Now with your hollowness folded, pressed into mine. Tell me, Are you still the wistful one?
Untitled 2, a paper bag soliloquy
Tag: Life
On openness
Humans tend to systematically underestimate our propensity for change.
I was reading in bed when they took my neighbours away
And I would (perhaps) feel less shame for my silence then, when the Men took my neighbours away and called a Blessing this unseasonal sorrow under a spring sun.
On grad school, a mid-application rant
US$450 (not incl. travel to a different city) travel for the GRE examUS$600 for test prepUS$ 85 per applicationUS$285 for World Education Services to verify my degree from LSE, plus 30$ to send it out to each school And that’s just to apply to 3 schools in the US. Australia’s next. Touché, global education-industrial complex. … Continue reading On grad school, a mid-application rant
On the GREs
Oh, for the love of Montaigne, for the death of nuance, what the actual fuck.
On having no opinions about things
This is the age of platformed idiots. The rest of us are deluded into thinking that loud idiots are representative of the acme of knowledge.
On farting and vanities,
When you sing, I grate bones.
On fear
I am afraid I still won't have gotten a plant when I die.
This Place
half a dream, half a ruin.
On alcohol, mood boosters, and not writing
Remarkably, it was only when I started to study Experiences and Design that I realized the glaringly evident biological fact: mood can affect our perceptions and actions. If we're in a good mood, we tend to be more generous, forgiving, and perceive positively ambiguous situations. Hashtag epiphany. Yay. This is how mood disorders set off … Continue reading On alcohol, mood boosters, and not writing
London, again. (Pt. 2 of whatever)
People are kind of like plants that way. Once you yank them out at the root, they don’t grow so well.
London, again. (Pt.1 of whatever)
If to seek out the pleasures and sorrows of one’s youth, as cautioned Camus, is a kind of folly certain to be punished, then punished I will be.
Three Identical Strangers
Three Identical Strangers is the most thought provoking documentary I have watched in while. To fully appreciate this story, you ought to start here, with a 1995 New Yorker Article that first features its progenitor, Dr. Peter B. Neubauer. It was the sixties, a set of identical-twin girls came to the attention of the prominent … Continue reading Three Identical Strangers
Mania (revisited)
It will be a spectacular shipwreck. You enter twilight with your heart oozing coffee and single malt, tittering on the edge of aneurysms bursting, bursting riotously to the pulse of stars beating, beating like drums. Returning nightly to a vacant den dining on an expensive takeout meal for one. Mock me if you will. You … Continue reading Mania (revisited)
On living for ourselves, and a death-day reflection
“April is the cruellest month.” Trauma has a peculiar effect on me. Prompted by dates, places, smells, passages of text, or fragments of music, my body - the muscles, bones, cells, nerves, neurons and all, harmonize to re-enact an affective experience of that ordeal. The mind attempts to forget, but some primordial agent still holds … Continue reading On living for ourselves, and a death-day reflection
An Anatomy of Intimacy
There's a scene in the 2012 movie Francis Ha where Francis, the loveable epitome of a quarter-life crisis, delivers a monologue while sitting with a group of friends, a part of them, apart from them. “It's that thing when you're with someone, and you love them and they know it, and they love you and … Continue reading An Anatomy of Intimacy
Reminder to self: stay away from narcissists
An unfortunately high fraction of my personal relationships – platonic, romantic, collaborative, familial – have involved narcissists. I am the common denominator there, so most of the problem lies within me: I seek validation from a sense of being useful and being needed, at the cost of my own fulfillment, at the cost of my … Continue reading Reminder to self: stay away from narcissists
To weaponize a people
To weaponize a people, you must first carve them hollow. This eon has promised immortality in exchange for submission, that happiness is but a grasp away if you do the right thing and live the right way. So you design them in moulds and make them in factories, and draw a line around them and … Continue reading To weaponize a people
On blue
There is a special kind of blue only found in this country, heralding the arrival of lords and kings and captains of nations, the blue of Man’s subjection of the elements. A royal blue, a celestial blue, rolled out across the heavens for the most heavenly of guests. A Presidential Blue. #00117F is a … Continue reading On blue
Micro. Mania.
