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





Tuesday, December 08, 2009



Life moves fast. and it's easy to forget that as it flutters by, new memories are being made. athalia and i have started a blog together called These glorious days. i like to think that it arrests the everyday mundane moments so that we can grow old safe in the knowledge that we're leaving behind a trail with which we can use to reminisce.

you can journey with us by clicking here.

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Genusfrog [ 2:41 pm ] | 1 comments

Monday, February 09, 2009



These aren't fantastic days to be a judaeophile. god knows i've never been one. 

(click here for a hillarious spoof of the jaws movie poster)

we had a jewish pastor preach at church today. he preached what i always imagined was the quintessential jewish christian sermon, ie the jesus-is-so-very-the-OT-lamb-he's-not-kidding sermon. about half way through, when he told us that he'd done pesach with about a hundred plus singaporeans in traditional jewish style, i wondered, to what extent should we be judaeophilic? (right now, i'm also wondering two other things: firstly, if they had any checks in place for the lamb's blemish rating, and secondly, should 'judaeophile' be spelled 'judeophile', without the 'a'?)

i know enough christians who are convinced that a truly authentic expression of their christian faith involves flag dancing, blowing weird-sounding horns during worship, knowing their hebrew root words and wearing tassled clothes. others either have their brains configured to judean geohistory or have one eye on the israel situation everyday. 

i've always been a bit iffy about this one. we're the gentile world right? i'm evangelising to and living among what is essentially globalised malaysians with our own ethnic hang-ups. what really is the relevance of an israel fixation in my world? but doesn't the bible say that i'm adopted into the bloodline of abraham, isaac and jacob? isn't that fundamentally the grandfamily of the jewish people? oh but wait. maybe i want to trim the fat off all the stereotypes of churchisms and seek an expression that's less culturally saturated and more kingdomlike. 

i don't know. idon'tknowifiwanttoknow. 

i wonder, what happens to us if it really does matter?

i'm reading this book right now called the chosen, by jewish fiction writer chaim potok. i'm sure that's worth at least 50 judaeophile points. let's see. my favourite meat is pork. that's gotta be something like a minus 10,000. maybe if i pray hard enough, God will let me grow a beard. that must be worth at least 2000 points. nevermind the fact that i'd look way cool.

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Genusfrog [ 3:17 am ] | 8 comments

Wednesday, January 14, 2009
LIKE MY DAD

Now i know why i like pulasan so much - my dad likes the big version!

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Genusfrog [ 7:19 pm ] | 3 comments

Tuesday, October 14, 2008
THE COFFEE TYPE

Pete Martell: How do you like your coffee?
Agent Cooper: Blacker than midnight on a moonless night.
-Twin Peaks

I remember having one of those church committee meetings and someone had one of those Jesus mugs that said "What wakes you up in the morning?" (the correct answer is not coffee).

for the last maybe five years, i've been self-diagnosed allergic to coffee. when i drink it, it makes me want to throw up. my heart beats funny and i go completely wonky. i've been quite happy to be a tea-drinker, up until recently, when ironically a batch of very nice bangladeshi tea landed on my table and i wondered what it would be like to be one of those other people.

those coffee-drinking people.

drinking tea is becoming more in. just like how eating salmon and salads is attracting even liam gallagher these days. but i've always been fascinated with coffee-drinking. i just couldn't touch it.

don't get me wrong, i don't like the tall mochachino with skinny milk idea of drinking coffee. coffee for me is no more romantic if the beans came from honduras. coffee for me is romantic because it's the non-smoking tortured artist's drug. it's romantic for its late nights, lonely thoughts, isolation, piles of work and, from a cinematic perspective, a nice waitress and cigarette smoke.

and so, i've reattacked the wanky black beverage one last time and i've decided to make it a good one. one big hurrah of a go before i concede defeat and return to my south-asian leafy alternative. i made a cup the other day and took about five sips across one hour. a whole hour. just to acclimitise.

i didn't like, die. far from it.

i woke up. a bit more. sip. and a bit more. sip.

the next day, repeat. then the next day, repeat. then repeat. every day now, i've had a coffee, sipped slow to death, but sipped nonetheless. maybe i've overcome the allergy. maybe it was never there to begin with. maybe i just made my coffees too damn black for the love of its romance. maybe now i can really drink coffee. like all the cool people. nice.

so i ask myself. what the heck am i doing, at 28, drinking coffee for image sake? or better yet, let me ask you something. me and coffee is just one example. do you think we'll ever reach an age in our lives where we effectively stop doing things in the name of projecting an image?

