philos
liberté
princeps
memoria

The dark corners of the human mind are often disturbing when confronted head on, so I choose instead to take an indirect route.



Life has shown me it is best and wonderful and full of magical fairies, but that I will never be addicted. So I can dance along the void deck, or lose myself in the moving mass of a crushed crowded Orchard boulevard, and it wouldn't make a difference.





It is a little of nonsense. Yesterday I watched two people take pictures of each other. As if somehow that photograph later reproduced onto a small bit of glossy paper could possess their fate. And I secretly thought, how sad of those poor kids to believe that memory sustained tomorrow’s promises.
How sad for me to have believed that things remain like residues of certainty.


3 months then, and they will be gone. People will become new faces, new names, new destinations, and I won't be left behind, because there isn't much of me to leave behind anyway. That seems to make sense only in the crazy-angst way. But there are other ways.





I found this somewhere along the layers of words from the world wide web.

Most plans I make, I don't want to keep. Most calls I make, I don't want to speak.
In a rare fit of magnanimity, perhaps induced by caffeine ingestion, I ask you to meet me for dinner sometime next week.

You agree.

As the day approaches, my dread increases. Finally the evening is at hand, and I'm in full dread mode.

The phone rings. Although I hate phones, and wish I never have to answer, this time I do, and I'm glad.

You cannot make it tonight.

I pretend I am disappointed.
And, in a fit of magnanimity, make plans to see you next week.

My sister thinks there is a severe anti-social streak in me. I think there may be a reason; I just told her to stay out in the rain and not come home with my lunch today, because I feel like vomitting and if I see her face, that may become an actuality. So she thinks I am a loser, a nerd, I have no friends, and that I don't care about anyone else but books, which aren't even alive.
She's wrong on one count.



I went shopping at raffles city with my mum on a whim - the usuals: river island topshop warehouse, as recommended by gen. And I found myself semi-smiling to people on the street, as though it was such a beautiful thing, to be walking. My knee caps hurt, and it isn't in the metaphorical sense, but entirely in the literal sense. There is a lot of latent fear, in not being able to walk normally.


But I ignore these things by listening to mum whine about the expensive donuts from the basement. Back in her days, she said, sugar-glazed ones cost only 30 cents. Back in the day, we were hunters and gatherers anyway, no need for currency. Moot point, moving on.



So I was just walking about with a bug in my head, and it meant something. My being there, my walking around, in pain or otherwise. Or in Grey's, to admire the struggle it takes simply to be human.

At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing is reason enough to celebrate.


I don't usually quote shows, because I don't watch them. But once in a while the sorrowful self-congratulary elements do shine a little.




So I am trying to make this inexplicit, maybe because I don't want to talk about it. But more because it's easier when it is just said and done.


Whatever it is, strange sadness swept over when I said it out loud. I said I would stop, and suddenly it felt like something clicked.

And I realise this isn't the first time, because I've gave so many things over. I held them in my palm, threw them up and down and around a little, hoping it would either stick or fall flat down and never bounce back.


It isn't something that can be explained, and I end up feeling so angry, because no one knows what it's like. Sure, giving up is life. And who hasn't done this-or-that and regretted.

I am just the sort, who needs to get the gold every year. I need the Full-marks, just like people need Acceptance, or Integrity or Self-love. It's just me. So, this time, it's just me again. And I end up being upset that no one can get that.

Pain is, metaphysically, lonely. And I find that experiencing that kind of loneliness creates a radius of silence around you. It isn't the aloneness of it that gets to you. It's not that at all.

It is the deafening silence, the peripheral spectators who watch with an uncomfortable discernment. Who, while trying to empathise, can only watch and wait. These vultures at the sides wait for the signs of life that you emit, signs of struggle and latent denial and blatant desire to awake. And in your doing so, it closes the distance between them and you. And in your doing so, it also successfully alienates those you thought were necessary. The indispensable have suddenly become, well, arbitrary, and it is not of their making.

That felt good. Just talking and talking and talking without intended consequences, or else with unintended unwarranted consequences.

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The road will be long, and I face this challenge with profound humility, but also with limitless faith, in my people.

This was the moment; when the rise of the ocean began to slow, when our world began to heal.

This was the moment, and this is the time, for the nation to reflect the best of ourselves.

God Bless the USA.

Barack Obama

Just an armistice for half an hour, out of days to come.



I will be glad and rejoice in Your unfailing love, for You have seen my troubles, and You care about the anguish of my soul.
-Psalm 31



God said- be still.
He is growing my hope, "And this hope will not lead to disappointment."
-Romans 5







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