Immediate Resonance

Oh yes, I'm determined to stay this happy as often as I can, even if it costs me money or even a few marks. You see, I've started reading Prozac Nation and find the story of a young, depressed and psychiatrically-drugged child - my story - growing up. Certain lines spoke out to me:

Phrase 1
"Happiness is an ongoing battle... I'll have to fight for as long as I live. I wonder if it's worth it."

Phrase 2
"Life was one long distraction from the inevitable... We're all going to die sooner or later, so what does it matter. That was my motto."

The most obvious insight is that this girl is more dead than dead could be. She is a zombie overwhelmed by her circumstances and, in the memoir, cutting and drugging herself on top of all her meds - not that she takes them all.

Phrase 1 depicts happiness as a fight - why!? Sure, life has a lot of competition, stress, anxiety and uncertainty, but that in-itself does not entail misery. There are existential balancers - friends, hobbies, loved ones and lovers - a rainbow painted as an equipoise. Of course, her condition is worse than mine, but I do hope she can one day muster the strength to be friends with her friends, to give love a chance. She notes that "I need love". My friends responded when I reached out to them - some harshly, others with loving tenderness. In that sense, I don't just fight for happiness, happiness also fights to get to me in the form my friends' waiting hands and open hearts.

Just hang out, eat, chat, play together and smile. Remember that a smile together is as good as a laugh alone - but you're not alone.

Phrase 2 is a fatalist stance, surrendering to the inevitable shroud of death. Well, if I don't have the religious courage to commit suicide, mortal life can either be a long, flat cloud or a sunny blue sky dotted with fluffy blue clouds - and the occasional bird twittering past. Yes, I like bird-watching, but that's besides the point. To be honest, I see the point in death: for people like us, death is the rational course. However, if I don't die, I'd damn myself to a living hell if I'd live in misery. This is why we need meaningful and enjoyable activity - careers, sports, music, reading, anything - to counter-balance the challenge of living.

What does it matter? It matters to me, that's why I fight for it, and I'll show my friends that their care has not been in vain. A hug, a handshake, true smiles exchanged. I love my friends and although some of them have hurt me before, I still need them.

Why was this post titled Immediate Resonance? Simple. It's because today's blithe outing had a simple joy that connected with me. My pals weren't free, but that's ok too. My long walks still took on their characteristic stride but with some sushi and soup in-between, the warm sun and cool malls were positively enjoyable. I brought back one CD, but that makes me very happy. I came home and listened to the music and headed off for piano - a simple day never felt so wonderful.

Prozac Nation also resonated with me from the very first paragraph, but it was a repulsive resonance. I was able to comprehend the protagonist's struggles and their parallels with mine. Her situation is graver than mine and I honor her feelings, but I feel that God - despite my agnosticism - has been kind to me and it's time I stop looking at the floor and up at the horizon.

I look to my left and see my buddies.
To the right, I see my female friends.
They are my comrades and my refuge.
I look behind and see my parents trying their best to hide my scars.
I look forward and feel the staff of effort in my hand, the canteen on my belt, the boots under my feet and I know that this is the time of my life.

I begin walking beside the rainbow, following it's colors to a special place beyond time and space to present dreams. This day is the present.

Fate's Cruel Irony

My history essays straddled the borders between a B and C, but the unseen section pulled me down. Literature was a disoriented mess, and economics was a total farce. Yet I told my psychologist that everything was dandy, and I believed that they were until the truth of the matter was apparent.

It proved one point: I have lied so well that the lines between fiction and reality have vanished. It took me forever to calculate my marks, and I bore the impression that I had regained by pre-Condition standing. That was so wrong. I've cancelled tomorrow's consultation, preferring to shy away from it again. It's for my protection actually, I don't want to have my essay and fragile mind dissected and shredded by my teacher any more than it already is.

My next appointment with my psychologist is in 3 weeks. Today's was squandered by me delusion. I don't know how to cope with the news about my lit paper. I really wish, most ardently, that I can stop fighting here and now - a protracted war is so debilitating. So what if my grades don;t fall short of others who've been attending lessons? It reflects badly on them but gives me no credit. I did not endure so much to achieve so little.

My shrink said I should give myself a pat on the back, considering how far I've come. She applauds my tenacity and diligence, but I'm my indifference speaks volumes about my resignation. I've stopped swimming, now I'm just doing my best to float on the fickle currents that buoy me to and fro to nowhere.  As usual, I'll pretend (convincingly) that the ills never happened - the marks for my history essays will become synonymous with the mid-years, even though they're not.

I wish I rest my head and hurt somewhere, maybe with someone, maybe with anyone. My parents have no faith in me, accepting the m-e-d-i-o-c-r-i-t-y spelt by my grades. No one tells me I can do better than I have done, but I need that. I need someone to have faith in me, because I have so little faith in myself. Help me, please, dear reader. I need a friend, a lover, someone dependable... because I can't depend on myself.