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Genusfrog [ 12:12 pm ] | 1 comments

Friday, June 13, 2008
MORNING FERGUS.

happy birthday.

man, this time last year the world wished you happy birthday with an exploded tire. since then you've had your horrendous boot cleaned out and in some ways, you've also been clearing out all the gunk in the trunk of your life. i think you're okay. just want you to know that.

you can be quite a complicated person, fergus. on your day, you almost perfect the art of being a defeatist, conflicted, insecure, unreliable and grossly forgetful person. and you've always been able to pull through either with the mercy of others or with your humanity. but fergus, at twenty eight, life starts to look different. you've always been a nice guy. but dude, you're almost thirty. can't keep relying on your humanity to get you by. i know you're working on it. i think that's great. keep doing it. it's frustrating for you sometimes to relapse, but as long as you keep getting up after a fall, you will be harder to knock down at thirty. and even harder to knock down at thirty five.

i know you're insecure. most of the time, i know when you do something well, it's secretly because you need to prove something to others. usually, to your family. especially your siblings. i don't really know how to say this but i want to release you from that burden of proof. i want to tell you that you don't have to prove anything to them, that nobody is interested in the evidence. i want to tell you that as you grow into a full-fledged man, that they'll look on you less like a child and more as the last among equals. i know that's all you've ever wanted. to be the last among equals.

for a few years now, words have meant a lot to you: words that cut and words that heal. since e06 i think, you've become very sensitive to words that have been spoken to you. i remember you dug up a lot of childhood bile in a few months there, and maybe you never took purposeful time after shooting rsd to process all that bile. you just let it sit there. like vomit, it started to stink after a while. this year, fergs, i want you to work through and process all your scars. when 09 kicks in, i want to see a more reconciled fergus. you good for that? no, don't panic. you know me, i'm not one for instant results. you just show me you're reconciling yourself to all your hurts, that you're more happy to be with your family, and start looking more at peace with yourself. if you can do that, i'll be super happy with you.

ok i'm gonna stop lecturing. here are some things to note.

cut back on that self-loating
cut back on those self-frust pent-up-anger release
do checks before you go anywhere. you're forgetful. but you're also a subeditor. put a checking process in.
say things to yourself that lift you up sometimes. you don't have to do it here. in the car will do. no one's gonna know it's daggy.

and trust in god.
really.

these words sometimes get bandied around until they lose their meaning. but in your life there are people you believe right? if they told you something, you don't doubt them. you take their word for it. fergs, trusting god is not the end. that's what they sometimes forget to tell you in church. it's not the end. it's the means to an end. the real end is relationship. if you want it, you have to give him more, dude. your secrets, hopes, fears, dreams, failures, flaws and sins - your whole humanity. he's not that freaky right? you've known him for what, five years now? six? yeah, six. he's pretty awesome to have by your side and you're pretty awesome to have on his side too. so think about it yea.

be happy today. and be joyful tomorrow. i'm actually proud of you.

your better self,
fergus

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Genusfrog [ 11:07 am ] | 23 comments

Thursday, May 29, 2008
THE DISPOSABLE HOME

Some jobs will send you places. in fact, some jobs specialise in sending you places.

i heard of this company that offers you some really swanky career opportunities. the ladder, if you wanted to climb it, was yours to climb. you even get to travel.

yes. you travel. a lot. the idea behind all that travelling is that just before you can start putting roots down, they pick you up and send you on another exciting adventure. this way, you never get to form meaningful attachments to people or places. you're always just passing by. and the only attachment you can form is towards your company.

why else wouldn't you start climbing?

on the same day that i conceived of this post, a friend talked about never having known what it's like to have a longstanding home. always living out of a suitcase, so to speak. i happen to know what having a home is like. and i treasure it. putting roots down is a very meaningful thing to me. israel travelled forty years to find it. some people spend their whole lives running away from it.

me. i intend to hold on to it.