It’s not that I don’t have the words for it, but that there’s no one around to hear it. And words are lonely wisps, alive only in the eyes of the observer. There is a fresh word for this insanity now, they call it rapid cycle bipolar disorder. No-one else heard its name though, … Continue reading Micro. Mania.
On realism
Many of us are stuck in unhappy jobs trading integrity for a pittance. Many of us are stuck in dead-end relationships that brought into our lives an unbecoming. Many of us have an unfortunate habit of attaching to visions of life as it should be, ourselves as we wish to be, and people as they … Continue reading On realism
In praise of letters
I have long fantasized a life of epistolary communion with those I love the most in this world. There is intimacy and vulnerability in the eager anticipation of sitting down on a Sunday morning by a window-side desk looking out into a day breaking, readying oneself to compose deep and unembellished thoughts, which one prepares … Continue reading In praise of letters
On the question of life (because I can’t afford to buy cool things)
How many models of the iPhone has there been? Variants included? 24? 25? We are Winston Smith drinking Soylent Green, waking up in a Black Mirror adaptation of the Truman Show, rampaging through the set and hitting the fourth wall. We are simulation #19456-fourteen, test subjects for the grad school dissertation of our alien overlord. … Continue reading On the question of life (because I can’t afford to buy cool things)
Misanthrope Rising, and a Friendship Manifesto
I have succumbed to the void. But only by a little bit, and for a little while. The successive departure of friends – and I only maintain a handful, deliberately so – has punched holes in me, each one of them an irredeemable, irreparable, inconsolable shape of a soul. However transient it had been, to … Continue reading Misanthrope Rising, and a Friendship Manifesto
Home
It was first known as 'the house', 'my parent's place', 'back there', a cage, my prison. Schoolmates used to ask if they could come by and play, when we walked past my door on their way home. Before I run out of excuses, they stopped asking; soon they stopped sharing that walk with me too, … Continue reading Home
Sunlight tax and parable of the fisherman
I moved into a new apartment this week. A little one-bed room on the ground floor where grasses grow, and snails reside, cozy and resolute. A south-facing suite on the fifth floors in my building costs at least 1/3rd more, the pent house suite is double, even though the layout is identical. Based on the … Continue reading Sunlight tax and parable of the fisherman
Unravel – loneliness and its antidote
“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald I pretended I was not myself during the time of my mid twenties. The country was already stuffed with returnees and I wanted to be different. A … Continue reading Unravel – loneliness and its antidote
Unravel – Tinder and Romanticism
I've spent the bulk of my recovery messing around on Tinder. Ok I am very late to this game… perhaps I missed it’s prime entirely? Was it always so... boring? Is it odd that it’s actually killed my sex drive? Okay… I get that folks don’t go on Tinder to find love. It’s for hook-ups. … Continue reading Unravel – Tinder and Romanticism
Unravel – Perseverance
Managing ourselves is difficult. In the midst of a raging storm, clarity and acceptance can be frustratingly out of reach. Sometimes your body takes over and you become a passenger in your own mind. It is a frustrating fact of existence that we process things intellectually and processing them emotionally at different a difference pace, … Continue reading Unravel – Perseverance
Unravel – the Metaphor
Those sharp little fangs bit down and drew blood and he knew it was a metaphor. Fast friends, they had met on New Year’s Eve and she was in his life for 175 days. Some days he had felt so close to her that his wings melted and felt his monstrous heart plummet from the … Continue reading Unravel – the Metaphor
Unravel – Prologue
A month after my 30th birthday, I found myself perilously employed at a job I resent, functionally broke, estranged from family, inconsolably lonely with an anguished heart, and hospitalized for two weeks from complications during retinal detachment surgery – which had no apparent cause in the first place other than to add to the cascading … Continue reading Unravel – Prologue
My 4-step coping strategy for panic attacks.
It begins with the world closing in and the floors and the desks and the walls and the crowd and the trees and grass and the skies bending, bending towards you with vehement intent and the space around you spinning, spinning into a whirlpool of red, yellow, orange and green then bright, bright light scorching … Continue reading My 4-step coping strategy for panic attacks.
Welcome to me.
TJK; I doubt y'alls are actually reading this, but if you are, hey - welcome to me. I have been a writer only in the most technical sense - that words are tipsily tapped out from beneath my thumbs in a tangle of thoughts, all of it me. But I am not a writer in … Continue reading Welcome to me.
