Just a Random Thought

I don't get it. The examples are so random. But why would we want random labels? The whole point of labeling is to make it all that much less random, right? Which makes me think- the whole 'random is cool' thing, that's weird too. Because aren't they also about the 'searching for the meaning of life' thing as well? And those two are just at opposition with each other. To make things random would be to strip them of their meaning, right? Everything is coincidental, happenstance, an accident. There would be no common ties, no purpose, no meaning. And so, you enjoy randomness. You seek to surround yourself in it (for reasons that are inexplicable, or perhaps not, we'll talk about this later) And yet you lament the lack of meaning in your life. Is it any wonder why you can't find what you say you're looking for?

So why is randomness a state that is desirable? We've already established it's at odds with your whole search for I need/want to find life's greater purpose/mission. So why?

And here's my amateurish attempt at psychoanalysis.

Because you are not equipped to handle meaning. You're not ready to find the answer to the questions you ask. The answers which, by the way, are not in the places you look, and are in all the places you don't.

You deliberately blind yourself with your randomness, because the meaning that is there, you don't want to find. You sabotage yourself, essentially. Because something in you is desperate to retain your illusions. It's strange. You're so idealistic - refusing to settle for less than perfect, childishly insisting that it must be Just So before it can even begin to be - that you style yourself a cynic because logically you tell yourself perfection is impossible and hence resign yourself to a life of pessimism and glass-is-half-empty perspectives simply because what you've got has a few chips in it.

You sabotage yourself because something in you knows that the minute you relinquish your idealism/cynicism, the only thing there is left for you is reality. There's no more of what could be/should be/would be/can't be, there's only what is. And that is something you can't/won't handle. Because you are still smart enough to know that responsibility waits for you, and you steel yourself against it, shrouding yourself in the excuse of being lost.

It would be laudable if you were aware of all this, but it's laughable because you're not.

Ever stood in a crowd,

in the midst of all your friends,

yet never felt more alone?

Maybe its because only you know yourself,

only you understand what no one else can fathom,

only you feel those things that evaporate before anyone else feels;

no one except you yourself.

Maybe because you're tired of explaining your ways to others,

or how you see a star when everyone else is blinded in darkness,

how every wish; you hope its your lucky last.

Even if it was just a vague, flittery promise of the unexpected..even if..

all the regret in the world begins with the word if.

When I first left home, it was a sense of adventure. Maybe, adventure is not the right word. Curiosity, perhaps. The feeling of not knowing what lies ahead. The joy of embarking on a path where the destination is not clear. To break away from everything that you once thought you would do, and carve out your own path in the world. To pluck yourself out from your comfortable surroundings and throw yourself into the world of the unknown. Do you remember the song, “Confidence” in Sound of Music, that Maria sings on her way to the abbey to the Von Trapp house for the first time? If airlines officials would let me skip and sing, perhaps I would have sang the same words too:

“What will this day be like? I wonder.

What will my future be? I wonder.

It could be so exciting to be out in the world, to be free

My heart should be wildly rejoicing..”

As I grew up past the irrational teens and became more comfortable with my place in the world, childish curiosity gave way to someting else. The sense of adventure didn’t exactly fade away, but it wasn’t curiosity and adventure that led me on. It was a sense of freedom. The freedom to be away from everything. The freedom to do what you want. The freedom to know that your actions are your concern and only yours. The ultimate sense of unaccountability, if you may. Let me not glorify it - the honest truth may be that it is just a run-away attitude.

The amazing feeling of walking into a place where you know absolutely no one, where you are as anonymous as the dust on the ground, where without the passport in your bag or the dog tag on your neck, post-mortem identification would be an impossible feat - that feeling, if you don’t know it yet, is one you want to experience, at least every now and then.

Age brings with it, pragmatism. Reality and responsibility eventually nudge their way into the reluctant and well guarded fortress and claim their space. Nostalgia is a sign of leaving your youth behind. And you miss home. You find yourself with questions to be answered. Thoughts to be thought. Why am I here? Do I belong? Should I go home? Philosophy gives way to practicality. When the scales of the world are tipping, when the land of opportunity is calling, what is that still keeps in the old world? The answer is not so easy anymore, but I am still here. And here’s why.

