the hunter (part 1)

In a split second, the intrepid hunter dove into the nearest shrub cover he saw. And cursed out loud exactly two seconds later as the sensation of a thousand needles piercing into every part of his body overtook the adrenaline that was surging through his system and exploded in his brain. The desert shrub emitted a spiteful chuckle; it hadn't spent thousand of years evolving unappetizing needle-like leaves only to be sat upon by fat, khaki-wearing men in safari hats.

A little farther away, his surprised prey, which had been grazing, looked up mid-chew at the strange cursing bush. It stared for a few seconds and, convinced that the plant was not about to uproot itself and charge, nonchalontly galloped away to find another patch of grass, preferrably one that did not share its soil with rude shrubs.

The suffering hunter groaned as he helplessly watched his quarry trot out of sight, its rump-perched pendulum-tail bidding him a fond farewell. A few more seconds he remained immobilized within the spiteful shrub, viscerally aware that any movement only provoked more pain. Just then an unusually strong gust of desert wind blew that rustled the needly bush, and some distance away, a grazing animal that did not bother to look up this time thought to itself, plants these days really need to be taught some civility, as it heard the same bush curse again.

The hurting hunter very slowly extricated himself from the painful plant. The evidence of his encounter bore across every exposed part of his pale Caucasian complexion as red streaks of traumatized flesh. Bracing himself now, he reached down into the forboding plant with a steeled arm and bated breath and pulled out his hunting rifle, which looked relatively unscathed compared to its wielder. He surveyed the extent of his epidermal damage through gritted teeth, the scratching heat of his physical pain numbed somewhat by the dawning of a very uncomfortable realization: he was lost.

proverbial blood

He demonstrates a quiet confidence that raises its voice above the written fray. The proverbial thickness of blood, in this case, conveys the substance of his ink. I'm very proud of my little bro.

peaks and valleys

When you're on Cloud 9, no valley is ever a low. You're on top of the world, regardless.

blessed bizarrenesss

2318 : 24082009

I set out on a narrow way
Many years ago
Hoping I would find true love
Along the broken road
But I got lost a time or two
Wiped my brow and kept
Pushin' through
I couldn't see how every sign
Pointed straight to you

That every long lost dream
Led me to where you are
Others who broke my heart
They were like northern stars
Pointing me on my way
Into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

I think about the years I've spent
Just passin' through
I'd like to have the time I lost
And give it back to you
But you just smile and take my hand
You've been there, you understand
It's all part of a grander plan
That is comin' true

Now I'm just rollin' home
Into my lover's arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

the stages of pinch

The first kind of pinch a person receives is, invariably, as an infant. As parents, relatives and admirers congregate around the bundle of unmitigated adorability, coos and funny faces are followed by affectionate pinches to the cheeks and various other fleshy parts of its miniature anatomy.

Later on in life, the same act evolves a decidedly more punitive significance. Pinches - sharp, lingering and painful - are applied by vexed parents to their recalcitrant offspring.

But even later on in life, if one should be lucky enough to find a partner so perfect their love seems almost surreal, the pinch finds another use. And when it fails to rouse the lovers from their perceived dream, that is when the pinch comes full circle and reassumes its original role.

So, pinch me. (And you did.)

starstruck

As I strolled along the canal, it was a single star that lit the night sky. It sparkled, commanding my attention with its singular brilliance. Stars, as you know, emit their own light, unlike the moon which draws its glow from the sun. And stars, as you know as well, are also suns in their own galaxies. Well, last night, I felt like a moon in that one star's sky.

If you had felt a warm glow about me, it is because I drew it from you.

wrappers and gifts

Even though I have abandoned its ideology, I cannot escape the spirituality that Christianity has imbued within me. Nor do I want to. It is a beautiful thing, spirituality. But it is a gift that can only be truly admired when the wrappings of religion have been torn off. No matter how brilliantly-designed the wrapper may be, it in itself is not the gift. It may be admired for the intricacy of its pattern and brilliance of its colour, but it should not detract from the gift that lies within. It is, perhaps, a divine Hand that creates the gift, but human ones that wrap it. But when the gift is finally unwrapped and its beauty enjoyed, the old wrapper, no matter how well-designed, lies creased and crumpled. Sometimes, bits of the tape stick to the gift. But that's okay - as long as it is the gift within that is treasured and shared, and not old, intricate wrappers.

This, is my favourite gift:

Love is patient, Love is kind,
It does not envy, it does not boast,
It is not proud, It is not rude,
It is not self-seeking,
It is not easily angered,
It keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil,
but rejoices with the truth.
Love always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.