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Genusfrog [ 5:53 pm ] | 2 comments

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

MY MODBLOG

In The red street diner, i wrote about a girl who goes home to discover that her hometown and family have disappeared.

after writing that, a part of my life also disappeared. it was my old blog.

goodchristianboy.modblog.com was in many ways the heyday of this corner of the internet. i remember attracting 80 hits every day, mostly from the small but supportive modblog community. it was the blog on which i started blogging.

i had a voice when i was there. i blogged about my journey of faith, philosophised about god, life and christianity and preached like a legitimate preacherboy with a pocketful of relevant verses and an altar call at the end.

modblog closed down in january 06 and along with it died my voice.

i wonder, how did i lose my voice? was it work? was it time? or growing old? maybe i started learning that christian material without the edge of cynicism came across as uncool. i stopped talking about jesus online. the blog of a flawed guy trying to get it right became the blog of a flawed guy trying hard to get it more wrong. by march 07, this place was already steeped in defeat. by july, it got about as bitter as it could get.

sometimes we lose things in life. and we replace them with new things. i found myself a home here on blogger. for the first few months, my modblog could still be viewed but i was so stupid, i never backed up my posts. i kept saying, one of these days i'll back up all those posts. one of those days became one of those weeks. one day, it just couldn't be viewed anymore. in its place, a page error.

i'd lost all my posts.

two years of my documented life, erased from the internet. maybe it was just as well. i had seemingly lost the same heart that posted them.

*

last night, athalia told me about something.

she told me about webarchive.org. they have this search engine there called the wayback machine and what it does is, every two months, its robots crawl all over the internet and archive web pages. it's been doing this since the 1990s.

athalia told me that it's there. that's she's found it. my modblog. she found my modblog.

today, i saw it for myself.

ripped around the edges, with pages falling off the spine, sat my modblog in the middle of some monster filing cabinet of digital garbage. some of the posts never got archived. but many of them are there. i'm not making the same mistake twice. today, i started backing them up, from 2004 onwards. i'm even reposting peoples' comments with the names they used back then.

it's strange.

rebuilding your past in a new home is like putting old photos behind new frames. and as i read what fergus wrote at 24, i'm starting to wonder if it's really a bunch of posts that i've recovered, or perhaps a voice that had been dead for too long.

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Genusfrog [ 4:41 pm ] | 0 comments

Wednesday, April 16, 2008
DEFINING COOL

Languages change and it's been a long time since the most common usage of the word cool on the street has meant the state of moderately low temperature. but what does it really mean to be cool? is cool just being attractive? stylish? in keeping with fashion? happening? (now there's another word that needs a redefinition - happening!). i thought about this yesterday and arrived at a conclusion of sorts.

i think cool means credible.

when a 14-year-old says that a pair of sneakers is cool, he is essentially saying that the shoes have some sort of cred. when a 27-year-old parishioner says that a particular preacher is not cool, he is fundamentally calling into question that preacher's credentials.

cool cannot just be stylish or attractive. that's 'stylish' and 'attractive'. cool is cool. it's got less to do with how arresting something looks and more to do with what that arrest actually means when associated with the individual. cool is not just about beauty, it's about the meaning of beauty.

a person may have a great personality, all sorts of abilities and even look the part, and in fact he is probably a very cool person. but the necessary link lies in the dots that connect his attributes to my values. herein lies the credibility. a person can be described to me as cool. but they aren't cool until they're credible.

i don't know why, but i feel like taking this definition of cool out of the gen xes and gen ys and bringing it to the older adults. i want to do that so that older adults know that when a young person says that they like something because "it's cool", they're talking about a lot more than the superficial appearance of attraction. and when i say that someone is cool, it's really because something about them speaks to me.

i'm really happy about this thing that i've discovered. that's why i'm inviting your comment.

