"The Lost Summer"

Summer came down the stairs
And stalked about town;
Summer arranged meetings in pairs
With a cheeky frown.


When she was urged to concede
Summer sent my girl afar,
And left me with a wretched need
To seal my memories in a jar.


“Ahoy there! Hath my love hither passed?”
“Nay, sailor, not since summer last.”

Thanks to Desvelado for his comments.

A birthday V.O.

If someone's narrating my life, at this point it might sound something like this:

"Ten years on, and he still thinks he's writing a book..."

"Raining On Lions"

Once upon a brazen age,
Snakes were crawling on the stage of grit;
And the halcyon days were raining on lions,
Galvanizing Daniel's pit...


Go home, Sage,
Said Babylon's king in a reigning fit,
Your flesh would serve my giants
But for your God's writ!

—Dedicated to father on his birthday.

Would you put that in writing?

I've recently committed myself to writing a book... just about ten years ago.

Maybe my first book should be titled "Why It's Taken Me So Freaking Long To Write This Damn Book". And I could just see the chapter names... 'Lack of subject-matter-generating childhood traumas', 'Non-prevailing self-discipline', 'Thought it was a piece of cake', 'Sidetracked by an adolescent surge in testosterone'...

Ten years have finally sounded a knell for me. For the past decade I seemed to be excusing myself for not writing by justifying it as a result of limited skills and life experience to tackle a book-length project. The excuse is still convincing, but the patience is wearing thin.

Ten years might not have spawned a manuscript for this starry-eyed fellow of a third-grade writer, but it has finally yielded a voice—a lovely little lingo among literary snobs that means an authoritative point of view from which to tell your particular story.

How do I know I have a voice? (Especially without having even started writing?)

I don't. It's just a writer's hunch. You just know it. (Or you'd rather pretend you have it than spending another ten years looking.)

With or without voice, I'm writing a book. For real. (It's painful not to.)

Herein lies perhaps the chief of all my concerns: I can't bring myself to write another one of those bestsellers out there that receives rave reviews in New York Times and lands five years later onto the three-for-a-dollar pile on a flea market stand (though I can't promise I can deliver even if I wanted to).

I'm going to write a book that no one would think of reading in my lifetime but, upon its posthumous publication, brings the world to its knees sobbing... I've made up my mind that the greatest works of art and truth make you fear for your life rather than celebrate it. (Don't argue, it's left for me to prove it... if I'd start putting that in writing (yes, pun intended (and yes, I'm using as many parentheses and parentheses within parentheses as I could just to make a point to show how complex my thought process is (pry at your own mortal peril).)))

On solitude and creating

In the beginning was the unwritten word, and the word was with the brooding writer, and the word depresses the writer. The word seemed to have been stuck with the writer since he can't get it published.

A bad writer's parody of the Book of John.

But there's something about the artist's life, ain't there?, that's inseparable from solitude. To create is to bear the weight of solitude upon yourself while the world communes within a glowing orb you can't penetrate.

Sounds depressing.

But a necessary condition for lasting work to flourish.

Great art emerges in times of severity, not prosperity.

No wonder the greats died young. They burned up in a few short years what others would economically consume over a longer lifetime.

Rilke's little gods

There are ideas that you learn and propagate with ease. And then there are ideas that began in the realm of fancy and continued to nag at you over the years and came alive one day when you suddenly discover them in the words of one of those who have come before you.

We are—don't forget it—entirely in the province of guiltlessness.—The terrifying thing is that we possess no religion in which these experiences, being so literal and palpable as they are (for: at the same time so inexpressible and so intangible), may be lifted up into the god, into the protection of a phallic deity who will perhaps have to be the first with which a troop of gods will again invade humanity, after so long an absence.

To say that I'm sharing an intellectual kinship with Rilke is impertinence. But it is immensely thrilling to know that he had actually entertained thoughts that I pondered in seclusion, even if it does nothing more than framing the idea under suspicion in a more serious light. Somewhere hidden in this tangible passage is something that bothers me intangibly: Before I encountered these words, I have been dreaming about images along similar strands—or perhaps I should say Rilke dared me to further advance my thoughts with regard to the identity of these gods. The only problem left is to articulate them. But just how do you assign words to what's holy without fear of defiling it?