Wrapper: 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

a sea of humanity

One cannot choose a droplet from the sea. Each drop is as much of itself as it is of the ones around it, within it and without it. Some may have come from other seas, from the sky, or from melting peaks. But all become one and the same; each flows into every one else. Each becomes a diffused ingredient in The Source of Life. With your finger, touch the sea. Now see, that droplet that forms in the aftertouch, is you. (And me, too.)

revisited

Because you asked.

http://jouhl.blogspot.com/2007/05/rose-by-any-other-name.html

china unloved

The world's infatuation with China can hardly be described as a love affair - if love is to be understood as a force that inspires and forges ties that transcend the material. We have all read about pretty young things marrying wealthy but physically unappealing men with repugnant personalities. One could be forgiven in assuming theirs to be contracts based solely on mutual utility.

Such is the present relationship between cash-flooded China and its suitors. But a country is defined by more than just its economy or the wealth of its institutions. Other factors - culture, history, governmental philosophy, the demographic and ethos of its people - contribute in determining its national identity. While all these factors are, to varying extents interlinked, none of them in themselves form the reason for the world's interest in China. No, we are not interested in China, but China's economy. It is the utilitarian pursuit of material benefit that drives this fixation.

Contrast this with America, that other superpower which captured the imagination of the world in the second half of the last century. It was not merely the strength of its economy that attracted the world to its shores and invited it to theirs. More than that, it was the universally-accessible standards of personal freedoms which led to the prevailing culture of creativity and experimentation and entrenched it in the forefront of cultural, scientific and technological advancement. For all its economic clout, China can hardly be accused of having the same degree of cultural and technological influence globally. For as long as China holds on to the rigidity of its authoritarian political system and restricts the freedoms of its people to the extent that it continues to do, it is difficult to imagine the same spirit of ingenuity and experimentation taking root in China. At least, not to the extent that is has in America.

We may have invested our money in the Chinese economy, but we will probably never invest our love in China as a country the same way many of us have done so with America as an model of liberty and ingenuity. Of course, its merits have sometimes come at great societal costs. Crime, for one, is endemic because of a lax penal code. But one might also argue that it is precisely this perception of relative impunity that has also contributed to the spirit of risk-taking and consequent popular creative ethos already discussed. It is safe to say that the American believes himself to have a wider berth of running afoul of the law than the average Chinese. Where creativity is defined as a dissent from convention, such a belief frees one to experiment and take risks - creative or otherwise.

Where pop-culture, technology and marketing savvy meet, the products of American ingenuity have permeated the world.

While the Renminbi may encroach on the domain of the American Dollar, love is a harder thing to displace. Our love affair with America will last even as we find a new sugar daddy in China.

melancholy musings

His tapestries would be devoured by the moths of time, his trophies plundered by oblivion.

What for then toil for the things that are ephemeral, when Man himself is ephemeral? Does he who is impermanent also find his cause in that which is impermanent?

Humanity, that phenomenal quark, contained within a sliver of the faintest streak of Time, soon too must vanish. Even the greatest will eventually have only the grass and wind to commemorate them. History too, will be buried by the cosmic sands of time.

It is our lot to become the ghosts of shadows.

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.

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.

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."

president obama

Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States of America. The New World is finally new again.

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.

brideshead revisited

The manor that served as the setting for Brideshead Revisited's latest cinematographic incarnation is an absolutely sumptuous example of English baroque architecture, replete with the artistic hallmarks of aristocratic decadence at its luxurious best!

Although its real name is Castle Howard, the edifice is not technically a castle, since it was obviously not designed to serve a military function. The early-18th Century stately residence in North Yorkshire was built by the Third Earl of Carlisle and incredibly, still serves as a private residence for his decedents to this day. That such an ostentatious vestige of an era defined by insatiable opulence and institutionalized social inequity should still serve a private function in this day and age seems almost obscene. But to be fair to the current owners, they have allowed the building to be gazetted as a national heritage site and it is seasonally open to the public who are free to roam its expansive verdant vicinities and attend a number of concerts hosted on its grounds throughout the year.

The film, based on the eponymous novel by Evelyn Waugh (who was a dude, in case you're wondering) dilutes the theological didacticism found in the original work of its author and is more concerned with recounting the scandalous romances revolving around the protagonist, an young man of modest means who suddenly finds himself in the favour of the scion of a noble family dominated by a maniacally staunch Catholic matriarch. The noblelad, who is unambiguously gay, takes his unassuming handsome friend to his ancestral home - Brideshead - and into his confidence and overtime, the two become bosom buddies, seeing in each other a part of the social and ideological misfit that each had always believed himself to be.

