Archive for the ‘Favourites’ Category
6 Dec, 2006
Angular Momentum
I came across this web comic today, called Angular Momentum, at xkdc.
It has got to be one of the most romantic things I’ve come across — ever.
Definitely poetry in pictures. xkdc does have many more comics like this which are also very, very funny. Do check it out.
9 Jul, 2006
The Runner
Run, run, run my life away.
That’s what I think,
And that’s what people say.
They see me running;
Sometimes once, and
Sometimes twice a day;
“Why do you run so much?” they ask.
“Because I like it,” I reply.
“How can you like to run? It’s not natural,” they insist.
“Oh yes it is,” I resist; at which time I take out my Smith .38, cock it, point it at their head, and see them run.
Run. Run. Away.
3 Jul, 2006
On Letter Writing
John Steinbeck’s Letters
I have been recently reading A Life in Letters, an anthology of letters written by Nobel laureate John Steinbeck. Honestly, I had no idea who he was before I picked up his book, though his name was familiar. This was a man who hated to use the telephone, as I do too (you can’t think properly on the phone).
I never knew reading other people’s letters could be this enjoyable, but it has been. You know authors by the books they write, but through the letters you get to see another aspect of them that you would never get to see otherwise. I thought his letters regarding his divorces the best. In a letter he wrote to a friend called Pascal Covici, regarding his ex-wife, Gwyn, he wrote:
Gwyn once told me she could do anything and I would come crawling back. At the time I was very much in love with her but even then I told her not to depend on it. A woman holds dreadful power over a man who is in love with her but she should realize that the quality and force of his love is the index of his potential contempt and hatred. And nearly no women or men realize that.
Reading his letters reminded me of how I love writing letters. It reminded me of how I can bombard my poor friends with philosophies they don’t understand but which they pretend to; with stories nobody else wants to hear; with words nobody else wants to read.
I wish I had more people willing to write to me. I wish I had more people willing to be written to.
Pen-pals and Letter Writing
I’ve long aspired to be a frequent letter writer. In my younger days (I think I was about 13 or 14 at that time), I subscribed to a pen-pal organisation — quite famous at that time (or at least I thought it was) — which provided names and addresses of people from other parts of the world (you could go local, but where’s the fun in that?)
I received the name and address of one person, while another person received my name and address. All in all, I made two pen-pals through this organisation. The particulars of the person I received was a guy from Italy (Gianluigi Pino), and the person who received my particulars was a girl from Australia (Katrina Bahn).
I enjoyed writing to both, but more so Katrina, as Gianluigi’s english wasn’t quite that good (no offence, but I’m a whore for good language skills in writing!) Katrina, on the other hand wrote well (though her handwriting was bad), and she was, after all, a girl.
But these pen-pals did not last long. To me, the quick demise of these pen-pal relationships died was largely due to the internet. The moment they sent me their e-mail addresses, and I sent them an e-mail, the magic of having a pen-pal disintegrated into bits and bytes; no more touchingly personal but something quite trite.
Besides these two, and one more local pen-pal largely forgotten, I’ve never had another relationship based solely on letter-writing. It is unfortunate, for I really enjoy reading hand-written letters.
On Hating Writing (with a pen)
Now, allow me to digress here for a moment. You noticed that I wrote “I really enjoy reading hand-written letters”? Well, how about writing hand-written letters?
I don’t.
“You don’t??” I hear you scream.
“Shh…” I say, pointing to the cat sleeping beside me. (if this was a hand-written article, I’d have sketched a sleeping cat beside this sentence.)
I do actually like writing. But I deplore my handwriting. It is ugly, without character, and horribly inconsistent. I’ve been training myself to write better (aesthetically), but try as I might, good handwriting feels forced and coerced; it does actually feel quite perverse, as if I was trying to be someone I was not. Every time I try out my “good” handwriting, I imagine myself as Shakespeare or some other acclaimed writer, writing by the light of a candle, in some dark cottage in the woods, up in the mountains, in some obscure country; or Norway (where I’ve never been; why I imagine myself here has me stumped too).
