2008-02-10 - 11:14 p.m.
i don't know if i've said this before but actually, i can think of loads of things to write in my blog. things that i actually want to discuss like race in singapore (yea, but i'm afraid i'll start race riots) and religion which i think i may have an interesting perspective on simply because i'm truly in between believing, and not believing; especially since i'd been reading from an anthropological perspective recently. i think about how sociology and class differences play a part in the way i think and the way i feel, and the kind of boys who will ask me out, all for their own particular reasons according to their cultural patterns. and sometimes i think about friendship and how it is very dear to my heart but yet i am afraid to write about it because so much can mis-construed and you cannot blame anyone for misunderstanding. sometimes the misunderstood is at fault because he or in my case, she is not a good writer, and that case maybe she should take a media writing class and write in short, concise sentences. sometimes it's because the two people in this misunderstanding exist in different realms, come from different backgrounds and can never understand the gravitas of what is said from the other person's viewpoint. gravitas is the weight of which makes all of us special because we all give precisely different measurements to what we think, what we believe in, and what we love.
and because of what i'm going to say, i would also like to add that, speaking of love, i think this is the opium of women. and why the feminist movement can never win.
now, away from this distraction. mostly, with age (alas i am writing this at age twenty), i learn how to hold my tongue better. when i am angry it shows on my face, but if i'm wearing a pretty dress and three-inch heels stilettos which really look prettier on my feet than stuck through someone's jaw, i feel compelled to behave. and when i hold my tongue, i get less angry and then i stop being angry. but when i'm in the shower, or maybe on a long bus ride (i'd love to say cruising in my bentley) or when i have time to breathe or think, the words which i've swallowed come back with a vengeance, fiercer, and with swords that they really do want to pierce through my jaw. the avengers don't only want to get me, they conspire to make me mad at me too.
and then i think to myself- so much for that roaring feminist image that you put on. you're such a pussy that you eat your own words to placate some drama.
of course i don't always eat my own words; i'm too much of a bigmouth or if you prefer, smartmouth to do that. and lord, nope actually my sister, knows how often i do that to my dad and create a lot of unnecessary drama.
and sometimes i hold my tongue because i don't want to start a racial riot, like when the girls from some other racial group in my class started vehemently attacking some writer for "language". really felt like speaking up but my skin colour dictated that i shut up. there are moments when my silence is purely due to my own weaknesses - when i'm afraid of sounding stupid, don't want to be challenged, but more often i challenge so damn fiercely that i hold myself back and regret it. very severely.
a disclaimer here - i know i am not always right, and "fierce" in my case, never suggests eloquence, charisma or whatever oratory skills which you may think of. i don't consider myself a fine debator, only a passionate one with or without justification.
but another bigger reason for the silence, at least in writing, is that growing older, your troubles get more complicated. it gets harder to explain, even harder to convey the gravitas of each mistake you make. you get more scared of making mistakes cos you're fighting against the clock, against what you should be at age 21 or even worse, what you should accomplish by age 21. damn rihanna, chris brown and maybe even mozart. did he really have to compose a sonata at 5? i'm still trying to remember how to play one, after not playing it for years.
you get tired of explaining cos nobody quite understands. you get scared of acting like yourself because you're supposed to act your age. you stop reaching out because you don't want to be let down, so you stick to the familiar.
having the courage to try all the daredevil stuff, like jumping off a plane, diving off a cliff, yea they're all admirable. but what i admire about people these days is being able to say what they really think. and what they really are. be it the blase attitude of the UK vogue editor who is bohemian without the chic. or the late marilyn monroe whom you can say was a product of everything the feminists stood against by being a damn willing sex symbol, not caring about being in a man's world as long as she could bea woman in it, fantasies of being a housewife etc. but then again the way she keeps men (and women) enraptured decades after her death is a form of her own rebellion - that she really was more than a blonde betty boop. sure, i admire the men who made history like gandhi, compassionate people like mother theresa and all the greats you can ever think of. but being yourself is so hard, and at twenty when i really ought to be thinking of being myself, i can't figure out if i can sort out everything that i think i am. how can we be one style, one quote, personified in one statement? how do you not be fearful of showing the world your weaknesses and yet asserting that you're strong? how do you know that you are strong and smart enough to retain your own soul in this strange, postmodern world?