You can't.

But the image has been with me for so long, it has to come out. So I've written From Horseback (perhaps also That We Are Like Fire), a desperate attempt to capture the divine fiber.

"From Horseback"

This end will not be the end alone—
‘Tis the splicing of the meek and bold
So blades would foil the eleventh hour scaffold
Under the high noon of a fiendish loan


...Her face burns with chastening tears
As reproach disrobes the Queen of Lust...
Just then a hand reaches down amidst spirited dust,
Lifts her up from horseback, slaying all fears.

"Little Boat"

Little boat, little boat,
In a sea of woe you float.
Time stands still as you wonder:
Home yonder, home yonder?


Surrender all, abandon all,
Journey to your port of call;
Led by a secret from eternity past—
Home at last, home at last!

Garden party, ganache, and chargrilled ribs

Went to Sydney two weekends ago to attend my former housemates' engagement party, set in a homey Aussie backyard. Aaronwe, being the assigned official wedding photographer (or rather close to it), went fully loaded with his 35mm's. It was a very close-knit event with mostly families and friends of families present, who added up to be quite a grand affair on a quiet street of a sunny Sydney suburb. And the great variety and portion of food more than satisfied the epicure in me, ranging from prawn cocktails to homemade fried chicken with sweet chilli and the elegant cheese-topped engagement cake with poppyseed, an implicitly euphemistic symbol of posterity.

That night we went for a night out with the newly engaged and a few close friends to the Star City Casino to catch up and acquaint. After a round of Jim Beams the groom-to-be set out to try a few hands on the tables while we tagged along. That evening coincided with Footy night so you could see not only punters but animated fans cheering loudly in front of the live broadcast in the halls, occasionally jumping out of their seats under the overhead widescreen with each near-miss. The groom-to-be cut his losses and called it the day with a couple of twenties short but the night went on for many others as we left.

After we parted ways with our hosts, we stopped by McDonald's on our walk back to the hotel for supper. Man! was it filled with nocturnal creatures out looking for food. It seemed that the Name-it-burger was still called that in Sydney (or at least in that particular Mackers store) after some lady has named it the Backyard Burger, eternally securing a wall space in the company's burger-naming hall of fame.

The morning prior has got to be the epicurean highlight of the trip for Aaronwe, Amazing Grace and myself as we headed to the local 朱媽媽 (translit. Joo Mamma) in Chinatown for a definitive Chinese-Taiwanese breakfast, such that couldn't be easily found in Melbourne: congees of the classic variety and the accompanying must-have, 油條 or deep-fried rice flour sticks—talk about blood cholesterol! The following morning our chomp mission was topped by a yumcha-style brunch at Zilver Restaurant at 477 Pitt Street, where many Hong Kong TV celebrities such as Miriam Yeung and Raymond Lam have been spotted clawing their chicken feet in black bean sauce. As it is the yumcha custom to take a number and wait for an eternity before you're seated, it was especially so for this patron-packed restaurant as we waited for almost an hour before our number was called to find out what the hype was all about. And it turned out that it wasn't all hype! There was no easy way to describe the overwhelming exquisiteness of the dim sums at Zilver but all who came out were guaranteed to be spoiled for the money (which cost slightly higher than your average yumcha). It must have been then that all three of us became city converts and decided that we are, after all, Sydneysiders at heart.

Later in the day we visited the Lindt Chocolat Café on Martin Place, another agitating exclusive to Sydneysiders. As this lazy reviewer quotes a review in Sydney Morning Herald, "It's the Disney store of brand-name chocolate and always, always full—perhaps because its predominantly twentysomething crowd likes to take its pleasures slowly, preferably molten and mostly milky. In decor that combines white, milk and dark shades, you'll find hot chocolate in similar tones, with a frothy jug of scalded milk on the side. Then there are chocolate cakes (spectacularly constructed into domes, slices, discs and squares) plus a selection of chocolate ice-creams, coffee with chocolate macaroons, shakes and sundaes, to have here or to go." Et voilà! my experience in another's words.

