Rebel with a cause?
Books, Musings, Writings
Have you ever been in a position where you are told to not do something by someone of authority and, no matter how you wrack your brains for a reason to not do so, you just cannot find a reason? Say for example, you were walking down the road and you saw something that caught your attention, you veer off and race to take a closer look only to be yanked back by your mother.
I have been. I still am being censured thus.
I am reading Totto-chan: Little Girl at the Window for the seventh time and each time it never fails to make me feel a tinge of regret. I regret that I just let myself be moulded to the contemporary education system without standing up and trying to revolutionise. I wonder to myself it was because it was too hard or was it because I was conditioned to fear being different from the crowd?
Nevertheless, my favourite paragraph in the book is this:
Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having minds, but not perceiving the truth; having hearts that are never moved therefore never set on fire. These are the things to fear, said the headmaster
For every point in that paragraph, I can pinpoint an incident to underscore it. For having eyes, but not seeing beauty are about these bunch of frightful worms that have made their home in trees that line a path that I take to get to the train station. These worms are HUGE (from the tip of your longest finger to the base of the palm), yet few have noticed them. For having ears, but not hearing music, my boyfriend once told me he never had his heart moved by music before. I was just stunned, I was unable to understand how could anyone not have experienced that shining, warm feeling that washes over your heart when beautiful music plays? Having minds, but not perceiving the truth relates to how people just never wonder how something happens or why something works. They just accept that’s how it happens and never question. Their innate curiosity has been baked to death by too much routine. Having hearts that are never moved therefore never set on fire is the most poignant point for me. When I take the train and look around me, I always will come across a face so devoid of expression it scares me. I tell myself I must never end up like that. I embrace my emotions fiercely. I am proud that I let myself feel sadness, anger, disappointment, hope, passion without feeling ashamed or the need to restraint my emotions inwardly, that my heart is still alive in these abrasive times.
Interestingly, all of these I never learnt in school. My most precious lessons in life were taught to me in a multitude of settings. While I can’t change the past, I promise myself that I will never back down and change who I am to fit into this world.
And you?
Masks
Musings, Writings
One of the most excellent pieces of writing I’ve come across in recent days.
Don’t be fooled by me. Don’t be fooled by the face I wear. For I wear a mask, I wear a thousand masks, masks that I’m afraid to take off and none of them are me. Pretending is an art that is second nature to me.
But don’t be fooled, oh no, don’t be fooled. I give you the impression that I’m secure and that I need no one. But don’t believe me, please. My surface may seem smooth, but my surface is my mask, my ever varying and ever concealing mask.
Beneath lays no smugness, no complacence. Beneath dwells the real me, in confusion, in fear, in aloneness. But I hide this. I don’t want anyone to know it. I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear being exposed. That’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind, a nonchalant, sophisticated facade, to help me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation. My only salvation and I know it. That is, if it’s followed by acceptance, if it’s followed by love. Who am I, you may wonder. I am somebody you know very well. I am every man, every woman you meet. I am, in fact, YOU! - Anonymous
It is painfully true for me, what about you? This is something I’ve always wanted the people who care about me to magically know without me ever having to tell them. Maybe now it might become reality.
患得患失
Musings, Writings
The Chinese saying of 患得患失 means upon gaining, one also fears losing, thus rendering one unable to enjoy one has.
I think it is a powerful message for everyone of us, especially to myself and it rings true for the philosopher, the designer and the lover. If you’re unable to read Chinese, the gist of the article can be extracted from this story.
A man had several pieces of pottery that he wanted to sell at the bazaar. So he loaded them onto cart and began to make his way down. On his way, the bumpy roads caused a few pieces of pottery to fall off the cart and smash into pieces, but the man continued onward to the bazaar without so much of a glance at the broken pottery. Alarmed, passersby tell him about his loss. To that the man calmly replied, “Why look back on the smashed pottery? It is already broken beyond repair!” His point was, rather than focus on the irreversible past, why not focus on the salvageable future and go towards it.
Dark Side of the Moon
Writings
I can’t even begin to tell you how much, how much I love Pink Floyd’s sixth album without resorting to sugary clichés. It is singularly, THE richest, most expansive, most expressive seamless album ever created. Until now it still amazes me how Pink Floyd managed to create such a masterpiece without a massive bank of pre-recorded sound effects and the help of supercomputers to calculate complex, mathematical formulas for composing music. The quirky sound effects meld so perfectly with the velvety smooth bass, drums and guitars to support the vocals, pushing forth a dizzying, breathtaking song that lasts for the better part of an hour.Much as I hate to admit it, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon artful segue of tracks does outshine Queen’s 1974 Queen II segue on the Black side of the album. As the songs unfold and I lose all ability use words to describe that unyielding attraction that makes me hang onto every word (despite having heard this album through dozens of times). Every time I listen to Dark Side of the Moon, I get so hypnotised I cease to notice anything that happens around me. All I am aware of are the waves of varying beats and sound effects arranging themselves in my frontal lobe, explaining themselves without any words, yet I understand them perfectly. I run after them in hopes of finding out the secrets of the reflecting prism.
It weaves an elaborate, eccentric dream in the listener’s head without making sleep fall. In this dream, opera singers don’t sing intelligible words but we all understand them. In this dream, monetary objects become musical instruments. In this dream, every odyssey is different as each dreamer assigns his own meaning to his experience.
Dark Side of the Moon has a strange, calming effect on me. During periods of great stress, I’d put Dark Side of the Moon on and let it untangle the knots within me, created by the cold hands of panic. My heart revives as waves of pleasure wash over it. As the album fades into silence, I sigh in contentment and go back to real life.
