Credits: esotericwhale.com
It seems as if the gears of my life have jammed. I’m not moving forward. I’m not making a real difference to anyone. I’m just living my selfish life like a typical fathead. Nothing is happening.
Everyday is like yesterday.
I try to convince myself that it’s just a phase.
We are so ignorant. I’m so angry. There’s so much shit happening in the world. And we all let it happen.
I’m reeling in shock from what I’ve just read about what’s happening in West Africa. Well, yes, I love current affairs and TIME magazine and all that wordy crap. And yes I’m a dork. But moving on.
You may think “Yeah, yeah, they have no food, no water, they are skinny, they can’t read and there’s AIDS. Can you tell me something that I don’t already know?”
But this more than that. It’s not just sad or heart-wrenching. It’s scary.
Everyone’s involved in this. And the scary thing is that we don’t know it.
This seems pretty ridiculous and heavy. It shouldn’t be on the average person blog. But I can’t help it. I’m so disturbed. I’m going to write an entry here soon about this. You have been warned.
Ever since my estrogen has been able to control my feelings, I’ve been playing with fire and getting burnt again and again. It brings me to the top of the world when the rush comes on, the heady feeling when a guy looks you in the eye. And you know that it’s more than just a look.
But I have fallen again and again for people who toy with my emotions, and then discard me.
Like how I came to know about someone who has hooked up after hanging on to me for so long.
And how, upon reflection, I realise that it’s not the first time I’ve been so caught up in the moment that I forget there’s no ground beneath me at all.
Then the bubble bursts and I plummet and I pick myself up. Only to be swept away again by that smile, that touch, those words. Cycle repeats.
Heartbreak heartbreak heartbreak. There’s only so much I can take.
I guess this is where my cynicism comes in handy. Let me switch back to my asexual mode, take a step back, and laugh at the folly of hormone-induced “love”.
I’m just unlucky, I guess. Now where’s my tissue.
My posts here are getting erratic and my last post was so measly. It’s not that I’ve got nothing to bitch about. Rather it’s been the opposite—so many things have been happening around me that I’m losing focus.
Thoughts, which were previously as clear as crystal to me, have become hazy ghosts that flit around briefly in my head before dissolving into my medulla. I know I’ve got something—or actually many things—to write about. But when I stare at the blank “New Post” screen it stares right back and the blinking cursor taunts me and I ask myself why I am even at WordPress in the first place.
So the question is: To blog or not to blog? Should I consciously sit down and force myself to come up with something? Or should I just treat my blog as somewhere I go to only when I feel like it?
Of course most people would argue that blogs are for penning your personal original material. So why bother forcing yourself? For a while, I did just that and I didn’t post for a few months. I felt as inarticulate as Jessica Simpson, for whenever I wanted to post, a few naïve and ugly sentences would come out.
But then a gnawing sense of heaviness grew within me and before I knew it, I kept going back to my blog and staring at it. Clicking through the stagnant pages, I felt that some part of me was withering.
Furthermore, people were leaving me messages asking me to update my blog. Friends wondered if I was having some sort of emotional withdrawal. I missed sharing my verbose essays, no matter how wordy/eccentric they were, with people who actually gave a damn and read my crap. And while people gave a damn and kept coming back, I didn’t give a damn and I left a gaping silence.
And so I think I do have a responsibility to update, and in a sense compel myself to write. I want to go back to the old days when I could bitch on and on about anything at all. I never want to be handicapped inarticulate again. So here I am, trying to fill the silence.
Kurt Cobain, frontman of Nirvana
I recently received a belated Christmas gift (thanks, Fred) and it was Nirvana’s Greatest Hits collection. I have always had a special fondness for Nirvana and their music, simply because their music was so raw and honest. Not your typical screamo-emo fare you get on radio today, by juvenile bands attempting to sound tortured, but stripped-down bitterness that soars above the music and into your soul.