Besides being ugly, there’s another problem with writing, and that is its speed. Writing feels too slow. Comparing writing to typing is like comparing swimming to running. Swimming allows you to be more creative: upside down, sideways, on your hands, but getting to the otherside is a horrible chore, especially when you’re used to the speed running allows you.
When writing, I think of all the things I want to say, but by the time I pen it down, I’m thinking way ahead of my busy little fingers, who are by this time aching and screaming (“shh…” I say), telling me to pause for a while. (But “No!” my brain tells them, “we have got to write on!”)
But my fingers, like workers on strike, decide to stop, whether my brain agrees or not (”ten to one, the union wins!”) So my brain decides to see what has been written already (“okay”, says my brain, “we have to do something, have to keep moving, strike or no strike”. I have no choice but to agree. It is my brain.)
My brain upon seeing the work that has been done, realises that paragraph 4 and 5 really belong before paragraph 3. “Cut and paste, cut and paste!” I tell myself, “I wish there was cut and paste!” My brain then tells me, “told you we should have drafted out the letter first”.
I tell it to shut up, and my heart decides to chip in to, and tells my brain, “spontaineity, Brain, spontaenieity. How can there be spontaineity where there is hindsight? Write from the heart, not the brain! And give those poor fingers a rest. Poor fools.”
And that is why I hate writing.
Hand-written Letters
I enjoy reading hand-written letters much more than e-mails because of the personal touch, as well as the deliberation and care it takes to write. You have seen why I hate writing with pen-in-hand. You realise how much effort it takes, how much more one has to deliberate over what one writes.
When someone sends you a hand-written letter, it normally isn’t as spontaneous as it is in e-mails, which really aren’t as spontaneous as they are sloppy (few if any actually proof-read personal e-mails). But they are written more carefully, that is, with care. And who writes to anyone with care but to someone they love, someone they appreciate?
And letter-writers sometimes go even further, by adding a drop of perfume or using scented paper. Numerous pens can be chosen for this task of crafting the perfect letter; glitter might be added, as might decorations like lace or magazine cut-outs. The possibilities are endless.
Tactile tactile tactile. Touching a letter is like touching the hands that touched the letter.
Feel the smoothness, the roughness,
the curves and the straights.
Feel the joy when it’s early,
the apprehension when it’s late.
When as the last time you saw a creative-looking e-mail? Or one that was deliberated over and carefully written (with love)? Never? Me too.
16 Apr, 2006
Off to Sunday Mass
I wrote this poem while thinking about life after death. Where do we go after we die? Is there life after death in the first place? Is it a Paradise or Heaven that we go to or more of the same as here on Earth?
On and on I pondered, and realised that if there was life after death, and it was going to be more of the same, I didn’t need it.
There is also the theological problem of religious belief: Buddhists believe in reincarnation back into this material world (no beginning, no end). However the Christian faith, and likewise for the Islamic faith, believe in our going into Heaven or Hell.
I was born Catholic, but have dabbled in Buddhism for close to five years now. But when asked about life after death, I do not choose either faith’s theory on where we might go. Instead, I opt to choose what I’ve always thought about death, that upon our last breath, we will experience nothing, into a blackness that isn’t really black, because we will not sense the blackness either.
Off to Sunday Mass
I.
Life after death, she says,
On and on forever;
No beginning, no end–
The thought! it made me shiver.I thought it was a done deal,
A sentence I had served;
Living once is enough,
This I do not deserve!They say better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all,
Well this I have done, and
Not yet recovered from that fall.Sending me in once more,
Another life to live again?
No please! enough, enough!
Save me from life’s pain…She tells me of places,
Certain designated spots,
Where I can choose death,
Or continue to be shot –Shot by life’s painful arrows,
That are little soothed by its joys,
But what do you think I am?
One of God’s malleable toys?The decision to live or die,
It is not easy to make.
A life that is once given
Requires courage to take.If you give me not courage too,
The choice has no use;
I would carry on living
Even through the worst abuse.As I was too scared to die,
I had bravely hung on,
Onto a life that seemed
In all matters all but long gone.A broken man I was, by my
Last life’s last light,
Yet on and on I fought, till
I became too tired to fight;On my death-bed I called
Out to a God I did not believe,
I scrambled the words,
Atheists my life decieved!My final lie registered,
The world next I had slipped,
Thinking heaven or hell?
This must be it.But looking around me,
I saw no St. Peter or God,
No winged angels with Halos,
And no Jesus Our Lord,Instead I saw a wrinkled old woman,
Who looked at me and said,
Welcome to life after death.
At which I asked, Am I not dead?II.
The old woman looked
At me, with a curious eye,
And said, Do you not
Know? You cannot die.Buddhism you took up, boy,
Do you not remember?
Buddha had accepted you,
Some time last December.God, you had said to me,
Had no place in your heart,
A direct route to Heaven
You therefore did part.In accepting Buddhism,
You accepted no end,
Life you will live again,
Our rules we will not bend.Right upon hearing that,
Away I wished to run,
God! I screamed,
What have I done?III.
I awoke with a frightful start, and
Realised my white shirt dyed crimson.
A woman with tears in her eyes said,
Baby, you met with an accident.A lovely face I had known so long,
But sadly never really saw,
Her face was awash with tears,
She looked to me so painfully raw.From her face I could tell she
Thought I would soon die,
And to say I thought otherwise
Would have been a lie.Yet seeing her so sad,
I said that I pained not;
It’s not as if, I told her,
In the head I was shot!Sirens I then heard near,
And slowly I turned my head,
The ambulance had arrived! And soon
Enough to not declare me dead!As I was being carried off
I looked at her and said,
Please girl, don’t cry,
This Sunday’s our date!IV.
A beautiful Sunday morning,
It is soon to be dawn,
You can hear the children laughing,
And the birds singing their song.My woman she looks stunning,
She’s wearing her favourite dress;
And off we go, where else?
But to Sunday Mass.
30 Jan, 2006
The Vacuum in My Heart
I turned 21 last month; turning 22 this year.
Up until now I’ve never had an official girlfriend. Then again, I’ve never had an unofficial one either.
I’ve also never held a girl’s hand, much less kissed one — but that’s not to say that I’ve never thought about it, for I have, many times, just never had the opportunity. Or if I did, I didn’t take it.
My love life had always been rather barren. Like a desert that requires no water but always welcomes rain, I’ve lived a perfectly normal life without romance, though always harbouring a secret longing for it.
Have I ever fallen in love with any girl? Yes, of course; a few times in fact.
Old Flames… Fluttering, fluttering
I was once deeply infatuated with a girl in primary school (Rosyth Primary). I was in Primary Five, 11-years-old at that time. I cannot recall ever having had any proper conversation with her.
After the PSLEs we went our separate ways; still I longed for her, often thinking of her as I drifted off to sleep.
I went to Montfort Secondary School, an all-boys, missionary school, for four years. Throughout those four years I do not believe I made any new female friends.
As far as I can remember I stayed well within my comfort zone on the social front, having neither interest nor desire in expanding my social circle beyond what it had set itself to be naturally.
The lack of contact with the opposite sex ensured that she remained in the box in my brain labelled “love”.
“What box in your brain?” I hear you ask.
The Vacuum Theory of Love
Allow me to explain to you my philosophy on love. It’s been with me ever since I’ve ever seriously thought about love.
When you fall in love, you automatically slot that person into a grey little area in your brain, specially set aside for the love of your life. It is there that the person will remain until someone else comes along and fits in better.
Sometimes though, perhaps through a falling out or other some other reason, you take the girl out. When you take her out, it creates a vacuum that desparately seeks to be filled.
You start falling in love with almost every girl you see, every girl who pays the slightest attention to you. Doesn’t matter if that girl isn’t much to look at, by the time you’ve exchanged glances, you’re in love — or at least you think you are.
Primary School Love Moves Along
After my four years in Montfort, I went to SRJC (Serangoon Junior College) for a few months. It was there that I learnt just how much I lacked in the art of socialising, especially with the fairer sex.
I found that I had nothing in common with most of the girls, except that the girl I “loved” was from the same school as three of them. These three girls were to be the ones I came closest to in my three months there.
It was here that I fell in love once again, with one of those three girls. It wasn’t love at first sight; she was not the most attractive, and her introverted nature did her no favours in making my acquaintance. I was at that time rather introverted as well, so we didn’t really talk much.
It wasn’t until a class outing at East Coast Park, where, out of boredom, we started kicking a ball around to each other, that I really noticed her as R, as opposed to “that girl with the rectangular frames“.
She was the first and thus far only girl I know who has had the audacity (this is Singapore, we generally don’t do this here) to use self-deprecating humour — something I found absolutely adorable and fascinating.
Over the course of the evening, she told me about her family, her fears, and her ambitions. Without much thinking about it, she slowly grew on me, and I think I grew on her, too.
The $64,000 Question
The day after, I asked if she would be my girlfriend, through a third party: a mutual friend.
I know it’s a social faux paux, but allow me to explain: I was too bashful to ask directly. I had never done this sort of thing before, nothing even close. Call me a wuss if you want, but my children’s lives were at stake here!
Through the mutual I learnt that she had declined my invitation. She felt it was “too early for this kind of stuff”. She wasn’t ready for anything like this.
Hell, neither was I. A part of me was glad she did what she did.
Nevertheless, we kept an e-mail correspondence, which lasted for almost five years. The first e-mail she wrote me after my girlfriend request was one I would never forget. In it, she accused me of wanting her out of convenience: since “she’s right at my doorstep, why not?”
She might have been right.
Stale Letters in Australia
In late 2002 (or was it early 2003? I forget) she sent me through the post a small hand-made card, saying she was going to Melbourne, Australia, to study. I can’t remember exactly how I felt. I do remember feeling a little upset. Upset that she was leaving (and to so far a place!), and upset that I was never told about it earlier.
But mostly, I felt envy. I quote Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Romeo’s soliloquy after he learns of his banishment, on how unfair it is that lesser beings than him get to enjoy Juliet, but not he:
‘Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here,
Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven and may look on her;
But Romeo may not. More validity,
More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;
But Romeo may not — he is banished.
This may flies do, when I from this must fly;
But this wasn’t my only point of envy. Sure, I felt envy that the unworthy would be able to see her in Melbourne, and not I. But there was another sinister kind of envy insidiously plaguing my mind: Why should she go? Why not me? I want to go to Australia.
I wanted to take her place.
In Melbourne
The months after she went to Melbourne were filled with wonderful e-mail correspondence. Letters were more personal, and she seemed genuinely happy to hear from me.
But then the e-mails started getting less frequent. I was busy with my Final Year Project, and she, with her examinations. Through her e-mails, I could sense that the stress seemed to be getting to her.
The fortnightly corresondence became monthly, sometimes a little longer. All my energy was being put into my Final Year Project, and I had little mental resources left to write anything worth writing. Her e-mails themselves seem rather forced and impersonal, almost as if they were something to be gotten over and done with. Perhaps mine were too.
Nothing Left to Say
Sometimes I wonder if it it wasn’t energy that I lacked. I had simply exhausted all topics of conversation; it had been years since we last saw each other, since we last had any shared experiences. We could only go so far talking about the limited number of mutual friends and acquaintances.
She mentioned in one of her e-mails too that writing to me was like writing to a stranger; I could do no better than agree but wish it wasn’t so. It was one of the last e-mails I ever received.
Enlistment Day
The week before my enlistment, having not heard from her for three months, more or less, I felt I needed to write to her. The days leading up to my enlistment were terrible. I felt like a prisoner on death row anticipating his execution. I was scared.
I wrote her an e-mail just before I went in. In it, I hinted strongly that I still had feelings for her in some of the worst prose I had ever written. I think I might have included a poem too. In a nutshell, I’d cringe if I had to read what I had written now.
Her reply to that e-mail was the very last e-mail I would ever receive. She said, in effect, that she couldn’t believe that I felt whatever I felt for her, and that it was quite strange. It could be summarised in four words: Please stop loving me!
I was hurt by the e-mail, and wrote her an apology, signed off with an ultimatum: do not reply to this e-mail and you’ll never hear another unsolicited word from me again.
She took me up on that offer.