Excited as we are by this short trip, with the property price in NSW soaring above that of Victoria I can't yet foresee a near future residing in Sydney. But I did have a moment that night strolling along the Darling Harbour. One that I haven't had in years. The warm fuzzy kind. Maybe it's just the lights.

And I'll always remember... takeaway pork ribs in our hotel room the night before we left.

"Linda"

In a samba house party Linda meets the man she left
Years ago——stalwart, tanned face with feminine eyes;
His charming smiles work to conceal a heart bereft
But his feminine eyes have betrayed his lies.


They dance around the house in a choo-choo train
As if 1994 never happened... until the music calms...
Linda has moved on but to him Linda's scent will remain
The sweetest breeze under the Brazilian palms.

The use of poetry as reconciliation

When we were younger, one of our utmost desires was to explore the world around us, and having been acquainted with it, to rationalize what we couldn't understand (which was everything).

As we age and still have yet to understand what we couldn't rationalize fully, but have since been forced to reconcile with the oddities (which, again, is everything), we turn a corner and suddenly discover a whole new realm for exploration that we have been ignoring: the being by whom we judge all things—the inner-self; and so begins the hardest task in life.

Though we could reconcile with the world, we could not reconcile ourselves, for we are beings caught in time and are not in any instant fully ourselves. The burden of a moral being is a burden of reconciling with the knowledge of the implications of death and its imposed restrictions, therefore a burden from immortality; for no problem could be solved except beyond the level at which it was conceived.

Making poetry is an inherent ability of a moral being and only of a moral being. We couldn't be more wrong to suppose that it is an artistry restricted only to a chosen breed among us, for contrary to common misconceptions poetry-making is a procurable craft much like any other, and its works, like works of all other true crafts, ought to be produced out of necessity rather than individual flair—this I learned from Rilke's letters and from personal experience both. So poetry that comes forth from the inevitability of the inner-being's fullness—or more accurately, wakefulness—acts as a reconciliation simply and only by embracing the questions, as Rilke recommends, though the reconciliation is only a luminary by night, or a mirror that confirms one's shabbiness—it reflects what's under suspicion without even beginning to rectify.

So what good is a well if we are not to drink from it? This is a question that can only be rightly answered by those who truly benefit from the work; to be exact, the poet himself. Though poetry has a role as a medium between poet and reader, I believe that is only peripheral to its other truer function, which is to provide solace (and not even really joy when the subject of a particular piece of work calls for it) to the one making it. For when the heart is glad with songs, the best poetry that captures its moments does nothing to add to the poet's pleasure; a heart that is made joyous needs not to be told that it is so. But if a poetry is lucid enough to capture the poet's grief, grief—for want of attention pays attention—shall be transformed into a special kind of knowing that transcends the question itself and shall point to something greater that has yet been reached. Poetry that is used thus reflects much more accurately the state of the human condition and is worth much, even when ill-conceived.

"That We Are Like Fire"

That we are like Fire,
lithe and flaxen, wielding in the wind;
joy is a city gate rising
from the horizon, smiling
at the abandoned feet...


Behold a people in Akedia's bed...
None will each upon themselves take
the city by David's lyre——
yet when the city bathes in Fire,
from Goliath's ashes rise.

"Those Who Wait"

Under the arc of night perpetual
are you lying wide awake,
waiting for the silver-break
to claim its triumph eventual?


Are you one of those who weep
over fate's betrayal upon entry;
beauty lost in gallantry;
a wound that cuts too deep?


Don't you know that those who wait
will reap the fruits of suff'ring long?——
Love distills in them a mourner's song
and then arrives——not a day too late.

Lately I've been moonshining

Judging from the number of poems I've been whipping up in the past month, it looks like troubles are calling again. Pleasure and pain had never mingled so intricately before, and as much as I would like to chronicle the whole experience, experience itself has forbidden all attempts to answer the questions it poses, except, through the words of Rilke, "to live them."

