BLOGGER



Youngest kid of six with an inferiority and black sheep complex, but determined that God saves not just his soul to heaven but the remainder of his manic-depressive life, so others won't say he became a Christian and remained a jerk.


MAIN THEMES

On identity
i won't be transparent before i'm opaque. and you'll get to know me starting from the small things: who my favourite bands are. what kind of movies i like. who are my heroes.

On Christianity
I’m convinced that when confronted with sincere, real love, the Jesus factor will become obvious. But let’s not plant the cross before we carry it. I’m not trying to con you.

On dreams
Some dreams are meant to be achieved. I know that. But maybe other dreams are meant to drive us, privately. Never known to anyone but ourselves.


OTHER THEMES

On melancholy
It is a sadness that, when choosing between crying and sighing, will choose sighing. I'd almost say that melancholy is being sad about sadness itself.

On memory and nostalgia
It saddens me when life moves forward and people decide that certain things are worth forgetting.

On language
I've learnt that the word irregardless is filed as a non-standard word in the English language. That's a lexicographer's way of saying it's not a real word.

On politics
Crowds are fickle things. So when we stand in the thousands and cry against the present government, do we know who we're actually crying for?

On society
People always want the best for themselves. But I want to sometimes take second or third or fourth best, just so that the loser down the road doesn't always have to come in last. It must feel like shit to always come in last.

On growing old
Leasehold property make me feel sad. It doesn't matter how old the family photos are that you put on your wall. It's your family but it's not really your wall.

On philosophy
I ask you, if God loves everyone, and if God is also incapable of loving evil, how can there be such a thing as an evil man?

On a daily basis
One line quips, like this.


CHAT





Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Photobucket - Video and Image HostingLast month, Adrian asked his readers: what are we merdeka from? A few nights ago, Vernon asked me: what exactly do i love when i say i love malaysia?

Am i merdeka from the political condescension of british colonialism? am i merdeka from the culture hip americana? or maybe i'm merdeka from the labour of serving white middle-classed guys in sydney. (you know, i'm serving them again this year.)

Or is merdeka really a time when we look properly at our identities and see what being a malaysian is all about. when vernon asked me his question above, i really didn't know what to say. is it the land? the physical scape of soil and rivers and rainforests? or is it the people? is it the culture? if you transplanted all the malaysians onto another land and filled our land with australians, which malaysia would i love? is my national love so shallow that it's gauged by the things i miss when i'm far away? things like ... food?

Who am i as a malaysian? am i a predominantly chinese young man influenced by a hodgepodge of local cultures with a good dash of australian education, american tv and british invasion rock n roll? when i say that i am merdeka, is it nothing but a hollow call riddled with hypocricy because, like the prodigal son, i think i'm independent but i'm really still enslaved to something else.

Look at my last month of posts. surely, i'm enslaved by wrath, by anger by an uncontrollable frustration. what kind of independence day is that? my mouth, my stupid mouth and my fingers don't know how to think before they act, so what am i free from? i'm so furious, i swear i've alienated a few friends already, so why should i feel proud of my national emancipation when i myself am shackled to my all too obvious failings?

So i ask you, should i even bother with the idea of national identity when my personal identity is fractured? can there be a "malaysian" in me if the "fergus" itself is disintegrated? what do i love about malaysia? maybe i don't know because i don't really love myself.

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Genusfrog [ 4:42 pm ]

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