Convocation Week '11

This week is convocation week. Over the last few days my facebook updates were vivid with pictures of my friends in their convocation gowns. Everyone was beaming, smiling, posing with parents, friends and even with their professors. A momentous occasion, a capping stone, convocation serves many as a conclusion to their many years of education. Knighted for all to see; family and friends alike witness their ascension into the ranks of society.

I remembered when I was a recruit in the army I looked forward to my passing out parade. That was the parade which marked the end of my Basic Military Training, after which I would be a private. On the eve of the parade, everyone was happy, everyone was looking forward to their parents coming to pick them up and leave Pulau Tekong, one of my bunkmate was even running around the room shouting “POP LOR”. I was no different, I could not wait to be posted out, I touched my shaved head and thought that I am finally allowed to let my hair grow. But, I made the mistake of thinking that POP was the end. Every single Singaporean male can relate to what I just said. POP was not the end of our life as a recruit, I went from being a recruit to being a trainee and I went from section to syndicate. I had to do all that I did and more, and failure did not always mean push ups.

Looking at my facebook wall, I saw small thumbnails of gowns and hats, bears and flowers. But I felt the void, those who are missing from the pictures. Some of those who are reading this, have graduated and are still jobless, and deep in debt, some of those reading this are feeling lost because after a lifetime of being told what to do next, they are suddenly told to choose their path themselves, some of those reading this are in love and know that they cannot get married because they literally cannot afford to live the life they so rightly deserve.

Convocation is indeed a milestone is all of our lives, but it is just that, a milestone, not a finishing line. It does not mark the end of learning, it does not mark the end of honest hard work, it does not mark the end of effort, and it does not mark the end of friendship. It only means that we still have to do all that we do mentally in school, but consequences of failure are that much greater. It means that a bad presentation does not mean that you lost that 10%, but that year’s bonus or that HDB downpayment. It means greater accountability, greater responsibility, greater expectation without necessarily greater rewards.

Allow me to offer my congratulations for overcoming this great hurdle. But it is only a hurdle, one in a series, it is not the end but the beginning. You have achieved the dream your parents had for you when you were born, people who gave up so much so that we can have the life they never had. But please remember, today is not about you or me, it’s about all those who were working behind the scene to give us the best footing to begin the greatest struggle of our existence, the struggle to live a honourable life.

Good Luck Everyone.

Vernon's Nietzsche

After some exposure to Nietzsche’s work, I can understand his appeal, and his sacrifice. Nietzsche said that if one were to seek happiness, seek faith, and if where to seek truth, one must keep looking. To be ever changing, always evolving, ceaseless in change was a preamble to his Übermensch, the over man, a man who will overcome his surroundings, his God, and achieve freedom, a Godless freedom, a freedom from duty.

Nietzsche’s sacrifice was to me quite questionable, was a really a sacrifice? Or was his philosophy an attempt to manage his pain? His world was Godless, he saw his father, a man of God, suffer and die, without God, how could he have justified his suffering. His radical statement, “it is best not to have been born, and if one is born, it would be best if one dies quickly”. There was no doubt concerning his brilliance, but his premises are not perfect. His disregard for women, calling them stupid and childlike, no doubt influenced by Schopenhauer, his selfishness, he believes that the lay are beyond salvation, that he cannot flourish in their midst. He rather stays silent in their presence than try to influence their thoughts. A true hermit can remain alone even in the midst of people, such a man is Nietzsche.

Nietzsche considers philosophy as the summit of the entire scientific pyramid, it only collectively separated from science in the minds of the masses when it posed the question, what kind of knowledge of the world and life is it through which man can life the happiest (Nietzsche H.A.T.H). Knowledge like everything else in our known universe is not homogenous. There are different forms and typologies of knowledge. If one desires to seek truth, or even be able to comprehend the various truths, one must be aware of the taxonomies involved. It is at this juncture the intellectual lends her insight to the lay. One must pursue and prove that which is necessary, towards a greater truth, towards freedom. What is the point of proving a metaphysical world? It is certain that knowledge of it would be the most useless of all knowledge, more useless than knowledge of the chemical composition of water must be to the sailor in danger of a shipwreck (Nietzsche HATA). Knowing what to look for is far more crucial than the act and effort of looking.

The lay who takes appearance as reality, paradigms as Truth, they are as Nietzsche calls them, worshippers of the form. They are blind, because their eyes have not yet discovered the charm of the simplest form, hence they thoughtlessly imitate old forms, and not engaged in rigorous thinking. They have made a serious occupation out of the spinning out of forms and symbols (Nietzsche H.A.T.H).