Their unlikely friendship unravels when he is caught by his rich friend, who by now had obviously taken a more-than-platonic interest in him, trying to seduce his sister while the trio were on a holiday to visit their father and his mistress in Venice. Tensions mount as his erstwhile benefactor descends into alcoholism in an attempt to numb both his perceived betrayal and his mother's overbearing religious strictures. Meanwhile, his mother detects a budding-if-tense romance between his sister and his friend (who is an avowed atheist) and arranges for her to be wed to an obnoxious Canadian man, whose only virtue is apparently the religion that they shared.

Four years later, his former friend's desperate mother begs him to go to Morocco, where he had run away to, to persuade him to come home. He traces him down but discovers that his body is so ravaged by his years of drinking that he is in no condition to endure the arduous journey by ship back to England. The now-sober scion becomes an afterthought for the rest of the movie and we eventually learn that he joined a monastery where he is to spend the rest of his life.

Years pass and our protagonist is now a promising painter - the darling of high society on both sides of the Atlantic. Chance leads to an encounter aboard a ship between protagonist and love interest and they both consummate their latent love on board without regard for their own spouses from whom they are estranged. Although they agree to separate from their spouses in order to be together, the prospects of "living in sin" loom over her like a dark cloud as her Catholic neuroses inflicted upon her by her now-deceased mother come back to haunt her. As the illicit pair return to Brideshead to seek an annulment from her husband and bid a final farewell to her elder brother, they meet their dying father who had come home to spend his final days. Thoughts of eloping take flight in the face of her father's impending death. Upon his deathbed, she is overwhelmed by emotion as she sees her father makes the sign of the cross, a signal that he repented of his infidelity and was reconciled to god. In the same vein, she decides that she could not bring herself to offend god's mercy by living in sin, in spite of her love for our protagonist.

Years later, during the Second World War, he revisits Brideshead as a military officer. The manor has now been possessed by the military for use as an army base. Walking the familiar halls, he reminisces and finds himself in the chapel, where his friend had brought him to half a lifetime ago. He is tempted to extinguish the votive candle lit in front of the Virgin's statue, an act of resentment and retribution for the loss that religion had cost him, but hesitates and eventually decides not to. He turns around and leaves the chapel, walking into the chaos of the War, but not before remembering an internal battle that had claimed him long before.

pax hormones

I woke up this morning feeling a calmness and peace of mind that I had not experienced for a long time. Taking into account the pile of work that was awaiting me in the office, I shouldn't have felt such sanguinity. I couldn't help but wonder if this was the "peace that the world cannot give" that the Christians are so fond of talking about - a mere hormonal cycle.

ramblings

I don't care I will write no matter what. I don't know why but Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment just popped into my head. It's a story about a deranged man who sinks into a guilt-induced fevered delusion - or "mania" as the English translation termed it. I love archaic expressions like that. A modern person would probably say "obsession" or "paranoia", but "mania" has such a visceral feel to it. It connotes a maniac - someone ruled purely by the craziness of his own miasmic imaginings. Miasma - another term that strikes a chord in me. It is a word introduced to me by someone I used to date. I still remember the setting - we were strolling along Marina Bay on a Sunday evening, watching the kite flyers refusing to yield to the ebbing gusts and retiring sun, and I was talking about how messy my room was. "Miasma" was introduced into my vocabulary then by my more literarily-sophisticated date. That was the last time we went out I think. I received a message over MSN a few days later from my date, complaining that I did not seem to reciprocate a satisfactory degree of mutual affection. I did not want to pursue it. The prospects of a relationship at that point in time with that particular person would have felt contrived anyway. That was the first medical student I dated. The second medical student I got to know and dated for a bit turned out to be living almost in the same neighbourhood as the first. More coincidences were uncovered after that. It didn't work out either because both of us had our fair share of emotional baggage. But it was from this experience and facing up to my own emotional baggage that I learned the most about myself. I know I am a better person today and am able to manage my current relationship much better precisely because of the lessons I took away from it. I think I have written enough at this point. I just needed to flex my literary muscle again, which has all but atrophied over the past few weeks of intellectual ennui. Apropos of my previous post, I hope the figurative nib of my mental pen has now been sufficiently lubricated by this deliberate exercise in rambling.

short posts

My posts have become markedly shorter of late. It seems symptomatic of some impediment to constructing a more developed train of thought.