"Refrain"

Run, heart, run!
Fly to the end of the aisle
and out the stone-heavy doors——
this is not your sanctuary.
Any minute now she’ll
bear a man’s name.
Your name is deep-set on the guest list.


Look, fool!
The feast-tables are laid plenty;
Eternity arrives tonight for
once-your woman.
The guests turn up contesting stories——
reports of her mock-sudden nuptials.
Today she's gone from you forever.


Wait...
The bride is gazing over her shoulder
(Did you just call out her name?)
She furls her tapered wings
outside her love-chamber——
all eyes on you as she turns and listens...
Nothing, you bloody-say nothing.

"Rusty Hearts"

Waiting, I ache;
I wait but for love's sake.

Dancing, the music wanes;
We dance in the years' remains:

Yet we love, though our hearts rust;
We love because we must.

"Days Like This"

My mamma told me
No she actually warned me
That there’ll be days like this
“Son there’ll be days like this...”
When bluejays chirp on trees
Butterflies hide from bees
Hello miss, goodbye miss
A look, a smile, a kiss


When love comes visitin’
No when it comes crashin’ in
Who would’ve known
That a seed has been sown?
All the rules of the book
Lessons that I took
Gone, gone, all gone
But it wasn’t my doing alone


Miss Christine said so herself
Yep she admitted it herself
That she’s to be blamed
No I should be blamed!
But judging from what’s goin’ on
It didn’t help to have a chaperon
Now all I can think of is the dame
What’s the name of this game?


Oh mamma tell me
Please mamma tell me
Have words failed pop before
When he stood at your door?
Or did he find it easy
To make you count the daisy
And take you out to the bar
While biting his triumphant cigar?


For rumor has it that that day
That fateful day in May
A new couple walked into the room
And sent all hearts to gloom
‘Cause the best match in town
Have donned the wedding gown
They’ve finally seen love bloom
Through wild and stormy doom


Now with lots of laughs
We flip through old photographs
With stories bitter and sweet
Of how two hearts could meet
Christine listened with attention
For every detail mamma mentioned
As if prepping for something greater
That she’ll have to face later


Am I the one for Christine?
I guess only time will destine
If we’re meant for one another
What storms would we weather?
Others’ tales we can’t indulge in
We have our own fates to win
But days like this are like all other
They’re better when spent together.

Gunman identified

The killer of yesterday's triple shooting in downtown Melbourne has been identified and police have since initiated a nationwide vigilance for the fugitive. I believe it's now a matter of time before the man is captured and brought to justice.

Amazing Grace has got over the shock of the experience, although she still gets distressed in a busy crowd from time to time. She'll be going for a counseling session tomorrow so things are looking good.

Shooting in Melbourne

Amazing Grace witnessed a shooting in the city this morning on her way to work. The shooting happened right in front of her eyes and just a block away from her office. And she was still shaking when she called me 2 hours later. The police conducted an interview at her office and, finding that she was one of the eyewitnesses, invited her for a testimony in the station.

Stay tuned for updates of the news.

Writing to forget

Don't we write to forget? We enter the numbers of our contacts into our memory cards so that we don't have to remember any of them – sometimes even our lover's. Historians record the witnesses of history so that later generations would have the knowledge that the precious lessons will always sit securely on the shelves of the library archive untouched – like boulder shrines buried in a tall jungle.

Just a year ago I had a heart-wrenching experience that almost destroyed my trademarked hope of life and a year later it all seemed a bit worthless for all the troubles it has caused. And for better or worse, on days when I wasn't licking my wounds, I almost totally forgot when and how it happened. I penned it down somewhere and time managed to tuck it away in a cool, dry place of memory where we seldom visit.

It's a human ritual to cast the past in stones not to remember, but lest we keep remembering and choose to linger there. Poetry has got to be one of the greatest discoveries ever, even more so than music, I think. Where music came to seduce the heart, poetry entered to save the soul from the aftermath of a fading melody. Music is the passionate Casanova, earnest to please. Poetry the compassionate Christ, able to heal. A broken-hearted lover could turn her tears into wine by making poetry out of nauseated pleasure, and then live – not as if the heartache never happened but in spite of it. By letting go of what's out of our hands anyway, we set ourselves free to feast on life's grand mysteries, and to regenerate the spirit and courage to take on life again at all costs.

