"For when you take up a pen and paper.. to commit your thoughts to the relative permanence of the tangible, your mind works to its fullest. Not merely exercising its function, you actually reveal its essence. The truth is, you never know so well what it is you think nad feel until you express it on the page. Make it live and breathe in words, sentences, paragraphs. in this way, writing is a uniquely human process of discovery."
from Lexean,
Issue 01.
a Singapore Publication with the creed:
"For the Man who believes in
The Power of the Words
The Merit of Morality
The Might of Virtue
One who is worldly in outlook
Asian at Heart & Proud to be Lexean"
Issue 01.
a Singapore Publication with the creed:
"For the Man who believes in
The Power of the Words
The Merit of Morality
The Might of Virtue
One who is worldly in outlook
Asian at Heart & Proud to be Lexean"
Writing is a gift to me, because it unblocks arteries running through my soul.
it is a magical thing to unravel the mysteries of the individual self through the medium of writing, slowly peeling through the onion layers, slowly advancing in the maze of complexity, until you strip yourself of all pretense and ostentatiousness. Right at the core of it, i'm always delighted to realise how my existence can be represented through such sophisticated thinking and writing. The great philosopher said "I think, therefore I am" has packed more wisdom in these simple words that i had realised before.
The mystery of life is wonderous and well, mysterious. It's a curious sensation to know that one is alive, usually. It's not just the thinking-about-meself that unlocks who you are; it is the mere process of thinking and debating and writing that one realises how alive one is.
it is the same with good conversations. I always humbly admit that my oratory skills are not as developed as my writing skills. But times when i meet good conversationalists that i feel comfortable with, the demise of good conversation in Singapore's general climate becomes jarring and i become dissatisfied with the quality of conversations that i can have. I remember so vividly in the streets of Boston when an old man stopped Chris and me to talk about Heidegger and film. it shook me that it was a lazy regular day in summer at the crossroads of a quiet street, that a stranger would smile and stop to talk on a topic so different from the mundane and hurried conversation that i'm used to in sunny Singapore. The old man turned out to be a Philosophy major who graduated from Harvard years ago.
Consider the opening of a Lexean article from the same issue,
A conversation here is like a highway to a corner destination. The trip doesn't last long, the exits are clearly marked -- and taken quickly. From wedding dinner to corner coffeeshop, the tongue is now just another piece of cutlery, to work on food, but not for thought.
This is not the place to delve, to dally, to play and to probe, to dance and dart around an idea. You have a better chance of finding a white hair on the Chinese Politburo. When you call your friends, don't they ask you after 30s max:"what's up?"
Good conversation, as any dictionary will tell you, involves an exchange of ideas, even some debate. Or try this on for size, from James Hillman in We've had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and The World is Getting Worse:
"Not just any talk is conversation; not any talk raises consciousness. Good conversation has an edge: it opens your eyes to something, quickens your ears. And good conversation reverberates... the next day, you find yourself still conversing with what was said. Your mind's been moved. You are at another level with your reflections "
Recently I'd been tired of listening to people mindlessly bashing the ruling party, Bush administration wrt to Iraq War etc with hearsay and what "everyone else knows"without making the effort to remunerate and critically think for oneself the issue in question. In such conversations i always sense an unwillingness, if not inability, to delve into the more difficult underlying tensions. The elusive and unsubstantiated bashings really serve more as small talk then conversation.
As i flipped through the issues of Lexean that i grabbed from outside the Central Library yesterday, my heart actually surged with a flicker of hope that the intellectual climate in Singapore would grow and even flourish in time to come. There are pretty neat articles on politics, economics, environment, gadgets and (gasp!) high end male fashion.
Obviously, the publication is sexist(read the creed again) and elitist (it costs a whooping $15.80) but it's good stuff. And i don't believe that only men are capable of thought, seriously. There are as many FHM spin-offs in newspaper stands as women gossip magazines. I will forgive the creed on basis that it's branding. And i will continue reading it.