Of Fear

It's been 35 years since I've walked on this earth, and there are a good number of things I have learnt about this emotion they call fear. It is a useful emotion, like pain. But like pain, it should never be indulged. Here are a few of those lessons.

1. Fear is as real as you allow it to be. Don't ever diss a person's fear. It is real as far as he or she is concerned. 
2. Logic does not banish fear. Logic, brain. Fear, emotion. Wrong body part. 
3. Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the willingness to take action in spite of fear. 
4. Bungee jumping does not cure one's fear of heights. Believe me, I tried. 
5. No decision made in fear will ever be the right one. It might not be wrong. But it'll never be right. 
6. I believe that fear, like problems cannot be overcome at the same level of emotional maturity that created it. 
7. Fear is a habit. As such, anything that can be used to change habit can be used to overcome fear. 

I am still afraid nowadays. It seems like the more I care about something, the more fear I have. The answer of course, is not to NOT care. But to do something, anything in spite of being absolutely terrified. And very often, the closer you get to facing that which you fear, you realize, that it starts to go away. 

And after a while, you come out the other side, buzzed on adrenaline, and thirsty for a beer. 

So What's So Special About A City?

What makes a city special? If you cut to the chase, it's just buildings, and vehicles, and people concentrated into one tiny area. Between Bangkok, KL, Singapore, or hundreds of other places in the world, there's not much difference, is there? 

For me, it's the people and the memories of shared experience that we try to immortalize through pictures, or sometimes video. Scenery, architecture, art... even camwhoring or food pics. And when we are looking at the pictures afterwards, to me, it's not how nice we look, I am remembering that special moment in time, and the story that the picture tells. What the city is, is the backdrop for story. The stage where we, the actors play on. 

It's not Hong Kong, it's 3 people going shop to shop, buying one bowl of wanton noodles at every one, to share so we can figure out which is the nicest one on the block. 

It's not Yangon, it's crazy buses with living, breathing street directories, and that story about the butterfly tattoo.

It's not Penang, it's competing to see who gets the better flower picture, and an amazing scooter trip. 

It's not Bangkok, it's the most amazing stewed pork, crazy dancing, conversations, and incredible connections in the most unlikely place. 

The list goes on. 

So thank you, you who made the cities that I have been to special. Cities are special because you made them so, and I am grateful for all the stories. 

Freedom

I'm do not understand people who say that they need to get away, and take a trip. How does one escape from one's mind?

To explore, have new experiences, to meet people and have a jolly good time, sure. To change the environment so as to get an epiphany, absolutely. Go travel.

But if you can't escape your mind, it doesn't matter where you go. A new country, another city, it's all the same. The greatest escape is right there between your ears, as is the strongest of prisons.

That's why the prisoner in the tower watches the flight the birds.

When your soul is unfettered, nobody and nothing can tie you down, and the rest is just, fiddly bits.

Women Are To Be Loved...

Not understood. This is my new mantra. Oscar Wilde is a smart man.

Boys, certain things work. Don't ask why. Just know that they do, and use it. Kinda like driving a car from Point A to Point B. You don't have to figure out the physics and chemistry that go into making the engine, like Nike says, Just Do It.

1. Chocolates almost always work. Have an emergency stash of her favourites around at all times.
2. She will shop. Always. Bring a Book.
3. She. Comes. First. The only exceptions are when she says so. This is non-negotiable.
4. When she rants, listen. Offer sayang before you offer solutions.
5. Make her look good on the dance floor, and every man will look at her. Every woman, would look at YOU.

Once I find out other things, I'll put it up.

Ambiguous Question

I have a problem with the "Have you had casual sex in the last 6 months?" question on the blood donation card. I am ALWAYS serious about sex.

Thank You

I've never been in the habit to write a birthday post, and this is not one. The date is just a coincidence.


For someone who pioneered the "Vandalin", it is ironic that at the end of my 33rd birthday, I find myself doing the exact opposite. I am incredibly, ridiculously, completely awake, listening to music and revisiting memories.

With the lenses of hindsight, accumulated experience, with maybe a tiny speck of wisdom and awareness, I review certain lessons have been hammered into my thick skull over the last few years, and would like to take the opportunity to express my thanks.

Thank you, dad and mom. I love you. More than you ever know.
Thank you, my dear brother. We are almost polar opposites but you have always got my back. Know that I have yours too.
Thank you my family. My enormous family of cousins, uncles, aunts and now, nieces. You provide colour and meaning to my life. I have learnt much from each and everyone of you through our conversations. I will continue to learn more.

Thank you my friends. Past, present and future. You have all made an impact in my life one way or another. My life is infinitely richer for you having been in it.
Thank you to the ones I have loved. Memories, lessons, and most of all, thank you for the opportunity to intimately share part of life's journey.
Thank you colleagues and mentors. I am grateful for the gift of your knowledge. And now friends and family have to put up with my smart ass-ery. Heh heh heh...

My birthday, I made a wish. It is not for me. I am already well and truly blessed. I pray it comes true.

The Little Lies and The Big Ones That Matter

This is why we need fantasy. We need to start to believe in the little lies, in order to believe in the big ones.

Facts are facts, but they only serve to outline brushstrokes of what IS. The important things, things like truth, beauty, love or mercy, is what the person fills in, and in doing, defines himself.

The Most Intimate Contact Between Two People

is not sex, not kisses, not hugs.

