bluecarrot

   I now go away alone, my disciples! You too now go away and be alone! So I will have it.

   Go away from me and guard yourselves against Zarathustra! And better still: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he has deceived you.
   The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
   One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil. And why, then, should you not pluck at my laurels?
   You respect me; but how if one day your respect should tumble? Take care that a falling statue does not strike you dead!

   You say you believe in Zarathustra? But of what importance is Zarathustra? You are my believers: but of what importance are all believers?

   You had not yet sought yourselves when you found me. Thus do all believers; therefore all belief is of so little account.
   Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you...

- Ecce Homo, Nietzsche

I woke up this morning and a certain fear gripped me. Am I going to just die irresponsibly? If I were to perish God-knows-when-but-I-don't one day, without having left so much as a word of goodbye to my family, or a final epic poem to the world, that will be like I have never even lived my life before, even after all these years of what-you-call-this-existence. And imagine if I were twenty thousand feet above the ground on a holiday trip with my friends when the plane decides it should malfunction, should I scream irresponsibly at the finality of my life or thank them for all the happy hours of friendship we have spent together, for without their company my life would not have been so alive? I should start writing eulogies. (Is there a word for eulogy but to mean a dead person writing for the living instead of the other way around, as eulogy means? Ygolue? Hah.)

This book in my hands is a piece of treasure.

I thank myself for actually understanding what it says so far.

If to be exiled and jailed is the fate of the thinker...

Oh, Plato. You think you're God.

My mind cannot wrap my heart
as heart cannot wrap my soul
as soul cannot wrap my flesh
as flesh cannot wrap my mind

If mind should ask heart to obey
like heart should plead with soul to stay
but soul to flesh he cannot say
for flesh by mind is kept at bay

This I, this my and mine and me
not I, not my, not mine nor me
mind knows heart knows soul knows flesh
knows not mind nor heart nor soul nor flesh.

That's a really big problem about being human: the subjective existence and the readiness to latch onto anything your mind can connect to. So what is real and what isn't anymore? I know my own body, and I have no doubt that I have some degree of depression. But the more knowledge about depression I get from books and online sources, the more I get into the mood for depression to set in. As they all claim, if one has this-this-this, then one is depressed, so I start to wonder if I'm beginning to develop new symptoms or if they have been with me all along.

Then comes the other problem of whether to seek treatment. Depending on who I turn to, I will get varying diagnoses. A professional therapist or doctor will certify that I have depression, because all the results point in that direction, and as therapists and doctors, they are bound by medical knowledge so naturally they will say that. However, if I turn to a non-professional, say close friends, they will write me off and say that I'm not depressed because they know me, and they tell me that I'll be fine again. Who's right, who's wrong? No doubt the professional's advice is more valuable, but like I said, it's their job to diagnose. Or perhaps, I should turn to whoever I prefer to hear? I guess that's what people always do, they want to hear what they want to hear, so they go to people who can tell them what they want to hear. Then there are also those who want to hear what they don't want to hear, so they go to people who will tell them what they don't want to hear, and they take pleasure in being stubborn.

While I am open to trying out antidepressants, I dislike the things they say about depression: "More than 14 million Americans, or more than 6 percent of adults, experience depression in any given year. Despite these statistics, depression is not a normal part of life, regardless of your age, sex, or health status." Really now, who decides what is normal? This whole 'normal life' we subscribe to in our modern lives, perhaps, is just whichever group of 'normal' people that has the largest voice? Even when I say to myself I am 'normal', I can't help but think that I don't even know what I'm saying or trying to say.

Having said all of that, I don't really know my own body anymore. Depending on what I choose to believe, I may or may not have depression. So who's right, who's wrong?

Mind     The meaning of life can be found in a blooming flower without anyone around to appreciate its beauty: There is no meaning, but it still chooses to bloom.

Me        That sounds wise and captivating, but how does one prove it actually took place? It is similar to the other problem of the falling tree in the forest: If nobody saw it fall or heard the sound it made, did the tree really fall?

Mind     So what you mean is that, the meaning of life exists only in the presence of others as how they perceive it to be? For life by itself has no meaning, and man by himself will not find the answer?