We write to forget.

Soda Rock Diner

A relaxing Sunday afternoon outing has turned into a step back in time when we entered Soda Rock Diner, a restaurant à la Americana on the corner of Toorak Road and Chapel Street (Melway ref. 2L J5). In this instance we were transported back to the 60's, a time when street-corner diners serving hot dogs and hamburgers abound. The first thing that hooked you even before you enter was the oldies that were playing at the entrance of the diner, beckoning hungry hippies to enter and let the good times roll.

Once you're in the doors you're instantly attacked by the frying smells of beef patties and fries. Settling down into one of the dining booths upholstered in bright leather, you'd notice at the end of the table a silvery widget that was in fact a functioning mini jukebox preserved from the 40's! Across the diner there was a pinball machine that reminds you of a scene in the Back To The Future movies where Michael J. Fox was picking a fight with the bully in a nostalgic diner this one could easily pass off as.

The menu ranges from hamburgers to salads, with hamburgers that are claimed to be made of 100% beef and thickshakes and malts that are best in town. I ordered Sloppy Joe, a beef burger topped with chilli con carne and really hot chilli sauce while Amazing Grace liked her hot fudge sundae and Aaronwe his chocolate thickshake and Hubcap, a big hamburger with pickle, mustard and mayonnaise. And did I mention the old-fashioned uniform the waitress has got on? If I didn't know better I would have thought that I've lept into a Norman Rockwell picture!



The menu served here isn't your averagely priced fastfood, with a combo that costs at least 10 dollars, but then again this is not one of your average fastfood chains dotting the city. With the variety of food offered and the nostalgic environment that come with it, I'd say we got a run for our money.

And to top it all off: dancing waitresses!

Varekai: a brief afterthought

Well I went for the show and didn't regret it. Felt like a kid again with all the oohs and ahhs the show managed to draw from the audience. The display of colorful costumes, lights, sounds, and twisted movements created a busy menagerie of exotic life. As I expected, the performance didn't dwell as much on storyline as its gravity-defying stunts. Although I'm not much of a juggling fan the show was well worth the money simply for its beautiful production design and diverse cast alone. But I must say that the show did a great job in creating the enchantment of another world with the acting.

Would I go for another Cirque production? I definitely would, if only to recapture that childish wonder.

Cirque du Soleil's Varekai

Today I'm finally doing what I've been wanting to do since I set foot on Melbourne: theater-going. Not the big, silver screen kind that goes along with giant popcorns that cost fifteen bucks and taste like paper. Live performances is what I mean. On this occasion, I'm going to watch Varekai, one of Cirque du Soleil's mystical performances.

I've seen the ads on TV and only barely know the storyline's about a young man's fall into a deep forest somewhere near a volcano, and his subsequent rebirth. Since it's a Cirque production, I'm expecting a lot of jaw-dropping stunts, though not as much in storyline. But I hope my expectations will be surpassed. The ticket cost me a fortune, but I believe would be worth the spend. Hoping this is the first of many interesting cultural events to come.

Te quiero

Received a letter from Maycol yesterday. He's in second grade now and is doing well, he said. And he's grown up a lot since his last photo, but looks just as adorable. He also said "te quiero" and, as always, sent me a huge hug. This kid will do well with girls some day.

Poemsville

A repository of what I've written over five years...

POEMSVILLE

"Wait Another Day"

Wait another day,
Your heart can bear the weight;
Wait another lonely day,
You don’t have to mark the date
Of your love departing,
Days in the sun are returning -
They miss you just as much,
And the way sand and skin touch.


Wait another day,
There’s no need to cry;
Wait another rainy day,
You’ll soon hang your tears out to dry,
And your Gene Kelly shoes
Will bring back those steps you loosed
On that fateful day by the Seine -
If ever there’s more to give, you can.


But don’t wait another moment
To break free from the torment
That imprisons your smiles -
People queue up for them for miles;
Don’t wait another minute
To live again, if you mean it,
But then waiting really is a virtue -
Why, it leads me to you!