Love is strange. It makes you feel like there is no one else in the world. And something this beautiful has to be unique. I bet no one else has ever felt this way before.

But then why are there are so many amazing poets out there who seem to have read my mind and said it better than I could have imagined? Why do some songs seem to have been written just for me? Every once in a rare while, why do I come across a story that relentlessly tugs at my heart strings?

Maybe the joy is more beautiful because the world knows it too. When I flit and float happily the morning after and the old lady at the bus stop gives me a knowing smile, maybe I feel happier? Not because the world knows I am happy, but the world joins me in being happy. We all know the same happiness and the same sorrows - and its those connections that we feel - across the borders, across cultures, across languages - that makes us feel at home. No matter where we are.

Bury this verse

for it torments me

Whisper it to the wind

it doesn’t care.

I want this game. Bookopoly. And I don’t even like games. Seriously, I don’t. Board games and me, they are not a great mix. Scrabble is an exception. But other than Scrabble, board games for me are more like bored games. But look at this new game I have discovered.

Here is a brief description of what goes on, in Bookopoly:

Roll the dice and advance to Read. Collect Bookstores and trade them in for Libraries. Who knows! You may soon be elected President of the Book Club or you may be tossed out of the game for three turns and sent to WATCH TV!

But I have a dilemna. No one to play with!

Like none of my friends are bookish enough to want to play such a game with me.I need better friends. More bookish friends. (If any of my pseudo-illiterate friends are reading this, I am sorry, but seriously, you really need to read way more.)

“O cursed fate, that hath joined me to a pack of seething unliterary mongrel-friends!” (Once again, sorry guys, but seriously, you do seethe at times!)

I feel inspired.

A hotel with its roots in Geylang, Hotel 81 is the site of unsanctioned hook-ups and hourly sex. A spectrum of ill-at-ease characters sweat, grunt and ejaculate within the confines of its paper-thin walls on a daily basis. One is just as likely to meet an unshaven Ah Pek with his two-bit mainland Chinese mistress, a bronzed NS man with his most recent prize, fumbling teenage couples terrified that their staunchly-conservative parents might find out, as well as the occasional bonafide budget tourist.

To be fair, Hotel 81 was surprisingly clean (rooms were spotless, sheets regularly changed). And pleasant with everything you needed for a quick fuck, including a heated shower, TV with remote control, packaged peanuts for sustenance, toothbrush, condoms. It was also almost unapologetically tacky (faux-Renaissance art, chintzy chairs and gothic pillars). And it was also really cheap. $30+ for 2 hours - the number of shags you can squeeze into that period is anyone's guess. Hotel 81 is definitely what most Singaporeans deem value-for-money. Or "cheap cheap good good", as they say. No need to bring your own Dettol.

Ban the Bible documents some of the smut you'll find in the Bible, ready to corrupt people's minds. So, think about all these little kids who're being forced to read stuff in the Bible, like:

"Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses." (Ezekiel 23: 19-21)

"and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of stallions." (Ezekiel 23: 21, NRSV)

"Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbor, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of the sun. For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun." (II Samuel 12:11,12)

"And Ahithophel said to Absalom, Go in unto thy father's concubines, which he hath left to keep the house, and all Israel shall hear that thou art abhorred of thy father.....so they spread Absalom a tent upon the top of the house; and Absalom went in unto his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel." (II Samuel 16:21,22)

"How shall we do for wives for them that remain?..... And the congregation sent thither twelve thousand men of the valiantest, and commanded them, saying, Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword, with the woman and the children. And this is the thing that ye shall do. Ye shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman that hath lain by man. And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgins, that had known no man by lying by any male; and they brought them unto the camp to Shiloh, and they gave them wives which they had saved alive of the women of Jabesh-gilead." (Judges 21:7,12)

"Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, as a long hind and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times." (Proverbs 5:18-19)

"Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I said, 'I will climb the palm tree. I will take hold of its fruit stalks.' Oh may your breasts be like clusters of the vine and the fragrance of your breath like apples." (Song of Solomon 7:7-8)

"And Lot went up to Zoar, and stayed in the mountains, and his two daughters with him. Then the firstborn said to the younger, 'Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and let us lie with him, that we may preserve our family through our father.'