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Genusfrog [ 10:24 am ] | 2 comments

Monday, April 07, 2008
THE MALAYSIAN DREAM II: THE RETURN OF THE REPRESSED

Freud said that as we go through the early stages of life, we repress unpleasant things. these things have a way of creeping back, and sometimes, they show up as psychosis. he called this the return of the repressed. film academicians like to use freud to study horror films. they say that sequels are all about the return of the repressed.

now i'm not exactly going through a return of the repressed. but i'm facing a comeback that's in some small part cause for mild horror. yes, that 2.5-pronged bearded monster from the suburbs otherwise known to me as the malaysian dream has reared its head once more.

i promised myself last year that my life would never be the same again. i would live near the poor. i would stand by the discards of this world and share my food and shelter with them. i promised myself that i would live a life of revolutionary love expressed through identification with what the bible calls "the least among you".

why is it then that i catch myself lured back to the suburbs? is this temptation? if it is, i know now the very texture of that which creeps in to curtail a life of abandoned difference. it is predictability. security. normalcy.

can they coexist? i want to give my wife and kids a memorable life. a life that includes both the security of a family home and the counter-culture of identification with poverty. today, i'm asking myself: how does one do it? how do you unshackle yourself from the trappings of suburban comfort and still give your future family the kind of life that is rich in learning, assurance and safety?

in horror films, you can kill the threat as many times as you like. there's always a last shot that tells you the threat is still there. today, i'm asking myself: is the malaysian dream like the threats in horror films? the kind that keeps coming back until you sign off on a 300,000 dollar house? maybe when i do that the sequel will end. it's like the final girl getting killed by the slasher. the final girl never gets killed by the slasher. she always escapes. she always survives.

today, i'm asking myself: will i always survive?

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Genusfrog [ 5:55 pm ] | 0 comments

Wednesday, February 20, 2008
ON PEGGED CURRENCY

I remember when the ringgit was pegged to the US dollar. a lot of people were talking about it and some people thought it was smart, the only way for our economy to improve. others - as others always do - thought otherwise. now i don't know much about currency pegging. so i wiki-ed it and found this quote by a former president of the new york federal reserve bank, who said,

"A country that fixes its exchange rate surrenders control of its domestic monetary policy."

anyone who knows me will probably know that interpersonal relationship is probably the pound sterling of currencies to me. i can't function if someone's upset with me. i can't think straight when there are fights. and i can't sleep if i'm disturbed about a relationship. and so it's occurred to me - i am not an autonomous person. i am far from independent and i am hardly sovereign. the currency of my well-being - so to speak - is pegged firmly to the status of my relationships. when the interpersonal plane starts nosediving, everything nosedives along with it. productivity. concentration. worldview. like right now. the world is a very dark place right now.

and so i'm experiencing what that new york federal reserve bank former president guy calls a surrender of control of my domestic policy. i've pegged my emotional quotient to that of others and i've essentially ceded it over. it feels terrible. i know it's good to hurt when others hurt, but this is the biggest piece of dogshit feeling in my world right now and i wish so hard that i were more autonomous. but i don't know how. i've never been autonomous. i've only ever know this - adjusting my mood to the environment and not knowing how to get out.

i know at some point, the ringgit unpegged itself from the dollar. hooray. merdeka. if the folks in the finance ministry tell you it wasn't easy unpegging, ask them to talk to me.

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Genusfrog [ 2:06 pm ] | 1 comments

Thursday, February 07, 2008
HAPPY UNCHINESE NEW YEAR

Chinese new years don't mean anything to me anymore.

it used to mean a lot. but not any more. at least, not from the perspective of how it ought to. 

don't get me wrong. i'm having a really good time being home with my family. i'm enjoying muar as much as i always do and being around my parents and siblings is so much fun this year, it's definitely already better than last year.
 
so i guess what i find meaningless about chinese new year is really the fact that it's a chinese thing. in the last five years, i've been gradually defining myself less and less as a chinese and i think i've passed a certain threshold. i've passed the threshold beyond which i find it hard to excite myself over anything that makes me special because of my racial heritage. 

a few weeks back, i stumbled on an american website, and these women were bitching about oprah backing barrack obama for the democratic primaries. these women's anger was directed at oprah choosing to back the black candidate - and thereby playing her race card - rather than the woman candidate. of course, these women fail to realise that backing someone on account of their gender is really no more intelligent than backing someone because of their race. and in their anger, i guess they exposed their own shortcomings - that fundamentally, what they're really interested to back is just some superficial sense of familiarity. she's a girl. he's black. i'm chinese. 

but my chineseness says very little about who i am now. i'm miles away from the guy who's miles away from being - if there's such a thing - a typical chinese person, bearing all the stereotypical chinese attributes. most of us think it's wrong to be racist but it's okay to be racial. today, i'm not so sure if i'm interested anymore to be a racial person. i'm not so sure anymore if it's okay to find racial discrimination repugnant but still find racial identification perfectly innocuous. 

family? food? long nights talking? six days in the house i grew up in? all these i love. as for chinese new year itself? i guess i'm losing belief in it.

