The Jade Rabbit Feasts On Green Cheese.

The moon they say will
be seen in twelve
different colours tonight

Once in a hundred
and eighty-four years
O!
Wonder!

let the moon reflect that
life is a many-splendoured thing
as Chang-e flits across her face
as the Jade Rabbit nibbles on green cheese

let the lonely moon reflect that
lonely as she is
love goes beyond distance
love goes beyond colour
love goes beyond desire
love goes beyond hope and tears and laughter and
fear and sorrow and understanding

let the lonely distant many-coloured moon tonight
reflect our light
let us teach her what it means to live
let us teach her what it means to love.

When I Am Not This Hunchback That You See.

So, a hundred thousand years after hearing Jeff Buckley's rendition of Hallelujah on House, today I finally listen to Leonard Cohen for the first time - after a circuitous journey only the internet and youtube comments and sidebars can offer. Good stuff.

I've also just embarked on Ministry of Moral Panic by local writer Amanda Lee Koe, and am supremely excited to resume it - only it doesn't feel fair to read it while in a distracted frame of mind, as I am now. It's so Singaporean in such a natural way, I'm not sure how else to put it. Probably once I'm done I'll be able to accurately dish out the hyperbole, but for now I can only say how pleased I am with such wonderfully crafted short stories. Definitely a writer to get excited about! Good stuff.

-

Okay so I wrote all that sometime in December but never found the time to finish it. 2 months on I can safely say that Ministry of Moral Panic was truly excellent and a debut unlike any other. Hope for local talent after all!

Anyway. First CNY back home in years and boy does it feel good. Despite the snacking. Especially the snacking. I don't even know anymore pineapple tarts confuse me. How can something so bad feel so good? Or vice versa. I don't even know, man.. Wanted to go for a run right this morning but decided to turn on my laptop instead - story of life indeed. Rumour has it kueh bangkits don't just go on their own and disappear from tummies and love handles, but I'm willing to live with that possbility apparently! You gotta love this season. So soon after 1st jan too, you can literally hear the sound of a million resolutions breaking... Well that got dark fast!

So the actual reason I was gonna write today was to explain, perhaps, my last story. It didn't actually start off as one per se, I had to come up with some sorta narrative to stitch together all these different thoughts. Origin: Reading Murakami's Kafka on the Shore on the MRT to work one fine morning - I felt inspired to type out a couple of drafts on my phone, pretty much all those passages in italics, which in my book constitutes a pretty productive morning huh. Think it took all of 40mins, so that was pretty inspired I think. Not to mention how surprised I myself am by the result.

I had no idea what to do with these fragments, so one fateful night I decided to piece them together - imperfectly probably - and see what the result could be. As with all my other stories, I didn't quite know what to make of it after writing it. A bit ragged, maybe. A tad unpolished and choppy, maybe. But as with all the rest too, I don't think there's any way for me to make any changes anymore. What's done is done, I guess. And every time I read it again I'm not sure what I was thinking while I wrote that, what I was trying to achieve, who I was trying to speak to. Apart from myself, that is.

I didn't write the story about someone. I did write the story for someone. I hope it worked. Funny, how that is sometimes, maybe cause I'm not sure what I'm trying to achieve either. 2nd story I've written that wasn't just for myself - it makes writing that much of a scarier process too. And quite uncharacteristically too, and I'm still not sure why I did, I even posted it on fb to largely positive reaction, of which I am very appreciative. Apart from some strange and probably unnecessary comparison to 50 shades.....

I guess maybe it's cause I know by now I really am not writing for anyone's approval or reception, that the audience is not that important a part of the process maybe. Something about the integrity of why I do what I do, not quite sure how else to put it. But if it might mean something to someone else too, then why not? I finally know for sure I'm not writing for other people's eyes, so I'm comfortable now to let people read these stories. Cause it doesn't really matter to me anymore.

Well, rather long spiel on writing huh. I guess we can leave it at that. Life is no joke btw. You think things are going pretty smoothly and you've kinda had most of it figured out, the planning stage is over!, and it's a mere matter of details and execution, and then suddenly bam!. It's ridiculous. And exciting. But ridiculous nonetheless.

To the anon who commented on Release Horse, maybe Like the Moon was a bit more dy-like huh haha. A tad extreme, perhaps... Anyway that's all folks!

And She Looks Like The Moon.

Q: And do you think this, all this, lasts forever?

A: No, and if it does it should not. Nothing that is this beautiful should be made to last. Life without death is a tragedy; eternal art not art at all.