I listened to the tracks late at night, alone in bed, beginning with “You Know You’re Right,” where Kurt hisses the word “pain” in one long, murderous breath, coupled with Krist Novoselic’s thumping bass and Dave Grohl’s angry drums. Over 15 tracks, Kurt chronicles the various setbacks in his life: a broken home (as vividly depicted in “Sliver”), a tumultous love life (in “About a Girl”), and the cloying mix of sarcasm and delusion that was Kurt’s inner soul (a bittersweet, unplugged “All Apologies”).
The standout track, for me, was “The Man Who Sold The World.” it was a cover of David Bowie’s song, but only a man like Kurt could connect with the despair and loneliness of the song with his searing vocals. He was nearing the crossroads, the climax of frustration and quiet defeat, where neither making music, shooting dope, Courtney Love, or pretty much anything on Earth could fill the hole.
And on April 8, 1994, Kurt created another hole for himself. This time, it was on his head. Kurt was found dead with a shotgun in his hand. Suicide.
It never fails to amaze me, how these rich rock stars with everything they can possibly think of having,still end up depressed and unsatisfied. While common folk get by with less than 10% of what rock stars earn. I can rattle off a list of tortured souls: John Frusciante(RHCP), Ian Curtis(Joy Division), Elvis, Sid Vicious (Sex Pistols), Michael Hutchence (INXS)…
For a while I was baffled by their reason to commit suicide. Then when i was slipping into my agnostic-depressive phase, i accepted their suicides as something brave, something peaceful and even beautiful, for life seemed so painful. But after getting back on my feet because of God, suddenly I saw it all so clearly.
Because their rock wasn’t the real Rock.
they looked to music as the ultimate salvation. they fed their hatred with more poison and channelled it towards their songwriting. they waited in vain for something, someone, to save them. at the end of the day, reclining in a posh Hilton hotel suite with an assortment of booze, drugs and women at their disposal, they saw only emptiness. it was all nothing. but they couldn’t find out was missing, and they took the easy way out.
For a while i thought rock music held it all too. I was wrong. for i was looking for the wrong rock. I failed to see God and his open arms, a father waiting for the prodigal child’s return. For it is written: “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Psalm 18:2).
Maybe Kurt could have found peace at last if he read this:
“Come to me, all of you who are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke and put it on you, and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in Spirit, and you will find rest. For the yoke I will give you is easy, and the load I will put on you is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
His life was meaningless, because at the centre of it all, he chose to put worldly things like music at the top. He forgot that living for the world wasn’t enough; he forgot live for himself, for his soul. And once again, maybe he could have identified with:
“Then, brothers, let us leave the flesh (i.e worldly wants) and no longer live according to it. If not, we will die. Rather, walking in the Spirit, let us put to death the body’s deeds do we may live.” (Romans 8:13)
Now, if only someone could’ve shared these with him.
If you’re also going through hard times and you think, “Hey, If God’s do good, why is all this shit happening to me?” ,well, fret not. I was once like you too. But always remember: Life is fleeting. It doesn’t last forever. The world is not a place where you put your faith and belief in, because I can guarantee you you’re gonna be disappointed. people change, friends cheat, and as Murphy says: “If anything can go wrong, it will.”
However, there’s one person you can put your faith in, and that’s God. He doesn’t fade away like some rock tune. Live your life in the quiet confidence that He will work things out in the end, somehow, even in ways we don’t understand. Stop trying to understand stuff for a while; you’ll realise life is alot easier if you stop analysing, rationalising and arguing. Be still and trust Him in simple, childlike belief.
And then life gets alot simpler. And peaceful.
Rest in peace, dear Kurt Cobain.
today was one of those extraordinary days where the real things in life just hit me with a magnum force.
in school, i learnt that someone i looked up to had just lost a father. just yesterday, he was smiling and joking, blissfully unaware and, i believe, unprepared for what was to come. and today, he was no-where to be seen, until i heard the news and a cold feeling crept into my heart.
then, i switched on my phone later in the afternoon, only to be greeted with one jubilant message: Joy, a friend, had given birth. it was late last night, to be exact. as i read details of the little one’s name, weight, height and time of birth, i paused and reflected on the miracle of life, the act of bringing forth life.