These forms and symbols are reified by the effervescence of the masses, forged into the belief that they are Truth, and from this belief that the truth has been found out of which the mightiest sources of energy have flowed. Temples of Consumerism to Shrines of Distraction, man create a world to lose himself within, men became lōtophagoi themselves.

Within the madness that has come to take the place of normalcy, duty sneaks in insidiously. That which fetters the fastest, especially in the case of men of a high and select kind, are their duties. Duties to family, country and to Love shackle the moral and intellectual. Why? Because those who are truly intellectual are inevitably moral, to be intellectual is to be at the pinnacle of morality.

However, petty intellectuals stumble over a common pebble. Kant postulates that understanding does not come from nature, it is prescribed to nature. They make the mistake of morality. Morality must be guided by Reason, and through reason we will overcome and become the Übermensch. We as a species must empower ourselves, it is our future that regulate our today. We must live in the future in our heads so that we can find rigor in our bodies today. Reason guides morals, morals guide actions, actions shape reality.

I never expected you to know, i only expected you to ask...

Your eyes betray your smile,

Your smile betray your heart

and your heart betray your thoughts

----

when i held your hand,

it was not because i thought that the spaces

between your fingers was bothering you

----

What you ask of others,

you must demand it of yourself

----

What you cannot tolerate from others,

you must purge it from yourself

----

What it means to let go?

Why we all must learn to let go

When I am dead, I want people to remember me based on three things. How I lived, how I loved and how I learned to let go. Today when I woke up, I felt that I needed to explain what I mean by letting go.

Letting go of our past and our pain does not mean forgetting them. Forgetting is not something that we do, it is something that happens to us. I cannot will myself to forget any more than I can will myself to remember. All of us, we are the residue of our experiences, whether we remember them or not, whether can articulate them or not. It is paramount that we do not forget where we come from, those who have left indelible footprints in our lives for they all contribute to who and what we are today. Letting go does not mean that we forget, because if somehow we are reminded we would then be at the mercy of our pain once again. This way we can never truly let go. Letting go does not mean that we forget, it means we accept that the past is the past, and start to dream about tomorrow. Letting go means does not mean that we forget, it means that the episode in our lives, no matter how deep or how long it has lasted, no longer has any impact on our present selves.

After we let go, we move on. As long as I continue to hold on to my past, I cannot move on to greener pastures. I deny myself all the goodness of a future that is so real for a silver of memory.

I have had many negative experiences, I have lied, cheated and stole, lost friends from lying, betrayed the trust of those who loved me, have been walked out on, walked away from a crying face. After every single episode I felt a regret, a great remorse, but I take a deep breath and tell myself that I must strong, let go and move on.

Because I don’t want my tombstone to say

“Here lies Vernon, who could not let go”

Why i don't like people crying.

Once she asked me if I have written anything about her. I told her that I refrain from writing about her because as far as my world is concern she does not exist. That was not the whole truth. But that is for another day. The truth of the matter is that we have come to share a great friendship, one which I treasure and hold dear to my heart, which is why the tears that stream down her face pools at the base of my heart like a cauldron of acid.

I do not know when she will read this, will she ever read this, or whether we will ever talk about this. But it is inconsequential to me, I write to the void not to her.

Sometimes, communication with this particular girl is vexing. The pain of her past has rendered her ability to be frank and direct anaemic. Her immaculate vocabulary reflects surgical precision concerning syntax and context, which she uses to express herself in the written form, via blog entries, essays and smses. Her words are are mirror, sword and shield all that the same time. Hence my motivation for penning his entry, I literally cannot speak to her face to face. When provoked, her essence will retract back into an armour she needs not don in my presence, but she dons it out of habit nonetheless, pain showing on her face, fear in her eyes. My heart weakens at such a display of vulnerability, and I reflexively back off.

It is my personal belief that souls are made of tears, cry too much and soon we will become lost to emotions and our souls would have been vaporized. I hope that this entry will squelch her reasons to shed tears, ambitious I know, considering she might never read this.

This evening we exchanged a few messages. Embedded within the rants and complains, she subliminally expresses the state of affairs of her family, how the piercing words of her brother wounded her, amongst other issues. In and by itself, the message is innocent. For no family is perfect, and no home unshakable. However, in one of her responses she mentioned how a new day would revitalize her. I never believe we should let the sun set on an argument nor should any one go to bed in tears. This is the second time she mentioned some sort of euphemism for renewal with nothing by the passage of time as the cocoon, and the new sun to break the chrysalis . Time heals all wounds, but they leave terrible scars, scars so disfiguring that they impede the mobility of those wounded. Do not believe that time change people, that is poppycock , people change people.