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Genusfrog [ 12:40 am ] | 0 comments

Saturday, January 19, 2008
ON TAKING INSTRUCTION

What are you like when you're told what to do?

ps charlie once preached that obedience to god is doing when told, without asking first. he gave the illustration of a guy in the line of fire - when told to duck, he doesn't ask why. he just ducks. same thing with god - when he says This, you This because you may have as little time to stick around and debate on the logic of Thissing as it takes for a bullet saying hello to your head.
 
but i'm not good with being told what to do. and in the past two days, i've had to look at this trait in the eye and either stare it down or back off. this is me thinking it's time to back off.

the main thing about not liking being told what to do is not really the message but the messenger. i can take instruction from leaders - i don't have an insurbordination problem. whether it's my team leader at work, our bigger bosses from on high, to my cell or zone leaders in church, or pastors (definitely pastors) or even the tricky one with parents, i'm generally receptive and inclined to nod my head at the dispensation of instruction.

the other category of people to whom i don't have a problem taking words from are peers whom i deeply respect. these are people who have clinched the buy-in factor. off the top of my head, vernon and adrian are two such people. they have shown that they care enough about me, we have shared enough cups of everything over long nights talking, for me to put my head down and say yes when they give me the boot in the arse.

but in my okayness with them lies the stark comparison - all the other people. i don't like being told what to do by the rest of the world. i get rebellious. i feel like doing the opposite sometimes, just to wind them up. just to show them that they have no business talking down to me. it's rebellion and i'm naming it. but it also has another name and it's respect. 

respect is a very big thing for me. and i believe that peers should respect each other as peers. i have a big problem with peers dispensing advise when no one's looking for any and i've experienced this enough times to know that it's gonna happen again - it's i who have to deal with it. and while i may not appreciate my friends violating our lateral relationship, maybe sometimes god puts words in the mouths of imperfect communicators and i need to close my eyes to the messenger and just listen to the message.

it's not easy. and believe me, there's a sincere bone somewhere in me that wants to change. with whom do i start? 

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Genusfrog [ 4:20 pm ] | 1 comments

Thursday, October 25, 2007
ON TRANSPARENCY

To my leaders

if you want me to be transparent

i'll need something from you first.

i'll need you to get to know me. i know you want to know me, to know the transparent parts. the hidden parts. the juicy parts. i know you want me to confess to you all the remorse and sorrow and hurt and guilt and hopes and fears and lust and greed and deception and vulnerability and ambition.

but i won't be transparent before i'm opaque. i know i've not been faithful with the small things. i need to work on that. and i'll need you to get to know me starting from the small things too. you'll need to know who my favourite bands are. what kind of movies i like. who are my heroes. what i love about football and beer and buddies. whether or not i'm a nightbird these days. do i like coffee? what would i eat for breakfast? what would i do with a million bucks? or an extra thousand. right now.

and i'll let you know me. i'm not hard to get to know. those who have tried found me. and then some people never really tried. i want you to know me. and i want to know you. but i won't make myself transparent for you to observe if you're not yet observing me while i'm still opaque. don't mind me. it's a trust thing.

from now on, i'll only trust someone with my secret side if they bother to know the easy things.

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Genusfrog [ 9:23 am ] | 1 comments

Wednesday, October 17, 2007
10 CONFESSIONS

To ten different people, this is what I want to say to you.

