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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, April 25, 2007
THE SENTIMENTAL CHINAMAN

i'm a poor consumer by any stretch of the imagination. i use almost all my belongings until they're completely worn out, torn, tattered or digitally rested in the terminal way.

which is why when vernon asked me when i was planning to change my car, i had no answer for him. "When it stops going from A to B" is probably the best answer i can give him or my dad or any second-hand car conman who so happens to be bypassing my front yard. i just don't see the point in dumping a clock that still tells time, knowwhatimean? that kind of consumerism - what i unnervingly feel is luxury - doesn't make sense to me.

i think it's the chinaman in me. there is one. seriously, one big scrooge of a chinaman waiting on the sidelines, anticipating a major leap into the 21st century, and i suspect that day will come when i land my first microwave instant baby child thingymagicky. on that day, i think i will fully reproduce my dad's dna and i'll kick into ultra conservatism and deem everything that is remotely excessive as surplus to requirements.

that's scary. i don't wanna be a chinaman. you see that one ringgit note up there? that's from 1967. that one ringgit used to buy a whole ton of things. when i think of how chinaman i am sometimes, i wonder why i've not been alive since the 60s, when that one ringgit was king of the road. now, i hate it whenever i feel scroogy. i hate it more that i'll very reasonably defend all my decisions. like how i'm defending my lack of need for a new car by stating obvious truths, like how my car still does an able job of joining the dots between two destinations. or maybe it's my mum.

my mum is a real sentimentalist. attach some vague form of sentimental value to anything in the house and you can count on it remaining untouched, maybe even undusted, for the next twenty years. so maybe i'm not a chinaman. maybe i'm just sentimental, and i don't like the idea of parting with things that i've grown attached to.

or maybe i'm both. perhaps my inability to part with some of my belongings till they absolutely disintegrate is due to a two-pronged attack of frugal practicality and weepy nostalgia.

habis lah, like that. i'll never change anything for, like, forever.

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Genusfrog [ 2:08 pm ]

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