most importantly, i feel like clamping myself up is bad for me, like i'm losing some part of myself by avoiding the drama. and part of me, i've really wanted to say this for a while, just because it's been on my mind, but to the person whom told me that you have had to dumb down to talk to me, because you know a brand of politics that i don't. how dare you?
and how dare myself, for being so angry at that very moment but holding myself back because i truly thought i was less-er just because i didn't know something? why did i not challenge you to prove yourself to me, when i was asking for evidence in the first place?
certainly, not all of my grievances are crystallized in that moment. they would be extremely little if they were. but that moment was a culmination of what i saw in myself - cowardice, propriety, all the things that i hate so vehemently. but then again i wonder to myself, is there really a need to obsess over everything? will i get over it? should i?
there's a lot going on in my brain, and i think, probably my heart.
i hate these hugely dense posts, because i lose momentum in the middle and sort of forget my point. that's part of the complicated system of woes - you have so many that you start writing about problem a but realize that it links to problem b and never fully explain problem a.
now, why the huge post. i've been thinking about it for a while, and i think i may be taking a hiatus for a while.
someone asked me - can you? it's your space to rant.
but i think people who know me through my blog, and some who know me but think they know me better through my blog, are wrong. because it is only a tiny facet of me, and an even shorter summary of what i think and i confuse myself (and you, the reader) with these soundbites of myself.
i guess at times we all need soundbites. check out the US presidential campaigns. we can't all have these thick descriptions, nor can we have a perfectly imperfect symbiosis of meanings.
but i guess i've come to realize that i can never convey properly the gravitas of what i think, and this blog is no longer a breathing or thinking space for me. it's merely some place where i entertain friends, maybe update a few of you guys. but if you really wanted an update and you mailed me, you know i'd never ignore you.
never. if you were my friend, you'd know this better than i do.
and since we're on the topic of friendship maybe i can say this. at twenty (not that it is very significant or whatsoever), we all sort of begin to consolidate a list of lifelong friends. who we really trust. who we want to be in touch with. who we really care about. i don't get it when people tell me "i am unpossessive to the point of appearing like i don't care." how can you appear not to care? you either care, or you don't. maybe that's the beauty of "appearing not to" but if you care, why should you "appear" not to? why should you pretend that you don't? isn't that clearly against the entire idea of caring? is it cool not to care? did the terminator make you think that not caring is the new black? how do we live if we don't reach out and care for each other? how do we live that way?
if you care about somebody, you genuinely want to know what goes on in that person's life. you can't just drop in once a while and expect to be given the key to come in. sure, there're friends whom we meet once in a couple of months and they sure feel like old friends again - but maybe they're the kind of friends whom we bitch with, but they're certainly not the ones who want to be -in- your life. they just want to be hanging around the outskirts; it's probably mutually beneficial. in this age where networking is the buzz word, simply your being alive may be the returns that person gets in the friendship. maybe i shouldn't be so suspicious of it.
but i truly am disdainful of people who disguise their lack of effort as being able to sustain a relationship with minimal contact. let me quote someone - "i'm the type who doesn't need to meet my friends frequently." that was meant as a jibe in my face, but as far as i'm concerned, if you don't need to meet your friends frequently, you are not curious enough about what goes on in their mundane lives (even though all of us are subject to pretty banal existences), therefore you are a lazy ass who cannot be bothered even to schedule a meeting and hang-out time. shame on you. you don't need to? erm, pardon me, if need is considered a pre-requisite for survival, neither do i NEED to, but i want to. and that makes the bloody difference between being a friend, and not.
am i being very demanding of friendship? maybe. but how can friendship ever be one-sided? maybe love can, but stupid disney or universal has told us that we shouldn't expect any returns on any love that we give out. that's clearly stupid. if it is a relationship (friendship being part of it), why should we not expect something? friendship? companionship? a listening ear? genuine care? a shoulder to lean on? if there isn't a return then it's a one-way street and friendship is not a one-way thing.
i'm tired and this entry looks nothing like what i dreamt of, but this entry will stay here for a while. now and then i may pop back with the occasional "i hate school" and "i want to go to newyork" and "what colour should i dye my hair?" (which nobody ever answers my question) posts but here i've said it - i don't think i can write anything realistic or even close to what i feel, so i'm not going to try anymore.
was writing cathartic? yes, but right now this blog isn't. and that's why this calls for a hiatus.
having said that,
i know i'm just another girl in this big big city of a world.
