kiss my buttocks*~ heh heh

do you really want to hear my views on israel/darfur/pakistan?
2008-01-12 - 10:33 p.m.

i have plenty to say and have been thinking about a lot, not just recently but i guess the thoughts have simply intensified over the month or so i've been away. as time goes by, i feel like i just tend to express myself a little less. and when you don't get used to epxressing yourself, you get worse at knowing how to do so, and finally because you can't, you stop trying. maybe that's what happened to old singaporean ah-pek fathers. you have to learn to speak to your kids in another language that isn't your mother tongue, and you can't express yourself properly and people misunderstand you and things go awry.

on the other hand silence is golden. some chinese philosopher said that those who speak, are not wise and vice-versa. as a tuition teacher i strongly disagree because i think talking and debating revitalizes the brain and makes kids more creative and imaginative.

yet as we grow older we become extremely stuck in our own viewpoints. jo struck me hard when she asked me after a discussion on the merits of liberal/republican views, if i was now more convinced of my own views. i don't think i was comparatively speaking more convinced of what i think, at least in that particular debate, but what stuck in my head was the lack of a resolution in almost any intellectual conversation i have with anybody simply because your intellect and logic is also grounded on your morality (or lack of it) and many personal convictions which have to do with personal experiences and personalities (which inevitably affect the way how people respond to you). and because people can never reach a resolution when no other external factors intervene (look at the numerous peace resolutions that have never succeeded - israeli/palestinian, colombo/ltte.. but i'm open to knowledge that there are some successful peace resolutions without external intervention or events that i can't think of at the moment), then what exactly is the point of debate? doesn't debate simply harden your stance and make both parties slightly more antagonistic, even if respectful of each other's intellectual capacity?

sure, there's all that stuff about sharing information and becoming more aware of other perspectives etc which i agree is definitely beneficial to the common man who already has to battle selective media reporting and coverage and education systems which anchor you to think in a certain way etc. the truth IMHO is that there is no truth and because the world is configured as such to have a diversity of experiences and opinions, it is quite impossible to come to a resolution through intellectual debate. so is debate truly constructive on a personal, micro-level between people who are not policy makers? does it improve friendships? okay at this end of this rant, i still believe it can improve friendship especially because it improves mutual respect and i am convinced that debate and argument makes people clearer of each other and therefore in a way more sensitive. but on another hand, i think friendship is a very strange little thing. it requires a breathtaking honesty and trust, a certain amount of tolerance because humans judge and say insensitive things to hurt each other simply because they can and need to be reassured of their own value at times, yet at the same time through debate, you inevitably reveal your own values which may somehow confess to an amount of undermining or simply dismissal of another person's beliefs.

in short i wonder if my inflammatory beliefs will lose/has lost me friends and sometimes i wonder if i should just shut up. i should also add that i know i have an obsession with parentheses because i am way too verbose so excuse me--> back to this. okay so what if i firmly believe that repeal 377a should have gone through? does anybody really care? on top of that, is it really attractive being so opinionated? is making verbal love as exciting as the physical? maybe shakespeare thought so, but i don't know about that today. maybe it would be exciting if we could all talk in poetry and play with puns but i think only the british are witty enough to do that. i just read an interview with ringo starr and that mind is fucking-mindblowing. sorry, an expletive was needed to express my extreme admiration for him.

i also think that my over-enthusiasm and extremities for certain political issues and stance has cost me the inability to make small-talk beyond the topic of fashion. yet i don't want to have friends with no opinions, or who let me rant without challenging me because such people cannot engage me. yet when you engage me, you often feel pissed off cos i become another person whom i'm not really sure is myself. or perhaps i don't want to believe that this person is myself because said person is a-social and boring and geeky.

it's hard to make a good first impression for me, and i'm resigned to the fact that i am never noticed first in a room full of people. and because i think i am pretty sure of who i am, and sure-r of whom i think i will like, i eliminate many many people from the list of will-likes. am i being the grinch/grouch?

met an old friend on the train and was profoundly aware that we are growing older, and older implies "go your own way." you just end up your own, trusting fewer people not only because it's a damned rat race but also because it becomes harder to explain intentions. i've always thought it's better to have a badgirl facade (by badgirl i simply mean rebel, outspoken.. you know the archetype of the demure asian girl) but i haven't realized that it's worst to have a badgirl facade and really be a good girl on the inside.

on the outside i am a raging, passionate democrat and i want social change, racial open-ness (in the local context, greater transparency and leeway to talk about racial issues in a sensitive way... even though i'm in two minds about it judging by the global social climate), multilateralism, open borders etc. but the democrat is also fuelled by the nostalgia of a republican. why can't things be the way they used to be, where we didn't have so many divorces, promiscuity, less racial tensions and boundaries (okay i'm thinking the hippie era and in Singapore, the kampung days)... you know, peace, love and party. but it seems that peace love and party can only be achieved by greater equality and acceptance, rather than a firm structuring of what is right, and what is not in society. okay this is crazy, and i don't want to have to justify myself but these thoughts have been driving me crazy these couple o' days.

in other more frivolous news, i have never hated school more. at present i have three modules and a great inertia to start school. unfortunately the dork in me is extremely excited about my southeast asian modules. why can't i just do southeast asian modules?? isnt' that the point of university? okay i am just being whiny; i think it's good to take other things but because i have been outbidded for every damn thing i am feeling extremely unhappy.

like the rest of my life, i feel slightly contradictory about everything.

and finally i would like to end with a note of extreme grief about my nails. they are disgusting.

smooch ||arse