It's too cold alone...
Help...
Help...

More Euphemisms

Young and of weary spirit. It doesn't feel natural, healthy, or desirable in any way. The only consolation and justification is the hope of future blessings in the form of status, wealth, and security.

Take away that hope and everything crumbles. Funny how we base our endeavors on such metaphysical notions despite our rational up-bringing in a pragmatic society. I guess we all need euphemisms for emotional security and stability.

Engulf & Swallow

I keep turning to this blog when I'm down, and down I seem to be. Why? Because there is no rest against your own past. It is not a battle but a war that can only end when these two mutually antithetical forces cancel the other. Hah, see? I'm such a liar. Using academic lexicon to gloss over human pain rationalises it away, or at least appears to. It is a distraction.

I need a distraction. What? Youtube, anime, books, all light on the head. But I'm neither light-headed nor light of heart. If I could talk to my circumstances and face them eye-to-eye, this blog would serve as its face. Mere words to point to something more abstract and real than the larger world. Politics, economics, environmental issues - the great questions of this age swooning around in the public eye, a dizzying spectacle of how mankind continually plagues itself with endless ills. We fought back nature, but we've hardly progressed fighting ourselves. But I digress.

Clarity of thought is difficult when one is plagued with muddled sentiments. There is no enemy to grasp by the throat, whose face you can rearrange with hardened knuckles and taut muscles. It's not as easy as fighting someone else. Instead, the vacuum of my mind pulls me further inward. Insularity becomes a cannibalistic virus and my own little world begins to eat away at what my pills were meant to fight against. Like China, like Japan, the inner corruption weakens external defense. Wait till an imperial power (another of mankind's follies) invade and everything will crumble... but some Meiji milk and Kahlua would be opiate, allowing me to turn a blind eye to the war.

I'd like to travel with good company someday, see the world. I'd have accumulated sufficient reserves before that. I'd stay at motels with the optimum balance of budget and comfort, and the same goes for food and mementos. No, the world is too big. I'd prefer to visit certain cities - not a hurried tour - and take in the history, the culture, the land and the zeitgeist. Paris, Japan (but not urban Tokyo), Berlin, Vienna, London(?)...

I caught that lie. I'll be running from more than going to. To be rational and realistic is a torture without the means to achieve the ends prescribed by my passions. I'm tired but, as usual, I don't want to sleep. I like to believe that my days have not floated by pointlessly, so I delay (with utmost futility) the coming of the next day by sleeping late, as if absorbing the most number of hours of each waning day would delay sleep and 'therefore' the next day. I have woven interesting structures of thought, strange systems of beliefs. The conservatives will balk at it, the realists scoff at it. But I don't really care.

Well, it's been a long time since I've had suicidal sentiments. If only the antithesis could be divorced from will, I'd have no blame in my own death.

Satis House

"I am disgusted with my calling and my life"

The paint is falling off

My clothes are wearing thin

The ants are forming a colony

My mind is lost in time

I have the symbols of wealth but feel dead inside

Cheated by life, college, doctors, 'friends'

Wait, I don't have much cash left. Looks like I cheated myself too.

Entrapment

I feel trapped.

"Keep the future in its place" I said, but I am hard pressed to follow. I don't need some critical social theory to make me aware of the social forces that coerce me into following certain paths. It's not just academic pressure, or the implications it has on social status and access to a varsity education. My grades now will affect future employment and this, too, puts on the pressure.

My illness, or Condition, isn't helping. My social circle continues to shrink as circumstances compel me to pull out social engagements for practical reasons. Academically insecure and socially isolated, I can't help but feel as if I'm trapped in a prison of circumstances. But this island traps me too. The heat, the incessant construction noise, the hustle and bustle of life and the dead look in everyone's weary eyes all point me towards my own despair. With my foot problem, I can't even vent my frustration through physical activity. How frustrating.

"So you're an 'A' level student?"

"Yes"

"Which JC?"

"Nanyang JC"

"Oohhh!"

The declaring my student identity and the 'oh' of recognition it elicited was gratifying. Physiotherapy was more therapeutic in the psychological arena rather than the podiatric. Then my exam papers were returned. Othello was 1 mark short of a 'B', poetry was a mess. I was too agitated during these 2 papers and subsequent sittings were better thanks to my trusty 3-month-old MP4 - which recently failed on me (that had a depressive effect; I can't spend so much so soon).

I want to buy some happiness. I want to buy new sai to supplement my training. I want to import my favourite singer's albums from the US. I bought nice new clothes but have no occasion to wear them. I want to buy an iPod so that the songs I rip onto my macbook will play. I want to buy some Kahlua and mix it with Meiji milk. I want to buy a bottle of Absolut and mix it with apple juice. I want to buy a fancy new slide handphone with fancy features that will make me smile. I want to buy Romance volume 2 & 3 to keep my romantic side alive in these despondent times.I want to do all this - and maybe more - but I don't have the money to. Nor will I ask anyone for it.