"Are You Just A Face"

Are you just a face
that beseeched my desires?—
they were aching to find
a land among empires
where milk and honey flow
through souls wearied and hollow


Or are you something more
than the face I adore?—
holding out a wavering beacon
high up in your abandoned fort
when no homing ship can be sighted
out in the darkening port


My yearnings grew muscles
when I saw you by the ray;
I meant to seize the castle,
but why did I wait another day?—
until my strength was spent
before any could be lent!


Can a fair and beckoning lady
give a man his might—
or does his strength come
from elsewhere,
teaching him how to fight?
This much I know is true:
The tower must fall for you.

That face

Allow me to exercise my chauvinistic criticism as I recount an observation made of the opposite sex. I've seen enough women to have yet met before today an equal in both beauty and grace. Almost all young women in Melbourne have a composure and manner of speech that could use some—some a lot more—ripening. It might be the water they drink from the community well, but you could recognize most Melburnian girls by their signature high-pitched tones and the word "like" littered all over their short and trawling sentences.

But finally a woman befitting the title! The woman in the suit store (let's call her Stella) was relatively formal under the circumstances and yet the soft texture of her voice immediately distinguished her in a crowd. Stella's face was a warm rendition of Athena's sculpture inevitably caught in the epitome of feminine allure. It was as if time had stopped on her face since eternal past, while the radiance of her smile confirmed the rumors of angelic visitation. If I had the courage I would have brought to her attention the fact that she has a face that inspires songs.

She didn't know, but Stella brought songs into my head and birds and bees to boost.

Pre-launching my other blog

So far it's only the first sketch of an escape plan and much detail has yet to be filled in. But in all its unripeness I give you...

WRITING IN PARIS

Just as well I'm leaving

Melbourne really isn't the charming place to start over with a clean slate as I thought she would be. Not that I've accumulated too much snow on my slate to need cleaning, but the idea of starting life in a city totally unfamiliar was initially appealing and, I'm shameless to say, quite adventurous. Six months have passed since the move to Melbourne and the transient sense of excitement in the beginning has quickly been replaced by ruts of daily routines.

It's not that Melbourne fail to accommodate the life I was expecting when I first set foot here. You felt like a wide-eyed tourist in the first two months, but as soon as you make a new city your home, the charm that fills a tourist's holiday disappears and you quickly give up the artist's stroll for the express line, aimless people-watching for break-time gym programs slotted in between ferocious 24-hour rotating shifts. Instead of adventures, Melbourne threw me the exact same things I abandoned in the old life - only on a larger scale. So you start to long for adventures in some distant land across the seas.

Though it happened quickly, it didn't happen by accident. I believe somewhere along the way I gave Melbourne permission to slip the hamster wheel under my feet. More than ever, this is the time when I find myself relating to Hans Christian Andersen the most as he wrote in 1840, "It's just as well I'm leaving; my soul is unwell."

But where? It's one thing to entertain the thought of running off to some remote corner of the world on a moment's whim, and quite another to actually take leave from your daily cares and stand under the giant flapping schedule board in a train station picking a destination. And then there is the piled-up bills on the desk and the distant but distinct voices of well-meaning friends and parents who beg you not to throw away your senses for something so illusive and selfish. Deep down you fear that they might just be right. After all you can't even put a name to this unreasonable urge to "take it to the winds."

It's just as well I'm leaving; my soul is unwell. The desire to run off will not quit until the wayfarer recognizes his signpost and heads down the path that nurse his ache of standing still.

The sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.

- Blaise Pascal

A musing on St. Valentine's Day

This is a day in the year that is suffered either in silence or months in advance and, if the night pays off, days after. People who have a conscious cause for Valentine's, usually in the form of someone special, often see themselves planning and preparing for the execution weeks or months ahead (depending on the extent of the person's affection and, in this commercial day and age, budget). This is the kind of people, specifically men, who resolve to condense in one day what they should have been expected to perform the whole year through but couldn't find it in their genes to do: getting her flowers, opening door to restaurant and car, staring across the table with an undivided attention. It's become a day when the guys would say, "Here's what you've been pestering me to do all year... lucky I only have to do it once!" The fact that we need to declare a romantic day to commemorate a history of none of these is ironic and a telling indication of our (specifically the ladies') lowered expectations.