( More )

I just spent 10 minutes hitting my head, hoping to knock something in or out, but nothing has changed. And I thought that if I lasted until morning, I could be declared mentally unstable somehow, but my mind refused to participate in the madness of that thought. So to punish it, I asked myself one question after another: How does one have a mental breakdown? Why do some desire one but never get it, while others never asked for one yet they got it instead? Is it a blessing or a tragedy? Is it true that good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people? If so, does this affliction on the heart and mind mean I'm good? Yet, I live in a comfortable existence, and I claim I'm spoilt in some ways, so am I bad? What is the meaning of life? I'm still tormented by this, and Schopenhauer said we're born to suffer. So if we're born to suffer, is this actually hell? Like perhaps, I 'died' in a previous life and Earth-life is not life as I know, but it is really hell that I was born into to suffer? Are those who die in their Earth-lives actually ready to leave hell and transiting into another existence somewhere else?

So the coward lives yet another day, as I've told myself a thousand times by now.

"Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness." - Blaise Pascal

There can be no greater desperation than watching the sands of time slip grain by grain through the crevices of the fingers belonging to men who watch in horror at how finite their lives suddenly become yet are hesitant about clamping their fists and taking ownership of it. Who can successfully master time, if only for awhile he manages to grasp it in his fist but the grains will slip away no matter how tightly he holds on to it? Or the very motion of coiling his fingers puts so much pressure that even more time slips away from him in that instant, and who is to say that it will always be better to try to grab time, if it only makes his life all the shorter? So he loses himself in the indecision of whether to take the opportunity or not, for both will inevitably still lead him to demise.

What(if the good to heaven
and the bad to hell shall go;
if the comforts of pleasure
and the afflictions of pain
we shall know; or I may say
that in heaven and in hell
the good and bad commingle
but blind to know who is who
like us, in this world)is life?

The more I think, I think there is no more Love. The more I read Walt Whitman and E E Cummings, I cannot but think that there is no more Spring in our hearts. Or I may say it's only my heart that I have paved it with concrete, that dew will rest on no more grass, that no more daffodils will grow from it, that no more butterflies will dance around it. Pretty soon, the heart will dry and, along with the cement, crumble and die a thousand times.

I share a verse from Walt Whitman's Calamus, ( Whoever You Are Holding Me Now In Hand )

It's November 19. It means something, but I cannot recall what.

I'm a guy, but you make me blush
(like a darling dear) whenever
I see you downstairs at the gym,
at the mall, at the swimming pool.
You look this wayIDARTMYEYES!(
Are you trying to look at me too?
thumpThump that was thumpThump too close.)
I'm like an inexperienced thief,
too scared to steal a simple glance.

If I think suicidal,
I cannot decide if I should blow my brains or my heart out.
One causes so much pain. The other feels so much pain.
Partners-in-crime.

So the coward and the undecided lives yet another day...

By the way, pessimism is not worrisome.

The last time I saw Faith was back in 1999.
We'd known each other for sixteen years.
She was such a gentle and beautiful soul,
Always ready to help me through life,
Never grudging that I took her for granted some.
Took her for granted, oh yes I did,
When one day I decided that I had grown up:
I can do this on my own,
I'm no longer a child I don't need you.
I turned my back on her and walked away.
She didn't try to stop me,
I never got to see the look on her face.
She was probably crying,
But wishing me well all the same.
For years I tried to be somebody,
I tried to get people to look at me:
Listen to my story! It is important.
I am not like you, I have a bigger purpose.
People laughed, people ignored,
People spoke in sympathetic tones.
I'm not a kid! I protested.
But I sounded just like one.
I was giving up trying, when I thought about Faith.
Faith would care, she'd hear me shout,
She was always there to help me out.
I blushed in shame, for all these years,
I never tried to keep in touch with her.
I don't even know where she is right now.
So I did the only thing I could think of, I said:
"God, please let me have Faith again."

In the eyes of the universe we are
but insignificant organisms not unlike
those we call our germs and mites and
bacteria. What is sentience if God
is actually like man who kills
millions of them
unintentionally everyday?

If the Moon could care,
She would not care about us
Kicking and screaming at each other,
Shouting, "Look at me! Be proud of my achievements!"
Begging for mercy, being begged to for mercy,
Racing each other to the top of every ladder imaginable,
Still, she would not care about us.
For she has seen, generations one after another,
Attention-seekers of all sorts,
Proudly proclaiming their stories of glories,
Or fighting over whose God is better,
And what does it matter to her
When, after they have quietened down,
And found peace in Earth's eternal embrace -
as Earth reassures them, "I forgive you.
For all the pain you have caused me,
You still deserve a proper burial." -
Another new generation of attention-seekers reborn,
Who think that this time around,
They will be the ones who will make history.
Still, she would not care.

Is it possible to be crestfallen and optimistic at the same time?