on my way home today, i saw a public display of affection. nope, it wasn’t between two besotted teenagers. a handicapped girl, with cerebral palsy, was sitting beside her mother, who was holding a little toddler in her arms. the toddler was staring wide-eyed at her sister, who was drooling and twitching. with effort, the sister heaved her body and faced her little sibling. then she slowly raised one arm and stroked the little one’s cheek lovingly. unable to speak, she merely cooed and smiled at her little sister, who responded by gurgling in delight.
there was a small tear threatening to spill out of my eyelids as i watched them. the toddler, as yet uncorrupted by disgust or shame, did not flinch even cords of saliva were smeared in her face. as handicapped that she was, she knew that the tiny bundle in her mother’s arms was her sister, someone special to her. the act of stroking her sister’s cheek was so poignant, and i was reminded of my own sister. the sister that i can think of, but i cannot touch.
i know i’ve added two pages about the things i want to do, the materialism that needs to be satisfied. but once again, today i am reminded of the more important things in life.
being with my mother, spending time with her, appreciating her while she is still alive.
being reminded of the miracle of childbirth, and the powerful connection between mother and child from the time the foetus is embedded in the womb, till the point when a red, furry head emerges after hours of labour.
and the meaning of true love, showing someone you care that you truly love them before it’s too late.
it doesn’t require flowers or a restaurant dinner. Do yourself a favour today. just go up to that person, give him a genuine smile and hug. there’s nothing to lose.
My previous post would be a precise example of why, ultimately, women are a notch below men.
A woman is a worrier. She thinks about life, love and death while changing her underwear. She pines when Roger Federer loses to Rafael Nadal. She feels every possible emotion there is to feel. Late at night, she lies on her bed and thinks of her ex-boyfriend. Who is he with now? Does he think about me too? A bunch of other pink fluffy thoughts roam around in circles in her head.
A woman will cry in the shower. As she lathers her arms she will think about a bitter argument, the humiliation, the pain. Tear ducts are activated. Some ease off by bingeing on chocolates, reading some trashy tabloid, or getting on the phone for a good ol’ bitching session. Nothing beats gossiping.
On the other hand, a man is a highly simplified creature. Punch me, and i’ll punch you back. Then we’ll go for beer afterwards. Read a weepy romantic novel? No thanks, i’m better off with my comics. Had a bad day at work? Yeah, but gimme my Xbox and EPL and i’ll be okay after that.
When a man chops a pig, he simplifies the situation. He pictures it as simply dismantling a Leggo set with a knife. Chop, chop, chop. When a woman chops a pig, she complicates the situation. She sees the blood, the internal organs spilling out in one bloody lump. She smells the raw meat. She sees its dead eyes. And then her mind starts wandering and the task of chopping the pig becomes something deep and complex.
When asked what he thinks about when he dives into one of his record-breaking swims, Michael Phelps gave a shrug and said: “Absolutely nothing.”
Absolutely everything. That’s my business. The question in my previous post surfaced after i saw one lousy picture of Amy Winehouse locking arms with her good for nothing husband, Blake Fielder Civil. They seemed like your normal loving couple doing Sunday morning shopping, except that this couple was very far from normal. Why on Earth did Amy marry Blake, the man who would introduce her to hard drugs and mess her life? Why did she still tearfully plead for his release from prison? “because I love him,” Amy would say. In her drug crazed condition, does she have the faintest idea of what real love is anyway? Does this concept of real love exist? And so i started musing.
There! What goes on in the mind of a woman. Here i was, spending precious minutes of my priceless life thinking about a druggie singer and her twisted marriage, when Amy Winehouse had probably never ever heard of Singapore. I was musing about the marriage and life of someone i didn’t even know. From that single tabloid shot, my mind had shot off in different directions like National Day fireworks.
I truly admire the male mind. As logical and realistic as Leggo blocks. All this female mental chaos is going nowhere. I hereby resolve to engineer my thinking, to fill my head with facts and figures, to think one single thought and nothing else. A male-minded female. Hopefully by the end of my life, if you punch me, i’ll punch you back, and then we can both go for drinks after that. no hard feelings.
