private pains.

by chance i got to know that Bit's dad passed away. it was after he appeared in class to give a funny (as usual) presentation on Hitler's speech-making skills. I guessed it from his tired eyes actually, when i stopped to chat with him; i didn't probe and Mark broke the news to me after he left. I knew Bit would give an entertaining presentation; yet i found myself shocked that he cared enough about school to brace himself to give a presentation in the midst of that pain. And then it hit me today how we all have our private pains; some more than others, but we all bear pains under the shield of a public persona.

And it made me all the more determined to see beyond my private pains and fears. To see everyone else as a worthy and important and delicate being that the Creator has made in fear and wonder.

Koizora

i fear that i might be detaching myself from reality by immersing myself in movie and TV. perhaps it's a sign that stress is setting in once more, this season of the semester. it's much easier to do nothing constructive and stay in virtual reality without worrying over how my timeline is faring. Yet withdrawal symptom of emptiness looms after the screen stops moving and the static picture reminds me that i'm still where i am, with that mountain of work to do and that lack of excitement and colourful emotions that these characters have. My emotions? two-dimensional boredom. Watching people who laugh and cry and live purposefully makes me envious. oh well :(


everything you would expect in a tear-jerking, heart-wrenching love story between a couple whose love spans over high school and beyond. love it for its beautiful cinematography, perfect characters and dreamy landscapes, hate it for how much of a utopia the movie etched into my head. still, i would watch it again. and again, maybe.
sigh.

coming alive!

I am rather pleased with how seminar discussions went yesterday; i came alive to ponder aloud the thoughts that i had with regards to modern political speech and theory of communications in Rhetoric & Politics class. We debated (or rather i brought up the particular issue) about Liefenstahl and the use of cinematography to enshrine Hitler's speech in The Triumph of the Will. Invariably, the discussion led to media portrayal of even more recent speeches and yes, we ended up talking about Joe (NOT Biden, the plumber i mean) and Obama. I think I've given myself the honorable title of THE Obama Supporter in class. I'm not proud of it persay (because pride is sin!), but let's just say I know the grounds on which my preference and support lies and I'm thankful that the Lord had given me the curiosity and capacity to think widely about different issues and subjects instead of basing my opinions on hearsay and impressions. Since becoming a Political Science major, i learnt to greatly disdain comments that have not been carefully thought through and pondered; regurgitation of stale positions on any matter is most adverse to my taste.

Also, I'm beginning to really enjoy all that has come my way; Architectural Theory, Film Art, Art History, French, Sociology of Media, Rhetoric, Music, and of course, Political Science. Since waltzing towards the realm of ART in its various forms and disciplines, I've grown to appreciate beauty in more nuanced and satisfying ways. I now have a greater vocabulary and better grammar to express a deeper level of the mysteries of being alive. I might not have known why i chose Political Science in NUS 4 years ago, but it's becoming clearer and clearer that God already knew beforehand (and i knew instinctively) this is the path to enrichment. The pact i made with myself (because then i had not yet known GOD) was that it will be a worthy journey. That i will learn not to get good grades (because that will come as a result of the latter), but to LIVE a fruitful intellectual/internal life. And i'm very very very grateful and thankful and exuberant that every semester has been such enrichment of my soul. God really really really knows best.

What is Art?

“A real work of art destroys in the consciousness of the recipient the separation between himself and the artist, not that alone, but also between himself and all whose minds receive this work of art. In this freeing of our personality from its separation and isolation, in this uniting of it with others, lies the chief characteristic and the great attractive force of art.

An artist’s work cannot be interpreted. Had it been possible to explain in words what he wished to convey, the artist would have expressed himself in words. He expressed it by his art, only because the feeling he experiences could not be otherwise transmitted. The interpretation of works of art by words only indicates that the interpreter himself is incapable of feeling the infection of art. And this is actually the case, for, however strange it might seem so, critics have been people less susceptible than other men to the contagion of art. For the most part they are able writers, educated and clever, but with their capacity for being infected by art quite perverted or atrophied. And therefore their writings have always largely contributed, and still contribute, to the perversion of taste of that public which reads them and trusts them. “

Leo Tolstoy, ‘What is Art’ in Aesthetics, 1965

Of Rodin and Wong Kar Wei.

