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, June 10, 2009

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Genusfrog [ 5:17 pm ] | 0 comments

Friday, May 22, 2009
AND SO, MY MASSIVE WEEKEND BECKONS 

This could be a monumental weekend.

one of those big career weekends.

sunday. then monday.

send up a prayer.

amen.

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Genusfrog [ 4:42 pm ] | 0 comments

Friday, January 23, 2009



You've awakened terrible things, thay. you have.

board rental is RM15 a day. private instructor's RM80 an hour. how much is it again to fly to kata beach at phuket? RM144 round trip? you know, that's not too bad. and accomodation? RM50 for a backpacker place huh.

let's see... that's about 700 bucks for five days of surfing at the beach, with surfing lessons, food, lodging, and travel all worked in. evil, i tell you.

pure aquatic sunset beach evil.

i wan.

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Genusfrog [ 11:44 am ] | 0 comments

Tuesday, January 13, 2009


It's frightening to talk about your dreams. i've learned the hard way that when you have a dream to do something or be someone, that maybe it's a good idea to keep it to yourself.

i've opened up my mouth a lot. too much. to too many people. some have kept my dreams in a good place. they push me along and sometimes they don't say anything. but if you share your dreams with too many people, someone is bound to mishandle it. maybe someone will make it sound like a stupid dream to have. or someone will be uninterested. or someone will jump in and share that dream with you, and then jump out just as quickly. i've been on both sides. i know now to keep my mouth shut.

nobody expects anything from someone who doesn't set himself up. some days, i wish i spent the last ten years playing my cards a lot closer to my chest. because once you've shared your dream, a bit of its magic goes away. it starts that maturing process where it ends up in one of two places: fulfilment or the scrapheap. and maybe some of our dreams are less serious, but it's planted in our hearts anyway. and maybe we don't want the magic of that dream consigned to a scrapheap. maybe we prefer for that dream to burn privately inside us than get out and fail.

some dreams are meant to be achieved. i know that. but maybe only some. maybe other dreams are meant to drive us, but privately. never spoken. never known to anyone but ourselves.

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Genusfrog [ 5:45 pm ] | 4 comments

Saturday, January 10, 2009


This year, i don't have a big list of resolutions, like the 207 that i had in 07, or the 8 year-long lifestyle changes that i had in 08. no, this year, i'm going to do very few things. but it'll be easier to prioritise this year. here's how it goes.

in 2009, i will focus on one thing, and it's building. and i will focus on building three things:
the first is my relationship with athalia. i wanna keep moving that forward.
the second is my cell, especially my core members. i really want to pour into their lives this year.
the third is large door pictures, my video production company. i want to push it into some real gears before the year is through.

that's all. if i can do these three things well before 2010, i'll be a very pleased lad.

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Genusfrog [ 4:08 pm ] | 0 comments

Monday, June 02, 2008
CAREER GAMBLING

by this october, I'd have worked here for four years.

more recently, i've had people tell me that it's time to move on. four years is a lot of time and that i'll need to start moving again to keep myself fresh. they say that you need to move enough times so that when you hit 30, you're still attractive to new employers. they also say that in my office, if you stay too long in one position, you become very unemployable.

i've always told my boss and my friends that i'll only leave this place to go full time into my film career. whether that comes in the form of pushing the red street diner, driving a second film or going into the grindhouse of soulless corporate videos has never really been the point. the point is that i've never seen myself climbing any kind of corporate ladder and i've never seen myself as one to leave one desk job for another. it just never seemed to jive with what i have in mind.

now the bible is full of stories contrasting people who go by faith and people who go by sight. there was ishmael, the under-favoured son of a consuelo - born of sight. and then there was isaac, the great heroic covenental child - born of faith. there was lot, lured by the bright casino lights of jordan - went by sight. and then there was abraham, who trudged into a barren wasteland otherwise signposted as canaan - went by faith.

sometimes, i really wonder if it's faith or stupidity or fear or bravado that drives me to stay on this job until my film career takes off. i know that what people say is true. if there's ever gonna be a crack at the job market for fergus ong, that crack is closing as i inch towards thirty. and every day that i stay here is like a gamble that in some next-door industry, my star is gonna shine.