One item only, I must choose. A restriction - self-imposed - to assuage a guilt that accuses me of not deserving anything, because my high academic aims (where did I get them?) are too lofty for reality. Life is in shambles. I reiterate my constant wish: "to die, to sleep - no more".

'Tis not nobler to to take up arms against an endless sea of struggles; he robs himself that spends a bootless grief. But yet conscience makes cowards of us all. If only I had Nietzschean notions of divine morality.

Trampled

I realise that I've no one to turn to when others trample on my sentiments.

There was this girl a at friend's party whom I found very captivating. On my 'happy' blog (is that a lie too?) I posted a few paragraphs describing my romantic fantasies. Then came two anonymous spammers who told me to stop "acting like shakespeare or a poet" and "it will never come true". I never thought it would come true, nor was I trying to 'act' like an artist. I wrote what I wrote because it was a beautiful dream to me, but it seems that some people read meaning where there is none. Why would they get so agitated over my imaginary persona?

I think they were her friends. These spammers said "she's older than you". So? The rest don't know my real age. But someone else said I needed to stop dreaming and "get back to school", which suggests that they know me. How is that possible? Or maybe they read my previous posts about school. In any case, I was surprised how sensitive I was to their sharp comments. I was surprised at my confrontational attitude towards the whole issue. If they said it to my face, I would've started an argument or disfigured them on the spot. I was calm enough to give a rational reply on the tagboard, but I wanted to strike them - even if they were girls.

(It is fallacious to expect gender equality while treasuring 'chivalrous' preferential treatment. If we are to be kind and loving, let it come from our faculties of love instead of some frivolous social contrivance.)

It looks like my past and my illness has scarred my self-esteem beyond repair. Being misunderstood, so wronged, is so... hurting. Tenacity, oh Jesus, please give me the strength to surpass my flaws and hone my strengths. Amen.

Inspiration at Borders

Dispositional-Situational Totality

Dispositional:

1. Physical Health

2. Biography

3. Mental state

Situational:

1. Economic & financial

2. Social location

3. Prospects

4. Nuclear social location (?)

5. Autonomy and obligations

Collective conscience is a myth. All there are are multiple overlapping webs of belief enforced or perpetuated by a narrow ruling class and modifications to the sum confluence of these webs are contingent on power symmetries between groups or individuals. Personal liberty has an inverse causal(?) correlation with cultural homogenity because individual deviance is not penaised - it may even be respected on equal par with antecedent paradigms.

Culture = common practices within a particular social loci(?)

Chinese = "Jews of the East" - Phibun Songkhram

Ethnic and cultural loyalties provided a more intrinsically appealing basis for national identity than the modern state system, based on complex ideological foundations imported from 'alien' societies.

In South-East Asia (SEA), Marxist class conflict is entangled with ethnic conflict between native races and 'alien' ones. Prior to independence, the native races have always occupied an economically inferior position compared to the economically dominant white colonials. After independence, alien economic hegemony persisted as the Chinese became the economically dominant ethnic group in every South-East Asian country. Attempts to transfer ownership of the economy to "real natives" or Bumiputeras, such as Indonesia's Benteng Program or Malaysia's New Economic Policy (NEP) were circumvented by "Ali-Baba" arrangements where businesses would be registered under the names of Bumiputera while Chinese businessmen called the shots.

These conditions resulted in widespread ethno-economic conflicts in various forms. Malaysia experienced racial riots in 1969, Chinese in Indonesia had to relocate or surrender their businesses (PP 10/1959) and those that refused faced harsh repression. Such xenophobic tendencies even resulted in attempts to 'naturalise' the alien races via cultural genocide or forced assimilation. Thai and Indonesian Chinese were forced to take on Thai- and Indonesian- sounding names respectively, although the latter went so far as to forbid all public expressions of Chinese culture resulting in the closure of many temples, Chinese-language schools and the prohibition of public displays of Chinese script as part of the 1967 "Basic Policy for the Solution of the Chinese Problem".

I've become very adept at lying.

Tenacity

Even ms. cricket cannot comprehend it fully. My tenacity, and God, are the guardians of my dreams.

~

I smile because the exams are over. I can enjoy myself.

I am sad because the exams are over. The loneliness sets in as my intellectual 'distractions' relinquish the spotlight.

I can't cry, although I wish I could. Crying alone makes things worst doesn't it?

Ms. cricket is sleeping. I guess I have my weaknesses too. At least my pills will swoon in my brain, sending me into oblivious sleep.

Come morning, I will realise there's no one next to me. My bed would be a pleasant grave. Oblivion is such a comforting word.

Will her hands and heart be as soft in my dreams? She can give an assuring warmth or stab with an icy spike. I've seen her do it, felt her do it.

I'm used to being the powerful one.

(I used to be the powerful one)