Rodin, a French sculptor who created the partial figure, who worked with the vision that the human figure is complete without the sum of its parts. He used marcottage and repetition to a feverish pitch; frequently reusing and reassembling the body to create different personas. The same schizophrenic tendency exists in his renaming of The Poet to The Thinker, The Vanquished to The Age of Bronze.


Wong Kar Wei, Hongkong director who created and recreated his characters in different films, the same name, the same idiosyncrasies, different settings and stories told. He freely used takes of one movie and transported them to another, for stories are but disparate images, waiting to be made sense of.

Of Magritte and Jay Chou

René Magritte, French Surrealist who used the constant image of the man in the bowler-hat to orchestrate different enigmas. The simplicity of a man is rendered not-so-innocuous in his juxtaposition with a life-sized fish or a green apple but critics are never able to get to the heart of the matter; is the reusing of the man in the bowler-hat a statement?

Jay Chou, Taiwanese songwriter and artist who used the same musical themes for ten tracks in his 8 albums to date, evolving in his pieces in slight notches, while retaining the constant formula. The spin-offs from his diverse musicality highlights the pirate nature of the music industry itself. but why call it piracy and not an art movement?

the quintessential truth

it was a strange day that i had. affirming and hopefully, yet puzzling. As i shared with her my bgr (or lackthereof) fears, she said with much kindness that i must surely know that i am attractive and have many suitors. quizzically, i studied her gentle face for signs of truth as she uttered those words, but promptly i shut my eyes and shook my head, as if trying to remove the tangible weight of her words from my ears. how can it be if i don't notice it at all? yet i know this wise woman of the Lord will not lie to me.

i did not dare to probe further what or who she meant in those words of affirmation. as i went on my business in school and finally had solitary time on the bus journey back, i reflected on what we shared and decided in my heart that i had done right by letting that comment slip. if i hadn't noticed anyone my way, it must be that we're not ready or that those people weren't God's choice for me. He, in His infinite wisdom, had veiled my eyes and guarded my heart with a fierce tenacity. i have in my mind a much zealous and jealous Father who knows what's best for me, which is very comforting. the little piece of quintessential truth i had not probed, and yet it brought me a tiny glimmer of hope.

of oscillation and equilibrium

i've come to understand that we all oscillate, in the breeze of our fears and our doubts. It takes more for some to forgive their own waverings, but we can all take solace in the fact that we're always connected to the pendulum that will never let us go, a force that counters gravity on our behalf and gives us a true security in this ride. we can swing to extremes but there is always a place of equilibrium to return to.

i've come to experience prayer as a lifeline, especially in those painful and dark moments of silence. or so it seems. sometimes, it's not the silence but the deafening voice of self doubt and fear that drowns out rationality and spirituality. i pray to God without immediate relief, and can only summon enough remnants of faith to remember to will myself to hold on to the glimmer of belief that the prayer is heard and i am in good hands. No overwhelming sense of peace flood me, but the voices subside and i can finally sleep in that true silence. i awake with a renewed sense of purpose and hope the following day and watch in thankfulness as life unfolds to present me with gifts and little blessings that make my day. And then i know for sure that God had heard and prayer is the very very essential thing to hold on to in the midst of the tempest, no matter how tempting it is to let go of all hope of life in the choppy waters.

i've come to believe that honesty to who i am is not vulnerable. i fight the urge to put on makeup when i'm feeling insecure and scared. and i sense that authenticity is my strongest shield and fortress against self-doubt. and i transcend the meagre worries and insecurites and come to see that i have much more to offer to this world than a mask.

i've come to hope that the one i would love possess 5 core qualities. All these i see in different people who have crossed my path and i believe that he exists as an entity, not a list floating around in the recesses of my mind. One, a love and fear of God. Love to keep him close to God and Fear to keep him from wandering too far. Two, a tongue of affirmation and kind words to edify all those around him. Three, an individual to connect with me spiritually, intellectually, emotionally. Four, a man of inner and outer strength. Five, a level of comfort with him that allows for me to be who i am and knowing that i am still loved.