The Guinness Sigh
The sigh that follows a protracted, tantalizing gulp from a fresh, cold pint of Guinness is paradise. That luxurious satin nectar of bitter ecstasy filling around your tongue, your gut, your blood. It's the hard-earned sigh when propping up a stiff foot after a long hard Saturday, where the fifth cup of coffee … Continue reading The Guinness Sigh
Weeps the harlequin
And goodnight to you, good lady. May you wake to a bright and better tomorrow. It bows. Such is the role it plays. The Jester. The fool. The harlequin to the Innamorati. Translator of absurdity, the courier of consolation and conveyor of catharsis, who rides upon the east wind and sparkle with dew. It entertains, … Continue reading Weeps the harlequin
On friendship, and parting
There should be a better word than sorrow for friends parting. Cherished friends, to whom you’ve subtly grown close, over a surprisingly few moments of connection: that one morning perched on the balcony of your regular restaurant sharing toast and poached eggs, the sting of the winds tempered by a spring sun; or the wintry … Continue reading On friendship, and parting
On flowers, and artificial grass in a pot
In one surreal moment, Ido was up at five a.m., head bursting with frenetic thoughts that demanded to be committed to word, only to delete the draft by accident with no idea as to what had poured out of him, and spent the day in that hazy, drugged up sentimental way, as if he'd lost … Continue reading On flowers, and artificial grass in a pot
Silence
I'm not terribly good at writing dialogues, mostly because real-life conversations seem to consist of two or more people taking turns talking, over and at one another, making sounds that pass through each other without stopping and disappear. It's never as lyrical as they should be. People don't really talk like that, you might … Continue reading Silence
On almost burning to death but not quite and now he’s not sure how to react to it all and to the shitstorm that is living.
Ido almost burned to death last night. It’d have been an embarrassing death. His trusty old electric heater got covered by a fallen towel and set itself on fire, while he napped a few steps away. Rest in pieces, iridescent old friend. Many a night of warmth and comfort you have brought to him. Fitting … Continue reading On almost burning to death but not quite and now he’s not sure how to react to it all and to the shitstorm that is living.
Remembering Mrs M.
When I was a kid, if the air in my home became too still to bear, I’d escape to my friend D’s house and spend the evening playing Oblivion, watching the Big Bang Theory, and riffing on his guitar. I never stayed for dinner, though not for the lack of invitation. I still had the … Continue reading Remembering Mrs M.
Love. Mania.
You construct your life from the tip of a pin. Woe is you. Hope is you. Harsh sun is you. Bitter wind is you. The ones who brought you to this world naked and screaming, they were barely twenty-three. A dark alley blowjob and a motel rump and voila, a child and half a mortgage … Continue reading Love. Mania.
The old man at the hospital
They discarded him in a puddle on the gurney by the window, crumpled between a mass of robes and linen, tangled in a mess of bandages and tubing. Lights painted him in shades of yellow and blue. Eyes shut, skin taut, ash tongue protruding from a barren mouth. Between arduous breath his withering husk would … Continue reading The old man at the hospital
On the absurdity of scented candles
I went candle shopping with a friend today. Her indulgence in a highly inefficient means of distributing light and scent is part of a self-care routine, so who am I to judge? But the existence of the $50 scented candles is quite absurd – in a Camusian sense, that it sheds light on the unfathomable … Continue reading On the absurdity of scented candles
On Gratitude
I am at the tail end of a crisis made endurable by the fidelity of friendship. Let this be a memento that through hardest times there were those who offered the rarest gift, without supplication, and thus the anguish brought on by the utter rejection of some was redeemed by the unconditional validation of others. … Continue reading On Gratitude
Pondering the economics of carry-on luggage.
A few of my flights this year suffered the plight of excessive carry-on luggage. At times it became a safety issue, where several bags had to be pile in an empty row of seats in the back. My most recent flight was an Airbus A321. At a glance, it had 20 x 6 seats in … Continue reading Pondering the economics of carry-on luggage.