So they made their father drink wine that night, and the first-born went in and lay with her father; and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. And it came about on the morrow, that the first-born said to the younger, 'Behold, I lay last night with my father; let us make him drink wine tonight also; then you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve our family through our father.' So they made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger arose and lay with him; and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father." (Genesis 19:30-36)

Incest, wife-swapping, rape, exhibitionism, orgies, it is obviously all stuff that a good Christian must look to for guidance.

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Asians got soul eh

Dear Lucy,

Last night I sms you to see whether you are free for a drink. Someone sms back and she is not you. She kept asking me strange questions through sms like:

1) Who are you ? How you know Lucy?

2) I ask you who are you?

3) Are you Fiona? Bitch

4) You pussymouth

5) How are you related to Lucy?

6) Lalallalalal

She also say she is your girlfriend. Then I accused her of infringing your privacy by answering sms on your behalf. Later when I called you, she says she is your girl friend as in she really is your girl friend---meaning not the normal platonic girlfriend. She say she has the right to check on you and so on and so on. I told her that she is not respecting your right by talking to her other friend like that. She kept saying its her business and she controls you etc. She also kept asking me how am I related to you and she also say I must be one of the man you fools around with. I try to scare her abit by pretending to be old uncle and I say she has no respect etc. I told her that even when I have a girl friend, I do not control my gal friend (my ex) like the way she does etc etc. Anyway my dear Lucy, I hope you understand what happen. Just in case there is any misunderstanding between us. I was quite shocked with the rude way she talk to me. Is she the lady that PUKE and drag you away that day? Hope you have a nice day. Take good care my friend.

best regards.

David

Hi, Mr Goose,

Oh, I feel piqued and resentful after reading this horribly senseless mail. In what way have you lied that you are an old man? I mean, you ARE an old-ER man! I'm flabbergasted with your account of the whole SAGA. It's apparent how you enjoy entertaining ppl like me, isn't it? can I know what you do for a living? are you a pastor? or care-giver? Evidently, you do not know Lucy well, in fact, it's way platonic than platonic itself. You goose, showed so much enthusiasm in displaying your interests, your lifestyle and publicise YOURSELF to Lucy that you forgot to mystify this whole cyber "frenship", leaving absolutely NO imagination of you! You are SO transparent that I can read you like a MAGAZINE--read and trash. Unlike books, yeah.. Why take this cyberworld so seriously?

Oh yes, I AM the drunkard on that night. Lucy and I were excited to meet you though, but hell, you're like slimeballs that simply kept calling and sms-ing her so much even when i was trying to get a grip while Lucy's helping me. Then u started to get dis-illusioned.. blah blah blah... having all those thoughts that Lucy's making a fool out of you. Now, after yr sms-es and email, it's apparent that You made a fool out of yourself. If you find me loathesome, go ahead and dislike me. wait a minute, you don't even know ME. I would have respected a solitary guy that told the facts as clearly as the emperor is naked --which you clearly did in giving the account of the SAGA. But what went wrong when the good guy (you-goose) is being foul-mouthed and trampled on? I have no idea, you are a mistake, man. To put it bluntly, you asked for it.

I don't care if I have contradicted myself. I don't care if I also affected you by my vulgarity and obscene use of language. That is not the issue today. I don't give a shit whether you say I am jealous, which I am not. I don't think I'm being malicious - it is the act of flashing, and more importantly, THE ABSURD APPROVAL SOMETHING AS WRONG AS THAT GETS FROM THE GOOSE, that I am concerned about. You are simply CHILDISH.

Being the disgustingly self-centred person I am, I'd ilke to say that Lucy's a great girl, mature and intellectual and SHE'S MINE although we are bisexual. Her prose is far too... dare I say that word again, cheam, for these stupid empty vessels who have so much to say. Furthermore, Lucy will realise that she herself is not upset over what I've written and said - on both occassions no less. And yes, it's her freedom to make friends, female and males alike, but aren't u over the edge by being so pricky by my smses? To think a grown up adult like you would actually entertain such nonsensical sms-es! Even I think I shouldnt have bothered with me at all.