With this small itch at the back of my mind, I went to read her blog, and as I expected there was a short entry regurgitating an even more ambiguous version of her state of being then what was mentioned during our sms correspondence. She shared how her heart was broken and how she cried. How could those around her not see her pain I wonder? The home is the last place we should be putting up an act, one does not wear armour in one’s castle.

I bit my bottom lip as I read of her sorrow, for the tears of those whom I hold dear pains me.

No one can make you feel lousy, meek or small without your permission. But anyone can make you feel strong and powerful without even you knowing it. Select your memories, select what you want to be notable in your life, words only have impact on you if the person speaking them have a hold over you. Their opinion only matters if they matter.

The person you will be in the years to come are affected by 3 things, the books you read, the people you meet and the memories you choose to keep. Calibrate these elements and you will realize your fullest potential, and become a woman as women should be.

You bear a solitary burden only because you choose to bear it alone, not because you have to.

周杰倫 - 蒲公英的约定

与你聊不完的曾经
而我已经分不清　
你是友情还是错过的爱情

now that's song writing...

Soul Blindness

You would know the desire has left your body when all you can feel for a person is pure affection. It is indeed a strange feeling, when all of society, the entire world continuously feed you the idea that without desire, love will fizzle out. But is affection not the very fuel of humanity? Desire and lust are but the sparks, you cannot sustain a bonfire with sparklers.

When people meet, it is without a doubt a meeting of bodies. The acknowledgement of the existence of another cannot even compare to even an iota to the awareness of another. An exquisite sensation, awareness is. Mortality for example, death shadows life, our every second of life is made more precious simply because it might be our last. When we are aware of death, we become acutely aware of life. When bodies meet, they touch and soon the touch is forgotten, lost in the sea of sensations to come. The meeting of souls will leave an indelible mark in the lives of all involved. In a shallow world, a world of the visual and the carnal, we have come to lose the ability to see each other’s soul. Our eyes pick up the light, our ears pick up the vibrations in the air, but we cannot really hear and we cannot really see those who we are talking to. Hence, we are soul blind. Souls are not ghostly apparitions, intangibles spectres floating in space, Souls are who we are under what we seem to be, and we have become blind to that.

When souls meet, when they can hear and see each other, a strange thing happens. One’s empirical senses become dull, one loses the ability to see the physical flaws, the face, the hair, the poverty. A light in the dark and blind world, a beacon of hope and source of warmth; such is the foundation of friendship and the cornerstone of love.

Every single one of us walk around with a mask over our face to protect our pride, to protect our hearts, we erect walls of steel and stone. Coupled with the soul blindness of the world, is it of little wonder why relationships are so superficial.

But all is not lost. When you meet someone, when bodies meet, a dance ensues. A parry of words, and an exchange of ideas later, the acid corrodes away the masks leaving naked pride. During the vanguard, bodies try to keep the masks on; now during the aftermath souls are ripping away the walls of stone and steel.

There are two groups of people in our lives. With one group, we plan and execute elaborate schemes to keep ourselves protected from them, to keep locked down our deepest insecurities and our most sincere dreams. To the other group, we think of ways to show them our deepest insecurities and most sincere dreams. Why? Because happiness is multiplied and sadness divided when shared with those we love.

The foundation of all love should be good friendship. Parents, siblings, and lovers are no exception. We are born into families, but we choose the families we create. Deep mutual respect, open and honest communication and a clear vision for the future are important elements in a good relationship.

… to be continued

Touch

As we grow up we touch less. When I was much younger, most afternoons after school it out I would fight with my peers behind the school stage, we touched, even thought it was fists and kicks. I had a line up partner, she was the shortest girl in my class and I was the shortest boy in my class. I was a late bloomer, in some ways I guess I still am. We had to hold hands and strangely I do not remember ever feeling awkward. Even during dance lessons, our bodies touched freely like sexless little people. Society’s spell on us children is still being channelled, it’s enchantment still incomplete.

As our socialization process ossify in our minds, our body parts and those of others become enchanted. We are told and taught explicitly and implicitly many reasons why we should not behave in this way or that. We over read gestures and under value intentions out of fear of misunderstanding, but can one really misunderstand affection or concern? Invisible barriers become erected between each other, soon before long even when the tip of my toe bump into her shin I apologize, as if I broke some part of her, as if I somehow injured her self-worth.

I guess that’s why we seek intimacy with another, I would like to believe that the desire for physical contact is both animal as well as human, or the dualism unnecessary? We seek to hug and kiss without reason, hold hands and embrace freely without needing to ask permission. I used to believe when people interlock fingers was nature's way to sync pulses of two people. To feel the heartbeat of another against our chest reminds us that we are not alone in this world and should we disappear we will be missed, is there anything else we could desire?