Sunday
It's the way Sunday morning feels, aloft, everything else in the world suspended. You wake up to the tickle of sunshine, to a serene stillness occasionally rippled by faint snoring from the silky silhouette besides you. You can’t help but smile at the memory of last night as you tiptoe around the mess on the … Continue reading Sunday
On Bilingualism and Identity
But I reside in the discursive space between two cultures, and I feel more aimless than ambivalent.
On Growing Up
Growing is recognizing that you can’t run away from who you are. As a child, I imagined adulthood to feel cinematically stoic and demure. You grow up to become steadfast like an aircraft carrier, standing upright between heaven and earth with the world on your back. The things that terrified you as children shattered upon … Continue reading On Growing Up
Home
The rebel act of a wayward son.
A pilgrimage, part 1
I’m on a pilgrimage of sorts, a lonely trip into the mountains of Shangri-La, in search for clarity and catharsis. Clarity I have yet to find. Catharsis, I’m halfway there. I travel to wander. Pick a destination and head there. The destination is not the point, the journey is. You’ll wander into the middle of … Continue reading A pilgrimage, part 1
There fell thy shadow.
~ Citalopram Chronicles (Week 3 and 4). “Non sum qualis eram.” I had hoped this would be a celebration of the efficacy of medication, that the moral of the story would have been: seek help if thy brain is faulty, take thy medicine like a good boy, and all would be well. I had even … Continue reading There fell thy shadow.
On my birthday, a suicide
This is my cycle. I know it well. It begins around Christmas, subsides with the onset of spring, and burst out in full swing at this exact time of year. For most of my life I was a passenger inhabiting a vessel, watching with detached eyes, feeling it all, but unable to act. But now … Continue reading On my birthday, a suicide
On Art
My good friend K is a brilliant painter. In the company of her craft, I am awed and humbled by her skills and quite embarrassed by my boorish tastes. The thing about art is, you’re often expected if not assumed to know it already to partake in the conversation, which makes it awkward for one … Continue reading On Art
On memories and selfies
The earliest theatrics must have happened in our heads, because our memories are just neat little stories. Some of us battle monsters, some ascend from rags to riches, some embark on heroic quests, some are on a long voyage home. Some live delightful, romantic lives, some come to tragic ends. We all began somewhere and … Continue reading On memories and selfies
On Writing
I’m trying to become a better writer. Consider it a mid-year resolution, or more appropriately a quarter-year aspiration, since it’s neither mid-year nor was there any resolve involved. I’ve been thinking about developing a hobby, and writing is a close as it comes – a craft, a thing, a time sink into which I happily … Continue reading On Writing
Lovestruck continued…
I’ve been quite preoccupied with thoughts of love and intimacy recently. I blame Spring time. ‘Love’ might be overstating it. What’s the word? Affection? A tenderness? The stirring ardor of a wild heart? Dickinthebraintitis? Remember when you met that person for the first time? It might have been a chance encounter in the aisles of … Continue reading Lovestruck continued…
Death of a friend
It was lunch time. Izzy gave me half a BLT, I shared with him my French fries. We sat against the wall and braced the rain and chilly November air and became friends. We were kids then. Two stupid, broke and starving kids trying to survive London, scrambling from gig to gig making ends meet, … Continue reading Death of a friend
A case of toxic parenting
They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. --- This be the verse. Philip Larkin A kid came to our center today for emergency counseling. Within seconds, before they even left the car, it became apparent that the mum was the problem. Anger, bitterness and resentment radiated … Continue reading A case of toxic parenting
Confessions of a Workaholic
My brain pulsates. I feel a needle churning behind my eyes. My breath is shallow. The lights spin a little, settle, I find my footing and head towards the door. I’ve lost count of how many cups of coffee I’ve had this evening, but my heart is still beating, so I’m going to get my … Continue reading Confessions of a Workaholic
Happy Birthday to Baby P.
Frank coiled around his throne of dew. Around him stars bloom and fade. Each of his million arms cradled a bubble, in which new worlds were born and old ones decayed, each filled with billions of souls who lived and loved and dreamed and died. “Hello, child”. His form slithered and looped around Pip, a … Continue reading Happy Birthday to Baby P.
I really can’t think of a title.