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Genusfrog [ 4:44 pm ] | 1 comments

Tuesday, November 20, 2007
QUIET

There are too few quiet places in this world. everywhere you go, there's the clicking of keyboards, the cacophony of ringtones, the roar of highways, and the garbagenoise of television.

i desperately long for an extended amount of time in a very, very quiet place.

a place that's green and blue, with cool air, the lull of a breeze, sunlight breaking through leaves, the fresh smell of dry grass, the plop of fish in the water and birds, chirping or fluttering. and the rest...

quiet.

a book. sunlight. a ham sandwich. a bottle of orange juice.

no cellphones. no cars. a mile of walking. half a day of sitting under the sky.

no noise. just quiet.

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Genusfrog [ 3:45 pm ] | 0 comments

Sunday, September 23, 2007
THE FAMILY FACTOR

My family went all von Trapp this weekend. we do this sometimes, gather round a table and sing songs for hours together. my dad had this idea that when we came home for our annual mooncake festival celebrations, that it had to be a singing night. so we played this game, singing oldies, with one person singing one line of a song and the next person continuing the next line. we played until someone couldn't remember the lyrics, and then that person had to choose a new song.

you know, when i become a father, i want my family to be a singing family. it doesn't matter if nobody knows how to hold a note. the point is that i want my future family to live in full abandon, expressing themselves through songs with little inhibition. family shouldn't be too inhibited with each other. mine sometimes is but sometimes isn't. and i like my family best when we drop our guard and dare to be weird or funny or different together.

i'm really enjoying my weekend back home in muar. there is a feeling of certainty and security. the feeling that some things never change, and that somewhere in this huge, bizarre and everchanging world, there is a group of people who are gonna be exactly as i expect them to be. and on rare occassions like this, being with my family makes me feel like a 7-year-old again. in the larger scheme of things, it didn't last too long: about four hours. but for those four hours, it felt like 1987, and i was a little kid again. and we were all together, being family.

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Genusfrog [ 4:45 am ] | 0 comments

Wednesday, September 12, 2007
CREATURE OF HABIT

Repetition. predictability. routine.

loop. loop. loop. loop. loop. i do the same things over again.

that's the thing about creatures of habit. i'm quite happy to walk into mcdonald's and every time, without fail, order myself a big mac. there's a new carl's jr in one utama. i've been there twice now. had the same burger on both occasions.

there's that side of me that will stick to familiar ground and keep going back to what i know are the surefire winners. i am comfortable like that. i don't find the need to constantly explore new ground and i'm not the kinda guy who needs to try everything at a buffet. once i latch on to something i like, i'm usually hooked.

but that could be changing. there's another side of me, a side that's impulsive, that longs for the thrill of the unknown. i have always been bipolar and this is another expression of it. whenever i'm not ordering the same burger for the thousandth time, i'm pulling up at the first restaurant round the bend and going in without thinking.

sometimes, we think it's good if people can predict how we choose things: i know he'll like this, i bet she'll love that. and while the predictable side of me is the side that often receives gifts, it is the unpredictable side of me that wants to pour out.

there is an adventure i want to go on. a wild transcontinental plough through the slums, wilderness and desolation of the world. i want to experience cultures, behaviours, languages, food, music and art. i want to stand in rainstorms, snowstorms and sandstorms. taste the awe of rural landscapes and drink the sadness of urban poverty. i want this adventure to take me where the comfort of a formulaic burger recipe has never taken me. i want to trek the unmapped, ride danger and rush along to an excitement that bubbles over.

i will always be a creature of particularly simple habits, revelling in the joys of the same thing done right the same way. but this adventure, this seductive lure for the great uncharted, i can almost audbibly hear it call.

and God only knows what lies in store.