I knew I wasted my shot at GP. The reminder that I had only one chance to impress the marker came after I submitted the essay, which I thought started off beautifully, but headed in a different direction altogether by the end. Are certain types of writing more superior to others? Yes. Mine just became the less superior one. The experience only taught me that I cannot work well given a time limit. I spend too much time translating thoughts into words, then crafting each sentence carefully as if the essay on hand is the final draft that's fit for publication.

Besides the coincidental (or intentional, perhaps?) choice of essay question coupled with my apparent failure of wanting to produce a superior piece, I started reading Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety today. Having recently finished another one of his books, The Consolations of Philosophy, I must say that his words are very compassionate towards inadequate people like me. He inspires me to go on living despite feeling like a nobody and a failure at times. In fact, he actually helped fuel my desire to write, making it even stronger now. Autobiography of a Failure. I'm being serious.

Lastly, in response to Michael Young, The Rise of the Meritocracy (1958):
'Today all persons, however humble, know they have had every chance... If they have been labelled "dunce" repeatedly they cannot any longer pretend... Are they not bound to recognize that they have an inferior status, not as in the past because they were denied opportunity, but because they are inferior?'

We do not deny our vulnerabilities. We resign to our ill fates to be born into this society that mocks us for being the ugly ducklings who cannot adapt, and to be incessantly pressured into conforming to its ideals or be shamed otherwise; yet, we are utterly resistant because it goes against our natures to be less than anything but great.

Lastly, reminder to self that when the exam is over, to admit that I must be crazy and very brave to have sat for A-levels.

Some nights ago, I was given a message in my dream:

"Don't keep choosing to stay here. When it's time to move on, go. There's nothing here for you for now."

Most buddhas are depicted to look serious and significant: they stand or sit with straight backs and stout postures; their eyes half closed to display their humility; they smile gently. That is not so for Maitreya. He sits in a posture that many would consider crude, very much like a beggar who knows no manners; he sports the largest belly amongst all buddhas; he laughs with great joy at the world. Still, he is reverred by many people.


Maitreya has no six pack. He has no chiseled features. He doesn't have a cool faux hawk hairstyle. He clearly doesn't work out. He has double, maybe even triple or quadruple, chins. His robes are simple, thin, and cannot contain his belly and man-breasts. He doesn't wear designer robes. He doesn't have to choose between Havaianas, sneakers, or loafers. He has the simplest and happiest joy written on his face. He laughs so heartily that his eyes cannot be seen. I can almost hear his bellowing laughter.

Why is man increasingly unhappy in a progressive world? The more we strive for better lives, the more we are beset by frustrations, suffering and discontent? How much sunlight do I need before I can be contented with my tanned skin? How many weights should I lift to achieve my ideal physique? What should I wear today to flaunt myself and get people to look this way? And after all that attention, can I be happy instead of arrogantly and blindly claiming the rest of the world to be superficial, then repeat the whole cycle again?

By the time I would be happy with my bronzed skin, it would have become dry and scaly, and I would frantically apply moisturiser to keep it supple. I would have strained my shoulder and back muscles just to look sculpted, then spent more money on medical treatment. There would never be enough clothes for me, because I should not be seen wearing the same things all the time. Having strut around in my fashionable appearance, I would be happy for the day; by evening, I would dread taking the crowded bus home and entering the lonely cyberworld of hollow dialogues with other equally lonely souls.

When I was a child, I was often taught that it is a virtue to speak the truth, and one should always be honest. Honesty is the best policy. - Proverb

I cannot imagine why anyone would want to lie to young, impressionable minds.

What is so morally good about that? Without even doing research proper, I am certain that nobody tells the truth all the time.

Morality is like a bowl of Swensen's Giant Earthquake - so flavourful, extremely tempting, but should you digest the whole thing, you will end up sick with a bad tummy.

What would I do if I find someone to be really hideous-looking? Instead of speaking the truth, I would say something like, "You look perfectly fine the way you are." Or if I'm angry: "It doesn't matter. I'm OK." Or if I think someone's being a douche dag: "Haha." (Author's Note: Other times, these are said as truthful replies.)

My teachers ought to admit that they were lying about the virtue of telling the truth, and that they did so only because they were driven by an unexplainable force to act in a moral manner amidst all the injustices that governed their lives. They should also have gone on to teach me that there is no shame in lying, and people do that all the time when caught in circumstances. I could have grown up feeling less disappointed with myself for telling so many lies. I could have grown up taking people more lightheartedly.

So you see, you have one scoop of 'truth' in that big bowl of morals. There is also a scoop of 'kindness' in there. Topped with freshly roasted nuts and thick chocolate fudge.

The truth is that you cannot have your Earthquake and eat it whole too.