Edward Gorey - Neville

Neville is based on a character in Edward Gorey's The Gashlycrumb Tinies.


"N is for Neville who died of Ennui."

I like the word ennui because it's the closest thing ever to the word "sian" in hokkien. And I like the word "sian" because I am.

想你 series

The 想你 series expresses general insecure sentiments of missing and thinking of somebody. Sappy mandarin things...that are left deliberately vague. Because 1) my Chinese is not so good and 2) it's better for imaginations to fill in the rest of the details.

Though mostly not about, or inspired by ex-lovers or even persons, they're written like they're about ex-lovers or crushes. For example, 16 came about from how saying hi to acquaintances are troublesome, 15 was when I was trying to write 想你 and nothing came to the pen, 14 is about wanting to use the puns "海的浪漫" meaning the waves of the sea (海的浪) are slow (漫) and also the romance(浪漫) of the sea... etc.

12 is for my friend priscillia.

Hadn't written for a long time, but the recent surge (i.e. 2 entries in 2008) is because of my friend, Lee En. (hello.)

Mystery - There is Heidi

There is Heidi was written in 2007 loosely after my trip to the museum looking at the an exhibition of old greek (god's) statues from the louvre.

Frankly, I don't know what this piece is about. *shrugs*

The leaf sweeper - Modern Rodin

Modern Rodin is just a picture of the leaf sweeper, in a curious posture. I did not ask for his permission for the picture. The title references to Rodin who is the guy who sculpted the thinker (as featured). Apparently, he was poor/working class.


There may be contemplation here as, the viewer may wonder at the photo-taker wonders at what the sweeper wonders at. blah blah. so much thought and wonder.

Did you zoom in to the picture to look at his expression? I like his coy look. Whose? Whoever.

Reference:
1. On who is Rodin's Thinker?

The eye - The false mirror

The false mirror is also the name of a 1935 magritte's painting as featured.


" 'The eye is the mirror of the soul within' according to one version of the proverb. Magritte is playing his game of reversal again here, one of questioning what is outside, what inside. THe overdimensional human eye, instead of providing a view into what lies within, into man's soul, reflects what lies without, namely a sky with clouds in it."
Paquet, Marcel. (2006) Magritte. Germany: Taschen GmbH. p.10.

The search for main character - A lonely long legged fly

A lonely long legged fly was originally loosely based on a day flying moth which is a type of tiger moth, I think. I saw the fly/moth land on my windscreen and had spent some hours searching for the actual name, enlisting also the help of a friend, who sent me the link. In my memory, the body of the moth was black.

In the end, I decided that it would be more apt to use a fly instead. I kind of decided too that a moth would not feel that inferior to a grey butterfly.

But it cannot be just an ordinary fly, I thought, as he also feels somewhat good enough to want to be like a butter but not the grey not so beautiful one. The ordinary fly doesn't look like the type who will be so complicated. And the ordinary fly has friends. In my research for the identity of the fly/moth, a long-legged fly is more unique than a normal fly. And more comical. Apparently, W.B. Yeats wrote a poem called "a long-legged fly". Though quite different, his long-legged fly can be interpreted as a symbolising thought processes. Which is somewhat...relevant, as this piece is about a thinking fly.

Wind, of course, represents the wind of change. But the fly...doesn't want to see how all are subjected from the same forces and sticks to his perspective and but he cannot as his thoughts are changing and blah blah...

I dunno why the setting is at a coast, other than that I wrote the story near a coast. I am thinking of changing the setting for it to be by the stream, or by the coast where the mouth of a river meets the sea.

References:
1. On punctuating dialogue (and thought)
2. On the definition of comic
3. On differences between butterflies and moths

Of life and death - Of Supreme Importance

Of Supreme Importance... is mostly about life and death.

Regardless of how we spend our lives, we all just die in the end?
But because we all die in the end, how we spend our lives is important?

So, what is of supreme importance?

==
Some References:
1. On the usage of "neither...nor..."
2. On Dian Fossey's life
3. On Dian Fossey's death

A confession - The bear with the biscuit face

The bear with the biscuit face is written with automatism and I didn't know what the story was going to be like until it was written.

I wanted to write a story about a bear with the biscuit face, an image that occured to me. SO I put down the working title of "the bear with the biscuit face". The biscuit part linked me to the hansel and gretel story of the biscuit house, so I researched a bit on the witch who tried to eat them, thus Frau Totenkinder was referenced to. I decided to start with Frau.

To confess, I dunno where the rest of the story came from... (perhaps from the back stories of hansel and gretel...?) and I think this is the scariest story that I've ever written. And it scares myself.

My bear was a big black bear with a huge ritz kinda biscuit instead of a face. What was the bear like in your imagination?

---
13 Aug 08 update.

Wen wrote a continuation to this piece. Check it out here.

Nostalgia - At Class

At Class was written on my lecture notes during tutorial because I was distracted by the trees that looked so happy swinging in the wind outside the window behind the teacher and the aircon was too cold and I dunno why he was rocking left and right like a palindrome which was a word I used but I've forgotten what it meant until now when I searched for a link to link up.

So, I went back and read it and think that palindrome is not as apt as a mechanical escapement. Escapement suggests the clock and time passing and escaping in wanting to get out of class i bet the teacher was also sian, so I changed the words. I often change things that were previously posted but this is the first time i'm announcing it.

Haiku - 4 am

Once upon a time,
I slept after 4 am
and wrote a haiku.

Ali Baba dream - Untitled (11 Nov 07)

Untitled...
1) One night, when I was nearly asleep, I dreamt/thought that I heard a man whisper something to me. I like the images I see before I fall fully asleep. Too bad I usually forget them by the time I could write them. But this time, I remembered when I woke up and decided that he was ali baba.

2) mona lisa part was based on a discussion I had with some friends that i said it just to be controversial. Apparently, wiki says that mona lisa is a girl and speculates that leonardo da vinci, the painter, is a boy-lover. In case you're curious about what's controversial, check out these mundane speculations on why mona lisa may be a boy.

3) seemingly unrelated except to some, here's some scoop on bert and ernie from sesame street. If you want more, then here's a list of scoop.

4) If you're curious, as I was, then here's the scoop on scoop!

25 Jul 08 addition

Thumbing through something, I found the original which reads:

"In my sleep, Ali Baba came to me and whispered a secret I wish I remembered.
His voice was distinctively sexy.
It kept me up all night."