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Genusfrog [ 9:24 am ] | 1 comments

Friday, September 07, 2007
THE SIMPLE LIFE

I am finally happy with myself.

sure, it might mean that i strike out on some strange, radical road less travelled, but i am finally happy and fully reconciled to the fact that this is the kind of person i've become, and it is in this direction that i will keep becoming.

there's a simplicity that i long for and i'm determined to find it. it's a stripped-down life, the kind i'm convinced now that i was born to live. it's a life that fully understands the appeal of luxury and the joys of abundant consumerism, but decides to live outside of it. it's a life that looks at the comforts of a secure life square in the face, recognises why everybody wants it, but then turns away without either fretting or getting holy about it. everyday now, i dream of a life that paddles against the grain of what i see around me. you've read it here before. i'm through with this suburban dream.

and for the next few years, i intend to live this alternative life out: find myself a middle-lower class place to buy and live, maintain my stripped-down lifestyle, work normal hours, don't get promoted, keep enough hours for my passions and not get sucked into that lure for the next luxury purchase.

i want a spartan life. (300 fans. i swear, i'm over the movie.)

i sincerely do. i don't want anymore clutter. i just want a simple life and - if she exists (i'm convinced she does) - a girl who will share those values and come along for the adventure. i had an idea the other day. when i eventually set up my home, i want to leave one part of it unfinished: a wall that's left unpainted, a faucet without a tap, or a room that's unfurnished. i want to do that as a constant reminder that this is not home. not yet. i want to do that so that i can up and leave without feeling the pinch of losing what i'd built up. i never want to trick myself into believing in that false sense of security.

and so, in all my 27 years, i've never been so convicted about anything before. i know now what kind of life i want to live. it's not a life that i've lived before. i've never known it. i have no experience to go by. but it's radically important enough and so i'm gonna try. i'm still gonna blog, still gonna carry a handphone and still gonna be a mac kinda guy. but i swear, i'm seriously not the same person anymore.

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Genusfrog [ 9:42 pm ] | 1 comments

Saturday, September 01, 2007
THE BICYCLE IDEA

Ever woken up to bizarre new ideas? i woke up with one the other morning, and it went something along the lines of "I want to buy a bicycle".

the last bicycle i had was a second-hand racing bike that i bought in melbourne to fix a childhood fixation with light-weight bicycles with funny handlebars. I called it June, partly because I bought it in my birthmonth, but also because I had only recently christened my then-spanking new Les Paul Jude (which in turn, was named after Hey Jude, but that's a different story). I cycled to uni and back, sometimes at breakneck speed in the evenings. I never crashed June. I sold her just before I left. With her I sold a life on two wheels and traded it in for the jammed-up bore-draw of PJ's disgusting highways.

but some mornings have a way of inspiring new old habits. i have little idea where i'd go with a bike if i bought one now - i could cycle to adrian's house, centrepoint and one utama. swing by a park sometimes. maybe that's it. but the idea still fascinates me. maybe it's that intrinsic need to fill the void of old habits with new ones. maybe now that another chapter of my life back in malaysia has been closed, i can open a new one and feel comfortable drawing references to my life in melbourne again. maybe now that life has moved on, i can reembrace who i was for five years in australia, and dip my toes into some of that freewheeling once more.

i don't know if i'll actually get myself a bike. but i do know what i'd want. wind in my face and road zipping beneath me. cold ears. i want to ride away into anywhere.

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Genusfrog [ 1:12 pm ] | 0 comments

Monday, March 19, 2007
THE SURF DREAM

Over this weekend, i met a guy who was a diver. his name was alan and he told me tons of diving stories, about aquatic life, all the things that's bitten him, all the scary fish he's seen, and all the great and wonderful times he's had 20 metres underwater.

that got me thinking... earlier this year, i said that one of the 207 things i wanted to achieve in 2007 was to learn how to surf.

now i'm thinking of a weekend with some friends by the beach with a surfboard, evenings staring out into the sun, and when the waves come in, we ride out. we can drink at the beach and sit in the sand for hours. crash into a chalet and wake up in the morning to head out to the water again. one day, i will make that happen. one day, i will get some surfing lessons, get myself in shape, get myself swimming better and really go make that happen. i don't even know why, of all the more aquatic, slightly more extreme sports, it was surfing that got me. i look at surfers and i think it must be such a nice life. and while i know that, like the waves on which they ride, the whole thing is extremely momentary, today i long for that kind of momentary joy.

i wanna be able to do what alan did - meet someone new and have a story to tell. to be able to say i held it off till one day, i realised that life was too short, and so i took five days of leave, headed out to the coast and did it. i don't know if i'll ever do it. my parents just came back from new zealand and they watched people bungee jump. with some people, you can always count on them doing it. with me, i dunno sometimes if it's all a lot of hot air. maybe i'll never do it. maybe that's all i am sometimes - a daydreamer with a blog.

