For this one, think deeply.

You are beautiful;
Find that beauty in poems;
I want to rape you.

2006

2006 has just arrived but, as per normal, I dont feel anything. I am apathetic to anything of this sort--christmas, new years, birthdays, even my own. I can see the fireworks from my house though, and I've got to comment they dont look very pretty. They never did, except when I was ten years old. They seemed larger than life then, springing toward you, creating the effect of being engulfed in a brilliant supernova of sorts, the likes of which is perhaps occuring somewhere else in a universe right now.

Many a time I wish I could feel something for this sort of things, and many a time I fail, even when Im out with friends or family. And as I type this out now I know there are many others out there who are currently enjoying themselves: shaking to the music, dancing about in those foam partie, having a drink or two or many, since drinks would probably be on the house. Yeap, many a time I wish I could feel something for this sort of things.

New year wish? As per normal, I wish we could all just die. Either that, or escape into an alternative reality, though there is not much of a difference there because you're still going to die at the end of that alternative reality. Plus, death is an alternative reality in itself isnt it. It is.

Well, for those who do care about such things, a happy new year to you.

The promises of eternity

She does not believe in empty promises
And neither have I any
To deliver:
For I have only my eyes, my lips my hands
To give her--
Or perhaps she would like my gaze, my kiss
My loving touch.

She does not trust these empty promises
And neither have I any
To send her:
For I have only my body, my spirit my heart
To offer
Or perhaps she would like a day, a night
And nothing much.

Ryan

FRIEND: If you saw the one girl you truly like, would you go all out for her?
ME: No. I am generally a weak male. If I see competitors I would rather retreat back to my cave. I would retreat back to my cave, and light a fire outside it.
FRIEND: [A pause, a thoughtful smile] The cave is nice and warm at times. But you're going to lose the girl you like this way. As you grow bigger your cave grows smaller.
ME: Thats what the fire is for. It's to attract the right people.
FRIEND: It's going to attract other animals as well. Like moths. Moths are always attracted to light. Do you like moths?
ME: Perhaps. But I'd still rather stay in my cave and sleep. I'd rather stay in my cave and sleep than hunt my own imaginations in the wilderness, in the dark.

Pause.

ME: My new polo shirt smells very nice.
FRIEND: Oh? Can I smell it then?
ME: Go ahead.
FRIEND: [Takes a whiff] I dont smell anything.

Another pause.

FRIEND: KC, you know, I wish you were a girl.
ME: Why.
FRIEND: Because I just smelled your shirt.
Silence.

Eternity (Edit)

In 1994 (Frank) Tipler published a strangely ingenius book called "The Physics of Immortality", in which he argued that the Big Crunch would be the happiest possible ending for the cosmos. The final moments after universal annihilation would release an infinite amount of energy, Tipler reasoned, and that could drive an infinite amount of computation, which would produce and infinite number of thoughts-- a subjective eternity. Everyone who ever "existed" would be "resurrected" in an orgy of virtual reality, which would correspond pretty neatly to what religious believers have in mind when they talk about heaven. Thus, while the physical cosmos would come to an abrupt end in the Big Crunch, the mental cosmos would go on forever.

- Jim Holt, 'How Will the Universe End'. As cited in The Best American Science Writing (2005)

The alternative to the Big Crunch, if I may add, is even more chilling. If the universe does not collapse back on itself it has to continue expanding forever, ignoring the possibility of a "constant universe". As matter spreads out over an increasing area, and as stars die off over time, the universe would become a colder and darker place than it already is. In this alternative future--the Big Chill, as it is called--eternity would become, very literally, reality. With infinite time, "infinite computations" could be managed, the result of which would probably not be dissimilar to that of the theory of the Big Crunch.

Ccorrect me if Ive got that wrong. My interest, and therefore attention, lies primarily with the imaginative appeal of such theories, not their technicalities.

Haiku

Twirling around with
Dust in your hair; walking through
A countryside love.

Tentatively speaking, everything is all tentative. Friendship, kinship, love, joy, sorrow--they're all tentative concepts until the day we go forward to fulfil them.

Milky way

An argument based on the fact that imperfect information exists tends to be an irrational one. Consider the following example:

A government wishes to construct an interstate highway that would cut through a numer of natural habitats. It is going ahead with the plan because it has calculated—and we take its calculation to be a truth in this context—that the social benefits obtained with the highway exceeds the social cost of the plan.

An environmental activist group, on the other hand, argues vehenmently that the government cannot be sure this is the case, due to the presence of imperfect information. It further develops its case by pointing out possible bias in the government, and by stating change is irreversible ie the social cost could have been underestimated.

A possible retaliation from the government can easily take on the inverse form of the activists’ argument: it can argue that the activists’ themselves do not have perfect information, and point out possible bias in the group, and state that a portion opf benefits could go into nullifying the costs ie the social cost many not be so straightforwardly signifcant.

(What happens in reality could be far from the aforementioned, but we should note this is merely a sandbox example)

It can be thus seen any argument fixated on the point of imperfect informtation is planted on barren land. The argument is able to support both propnent and opponent, it has multiple shapes—or no shape at all. All options it supports are arbitrarily supported, and we can never be sure who is right and who is wrong. Any random decision would be equivalent—or superior to—a “calculated” one, because no knows for certain whose information is more perfect. If an argument staked on imperfect informtion is accepted all options would be both invalid and valid at the same time.