The most intimate contact between lovers, is when they're holding hands.

Kisses you can give to strangers
Hugs to acquintances
Sex can be a commodity, bought and sold between willing parties.

But you can tell how comfortable a couple with each other by the way they hold hands.

Welcome Darkness My Dear Friend

The silence between the notes
The space between the seconds
The darkness between the stars
The stillness between one breath and the next

Mostly, in the night when everyone's gone to bed, or in the mornings where a restless mind awakes to find no respite.

Liquid oblivion tastes bitter on the tongue now. Even the good stuff.

So I throw myself into everything else.

I search
For absolution,
Perhaps manifestation of pain.
Perhaps intense self growth and breakthrough.

Fuck emo. Enough whining. Now to get on with life. The world awaits.

Ouch.

perdón, cuchillo de eliminación en curso

Come Out Awesome

It was an SMS conversation with a friend. But it was also a promise to myself.

There are several ways that things might turn out. One way or another. I'm gonna come out better, stronger, hotter, and awesomer. *flicks hair*

I rule.

Ancient Wisdom

I read somewhere that the ancient American Indians mastered the art of living for the moment and enjoying it.

In waiting, they savour the anticipation, and the emotion of waiting. While there is the anxiousness of a resolution and the eagerness of the end, they are aware of their feelings, and their surroundings, and they take pleasure in the emotion.

The end of the road is something to be treasured and it is true. But so is every step of the journey.

PS. Do not forget the REAL end of the road is death. That is the certainty. Now LIVE dammit!

Thoughts At 4am

Maybe,just maybe. Convenience is also a kind of fate.

picture from here.

Believe in Little Lies

Sometimes lying is necessary.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Death: Humans need fantasy to *be* human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
Susan: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?
Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
Susan: So we can believe the big ones?
Death: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.
Susan: They're not the same at all.
Death: You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged.
Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what's the point?
Death: You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?

On A Night Like This...

So let's give this power of positive thought thing a go...

My own apartment


A Balcony overlooks the city skyline

In A Storm


Having a whiskey


With the woman I love, who loves me back, in my arms

The Role of Friends

What, in the end, defines a friend?

One that'll tell you the truth, even when he knows it is not pleasant.

One who advises with your interest at heart, even though sometimes the advice is neither sought for nor listened to.

One who shares the moments in your life, no matter how trivial it seems to the other people.

One who tries every single way and means to keep you from the edge of the cliff, even if it means being irritating, getting into an argument or risking the friendship you hold dear.

And if you jump, and you crash, one who is still there to pick up the pieces.

Come to think of it, what defines friends, are not the good times, but the bad.

The Quiet Before The Storm

I am reminded today how much I love the time before a really big storm hits.

The electric potential in the air and the sense of stillness the slight coolness of the gently swirling wind promising so much, and yet now, just barely rustling the leaves.

I am strangely calm, and everything is in sharp contrast in the muggy air. The world is held in balance, between states. There is a silence that underlies all the sounds I hear, almost like a soundless note that is the counterpoint in the world's melody.

The note that calls to the storm like a void waiting to be filled.

Anticipation.

Dilemma

When faced with an impossible choice,

of holding on with an iron grip, and watch whatever you have slipping through your fingers slowly but surely,

and letting go, and risk whatever it is you value disappear in an instant,

how do you choose?

Of Channeling and Growing

Today, I had a conversation with my brother, a cop. He was telling me that the number of suicides and attempted suicides over the years have been on the rise.

The trend just serves to remind me, that every person needs an outlet. And if you keep it all repressed inside, at some time, some where, some how, it's gonna come out. And if you don't find some way to channel that to a constructive use, simply put, you're gonna explode, one way or another.

In a lot of the ways, the social media is mine. One huge ass aspect of me is an absolute extrovert, and sometimes, the real life (and my wallet) cannot keep up with my need to socialize. So I turn to the internet. Mentally, it takes up a lot of creative energy, sops up the excess time, and gives me an outlet for a lot of feelings and expression.

Parties, hanging out, boozing and doing stupid stuff are I guess part of my coping mechanism. A means by which I try to feel better, or at least keep things buried so while my body exhausts itself, my subconscious work out the issues at hand.

But at times, my closet introvert takes over. In the worst times in my life, I have taken to hiding and being alone with my thoughts. It's been a long time since I have had me time.

Recently however, another activity has come up. Exercise.

I don't gym, and I seriously hate swimming. Cold and wet, no like. Warm and wet, hmmmm.......... but I digress. Pushups, crunches, and from last Sunday, runs.

Pushing the edge of the envelop in physical self development is slowly becoming another avenue of channeling inner pain. After all, if it's gonna come out somewhere, might as well make it somewhere useful, right?

Time to get back the fitness of when I was doing martial arts, and dance.

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Since we're on that particular topic, it's strange also that too many of our own lessons in life come only when we are dealing with pain. It seems like to we humans, pain is soul food.

When we're kept nicely insulated, it'll seem like all we're doing is stagnating.

So, now that I'm alone again, and with so much emotion to work through, the time for muscle ache and growth. If I sometimes seem morose and pensive (I just rediscovered this word today), I apologize in advance, construction in progress. Heh.

Random thought on Religion

Since the atheist believes that there is no God, and since it's never been proven one way or another, so atheism is ALSO an article of faith isn't it?