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Genusfrog [ 2:31 pm ] | 0 comments

Tuesday, March 13, 2007
THE WESTERNFRONT

It's that time of the year again. Late enough so your vision is clouded by the fog of cynicism, but early enough to look at the rest of the year and reassess what you want to fill it with. for me, this means dreaming of a holiday. and today, i wanna go to the westernfront.

i wanna go and be alone in the desert. i wanna see the red earth and yellow rocks and all their purple skies at sunset. i wanna set camp and barbequeue wild meat like they do in the pictures. you know those pictures? those old westerns. rocky mountain westerns.

i want to smell the sand and kick the dust at my feet. i want to squint in the sun and drink out of those bottles. i'll have a horse named whiskey and a ten gallon hat. we'd ride all day into town where i saddle into a saloon and chat up naive redneck girls whose fathers keep shotguns under the counter. i'd make them laugh and leave before anyone starts any shit. and in the evenings, i'll stare at the desert and wonder what kind of life lies beyond the rocky plain.

a city. a job. a girl.

i'd lower my hat and sleep by the fire. the moon looks so beautiful in the desert.

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Genusfrog [ 1:37 pm ] | 0 comments

Wednesday, January 03, 2007
I have never been much of a resolution kinda guy. For the last two years, I had themes for the year, and to a large extent, they were duly met - not because of my uncanny ability to self-predict, but because the themes i chose were pretty self-evident anyway. At any case, i've decided to list down 207 things to do this year. i don't have all of them now, so i'll add them as the year kicks in.

here are the first 33 things i wanna do this year.

1. learn to surf
2. send comics to newspapers
3. go overseas (singapore doesn't count)
4. start writing second screenplay
5. drop to 60kg or 30 inch waist
6. compile a blog book
7. start mel's birthday gift early
8. don't drink soft drinks at fast foods and cinema
9. don't eat when not hungry
10. study romans
11. eat more bitter gourd
12. remain teetotal (actually, i don't see the point of this, since i've never been drunk)
13. keep a weekly devotional diary
14. watch the godfather trilogy
15. buy the dollars trilogy
16. finish watching dallas seasons 1-3
17. read if on a winter's night a traveler
18. read animal farm again properly
19. finish reading case for faith
20. keep handphone alive until 2008
21. write a musical number
22. send my car for service first time, on time, every time
23. midnight cap on football manager on working nights
24. finish colt 1 with flying colours so i never have to do it again
25. go to gym in the mornings before work
26. wash my cups at my office desk (especially on fridays)
27. pay my bills first time, on time, every time
28. catch at least one liverpool game a month
29. stop attributing my character flaws to my upbringing
30. learn to juggle three objects
31. sleep before 1am
32. improve my mafia skills
33. improve my holdem skills

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Genusfrog [ 4:12 pm ] | 0 comments

Monday, December 18, 2006
I've just spent a weekend at the seaside town of kuantan, which i think is absolutely lovely, and for the first time in my life, i saw real people (as opposed to fake people on tv) surfing. like, surfing on waves. i didn't know that malaysians surfed on malaysian beaches. that goes to show:

(1) how ulu i am, and
(2) how cool some of our beaches are.

Of course, you can probably only surf at an east coast beach, because the south china sea kicks up enough waves for it. still, it was really nice to watch. the only unpleasant thing about the whole experience (and it's not that the waters weren't blue; blue water is nice but it's not something i expect from malaysian beaches and at any case it is not the unpleasant thing i'm talking about) was the stupid surfing competition DJ's choice of songs to play while the competitors took to the water. they played.... i dunno... all these mat rock 80s kinda music like guns n roses, which just tells you two things about the djs, that:

(1) they are stuck in their very distant adolescence and have been playing the same damn music since their cassette collection became a cd collection, and
(2) they have absolutely no understanding of surf culture.

