Forks

It was not until the middle of this year that I had finally come to realise: this something which I should have done so much earlier before.

This mortal coil that binds all of us to a universal, unshakable and yet very surreal destiny —death— is fast catching up on those who could not be more important to me.

These marvellous, mindless vessels of flesh: they define us, they enable us, but ultimately, they betray us. 

And it aches me to the bones to witness, to know, and to accept the fact that time has caught up with them and that I am unable for the life of me to change this scenario in any plausible way. 

For lack of a better way to say it, for this one moment of blatant and supreme selfishness, quite frankly put: beyond their conscious existence, my life to me is completely expendable, but theirs are not. 

I would be willing to give any and every thing to have, to savour, and to spend these precious moments, for life without them means absolutely nothing to me.

Nothing is more important to me; though this realisation feels as if it has already come at a time too late. In the blink of an eye two and a half decades have passed, and they have aged more years than in that time. The clock now races through another two-and-a-half decades which must not pass in the blink of an eye. I have gained a life from their givings, but no life I give to them can return a similar gift. 

Time, time. Time with them is something I already know I no longer have enough of. It tears me apart, breaks me down, and haunts my every waking moment. 

Sadness fills me.

I cannot fight time. Truly, no one can.

Life for Rent

Gosh I haven’t done this in such a long time. But as has always been the case, no news here is certainly good news everywhere else. My professional life couldn’t be any better. And I feel utterly fulfilled. That truly wonderful, and deeply rewarding feeling. Pure awesome personified.  

Life feels like it has just begun. I’m slowly settling down and into my new skin; all that has been for the past six years —the financial, emotional, mental and social trauma— was to prepare for this: this and the entirety of the four decades to come.

My future unfolding before me, my academic preparation complete, my career at its first steps. A stark comparison to the aimless, impulsive and perhaps down-right and aptly stupid undertakings of youth. Days without a sliver of responsibility. Days without thought. Days without maturity. Oh goodness how could one live like that for so many years?

I have entered into a new phase of life, one where it is expected of me to perform and thus conduct myself in ways that I have never done so before. And for this I get paid a sum of cash at the end of every month, where in time that sum would grow in size and prove to be substantial enough that I will be able to horde a ton of dough to… to, well, spend on whatever that fancy finds me.  

And so it becomes tremendously easy thus to get sucked into consumerism and the pursuit of ever greater wealth. That there would be no end in sight. That the growth of companies and markets and national GDPs and consequently, the expansion of humankind itself as a whole, is inevitable and inexorable. That we as a race and as a civilisation can continue to flourish unabated for ever.

But no.

Our treasured home is dying.  

Before this century is over, our little blue speck of celestial rock and water will be irrevocably damaged . The tipping point is already upon us. Yet day in and day out, we trudge along: wasteful, improvident, without a care in the world. We dream, and we do so lavishly. We live, we spend and we consume, but the only thing that we consume is our home. We are neither great nor beautiful. We are nothing but a cancer to this planet.  

It disgusts me to live in this filth of fat and unnecessary excess, this sickness and perverted attitude that there is always more beyond the horizon. New opportunities to exploit. New resources to pillage. New lands to conquer. New worlds to rule.  

But there aren’t any.

There isn’t even enough to sustain all of us in our present state of continued excess, much less another few billion people who will soon flick the switch and join us in our so-called first world civilisation —one of mindless twenty-four-seven consumption of any and every resource imaginable.  

When will we wake up and make that change? Buy that one less little unnecessary item. Live without that one less frivolous object. Make that one less journey. Shower that one less minute. Set that one little Celsius hotter. 

Do it regardless, if only because long-term happiness isn’t that extra ten thousand a month, nor is it that fortune worth multiples of a lifetime. Joy isn’t a giant two-ton automobile, nor a house filled to the brim with shiny shit. We need to learn to live a smaller footprint. Learn to live with less. Learn to live on needs. Just as now is and has been a fitting time for us to “grow up” as persons and individuals, so too is now a fitting time for us to collectively grow up as a race, for are we really nothing more than perverse lumps of dividing cells all gone wrong?  

Towers

Of late, the one thing I’ve learnt is that a successive stream of accomplishments can make a person over-confident. And most certainly arrogant.