The example also illustrates the tendenct within us to utilize—and sometimes unconsciously fabricate—arguments to match our ends. If that sounds irrefutably sensible we must also accept, then, that almost all our arguments are inevitably plagued with ourselves.

The example can be projected onto an infinitely larger scale. I for one am not particularly concerned with government policies and environmental issues unless they directly affect me in a selfish way. The government can be alluded to what can be called an incomplete objective truth, and the activist group represents that part within us that wishes to rebel for our own subjective truths. To the extent there can be no perfect information, we have to follow the government and not the activist group, keeping in line with the assumption mentioned earlier. The government has, or is, the better truth, however inadequate it may be relative to an absolute truth, and our faith in it has to be there.

And it seems likely faith is very often necessary to convert an incomplete truth to a complete one, the latter of which is a paradoxical term which both exists and does not. Faith forms, perhaps, the only bridge we have to make it into the realm of objective truths, though at the end of it we will find ourselves up against a large mirror reflecting our own ideals and perceptions, because there can be no objective truth.

PS. Some parts of it very indirectly taken from another blog, the material of which has its own roots in Soren Kierkegaard's "Subjective Truth".

PPS. Truths can be supported and objectified themselves by mathematics and the like, but this raises the issue of solipism and other epistemological theories that I will wade into only when I have the time and energy to; it appears ironical that one needs to put in a lot of effort to understand the belief that nothing is true except yourself, sometimes not even so.

And just to tell you, the chaung tzu butterfly story is the single most bewitching metaphysical concept I can find. I mean like, can you find a concept that can be summarised into a few sentences which crushes your whole world with such beautiful effect?

Loop

The first flake of the season falls
A teardrop on the window pane.
A white winter passion calls
For me to stand by the window
And take down beauty in words:

The second flake of the season falls
A touch on the gentle skin.
A white winter passion calls
For me to stand by the lake
And take down beauty in words:

Snow falls silently.

A random something

Music: The Afters - Beautiful Love
Books:
How to Read and Why, Harold Bloom.
Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl

By its very nature, the notion of an avant-garde, a term taken from military tactics, implies a small group of people who see themselves in the forefront of artisitc expression and achievement. The avant-garde did not write or paint for everybody. In Paris, a group of artists and writers identified themselves as "Bohemians"--gypsy wanderers. This avant-garde of young men gloried in the conditions of being outsiders, rebels against the dominant culture in the way that romanticism had been a revolt against the classical tastes of court and chateau.

Some of them considered their own lives as art itself. They rebelled against the strictures of their own middle-class social origins. They sought to suprise with their spontaneity and creativity, even to offend by creating a scandal. Many of them, including a number of homosexuals, celebrated their individuality and tried to keep themselves in the public's eye. The flamboyant Irish-born poet and dramatist Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), whose witty dialogues greatly improved British comedy, became a symbol of contemporary "decadence". When asked by a customs official if he had anything to declare upon arriving in France, Wilde replied, "only my genius".

-John Merriman, A History of Modern Europe. Vol 2, pg 895.

Whose fault, really?

Music: The Afters - Beautiful Love
Books:
How to Read and Why, Harold Bloom.
Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl

-
My mind is tired
Of your flirtatious ways;
My mind is tired
Of your many outward gaze--
My mind is tired
Of our empty days.
My mind is tired
Of our endless chase.

My mind is tired
Of your painful lies;
My mind is tired
Of your bagguage in disguise--
My mind is tired
Of your beautiful eyes;
My mind is tired
Of their artificial vice.

My mind is tired
Of your innocent quality;
My mind is tired
Of what you cannot see--
My mind is tired
Of your love-apathy;
My mind is tired
Of your blindness to me.

My mind is tired
Of the gifts you give;
My mind is tired
Of your loveless kiss--
My mind is tired
Of our increasing drift;
My mind is tired
Of what I would not miss.

My mind is just tired
of thinking so much;
My mind is just tired
Of our distance apart--
My mind is just tired
Of thinking too deep;
My mind is just tired
Of being a creep.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This is not meant for anyone in particular, and no application of this poem can be made in any way to my life. It is, perhaps completely, the inspired result of reading the aforementioned two books together. Several love poems in the first book you see, and when you couple love with existentialism and all its staunch, meaningless allies (thats where the empty days and endless chase come from, hah) you get a rather curious mixture of sorts.

Many things to do, many ironies to appreciate

Music: The Afters - Beautiful Love
Books: Nothing in particular.

It's close to three months now and the writers lab hasnt sent me a letter. Or maybe they sent me an email but it landed up in my junk mail folder. Shoot. That's why I'd tell you never to rely on technology too much. Think you can keep all your friends birthdays and addresses online? Think it's not worth the effort to transfer all your friends handphone numbers into a backup bank of information? Think you can store all your songs and digital photos on your computer without ever burning them out or printing them, or at least making a backup copy somewhere? Think you can pen down your whole life on a blog and not keep any for your diary? Think again.

Well anyway, I guess it just means Im going to have to try to be more funny next year in the open category. And thanks to the following exchange I had with an excessively pessimistic friend of mine, I feel like starting work on a real script already:

ME: Are you here.
FRIEND: Sadly.

This is, truly, inspirational material. This is also why I enjoy talking to people more pessimistic than me. And do you not realise that one of the most humourous types of character around are the cynics, the sore losers in their own world? That in itself constitutes a beautiful irony already.