They should be playing surf music, man! they should be playing dick dale or the beach boys or bob marley even. heck, even paris hilton sounds more surf than guns n blardy roses on a sunny sunday morning. and so, thinking about surf culture and having dick dale's king of the surf guitar playing in my head, it hit me.

I know many friends who are learning how to dive. friends who are my age, many who are older. if you are a yuppie with a wallet-full of credit cards and a maritime itch to scratch, anyone can be a diver nowadays. so why can't anyone be a surfer? no reason not, right? then i thought, can i teach my still-impressionable ass to learn surfing at the not-so-tender age of twenty six? again, why not? ok, so motivation is there. what about infrastructure. can a west-coast pj bum find access to some rip curl know-how? the answer lies in the heart of pj's traffic-jammed madness: sunway lagoon. apparently they've got a wave pool where i can potentially find lessons. good. i'll check it out.

So the final stumbling point is in fact the point on which i stumble - where, along the forty kilometres of pahang and terengganu's beach, will i find the time to indulge myself in this hobby? nowhere. not anywhere to be found. is it anywhere to be made? i don't know. maybe when the cyclone of my filmmaking debut passes by, i might be able to find a couple of hours in the weekend to try this out. until then, i'm quite happy to read up on surfing, investigate its scene in my concrete jungle and maybe whip up some support from friends and family to join me in taking lessons.

Then maybe one day in the next couple of years, if you don't hear from me, it's because i've gone off in the weekend to a beach somewhere in the east looking for a surf to ride and a beach to sit and chill.

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Genusfrog [ 2:34 pm ] | 0 comments

Monday, December 04, 2006
This is my retirement dream.

I want to leave the city and have a nice sprawling house in the country. I'll have a lime orchard, and i'll plant chillies and tomatoes and other produce. I'll make sauces and bottle them and give them to friends and family, and maybe sell them to the nearby folk.

In the weekends, my grandkids will come to my estate and run like crazy. And i will walk them through the orchard and tell them about limes and trees and gardening. We will have big barbequeues and cookouts. I'll have eggs and bacon on toast every morning. I'll have a collie, a cat and there'll be tons of birds in the trees, chirping in the morning to wake me up.

In the afternoons, i will read. I might take up painting. And once every few months, i'll give my high-flying city publicist a call and haul him to my farm, and we'll cook him a big meal in our country kitchen and talk about art and film and poetry. And after that, i'll hand him a manuscript for something to bring back and work on.

I'll have my friends over and we'll play poker late into the night, and drink port, and talk about old times. We'll be too old for boardgames but we'll have fun trying anyway.

In the evenings, i will write profusely. And when i'm done, i will tell stories to my wife, the same stories i'd have told since we were young, but she would enjoy hearing them again. I would rise early and fish in a lake on the edge of the orchard. I would reel in some beautiful fish and we would later have it for lunch. In the mornings, we would harvest limes and chillies and tomatoes. In the afternoons, we would work in the kitchen. And in the evenings, we will cook nice big dinners.

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Genusfrog [ 9:58 am ] | 2 comments

Monday, June 26, 2006
When i was a kid, i wanted to be a zoologist.

I wanted to be a marine biologist. It would have been so cool to work with marine life, like manatees or whales. I also thought, maybe, I can work with big cats too. Big cats are the best.

Whenever I told this to someone, they would tell me "Why don't you just be a vet?".

But I didn't want to be a vet, I didn't want to treat rabbits and poodles. I didn't want to do small cats.

Apparently, we all start off with dreams, and then as we grow up, many of those dreams die. For those among us who are fortunate enough, the death of a dream is replaced by a new dream. It doesn't make the demise of the first dream any less meaningful - it is still a truncated future. But you can't complain if you replace it with something else. You certainly can't complain if that something else is more achievable, yet comparatively special.

I guess I could be a marine biologist today. I guess I could be diving off places to collect plant samples, or be sitting in a lab studying shark behaviour, or perhaps I could be working in zoo negara giving injections to sick tigers. My brilliant career as an animal man never happened.

But I've replaced that dream with other things and I'm happy enough with the way things are going. Going into the world to fulfil a major dream of yours can be frightening - my ambitious dream fulfilment right now is paralysing me with a fear so inexpressible, I guess, well, I can't tell you how.