Hang on. Then i’ll have nothing to blog about anymore.
let’s face it. practically 99.9% of movie buffs who watch The Dark Knight are not particularly crazy about Batman, no matter how smoulderingly suave Christian Bale is. Nor is everyone drooling over the 500-in-one Batmobile, nor his skin-tight Batsuit, nor his Batpowers. the film might as well be re-titled The Joker, cos that’s what i paid eleven bucks for. when i heard that this was Heath Ledger’s swansong, i knew i had to watch it. and my eleven bucks were a great investment.
throughout the movie, i lay reclined with my eyes half-closed, only sitting straight alert and attentive when the Joker, the villian, took the screen. he was the villain’s villain. he was cold, ruthless and funny. i also picked up some make-up tips for Halloween from him. at the end, i was rooting for him to win. standing beside the Joker, Batman’s ridiculous, crotch-gripping suit seemed very worthless. batman may emerged victorious in the script, but in the minds and hearts of all who’ve watched it, batman was left in the cold, whimpering, gripping his black plasticised cock. the Joker was magnificent. He was the true winner.
“you complete me,” Joker tells Batman, sadistically borrowing a sappy line from Jerry Maguire. oh yes, the Joker completes all of us. and heath’s life wouldn’t be fittingly completed if he didn’t at least get an Oscar nomination.
i’ve watched a few of Heath’s films, including Brokeback Mountain, Candy, Casanova, Four Feathers and Ned Kelly. i can tell you that going from golden gay cowboy, to promiscuous womanising hottie to insane psychotic is not easy. now, months after his death, staring at his ghostly face filling the entire screen in the cinema, i knew what Hollywood had lost. a true actor, the last of its kind. here’s to you, heath.
The Joker
golden gay cowboy- brokeback mountain
casanovaheath ledger
How would you know if the world was rotting?
I always believed that i would lead the sheltered life, the simple life. Safely cocooned in my sleepy little housing estate, tucked away in an idyllic corner of sterile Singapore, i watched the world change through the tinted glasses of television, the internet and the newspaper. I sympathized with the tsunami victims, for about 5 seconds, and then i switched channels. I watched Cops on TV, and as the men in blue safely nabbed some drug-fuelled burglar with trusty handcuffs, i thought to myself : ‘Man, I’m so glad in i’m living in Singapore. i don’t have to worry about burglars with heroin pumping in their veins, wielding a knife, breaking into homes.” Sure, the rest of the world, with all its crooks and disasters and what-have-you, made TV-time interesting and entertaining. But when the transmission had ended and it was time to switch the TV off, i thought nothing I’d seen would happen to me.
As things started to change around me, when my housing estate became frequented by police cars and thugs, when the first burglary struck the house two floors above mine, i continued to think that such stuff were unreal, it was only a little disturbance, that’s all. Such stuff only happened on TV. Things would go back to normal, and i could continue to watch the rest of the world get into all sorts of problems, like a spectator watching people getting eaten by lions at a Roman carnival.
How would I know if the world was really rotting? I found my answer in two ex-schoolmates and a lift lobby.
Enter: a couple. They look weary. The husband smokes vigorously, jabbing the lift button impatiently. In his hand is a bag containing diapers and milk powder. Milk powder’s getting expensive these days. The heavily-tattooed wife tries to coax her wailing infant by stuffing a milk bottle in her mouth, but the little one doesn’t fall for the trick. Another bundle of joy is on the way, showing up conspicuously under the wife’s tight tube top. They wait for the lift, pregnant silence between them. upon reaching home, the one that they share with his parents, they’d probably argue. But right now, he needs a smoke.
I am behind this couple. My face is oily after a day at school. In my hands is my Biology textbook. My exams are on the way, and it shows up conspicuously as dark eye circles. On reaching home, the one that i share with my mom and my junk, i’d probably take a bath. But right now I’m hungry.
There is nothing unusual about this entire situation. The one thing that stood out like a sore thumb was the fact that this couple would both turn 16 this year. Another thing that made it almost unreal was that they were both my ex-schoolmates. As i got into the lift with them, there was an awkward silence as they avoided eye contact with me. there i was, concerned about feeding my growling stomach, and there they were, concerned about feeding their child.
about three weeks ago, i was to witness the husband getting marched into a police car, handcuffed. My mother says that his drug habits came back.