Just so proud of all the fantastic feats that lay behind one’s path; a towering symbol of one’s sheer and utter greatness.


Success. We all yearn for success. We strive for it. Kill for it. Die for it. Yet success isn’t necessarily life-long, nor is it necessarily the be-all and end-all to all that we hold dear in our long odyssey through mortal existence. For the masses out there who trudge along their daily lives, inconsequential to the eyes of the great and mighty, just the simplest of pleasures might just as well suffice. And so what if a ten-cent cuppa coffee can bring to someone as much as what it would take a million-dollar Rolls to do for another?

I am reminded to what an elder once shared with me, this one little nougat: just as quickly as life could turn for the better, fortunes could just as suddenly turn for the worst; life is long, its course circumstantial, and its bearing unpredictable.

But perhaps even not. Maybe one could be rock solid after all, having had it all nipped in the bud. Gotten everything nailed to the last detail. Maybe one is invincible, and truly untouchable.

All the same, there is ultimately a price to be paid. Most would lose their humility. Likely first to go would be one’s humanity —which is perhaps the one quality we should hold on to most dearly, for what are we without warmth and compassion?

Animals...


What must it feel like to be worth well over half a billion? What would it be like to be worth that amount, and see your life-long friends, comrades and the ones you treasure most struggle even to meet ends meet? Just what must it feel like to be filthy rich and not lift a finger for anyone?

What must it be like to be great and successful if you haven’t a trace of your soul left at the end of that line?


Regardless of where you go or where you're from, joy and fulfilment are universal and fundamentally the same for the haves and the have-nots. Those of us wealthy of accomplishment or cash may certainly be arrogant and overbearing, but remember that life is long and winding, and one might never know if someday you find yourself out in the city streets, without a home, without a living, without a life, and without even a sliver of your humanity left.

Tokens

.
.
.
The silky smooth surface of tranquillity cloaks a torrent of discontent, pandemonium the stirring undercurrent that lies hidden beneath.

A breakdown marks the previous day, the very first of its kind in fifteen weeks.


So tired.

Just so, so damned tired. All the critique, the judgement, the criticism, the ensuing shits.


Tired sick of being alienated, have me and the things I love be put-down time and time again, as if to estrange as much as attempts to marginalise.


I have not come thus long, thus far, to be back at where I was one whole decade ago.

.
.
.

Keys in hand, fuel in tank, the open roads beckon for solace. Peace. My goodness, when, why, have I grown so worldly?

Greed, corruption; these subtle and insidious monsters! Blast them. Damn their eyes.



Too comfortable a lifestyle. Too many luxuries a life.

Filth too dense to clean.

A living footprint too heavy to sustain.


Behind clouds the timid sun hides, painting this land a monochromatic hallucination. The sky darkens. The gauges light, crisp white on black. Rev counter, fuel counter, all systems are still go.


As they were two and a half years ago.

Those were simpler times. Simpler ways. Simpler wants. Simpler needs.


Times happier perhaps not, certainly more beautiful they must have been.

.
.
.

Beautiful this world around me is still.

Great ideas, great pieces of work, great talent, great skill . . . trivialised and suppressed to the realm of gods and religions past, faded into insignificance by the very forcings of ignorant proles all wealthy of spirit, wealthy of cash, bereft of sense.

.
.
.

Take this omen, for tomorrow would not be the same as yesterday, nor as it is today.

Ceilings and zeniths, they were certainly never to be surpassed.

.
.
.

Liberty

Fresh from having just finished the fifth instalment of Herbert’s Dune novel, I am in a state of awe… what a magnificent body of work this is. How brilliant and truly vast this creation of his!


Sadness and that distinct feeling of queasy unease drowns me.

My life as it is now is almost a replica mirroring that of the book; just as the lives and the lines of lineage of the main antagonists have come to conclusion, so too the end chapter of chapters in reality.


Four and a half years of serial, unending academic semesters, stretched over what must be a gruelling five long years at the very least: that chapter of my life has now come to rest. Thousands of kilometres, back and forth. Back and forth.