He fell to his back, took in a large gulp of air, squeezing it out slowly with clenched chests to silence the wheezing. She rolled over to the side in a waft of thick, dizzying perfume. Their eyes never met. Not even when he leaned over awkwardly to kiss her. “No”, she said. He stopped … Continue reading I really can’t think of a title.
On Faith, Part 3 of Many
X, I don’t know why I am writing this to you. Perhaps it was the way you casually brought up your faith, giving me a glimpse of your utter devotion to an idea. I found it to be strange and exhilarating, because it was an emotional expression of which I am incapable. Emotion is the … Continue reading On Faith, Part 3 of Many
Memories of a childhood friend
I used to write to her. They were songs about stars and the midnight moon. Sometimes she was cast a spectral beauty, the shade of a Renaissance painting, the perpetually adolescent vampire queen (we were both Anne Rice fans those days). Those stories were invariably about her and her boyfriend. She thought I was mocking … Continue reading Memories of a childhood friend
Goodbye to Ghosts
In the days leading to a new year, some reflection is in order. I didn’t expect to last this long. Many things coincided in the past that brought me, at a very young age, to the realization that no matter what medications I took, what meditative practices I pursued, demons would haunt me forever, lest … Continue reading Goodbye to Ghosts
On truth, media, and why you should stop blaming or relying on Facebook for news
Oceans away, we the unenlightened masses of a repressive nation observe the US election drama with morbid curiosity and befuddlement. An egotistical, deceitful, pugnacious buffoon is crowned ‘leader’ of the ‘free world’, and somehow Facebook is to blame. Now that’s a universal problem: that which is popular is assumed and accepted to be true. Humans … Continue reading On truth, media, and why you should stop blaming or relying on Facebook for news
On sending young kids abroad
A child is born, a new subject of negligence and trauma of modern day parenting. But at the age of nine you toss him out of his native environment into a land far, far away, into a language so utterly alien and a heritage worlds apart from his own. The minds of children are malleable. … Continue reading On sending young kids abroad
Farewell to J
J and I met on one soggy afternoon at a charity networking event. She was there to represent her organization, I a creeping wallflower looking for new causes to attach myself. We struck up a conversation, thus beginning roughly two years of friendship. It was one of those relationships made up of long stretches of … Continue reading Farewell to J
On Career Planning (and my lack thereof)
There exists a subset of humanity who stumble onto enlightenment in their early teens. Inspired by some revelatory event or figure in their life, they embark on the lifelong pursuit of some career objective with frightening clarify (for a child). You know – the folks who so earnestly exclaim that “I’ve always wanted to be … Continue reading On Career Planning (and my lack thereof)
On Usefulness
First day of my Coursera Philosophy course triggered an avalanche of questions. Why should I study philosophy? Does it serve any practical purpose? Is it ultimately a frivolous and self-indulgent goal insofar as I am able to pursue? There is a more utilitarian voice that demands I commit to more productive tasks, study subjects and … Continue reading On Usefulness
Part 2 of Many: On the search for God, Eternity, the One, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a supernatural solution to all his earthly troubles…
For some years after meeting the bespectacled grape-eating finger-licking demigod, I became a devotedly religious child. I was a ‘somethingist’… or whatever that cult was called. For once in my life I felt a sense of serenity, knowing my life was secure, that though I walked alone on dark and foggy roads, a greater force … Continue reading Part 2 of Many: On the search for God, Eternity, the One, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a supernatural solution to all his earthly troubles…
Part 1 of Many: On the search for God, Eternity, the One, the Flying Spagheti Monster, a supernatural solution to all his earthly troubles…
On his sixth birthday, the Mother took Peter to meet the oracle of her Sect. Peter remembers two things about that trip. One, that it was a restaurant which served fried scorpions as an exotic dish, and he spent most of lunch peering into a terrarium wondering what it'd be like to be stung by … Continue reading Part 1 of Many: On the search for God, Eternity, the One, the Flying Spagheti Monster, a supernatural solution to all his earthly troubles…
On the spectrum of life
Epicurean - Stoic Apollonian - Dionysian Gay - Straight Political Left - Right Blond - Dark Roast Introvert - Extrovert Good - Evil Ultraviolet - Infrared Death metal - Post rock Child to Adult Few things in life are black and white. It would be so much easier if we could plant our feet firmly … Continue reading On the spectrum of life
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