GCB

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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.

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Tuesday, August 14, 2007

ON PAIN AND REALITY

"Nothing is as real as the pain you feel"
- Ron, Furniture.

Is that true? is nothing really as real as the pain you feel? i've had this line lodged in my head for the last many weeks, not least of all because it has the tendency to pop up in the car while i'm nowhere on the ldp. (incidentally, the ldp is a bleak, sorrowful highway, and there are few other landscapes on which you will want to be when you contemplate pain, suffering and aesthetic hurt.)

maybe i can find something more real than my pain. i'm holding a book up intermittently, as i type - maybe this book is as real as the pain i feel. it's got this waxy texture to its pages, and i can feel the sharp edges of every crisp, unread piece of bound paper. that's quite real. some days, i think books are more real than pain.

maybe my face is more real than the pain i feel. when i'm feeling blue, i like to put my hands on my face - cover it, rub my eyes, scratch my forehead or bury all of it between a pair of arms and a tabletop. i can feel the skin, the brows, the arc of bones. that's quite real too. some days, i think my face is more real than pain.

of course, the two paragraphs above mistakenly assume one thing, that they posses in them the definitive idea of what reality is. if reality is cognitive, then yes - my book and my face have a good chance of being on the top of the existential pile. but what if reality is experiential. if that's true, then maybe i've carried many books and covered my face many times without fully appreciating the reality of those acts. i've put things in places where i can't find before. i've gone through days where i forget what i've done.

but pain is not like that. pain won't let you ignore it when it walks through the door. like the guy in a hawaiian shirt and a loud voice, pain makes itself abundantly obvious, not least of all if you're the one whom it's crept into. i can forget that my room has white walls, that the girl next to me wears perfume, that my fingers are right now touching plastic keys, or that i got bubblegum in my mouth. but i've never forgotten when i hurt. some media smartass once said "if it bleeds, it leads". i somehow feel that that's as much of an experiential truth as it is a broadcasting one.

so maybe ron was right. but i've got one last nagging question. is pain more real than the guy in the hawaiian shirt?

Labels: defeat, philosophy

Genusfrog [ 8:53 am ]

2 Comments:

ron as in ron bell?

found out he's left trinity last week to go off to brazil or stg with his partner to teach english.

Da

By Anonymous, at 5:51 pm
oops. thought u were referring to the dude (ron bell in media and com in trinity) who first introduced me to the phrase 'if it bleeds, it leads'. heh.

then i reread your post and realise your above quote by: ron, furniture.

D

By Anonymous, at 5:54 pm