i've come to realise that i CAN ask for all these things, because God refined this list for me. i ask in unabashed boldness, not unlike a child asking a parent for guidance. it takes honesty to one's own heart, honesty to face God's heart, honesty to even dare to articulate this honesty.

perhaps perhaps perhaps

been feeling paradoxically deeply empty, as if i had voluntarily ebbed away my youth sitting around feeling empty on weekends and doing nothing active about it. the worst part of it isn't the emptiness, but the looming belief that i'd chosen wrongly to cut people, dreams, activities and things away from my life. i wish to think that they were right choices; a honing of academic skills, an enrichment of my inner life, a guarding of time and energy, an investment towards my calling into the future but all signs point to a lack. a lack of activity now that fulfills my emotional and social needs.

if i had been more rebellious i'd have packed my bags and left home to see the world when i was 18. Perhaps if i had done that i'd have a deeper understanding of what it means to choose and to live.

if i had been more directed i'd have left my studies to pursue my inclination towards music and the arts. Perhaps i'd have met people who inspired me to create works of beauty that transcended the mundane.

if i were a more determined person i'd have mastered all the skills i've learnt but never acquired. Perhaps i'd have done something useful with my time and daydreaming.

if i were a less contradictory person i'd just follow my heart instead of sit down and hear the heated exchange between my mind and my heart; with the moralising mind admonishing the weak-willed whimpers of my heart. Perhaps i'd have had seen more of the world and forged a path for myself.

but i had done none of that. i am me and that's no me in that parallel universe of "Perhaps".

i can't see God in the picture but i know He's there somewhere, leading me down this path. I just wish that I could see what He sees. because from my vantage point, it does seem that i've wasted much of my youth and killed too many premature dreams.

i'd always thought the most unrealised and unfulfilled the people in the world are those who don't know where they're going and why they're living when they're 50. the wanderers and the bummers, the people who drift along life with no apparent purpose or destination. then stories entered my life and it seemed that they were perhaps the people who are the true romantics who defied the dictates of a tyrannical "society". by and by i learnt that 'conventions' and 'doing the right thing' by going through school, meeting a passable someone and dating and getting married and have kids and grow old, losing one's looks and security and love in marriage is downright sad and 'brainwashed' way of living life. i was truly depressed with the lack of meaning in my life then and with the meaningless existence i was convinced i had to follow. i was more than convinced that i was trapped in a body and a life that was designed to constrict and suffocate me.

i then met God. it seemed to me then that He showed me that life was much more than the drab existence i was doomed for. i experienced a glimmer of hope in the word Salvation. it was a word i never knew and a concept even more remote. it's been coming close to 3 years, this life of Salvation i've been living. And i have readjusted my outlook on life, grappling with the Christian faith and Christian conception of life purpose and marriage. i gained much hope, i was putting on the new self that i found in Christ. it seemed to me that i was created for happiness, purposefulness, godliness and LIFE to the full. but these months, i am starting to fear once again. i fear that my transformation in Christ had been regressing, for i confront a familiar past packed with deadening emptiness and disconcerting anxiety that time is slipping away and i am being sedated into a living-dead status.

whatever is happening to me? did i do something wrong?

Youth without Youth (2007)

i watched a Surrealist film today. i didn't understand a minute of it. i can't believe it. i finally have to concede that there are films that COMPLETELY elude me. i'm stunned. the reviews were all bad, which i'm guessing because the top critics at Rotten Tomatoes are mere mortals like me. I found a mini surrealist treatise on the film and wow, it STILL eludes me big time. NO more Picturehouse for me for a while.

broken cisterns.

it hit me that the first impression God gave me when i first stepped into His House 2 years ago that i could freely drink from the river that flows before His throne. it hit me today when i was listening to a random evangelical sermon podcast that I am collecting water in broken cisterns in a dry and thirsty land when God says to seek His unending river.

"My people have committed 2 sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water."

Jeremiah 2:13.