For so many times now, I have begged for this moment. This the beginning of my life. Free to do what I want, free to go where I please, free from academic shackles and the curse of exams... the prospect of failure and repercussions, dangling dangerously close to the edge of sanity, is at last, no more.

Free at last!

Free! Free …to dive straight into the ever greater pressures and responsibilities that await in life.

The scary question now thus beckons: what now? What now, oh goodness what now?



Safely nestled in the warm protective folds of home, the lovely sense of comfort and security is truly intoxicating.

Ah such contentment you have bred for me to grow into!



So it is over.

So it is ended.

A frenzy of alcohol, a flurry of fine food, a small entourage of coursemates —comrades in battle, wonderful friends truly, a mutual struggle once shared—, and then a life packed into two large suitcases, a twin-engined triple seven and… Home, straight into the warm protective arms of home and the ones loved.

So it has.

So it must be.

Closing Time

June is upon us, and my hands really feel as though they have been tied to… well, something. Something heavy, something cumbersome.

Time is unforgiving and indiscriminate in its advance.

Slashing and ripping through all that is, like a cruel menace time comes for me.




More so than ever before, I am closer to one end of my journey than the other. You know, beginnings are so much less fraught with baggage the way endings are.

The heavy burden of memory and experience is not something universally cherished or embraced.

But without endings, I tell myself, how then can new beginnings sprout?



It was about this time two years ago that I had looked to Australia for hope, escape and new leaves. Today though, escape seems only feasible within the confines of my grey, gooey gunk —which is arguably the very item I need escaping from in first place.


I have started to wonder if my life is one too sane. Is it one too calculated or one too proper? The temptation to flick the switch, run amok, pursue senseless and irrational excursions... and satisfy whims and desires of any and every sort... oh how tempting the proposition!

But then again, when all is said and done, who else would be there to clean up the mess if it was not for me, my own little self?



"A child no longer" voices in my head.

Responsibilities, the piggy account and relationships beckon...


And so, whatever little is left of my youth is being further robbed away from under my feet; time the termite sure loves its wood.


I feel opportunities dissolving into thin air. It is said that youth is wasted on the young, but somehow I have always sensed that I had never wasted my youth. The past decade was spent trying to be as grown-up and as sensible as I could…

But oh the irony!

I laugh now, thinking how these very actions were tantamount to my youth being laid to waste: I have little memory of joy and experience from my younger days. What of the crazy things you did as a child? What of the ridiculous things you said? What of the absurd suggestions you had made, or the outrages desires that you had expressed liking to, and even more shockingly, were granted with? Oh how exciting it must have been.

But if only that …I was there too.



So, with what little is left of my salad days, my time here in this city and the luxury of being “youngish", must I really walk away like this? Walk away on this path of continued arrogant, self-serving righteousness and the delusions of an unsullied life?

Must I really walk away from this one chance, guided by ever more sane and reasoned laser systems? Is the grass really always greener on the other side? Is Lord Dreamer sleeping again, or is it Lady Rationale moving on to greener pastures?

Time and the bubble of a world around me is just screaming at me to act …but if only the solutions were not lost in the very jungle of noise that they created.



But then again, none of this ever seemed to matter to me before. I wonder, must it really now?

Legacies

You know there’s this one thing I have long known, but never previously shared with anyone, neither in public nor in private...

Not that this is a particularly secretive nougat that should only be kept within the confines of my skull; I just suppose the opportunity never presented itself…


Twenty four months: that really, is the longest period of time I could spend at any given place or institution.

This is the duration long enough to be marked by epochs and cataclysms; for history to be written, new standards to be set, achievements to be celebrated and looked back upon in times to come, meaningful relationships to be made —and detrimental ones to be killed.

And perhaps most importantly: critical life lessons to be experienced, absorbed, and learnt.


Dragged on for longer, and the burden of memory and familiarity becomes unbearable; the weighty baggage of experience and contempt start to swell up into a pool of trauma.

Twenty four months is the longest amount of time before I pass from being too comfortable to being too sick, and before I get stunt from growing and get encapsulated by the very spheres I set over myself.


As the sliver of realisation falls, comes a reality that liberty and release looms ever closer beyond the horizon.