And maybe I would never have become a marine biologist. Maybe I would never have become a zoologist. Maybe when push came to shove, the fear of potentially living that exciting life, or that life replete with hands on contact with animalia would have crippled me into inaction, and I never would have dared to try.

It's hard enough to dare to dream, being challenged to dare to live that dream is even worse. but why is it that we fear so much the very things we want so much? Is it enough to blame it on a fear of failure? Of loss? Or do we intrinsically not want to fulfil our dreams, so that they can always remain limitless and infinite, and our potential heroism unbounded by the harsh constraints of reality? What's the point of dreaming if you must wake up to fulfil it?

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Genusfrog [ 8:25 am ] | 3 comments

Friday, June 16, 2006


I would be Italian.

Italy has good food, good football, and beautiful cities, cities like the historical Florence or the grandiose Rome, or the elegant Venice. They've got a beautiful countryside. They've got a wonderful language. They've got great history, and rich culture. The women are good looking (of course) and so are the men (which means there's a chance i'll be good looking too). they've got a vibrant arts scene. heck, they've got great mediterrannean weather. they've got the alps in the north! they've got a volcano in the south! they've got high fashion (though i couldn't care less), fast cars (i care only a bit more) and great architecture! (yeeahh!!). Ok, so they've got an embarrassing WWII history, and their football gets embroiled in match-fixing scandals once every 25 years, but apart from these minor blips, Italy has got it all.

So ya, if i had to be reborn in a different country as a different race, i'll be Italian. in fact, i'll be Florentian!

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Genusfrog [ 3:07 pm ] | 1 comments

Monday, June 05, 2006
Maybe this is just a dream. Maybe i'll wake up from this as a Colombian druglord, with one of those moustaches, a name like Marquez, two bodyguards outside my bedroom door and Miss Colombia lying next to me. Maybe it'll be like a nightmare, all these hounding editorial problems crept into my night's sleep because, perhaps, just prior to falling asleep, i was reading a newspaper story that misspelled my name, and while turning the pages of that newspaper, i came across the cinema listings, and just because of that, i fell asleep and dreamt up a life as a Malaysian 25 year old working as a fulltime subeditor/part-time filmmaker subbing stories about people who run foul of the law and making movies about people who get mysteriously killed. Maybe i'll wake up as soon as i hit "Publish Post" and find myself in this bed, large enough for five, with cheap liquor on the bed-side table, a ceiling fan slowly swirling above me, and the yellow Colombian sun casting weird venetian shadows on my yellow mansion walls. There's a rifle within arm's reach. I can feel my moustache. And as i bat my eyes and realise that the 25 year old Malaysian experience was just a dream conjured from some exhausted slumber, Miss Colombia rustles in her sleep, whispering "Marquez, Marquez...", and i realise that everything, for now, is ok.

Click "Publish Post" now.

Like... now.

(click)

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Genusfrog [ 1:15 pm ] | 1 comments

Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Question 1: What is the best praise you’ve ever received?
One time, I got nominated for something. And the person who nominated me, in supporting his nomination, said that I was well-versed, helpful and an effective problem solver, among lots of other things. Hearing all that made me swell up with the most amazing pride.

Question 2: What is your dream praise, and from who?
Maybe to hear my dad say that I’ve made it as a man.

It’s incredible what praise can do. Especially if, like me, you’ve battled the years of low self esteem. To hear a fellow person say great things about you is already nice. Praises rock the houses down.

But recently I’ve run into some bible verses that have put things into perspective. In John 5, Jesus says that he doesn’t need the testimony of man – he’s only after the testimony of the Father. And we know that Paul, in Philippians 3:8, considers all the achievements of man “rubbish” compared to gaining Christ.

Which made me wonder: if the praises in Q1 and Q2 mean so much to me, why doesn't the praise of God seem anywhere as important? Is it just because i can't physically hear it? Am I shallow? or crazy? or unbelieving? Or is it a common fact of life?

I think everyone is like me. I think maybe because nobody cares about God's applause, it makes him sad.

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Genusfrog [ 4:23 pm ] | 1 comments