I feel my own desperation in collecting remnants of mirages of oasis in broken glassware very much recently. As if seized by an unknown, looming fear, i could not smile as readily, walked as reassuringly, talked as openly about my struggles. I need to repair some shameful brokenness and i have to weld the brokenness with much meticulousness to mask that hysterical fear of being abandoned to fend for myself. an irrational dread pervades. I tried telling myself that this too would pass, but my parched tongue constantly torments me that i am in need of refreshing water. i am very much afraid of being left behind as people around me move on to find their loves. how juvenile huh. but I really need to believe that I am not wasting away.

the day i manage to consolidate all my blog posts from 04 till now, is the day of convocation of the amateur poet-writer. perhaps the convocation of amateur political scientist will come first, even.

what America needs now

Calm, Methodical Obama

vs.

Angry, Ungracious McCain

Friday's unique free-form debate format offered the best insights so far into the vast differences, values and style of Barack Obama and John McCain, and how they would approach the challenges that only a president can decide. It was the stunning contrast in personal behavior, not their answers, that was most revealing.

Given the time spent on the economic crisis, Jim Lehrer had time for only five "lead" questions on national security--on Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, and homeland security. Other major issues will have to await later debates. But there was enough time for many intense and revealing exchanges. With a command of both the facts and the underlying issues, and a reassuring manner, Obama convincingly passed the key test of the debate--is he qualified to be Commander-in-Chief? But the real insights came in the revelations about the way each man thinks under pressure, and the way they interacted.

First, note a recurring pattern: With the exception of Iraq, where the disagreement began with Obama's opening sentence, Obama usually began by laying out broad themes, often mentioning instances of agreement with McCain--frequently using phrases like "John is absolutely right"--before going on to stress their differences. This is unusual, and part of what makes Obama a unique leader; I do not recall any previous major party candidate in a debate volunteering so many instances of common ground with his opponent. McCain's response struck me as odd and even ungracious; he has often proclaimed he would work across the partisan divide, but he undermined his own claim by completely ignoring Obama and his comments. Instead, he attacked Obama repeatedly, using phrases such as "Senator Obama just doesn't understand. . ." at least ten times.

The manner in which each man approached problems was strikingly different. McCain understandably emphasized his own personal experiences, but almost never made clear what he thought was the larger purpose of policy. Each problem was treated on its own, and McCain's proposed policies were invariably confrontational. John McCain's world focuses almost entirely on threats. Obama usually agreed with McCain on the nature of these threats, but his proposals for action were more insightful, sophisticated, and comprehensive, and, unlike McCain's, included the use of diplomatic and economic and moral power.

These striking differences were not simply debate tactics; they highlighted differences between the two men that are in their DNA. One is the product of the brawling traditions of the United States Navy, and survival under unimaginable conditions in a Hanoi prison. John McCain has prevailed in life not by seeking common ground (ironically, the most notable exception was his historic voyages of forgiveness to Vietnam). What has kept him energized (and alive) is his enormously combative style, which he proudly calls "maverick," and his quick, sometimes pre-emptive attacks on opponents. It is not a criticism to say that he is a gambler; he said so himself in his memoirs and in the debate.

Although Barack Obama articulates his positions in a calm, methodical, and understated way, he is clearly just as tough as McCain, or he would never have come this far in life, against unbelievable odds. But he thinks about how to solve problems in a manner much more conducive to successful governance than McCain. While he made clear he is ready to use military force if necessary, his life and career embodies the search for common ground between peoples of different backgrounds, different races, different points of view. During the debate he often emphasized the non-military aspects of American power--including diplomacy backed by American muscle, the restoration of respect for the nation, and the direct link between America's economic strength and its national security.

Astonishingly, McCain had virtually nothing to say on any of these issues--yet these are the tools that must be precisely balanced and deployed with skill if the nation is to regain its leadership position in the world.

This difference was reinforced by the much-noted failure of McCain to look in Obama's direction or address him directly during the debate, and by the grim looks that left many viewers with the impression McCain was just plain angry.

The overall effect was exactly the opposite of what McCain hoped to achieve: Obama showed that he could handle the frontal assaults of an aggressive and seasoned senator-war hero in the very area McCain was perceived to be strongest. Obama offered the larger vision for the nation--and a reassuring sense he would approach issues with the seriousness they required. The gambling, brawling style of John McCain has its attractive side to Americans, but it is not what we need in the White House in these troubled times.