1. I've been lying to you
2. I fear you more than anyone else
3. Most of the time, I forget that I'm betraying you
4. You've taught me the cost of friendship
5. It will never, ever be the same again
6. I have such a deep respect for you
7. Yes, I know I've been neglecting you
8. I wish I could tell you what a big mistake you're making
9. You will never know how happy I was just sitting next to you
10. Only you can understand me now

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Genusfrog [ 4:26 pm ] | 8 comments

Sunday, October 14, 2007
CORONATION

I am an antichrist. i am an anarchist.
- The Sex Pistols, Anarchy in the UK

A lot has happened since my last uprising. i reveled in my coup d’etat. admired all the rebel heroes. how revolutionary they were! how modern. how cataclysmically violent! ah, was it not mao who said that a revolution is not a dinner party? i loved it. every minute of it.

it’s all empty now. there’s no more beer in the can. the roads have been unswept for weeks and there’s grass growing out of the sidewalk cracks. there are sunny days still, but they've only given me cloudy joy. otherwise, it’s just a blustery existence. they say that revolts don’t work because revolters don’t know what to do when they stop revolting. i am an anarchist. today, i let up.

i met you. you were gentle. gentle with yourself, and gentle with me. you smiled, but only after you were finished talking. you looked unsure. were you unsure about me? if you were, it showed, but i didn’t let it stop you. it felt good to see you. it felt good to let you walk near me.

pull up a chair.

i’m sorry it’s dusty. your feet… i’m sorry. i didn’t clean this place up. i’ve left it like this for a while now.

i’ve got this thing. i want you to wear it. have you heard of arcade fire? they call this thing a crown of love.

here.

from now on, can you call the shots? i’m not good at this. and can you help me clean up the streets? wash the walls and pull out the weeds? i’m no good at decoration. maybe you can help me dress this place up.

now that you’re here, it’s okay. you can tell me what to do. i’ll listen. and i’ll try my best to follow. you can tell me if i’ve crossed the line. here’s some chalk. you can draw new lines.

just be around. i don’t want you to not be around. and while you’re around, wearing my crown of love, i’ll listen to you.

i’ll try my best to follow.

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Genusfrog [ 9:49 pm ] | 1 comments

Wednesday, October 03, 2007
SUPERBOYFRIEND

Today is the kind of day when idealism dies in a young man.

i used to have this idea, that when i got a girlfriend, i would be the perfect boyfriend to her. i would make her birthday cards, never yell at her, be sensitive to all her moods, be great with her family, and always be the one with an olive branch in hand. i tried that.

it doesn't work.

there is no such thing as a perfect boyfriend. all boys and all friends and all boyfriends come faulty and poorly assembled. and at some point they screw up. i've screwed up.

and as much as i wish i could live the rest of my life unshackled from the guilt or mystery of my failure, i know that my inability to learn from the past will imprison me forever. and forever, i will go on diving headlong into tangles of knotted heartstrings, forever i will put my heart between the chopping block and the cleaver, and forever, because i am such an absent-minded dickhead, i'm going to do something or want something or become someone who can astoundingly and magically massacre a perfectly good relationship. and i will live with that guilt. forever.

where will i go wrong next?

go all soft and lose who i am? become a jerk and piss the world off? or keep trying hard? yeah. keep trying hard to straddle that mythical line between being likeable and being honest, that invisible, possibly non-existent space that is at once loving yet sensationally true to oneself, and uncompromising with one's hopes for a dreamed life. because you see, the day i set my foot into that illusory puddle once more, that's the day my failure becomes complete.

no, i will never be anyone's perfect boyfriend and i'll be damned if i ever strive towards it.

*

rob bell, when talking about the superpastor complex in velvet elvis, said this:

"I've met so many people who have a superwhatever rattling around in their head. The have this person they are convinced they are supposed to be, and their superwhatever is killing them. They have this image they have picked up over the years about how they are supposed to look and act and work and play and talk, and it's like a voice that never stops shouting in their ear.

And the only way to not be killed by it is to shoot first.

Yes, that is what I meant to write.

You have to kill your superwhatever.

And you have to do it right now.

Because your superwhatever will rob you of your today and your tomorrow and the next day until you take it out back and end its life.

Go do it."
*

And so, superboyfriend, today you die.