I will say this in a very big font lest you miss it: I AM OK WITH IT, SHE IS OK WITH IT, WHO ARE YOU TO TALK SO MUCH?

Well, that's all I have to say with regards to your mail. Stop jumping on to the bandwagon like that, take some time and seriously meet people, not cyberians. I am not that bad, really. I do think I am a nice girl - just a little more frank and hot-headed than any other girl on the streets but essentially the same although In my speech, I've often neglected and overlooked people's feelings, thinking that I can mutter and ditch responsibility. But I am NOT SORRY. Oh goose, relax and chill. May you find other better things to do in your free time.

"For what?", you'll say. For YOUR OWN FUCKING PLEASURE. For you want to wank to her breasts, you want that nice feeling when your own selfish penis hardens. So you can imagine her in the dark room of yours, rubbing yourselves against bolsters, thinking of her as a sex object, lips around your member. Did you treat her as a human with feelings, or just an empty vagina for you to plunge your penis into eventually?

I am constantly entertained by you. keep the mails coming.

LALALALALLALALALALALALA all the way,

The Lover

25 July, 2005

*names have been changed

How crude was I, seriously?

Well, there's that clock in my room. Boy, does that sucker get loud, late at night when you're all alone. A little less deliberate, but no less maddening, is the slow tick-tock-ticckk-tocckk-ttiiicckkhh-tooocckkhhH! of the faucet-from-hell as droplets land with unexpected percussive resonance in the basin of the sink. And then there's the irritating buzz of--errrr, a skeeter? As you squash that skeeter and scratch at the one actual site of attack, suddenly it feels like you're covered with insect bites, or fleas, or some horrible skin disease, you're scratching madly at your arms and legs and belly, until at last you throw your head back and howl (again)

Persuaded

Begged

Succumbed

Entered

Stroked

Slapped

Re-entered

Chastised

Aroused

Sinister

Pleased

Shifted

Ridden

Punched

Choked

Caressed

Eyeballed

Kissed

Drenched

Held

Thrown

Held

Thrown

Gripped

Denied

Ignored

Respected

Rejected

Ejected

To fear death, or anything in the future, is to fear something we have created in our minds, or to fear the absurd.

"I use non-art materials such as books and clothes to create work which evokes a sense of dreamy melancholy or magical enchantment. I'm interested in the realm of fairy-tales and folk-legends and have been working on a series of book-works exploring these themes, externalising the pages of the book and allowing it to be read in another way.

I find the materialization of the flat piece of paper an almost magical process. As I become more involved in the making, I feel like I am creating small stage sets, inhabited by characters caught up in their own magical, whimsical and sometimes haunting journeys."

~Su Blackwell~

Alexei Sultanov

He was most famous for winning the Eighth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1989, at the age of 19. One of four Cliburn competitors from the Soviet Union in 1989, he was the youngest in the field of 38 pianists – and at 5 feet 2 inches, he also was the smallest. But once he performed his volcanic selections of Liszt, Prokofiev and Chopin, he quickly became known for his huge sound. His fingers flashed over the keys; the music thundered and whispered and groaned. When he played, he shut his eyes as if enraptured by the music. During his performance, a piano string snapped, but Alexei continued to play on. And, when the music ended, he bowed low to the audience, then took a backward step and pointed to the piano as if to share the spotlight with a fellow performer. Audiences raved about his originality and the jury's decision was unanimous, but critics were split in their response.

At the age of 6, Alexei Sultanovbegan piano lessons in Tashkent with Tamara Popovich. Alexei was a student of Lev Naumov at the Central Music school and again at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he completed his musical studies. Even after a severe stroke paralyzed his left side, Sultanov continued to play the piano with his right hand with his wife, cellist Dace Abele, accompanying him with the left hand. He died June 30, 2005 at the age of 35 in Fort Worth.

Read more on Alexei Sultanov @ Chicago Tribune

I was moved to tears after watching the videos on Chicago Tribune. Never before had I heard a live performance with such spontaneity, confidence, wisdom, intelligence and innovation-natural, without a trace of ostentation and deception. Alexei Sultanov obviously abused his body and talent early on, but it is amazing that he was able to overcome an ultimate challenge and play again from his heart. It truly demonstrates that sometimes it is the challenges that strengthen us.