It might seem unfair to the blokes to dispense such a criticism, as if the sole obligation of the day and, in fact, of the whole relationship, lies with us. But since when hasn't that been so down through history from as early as, or maybe even before, the Middle Ages? The warring brutes back then couldn't pick up a fork in the court and the educated scribes would rather spoon their eyeballs than face the battlefields. But it was a special class of men - the literal knights - who were expected to do both with equal courage and grace. Contrary to what we believe, the term "knight in shining armour" is not used loosely nowadays, nor should it be referred to as just a metaphor. The reason why most men today can only put on real acts of chivalry one day in a year (though not a complete act at that, since it often only display the "meek in halls" quality but seldom the "fierce in battles" trait) is because they've mistaken it as a silly idea that only the ladies fancy. We think it's fake because it's unnatural. But as Lewis puts it, "The man who combines both characters - the knight - is a work not of nature but of art; of that art which has human beings, instead of canvas or marble, for its medium." And as Lewis knows best, any true art needs to be attained and strived for.

Thinking about thinking

I was happy today. At least for a brief moment. Four months into my job and I'm stuck with it. It's not the best job in the world but it does more than paying the bills. It makes putting off thinking about the future possible... even in abstract.

But wait a sec... Why do we think about the future anyway? Especially when it never turns out the way we expected?

That's exactly my point... Let's think about it for a sec... How does it work, this business of "thinking about the future"? What's the step-by-step breakdown of this mental exercise? We close our eyes, right? We take a deep breath and concentrate real hard, right? We could lock our brows if it helps while keeping our eyes closed, and try to think forward to a point in the future where... no, wait... we can't do that!

No siree, we could never think about the future. In order to think about the future we need something concrete that is in fact in the future for us to think about. It assumes possession of a definite knowledge of the future, which we don't have. It's a humanly impossible task unless we possess the omniscience of God or a late-night TV psychic.

If we can't really think about the future, why have we heard so many people, including ourselves, talked about it like it's a natural thing to do? We say we "think about the future a lot." Sometimes we even offer it as an advice for others to "start thinking about the future." But the most honest among which has to be, "I can't see my future." Which is not a depressing thing to say, but in fact the only true thing one can say about the subject.

I can't see my future, even as I try very hard. It's time I stop trying to do the impossible. We can't think about the future. We can only live toward it, moment by moment.

Resolutions 2007

It's one of those times again--to review past year's resolutions and make new ones. For someone who's only started making new year's resolutions, I'm pretty glad that I've achieved about half of 2006's resolutions. I'm now the proud sponsor of not 1, not 2, but 3 children in Tanzania and Colombia with the support and encouragement of closed ones. However I missed the opportunity to fulfill resolution 2, which is to visit prison inmates, due to two major relocations in 2006. And as far as advocating for truth goes, I still need a lot more work as well as courage to achieve.

A recap of some personal highlights in 2006:


Sponsored Hamisi from Tanzania in January.











Visited Hong Kong and Shenzhen in February.















Sponsored Daniel and Maycol from Colombia in February.










Left a two-year career in pharmaceuticals in March.


Moved to Australia in April.


Relocated to Melbourne in August.















Found a perfect nest in the city fringe in August.


Found a new job in October.


A long-standing dream was shattered in October.


Got a new speaker for my birthday in November.


Fell in love with Mini Cooper in November.














Found and read David Mamet's True and False in December.


Had Christmas Eve dinner with Aaron & Grace at our own house.















Got a webcam and a wireless keyboard as my Christmas presents.


Watched New Year's Eve fireworks by the Yarra with my mates.

















All in all, a good year. Now on to 2007's resolutions:

1. Continue to support Hamisi, Daniel, and Maycol throughout 2007.
2. Start a novel.
3. Go to an undetermined destination for a week.