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Genusfrog [ 3:33 pm ]

Tuesday, October 02, 2007
THE LICENSE TO BE NOT OK

I wanna be the kind of person who can be honest and upfront say "hi guys. i'm not okay". people need that room. you know, to sometimes not be okay. in fact, people need the room to sometimes flat out be tremendously not okay and be able to push that un-okness to the absolute length of it. it's healthy.

right now, for instance. i want to be able to tell the people around me, "i'm gonna sit in a corner now and answer all questions monosyllabically. but if you wanna meet me on a nice day, tommorrow should be a good bet". it can only be healthy. the next best thing is to shut up. the worst thing for someone in my shoes now to do is to actually wear a black face and say "no, i'm fine".

sure, we all have that intrinsic need to keep face, show face, be nice and abstain from general bastardism. well, this is my new interpretation of this intrinsic need then. i shall, from now onwards, exercise this basic human trait by telling it like it is.

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Genusfrog [ 5:11 pm ] | 0 comments

Tuesday, September 25, 2007
THE NEW MOVIE

It's strange when you leave a past behind. you walk for the sake of going away, and you forget that in your haste to leave where you were, you're actually going somewhere else.

three months ago, adrian asked me what i thought it'd be like one year from now. maybe we all won't be doing the same things anymore, no longer hanging out in the same group, no longer having the same routines.

it turned out much faster than next year. three months was all it took for our lives to be completely flipped over. today, it bares little semblance to what it was this june. do you ever get that? like you've just walked out of one life and into another, and everything is now different?

i first felt that when i came home to malaysia and then broke up with laura. i felt like a movie character who had just stumbled into the wrong film. like clint eastwood's cowboys in a hong kong art film, or robert de niro's gangsters in a b grade zombie flick. it's weird when you move on in life and live out an entirely new routine, surrounded by new things.

but now it's different. right now, it feels like a sequel under a new director. the new director likes a different palette, so he changes the colour scheme a bit. he thinks that some of the characters should interact differently, so he readjusts the dynamics between the main players. some characters are killed off. some characters are being drafted for a mid-movie arrival. the setting is augmented but by and large the same. and though it's nothing as radical as walking onto an entirely new set, it is essentially still a distinct and new movie.

i'm living in this new movie right now. i think a few of us are. some parts of it are nice but other parts of it are really hard to watch. it's a movie with a few more giddy ideas but it's also got a lot more deep sadness. and sometimes, the poignant soundtrack moments mask the fact that there is a bitterly painful subplotline going on underneath. as the lead actor in my own narrative, i can't say i know what this new director is doing.

just please don't kill anyone else off.

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Genusfrog [ 9:01 am ] | 0 comments

Friday, September 14, 2007
POLAR BOY

"He in whom the love of truth predominates will ... recognise all the opposite negations betwen which, as walls, his being is swung"
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

For two years, monet painted haystacks, grainstacks and wheatstacks. lots and lots of them. he painted them in the mornings, in the evenings, in the snow and in the flush of spring. the haystacks are essentially the same, but they aren't. i'm no art historian. what i am is bipolar.

i feel like these monet paintings. one moment, i can be a sunshine boy, the face of youthful optimism, brimming over with hope. blink and i can be bleak and cold, a bitter cynic wallowing in blustery defeatism.

i've been like this since going to melbourne. i'm not sure what precipitated it, but maybe it was a combination of a sugar-coated childhood and a cynical university education. it could hardly be anything else.

on most days, i find myself caught with my feet on opposing ends of paradigmatic extremes. i never really learned the subtle art of adjusting myself into the middle. most people do - they start out hopeful and they adjust to the cynicism of adulthood. others start out hardened, and they find hope and comfort as the years roll in.

for me, i oscilate between the two, taking turns to represent opposing positions without ever spending much time in the middle. i just never learned how to be a moderate person. i find little incentive to hold the middle ground, considering it on most occassions to be an utterly boring and ordinary position to represent. put differently, i might just be an extremist of sorts. a conflicted extremist. an extremist who plays both sides with equal dose of conviction.

i wonder, what must it be like to be a moderate? a balanced, steady middle-grounder with carefully considered opinions. it won't work for me, would it? no, a moderate's life will never work for me.

Paintings:
Grainstacks in the sunlight, morning effect, 1890.
Haystacks at the end of summer, morning effect, 1891.

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Genusfrog [ 2:20 pm ] | 0 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