a thought collection: 29 April 2007

Saturday, 05 May 2007

procrastination

sometimes when it is really bad and i really shouldn't and i have tests coming up and i have deadlines to meet and people i should see but don't... it is at times like these that i use my favorite little tactic of sudden antiprocrastination initiative...

i write a 'to do' list of things i have already done in the last few days (with perhaps the rare inclusion of a few new items) and slowly and methodically put ticks next to words and phrases. every new tick makes me feel increasingly productive until by the end of ticking of all my done items i feel like i have been admiringly busy and need a break.

some chirp. some grunt

I can actually get quite ticked off with the birds outside my window! There are some that sing the most beautiful songs and I love to awaken to the peaceful, melodious choir singing outside my window...

Then there are other days. Days like today... when i don't know what type of mismanaged gene pool has allowed these certain birds to be naturally selected. Clearly singing is no prerequisite for staying alive or evolving. They grunt, for goodness sake. And I can't tell you how much this affects my mood waking up in the mornings, perhaps the entire day!

So silly.

But why can some birds sing and others can't? And why do I care?
(Please ignore the fact that I stared the above two sentences with conjunctions- i hear that with blogging anything goes...)

I'm reminded of Mark Twain when he said, "Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to." The animal world is quite different from our world... it used to be that people would argue the similarities between the animal world and the human race and monitor the ways that we were like the chimpanzee and how how it was like us. Nowadays, however, it seems people are more interested in comparing humans with computers. "Is Deep Blue human?"

The point is, we compare. We compare ourselves to ourselves and even to other species!

I'm quite sure the bird doesn't care how it sings. It's me that cares and thinks to myself, "If I was a bird that sang like that i wouldn't open my beak!" It is me that compares the birds to one another. It is me that blushes. It is me who has the curse of comparison.

Perhaps I'm not part of the most evolved species. I'm sure the bird who grunts thinks ill of the man who sings badly and therefore won't open his mouth afraid to look stupid. He will wonder what form of low-life would care about such things.

Friday, 04 May 2007

ambivalence

she pushes
i pull
she runs
i wait

wishing more than all collective hope
that we could synchronise
i'm forced to wonder if square is the round
if confusion is the new niche
if refurbishment is the new destroyer

progress is costly
but how much will it cost me still?
stagnation costs more i guess
so i am spent either way

they tell me
your whole life is ahead of you
but if 22 can't be caught
then why wait for the promise of the rest?

in despair i wait
but claim the day i must
when see i another day like this one?
when want i another life besides mine?

the things i say are the things i'm not sure about
and the things im sure of are the things i can't have
ambivalence they call it
ambivalence it is

Thursday, 03 May 2007

blogger convert

so what i have done is to transfer all my posts to blogger and to pretend that myspace did not actually happen. still trying to sort out time zones and everything- that is actually why i am posting this- to see if the post time is accurate. in other words, you should stop reading cos i really have nothing to say here... you know i first learnt that i could ramble on forever back in the days of the pen and paper. i used to journal (well, i actually still do) in this book and often i would finish a thought and there would still be some page left over. however, because it was my desire that i start every day on a clean page (metaphorical of course) i used to babble on about nothing just so that the page could get finished and i could go to bed. problem is, this screen is way longer than my book page (and it has a scroll bar!) and therefore i will have to draw this to a close... later

the weather cock

well, i was hoping to get around to writing more on the life of gandhi, but as of yet i have made no progress. sorry about this. soon tests will be over and i will be able to do all the research i please. but until then i leave with you a great thought from another eastern thinker by the name of Kahlil Gibran:

"the weather cock"
... said the weather-cock to the wind, "how tedious and monotonous you are! can you not blow another way but in my face? you disturb my god-given stability."
and the wind did not answer. it only laughed in space.

my take: i guess life sometimes blows in our faces... and we complain thinking that life was not meant to do this, or that life is somehow unreasonable for blowing in our faces. truth is - life does what it wants. it is in the face of life that we must live. who really cares what is 'meant to' or 'not meant to' happen... life certainly doesn't.