"I am a specialist 3rd class in the USMC, and I just got back from Iraq and a week before I left, my sergeant ordered me to shoot 12 Iraqi children in the face. I don't know how I did it. He hid the bodies. Nobody knows we did it..."

"I like to inflict big time pain onto other people. I like getting paid to smash people faces in. Hearing bones snap make me hard. The warm salty taste of another persons blood stimulates me in a religious fashion. I have a deep hate for people who are happy and I think that is what lead me into being a contractor. "

"well, i am a 15 year old boy,and i have had sex with my 22 year old brother over 50 times in the past years, i feel so terrible to confess these things, he has a huge weiner and he makes me perform fellacio. i am going to burn in hell for this..he just likes to ram my butt, but I like it so much, i dont know why "

"I'm 29 years old, and obsessed with cannibalism. Back at university, a group of students were holding a gathering, and one guy had chopped his finger off - we all tried a bit, and I immediately realised this is something I want to do in life. Since then, I have tried a bit of arm, and part of a toe. "

"I want him to die. Bad. For all the hurt he did to me. For all the lies he said to me. For saying I Love You when he didn't even mean it. For cheating on me with his ex several times and lying to me about it. I hate you. I hope you choke and die. Nobody deserves what you've done in the months we dated. Nobody."

"My goal used to be to take over the world. Now I think I'm just gonna smoke this pot and watch some South Park..."

~anonymous online confessions from grouphug.us~

here's mine: I like to misplace books on purpose in libraries and bookstores.

Whenever I visit the libraries/stores again, I get pleasure from seeing them left exactly where I've misplaced them.

When I'm on stage, I have to do many contradictory things at once. I have to let myself go and control myself at the same time. I have to imagine what I am going to do and at the same time listen what I have done and react to it. It needs a split personality on many levels.

I

Hear the sledges with the bells

Silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night!

While the stars that oversprinkle

All the heavens, seem to twinkle

With a crystalline delight;

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells

From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II

Hear the mellow wedding bells,

Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!

Through the balmy air of night

How they ring out their delight!

From the molten-golden notes,

And an in tune,

What a liquid ditty floats

To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats

On the moon!

Oh, from out the sounding cells,

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!

How it swells!

How it dwells

On the Future! how it tells

Of the rapture that impels

To the swinging and the ringing

Of the bells, bells, bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,

Bells, bells, bells

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III

Hear the loud alarum bells

Brazen bells!

What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!

In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!

Too much horrified to speak,

They can only shriek, shriek,

Out of tune, In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,

In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,

Leaping higher, higher, higher,

With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavor,

Now - now to sit or never,

By the side of the pale-faced moon.

Oh, the bells, bells, bells!

What a tale their terror tells of Despair!

How they clang, and clash, and roar!

What a horror they outpour

On the bosom of the palpitating air!

Yet the ear it fully knows,

By the twanging,

And the clanging,

How the danger ebbs and flows:

Yet the ear distinctly tells,

In the jangling,

And the wrangling,

How the danger sinks and swells,

By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells

Of the bells

Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,

Bells, bells, bells

In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

IV

Hear the tolling of the bells

Iron Bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!

In the silence of the night,

How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy menace of their tone!

For every sound that floats

From the rust within their throats is a groan.

And the people - ah, the people

They that dwell up in the steeple,

All Alone

And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,

In that muffled monotone,

Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stone

They are neither man nor woman

They are neither brute nor human

They are Ghouls:

And their king it is who tolls;

And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls

A paean from the bells!

And his merry bosom swells

With the paean of the bells!

And he dances, and he yells;

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the paean of the bells

Of the bells:

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the throbbing of the bells

Of the bells, bells, bells

To the sobbing of the bells;

Keeping time, time, time,

As he knells, knells, knells,

In a happy Runic rhyme,

To the rolling of the bells

Of the bells, bells, bells:

To the tolling of the bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells

Bells, bells, bells

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

~The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe~