Monday 24 November 2008
just be
The past weekend saw me back at East Coast Park, just before daybreak on Sunday. My intention had been to witness the sunrise and come into awe of its beauty. It had been a long time since I felt inspired by beauty, and there had been a growing desire within me over the past month or so to experience it again. As I sat by the shore, anticipating the golden sliver emerge beyond the horizon, a thought struck me. Why should a sunrise be anymore beautiful than any other single moment of the day? To live in the eternal now is to experience beauty in everything, from dawn to dusk and every moment in between. This is the esoteric that is found in the exoteric. Beauty does not discriminate; we, in our primal identity-preserving struggle, do. But to be still, and simply be in the moment. To simply "be." Once I realized that, everything around me took on a different, ethereal light. And that golden sliver hadn't even emerged from beyond the horizon yet.
Sunday 16 November 2008
the envy of low expectations
This evening saw me ramble along East Coast Park. I was in a pensive mood. As I strolled along a particular path, a group of four young people (late twenties, perhaps) walked toward me. A few paces before our paths actually crossed, one of them burst out laughing - a hearty guffaw befitting his rotund frame - elicited by some quip uttered by one of his mates. It was truly a laugh of the carefree; he didn't seem encumbered by the fact that it was late on a Sunday night - merely a few hours to the start of another week and all its concomitant drudgery. And judging by his torpid gait and the crude colloquialism of his speech (and I realize I'm being utterly shallow and presumptuous here), he was probably a blue-collared worker, whose manual abilities contributed more to his worth than his intellect. It was then that I thought: what bliss it must be to have as one's predominant concern only to eke out a living just to afford the bare necessities in life and still be able relish its "simple pleasures". The most consequential decisions he probably had to make the entire day were what to eat and what to wear (and judging by both his heft and quality of clothing, the former concern surely - pun alert! - outweighed the latter). As long as he had clothes on his back, food to eat, a roof over his head and perhaps the occasional indulgence in the most basic physical pleasures, he would be contented. But for the rest of us who are burdened by the torturous weight of knowledge and wonder, we can only imagine the opiate joy of such hollow bliss. For more than a while, I truly envied him.
Wednesday 12 November 2008
love is neither straight nor gay
Keith Olbermann was on one of his usual rants at the end of his programme, Countdown. The subject of this particular diatribe was the controversial Proposition 8 law banning gay marriage that had recently been passed by voters in California. This one, which was delivered with his usual indignant stentorian flourish, was especially cogent, I felt. It was particularly moving as well. Transcript after the video.
Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.
Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.
And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics. This is about the human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.
If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.
Only now you are saying to them—no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights—even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?
I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage. If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967.
The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.
You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay.
And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing, centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children, all because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage.
How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?
What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.
It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.
And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?
With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate.
You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know. It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow person just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.
This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.
But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:
"I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam," he told the judge. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all: So I be written in the Book of Love; I do not care about that Book above. Erase my name, or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love."
Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.
Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.
And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics. This is about the human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.
If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.
Only now you are saying to them—no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights—even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?
I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage. If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967.
The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.
You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay.
And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing, centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children, all because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage.
How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?
What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.
It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.
And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?
With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate.
You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know. It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow person just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.
This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.
But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:
"I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam," he told the judge. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all: So I be written in the Book of Love; I do not care about that Book above. Erase my name, or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love."
Wednesday 5 November 2008
president obama
Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States of America. The New World is finally new again.
Monday 3 November 2008
euthanizing ideological autocracy
I wrote the following letter to the Straits Times forum page.
Dear Sir or Madam,
I refer to the article "Euthanasia is immoral" in Monday's edition which reported that Archbishop Nicholas Chia of the Catholic Church condemned euthanasia and said that "no health-care professionals must even contemplate the option of administering euthanasia."
This is a contentious issue and I believe the archbishop was perfectly within his rights to exhort and edify the members of his church on what is a fundamental doctrinal precept of their religion. However, to address members of the medical community in such a manifestly authoritative manner, without regard for their own religious creeds or professional opinions, smacks of ideological autocracy.
Any religious leader is free to instruct his or her own followers, and would certainly be remiss in their pastoral responsibilities if they didn't clarify their religion's doctrinal positions on prevailing matters of moral or ethical import. But to impose that position on society at large as though that were the only valid view, would surely be unwelcome pontificating.
Religious leaders like Archbishop Chia should be aware that in a multi-religious society such as ours, no one religion holds a monopoly on morality and ethics.
Dear Sir or Madam,
I refer to the article "Euthanasia is immoral" in Monday's edition which reported that Archbishop Nicholas Chia of the Catholic Church condemned euthanasia and said that "no health-care professionals must even contemplate the option of administering euthanasia."
This is a contentious issue and I believe the archbishop was perfectly within his rights to exhort and edify the members of his church on what is a fundamental doctrinal precept of their religion. However, to address members of the medical community in such a manifestly authoritative manner, without regard for their own religious creeds or professional opinions, smacks of ideological autocracy.
Any religious leader is free to instruct his or her own followers, and would certainly be remiss in their pastoral responsibilities if they didn't clarify their religion's doctrinal positions on prevailing matters of moral or ethical import. But to impose that position on society at large as though that were the only valid view, would surely be unwelcome pontificating.
Religious leaders like Archbishop Chia should be aware that in a multi-religious society such as ours, no one religion holds a monopoly on morality and ethics.