I now liken myself to a four-engine winged-tubed craft at one end of a runway, waiting for four green lights to signal at the other, before putting thrusters to full for the imminent pressure-differentials to do their aerodynamic witchcraft.

And then, freedom.

Like When We Were Children.

I wished many things.

I wished for —believe it or not— a better life.

One much less swarmed by academic hardship and pressure and the simmering prospect of failure and retribution.

And more cash. I wished for more cash to spend daily, to live more comfortably, to splurge a little, to enjoy life with, to be more carefree.

I need more time; time for my own personal self-development… the D80 and the weights beckon, the creative little child in me needs escape, and the world isn’t waiting for me.

I truly wished for more space, more time, and more cash to stretch my legs and spread my wings.

Flight.

Freedom.

Fantasy.

They've been too far and too few of late.

Distant Ties

There were quite a number of you.

Back then you were, all of you, my saviours from ...so many ugly things.


Sometimes it pains me to see how far we have all drifted apart from one another, the currents of our lives taking us toward our individual destinies, as we set off to make our mark in the great big world.

We have grown distant; friendships stretched just a little too far, and just that wee bit too thin. It’s as though we never met, as though we never knew each other, as though the other person never existed.

Then again, I suppose there isn’t much to be said between us in the here and now anyway. Simple hellos, simple take cares, and simple goodbyes.


But memories of the warmth, the good times and the good deeds linger in my head and in my heart still.

I cannot for the life of me find words to express gratitude for everything that you have filled my life with —if only in times past.


Wherever in the world you are tonight, you are not forgotten.

There’s a little piece of me, wishing you all the best, in whatever you are going through.

Golden

Carnage

The world is filled with it.

Amidst all the beauty, all the joy and all the wonder that is life, there is so much that is not so.

You left so many reminders of youth lingering in my head. What is it like to be 18? What was it like to be young, to be new, to be fresh, to be innocent and untainted by the struggles and the realities of life?

I see it in your face. I see it in your eyes.

We… we’ve lost it all.

We’ve all lost it.

What was it that took the fiery sparkle from your dark hazel eyes? What was it that put those wrinkles on your face? What was it that aged you down?

Was it one turmoil all too many? Was it one event too nasty?

And as for me?

From life’s bloodbaths I’ve lost enough of myself to cynicism and bitterness, a permanent shade of jade hovering over my corneas… a young child inside shies away from the senses of the world, scarred by the burns of life, and the need to grow up.


There is so much in my life that is going so great right now, and so much can so easily be lost.

But losing won’t kill me.

Not anymore.

Not after everything that I’ve gone through.

Not since I was the boy I used to be.

12

No news is, as they say, good news.

And this is especially true of me, and this half-arsed blog of mine.

The days and the weeks preceding my return from Sydney has been marked by a distinct lack of posts, with as many as one in thirteen weeks.

This is not because I have found another source for an outlet, not because I started a ‘secret’ blog with a corny, melancholic URL, and not because I found someone to talk to —if you seriously thought of me as that sad a sod, well then, it’s you who needs someone to talk to =)

The simple truth be told, life really has been good to me lately.

I’d like to go on about the warmth of home, of family and friends, the company, the coffee, the car, the speakers and the DAC, me having gained 8kg from the weights and the whey, and hundreds and hundreds of other such details, but I shall digress and leave it as such.

I have had no realisation so deep nor revelation so profound that I needed to ponder or write out in words. I have lost the necessity to use the word processor and subsequently visit this place post-completion.

So with things the way they are, this trend will set to continue into the foreseeable future; and seeing how I will not be around (that is, won’t be around and can’t be bothered enough) to write something that sums up the past twelve months in reflective reminisce, but as is tradition to do so, this will serve as the rojak post that will accomplish that sub-task as well.

I am reminded to the lyrics of a song that goes:

But before I learned to listen
And if indeed someone said it
Then I guess I must have lost it on the wind

Still, all in my own time is all in good time I suppose.

As per the short, succinct (or possibly shadowy) theme of this post, it is to end here without much ado, or glossy detail. Perhaps indifference would best characterise my current attitude, and if so, would anyone blame me? =)

Liquidity

The third 17C night in the middle of spring. In my room at this end of the world, its quiet, solemn and cold.

Cold.

Old wounds and past mistakes have a habit of catching up to you from time to time.

Today, yesterday, are one of those times.

Regrets, mistakes, what ifs, the many maybes and could have beens start to swirl into a tornado of distress. I think, I wonder, I wish… but what good does that do?


The shot glass, the beautiful golden hue, the woody aroma… this isn’t the first time the thought has crossed my mind today.

And it wouldn't be the last.

I can survive without it, I tell myself. Repeatedly.

Equilibrium

 
Spring.

Spring has come, and brought along with it baggages from the past. The hot, suffocating dry air is a constant reminder of how things used to be twelve months ago.

So what better way to revisit past moments than with songs from the period?


I thought to myself what it was like. I thought to myself all that had happened. I thought to myself, and nodded.

I have come a long way. I have grown, and let many, many baddies go. I am also stronger, and much more seasoned than I was before —the crises of life have made me more hardy for sure. So many things in the world can hurt me no longer. I am not a mess with my emotions. I don’t easily fall into fits of depression. Or bouts of hate.


Life at the moment isn’t half as good as it can be, but neither is it half as bad as it would seem. With only a tiny bank account and a somewhat busy academic semester, life has been lived pretty much without the frills or the excesses of greed and desire.

It’s just me, my family, a few lifelong friends, the books, the weights and the whey. And of course, the sporadic excursions with my ageing d-eighty, which is still rolling out them day-lit scenes wonderfully well.

Really, I wouldn't want anything other than this simple, lean and drama-free existence.


Now, if only I can find an answer to the age-old “meaning of life” question.

Pages

     
For so many nights I have laid there under those sheets.

The cold, blissful silence of the wee morning hours have always been conducive for aimless contemplations of the mind. 

You know, life’s pretty surreal sometimes.


What’s all this for?

No, really, tell me what is all this for?

A fat pile of cash? A comfy, luxurious life to grow fat and complacent over? A lifetime of achievements that mean nothing to no one but yourself on the day you are forced to shut your eyelids for good?


I used to bubble with altruism. I used to think of “to make the world a better place” as the most noble, most utilitarian cause an individual could ever aim to live for.

Perhaps a truly significant contribution that will fundamentally change the way we live our lives for generations to come. Perhaps a one-inch equation of five variables that will permeate through humanity for millennia. Or perhaps ambitions less lofty; perhaps to just go, leaving behind a variety of chemicals that register as positive memories in the grey matter of family and friends.  


Laughable, isn’t it?

You grow up only to realise that so many things and so many people are already well beyond reprieve. So much is already cast in stone, so much is not worth trying for to begin with.

And what does it matter, when life as a whole means so little? Beneath delusions of an afterlife, beyond the corruptive lure of wealth, ego and power, after the passing of lust, sex and love, what else is there to life?

You think I’m the lone idiot who is paying the price for being a faithless, non-believing atheist, but I’ll tell you this: if all the things I said above weren’t true, none of us —not even the most religious fanatics— would fear death's call.

   

Cavities

I wake up to a sunny Sunday morning, somewhat warm, somewhat humid, but under a perfect blue sky.

It seemed just like one of those Sundays I used to have back home, back when I was still a teenager all those years ago.

The lunches with my parents, the air-conditioner, the blistering speed of my top-of-the-range computer, and Far Cry. And not to mention, the angst.

I suppose it happens to everyone. I suppose that as we grow, we learn that people will inevitably disappoint you, somehow.

Along the way, we learn that beyond people, many of the things you dreamed of too, once within your reach/possession, you will realise that they weren’t all that they were cracked up to be, and that they probably weren’t worth one bit of the time and effort you had put in.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps its just me. Perhaps people truly are happy with their dreams.

I suppose its obvious that its just me who finds just about everything a huge, giant, pathetic sham.

Surely, there has to be more to life than just prejudice and hype? More to our existence than just hearsay and uninformed gossip? More to us than just make-believes that don’t make sense? More to our skulls than just a runny gunk of grey matter?

Last Legs

 

My recent disgust and distaste at almost everyone around me has been the cause of a huge self-driven mental and emotional wall.

This walled-garden of mine is serene, quiet, and predictable.


But this forced, self-imposed isolation is a lonely and testing existence.

You tend see all those around you in a considerably less-than-favourable light, and the cycle continues, deepening into ever more catastrophic feedback loops.

Can’t exactly say that I’m delighted or pleased at the current situation, but I’d rather it be so than to stoop down and accept alien values, ideals or realities for which I do not share, or beliefs that make every sinew of my soul cringe at the sheer monstrosity of their absurdity.


I was once passionately empowered against religion, against the belief of imaginary omnipotent men/women/being[s] floating in the blue skies above us, and I thoroughly railed against the people who lived their lives under these ridiculous little umbrellas of illogic.

That was one lesson in life I never forgot; I still haven’t the slightest respect or regard for religionists or believers. The greater their beliefs, the farther I wanted to be from them.


Today, I am empowered once more.

Today, I say enough to stupidity.

I will not be cowed into accepting nonsense, misinformation, prejudices or idiocy, just because that’s how the way the world is, or just because that’s the norm.

There is a better way than this.

 

Spheres

 
I find myself drowning in a sea of mediocrity.
 
An endless continuum of boring people.

Pathetic ones who cannot for the life of them stand up to their own judgements. Pathetic ones who cannot for a moment see beyond the facts and figures that lie before them. Pathetic ones who cannot overcome their ridiculous little prejudices that reside deep within themselves, even though it is ironic that, for the most part, these are the very same people who’s very existence has been the subject of such prejudice and discrimination.

In this huge chasm of differing values and idealism that separates me from everyone else, I feel the four walls closing in.

I feel alienated; trapped in a reality I cannot un-clutch myself from. 

Suffocating in these vile waters, I so hope and wish I could be home where love and warmth and material wealth and time run abundant.


Tonight I again write by the yellow lamp, not unlike how I did all those posts from this time last year.

Tonight I wished I had huge concentrations of alcohol gushing down my bloodstream.

Tonight, those two bottles of Budweiser left in the fridge from my past habits cannot seem more appealing.

But such is not to be.

My Fascist regiment of four-hourly meals of carefully choreographed pro:carb:fat amounts in perfect ratios and the weights and the jogs would all make alcohol the most blasphemous of things I could ingest.

Such then, is life.

No Place Like...

 

I close my eyes.

The images start to flash.

Bright, dull lights hanging high atop the brown pyramidal shell that is the roof. The cold, harsh architecture, the concrete, the grey plastic, the pale marble flooring, the electric mini-train.

Images of my parents, my hands on the thick steering wheel, the odometer, the xenon-lit highway, the hint of palm trees, the valley at night, my cats.

And as if the relentless attacks on my consciousness was not enough, the dreams I dream each night too, are beyond escape.

One wonders if I’d go insane before I manage to even step onto that scheduled -400 jet.

A New Start

 
This is my ninth draft, and is one that I intend to publish, instead of putting to the bin like all the others before. 

I have so much to write about; me being sick of almost any and every one around me, and almost any and every thing.

But nothing I write would be fit for reading.

In between the weights and the jogs, the whey and the Quarter Pounders, the studies and sleep, I have neither the time nor energy for anything else.

I couldn’t for the life of me muster even a coherent post, despite the repeated attempts.



I miss home so much.

I miss my family. I miss the valley. I miss alcohol. I miss drinking with my dad. I miss driving that wonderful car. I miss my closest and best friends.

A few more months to go, and another four subjects to pass.

Life, for now, seems unbearably arduous, and impossibly long.

 

I Made It.

Honestly, I feel like deleting every single post I wrote for the past five months.



Success is sweet, though watching your closest, truest friends and comrades fall most definitely isn’t.

Theirs is a solemn reminder of the grave consequences of not having made it through.

Theirs is a bitter reminder of the human costs behind the thick cold faces of ruthless academicians who trump the “standards” flag.



Where most expected —especially coming from me, of all people— is the relentless gloating and praise of all the wonders and joys of life, there shall be none. 

This seriously isn’t at all funny, or worth celebrating for.



I am lucky to have just scraped through, to have saved a brand new Gen.2 and twelve additional months to repeat two subjects.

These were perhaps the two most expensive marks in my life.