And then i wondered about the sixteen-year old girl straddling two mouths to feed, buying diapers while her friends bought new clothes.
Enter: the lift lobby. Strewn with litter all the time. One day i decided to take a look at the litter, to find out what it comprised of. I knew that a group of gangsters congregated there around midnight, talking (and generating) trash and making noises like animals in love. What do gangsters eat? I decided to take a closer look.
Besides your usual suspects, like broken beer bottles, empty Ruffles packets, chewing gum, tissue paper and lumps of green viscous fluid, i noticed something strange.
There were several syringes and bits of aluminium foil.
Now, i’m sure these gangsters aren’t using the syringes to squirt water at each other, they’d get a water gun. And aluminium foil is useless for a barbeque if you cut it up into small squares.
I see the maggots now, turning blue and green into brown shit. in a world where getting pregnant is fashionable and where sex and drugs should be included in your list of things to do today, anything goes. I try to keep sane.
before i begin, two words: Apology. Warning.
apology: I haven’t been updating, and this will be likely situation with the onslaught of the killing season. go ahead, sue me.
warning: jennyspeaks will be updated pretty erratically from now on, but hang in there, my strawberries.
pigs have become a central theme in my mind now. pigs, pork, and particularly, killing pigs. as i reflected last night on what my life has evolved to, this quote surfaced:
“‘Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Bash him in! Spill his blood!’”
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies,
this is what my life has become: an endless war-dance, a savage hunting trip, where armed with textbooks, ten-year series assessments, thick piles of exam papers and even thicker expectations from everyone, i tread cautiously into the jungle, ready to kill the pig. the pig, in this case, is the upcoming O-level exam, a national torture, the culmination of ten years of full-time studying.
so i am told kill it, to crack its skull open, to suck as much marks as i can from it. everyday in class, i sit back and muse at the bowed heads scribbling furiously at yet another mock exam paper. in my mind, the white uniforms disappear and the pens are replaced by spears. the sound of pen on paper, the friction, becomes the frenzied sharpening of spear against stone. in the distance, the teacher becomes the tribe chief, and he utters the battle cry. this is civilised savagery.
this is the killing season.
you could also compare it with Darwin’s evolution theory. the survival of the fittest. the weakest fall down and get trampled by other charging savages, never to rise again. (even if they do, either their bones or their spirit is broken. usually it’s both.) far ahead in the horizon, lies the pig. fatty, tender, moist, and just begging to be skewered.
but do i want the pig? no. i’m just running with the tribe, because if i stop, i’ll get trampled over. do like pork? technically and literally, no. in real life, pork only tastes good when it’s fried (but then again, even a remote control would taste good when fried). the pork of the hunting trip, the pork everyone is running after, the pork that everyone wants a slice of, is something i wish i didn’t have to eat.
i’m too tired to care about the harvest, the bounty. so what if the pig that i eventually spear will give me sweet roasted meat? when i finally hunt it down, all i’ll see in my hands are blood. when i finally cook it, i’ll be too tired to appreciate the sweet pork of success. i’ll just lie in a corner and chew it like any another piece of food.
hey you. yes, you. the one staring at your miserable computer monitor now. don’t you feel that sometimes, you’re actually a savage? you’re hunting down your own pig, whatever it may be, somewhere in the forest? you put on your war-paint, you grab your weapons, and you get out there into the wild. but don’t you ever feel that Hey, what the hell am i running for? what the hell do i want anyway? and why, when i finally get it, there’s still a piece of the puzzle missing?
but there’s one way to make it all better. a tribe is not a tribe without the members doing it all together. a barbarian behaves like one because everyone around him is a barbarian too. so c’mon people. let’s all put on our war paint and sharpen our spears. then we’ll charge together, chanting ‘Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Bash him in! Spill his blood!’ as we run.
whatever we’re running for, anyway.
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Hi! I'm Jennyspeaks.