A: Yes, and if it doesn't it should. If even this degrades, decays, then of what use is hope? I could not bear to live in a world where all beauty eventually dies, where beauty, indeed, is contingent on transience.

I get on the train, and you are there, waiting for me. You smile as I sit down opposite you, and I remember the day we met all those years ago. The day I met the 99% perfect girl; the day I fell in love; the day everything started; the day it all started to end.

I knew as soon as I saw you: here is a girl as close to 100% as I'm ever likely to get. Should I have waited for that 100%, I will never know.

Of course we ended up disappointing each other. No surprise. How could we not, when we were so afraid of revealing what we want? (What we want what we really really want.) Somehow we made that 1% out to be so much more than it really was - it grew and it grew until there was a rift between us neither of us knew how to bridge. Was it because everything else was so perfect that we couldn't help but focus on what wasn't?

I look across at you. All I see now is the 99% I overlooked because of the 1%.

How did it happen, when did we grow up all of a sudden? Where was the line, how did we cross it? Without warning, without fanfare. What a shame! Do you remember the smell of rain, the whisper of the wind?

Your smile fades. You look out the window. Silence.

But you were always like the moon to me. As you went so did my desire ebb and flow, as I tried my hardest to keep up with you. But no matter how hard I tried I never got any closer to you; no matter how hard I try a part of you will always remain hidden from me.

We speed past the seaside. Oh! That is where we were once, on that beach, happy. You lay against my chest as you scoop up handfuls of sand and allow them to run through your fingers. Do you remember? The picnic mat beneath us, the future before us. We used to talk, once. We used to love, once.

And beneath our love, our happiness, flowed that steady undercurrent of sadness. Do you remember how sad we were? Like something that could only be seen out of the corner of your eyes. Lurking, always, at the edges of our happiness. It was not loss, no - it was the memory of loss. That every second I spent with you was another second gone, lost forever like so much sand in the wind.

Your side profile still turned towards me, I remember the day I went through your diary. Why, I will never know. And I will never forgive myself. "And love was a language he never learnt to speak. He had to pick it up and piece it together wherever he could. And slowly, but surely, he began to understand. Just the tiniest bits at first, but slowly, and surely, he began to be fluent in love. But who can say, even as he was learning to listen, learning to speak, how much had been lost between the cracks, how much love had flowed past him, incomprehensible? They say you never step in the same river twice. So too love. He could not receive the love I gave him, and it will never be the same again."

Didn't you feel like you were drowning, desperately trying to grab on to anything that felt real to you? That's what falling in love felt like to me. Or maybe it was like wandering in a desert. I'm parched, desperate for a sip of water, and I stumble upon an oasis I'm never sure is not a mirage. I gulp it all down, hungrily, filling myself to the point of bursting. Maybe cause I thought it was real; maybe cause I was afraid it wasn't. When you're at breaking point what do you care about the difference between reality and illusion anyway?

I turn to look out the window, too. There it was, the scene from the day we met. I glance back at you but of course you were gone too. What do I care about the difference between reality and illusion anyway? The train speeds on; we arrive at our next memory. I think of all the things I've said, all the things I never said. How could love have turned out to be the greatest barrier of all?

All the messages we sent each other were the perfectly preserved records of our imperfect love. Another chance for us to get things wrong again. Love: the perfect desire for the imperfect. But we confuse the imperfect object with the perfect and like two trains speeding away in the night we miss each other by inches, perfectly engineered imperfection. And we are breathless from the speed, the proximity. We want to reach out; we dare not.

In the distance, we hear the sound of two trains - a collision.

Release Horse Come Here.

What a mad week it's been! And I mean mad in the dullest, most mind-numbing sense possible. Haven't been home since early Monday morn and probably won't till Friday eve. Sir Worksalot. Things wouldn't be so tragic if I weren't running out of socks... Just kidding! I've already run out of socks. 3 days in a row think my toes are gonna be dropping off real soon.

So thing's have been a little ridiculous at work lately, but not without its little bright spots too. Managed to have a number of meaningful conversations with people at work, even with colleagues I've known for close to 5 years now, and learnt a surprisingly lot in the process. Slogging away somewhat in tandem with your batchboys till midnight each day does bring its fair share of good times too, despite my having to go home to a layer of dust on my bed come Friday sigh.

All I really wanted to say was 放马过来! Gonna cling on to God's love and peace and joy and rest and not let myself be troubled by the insanity of work and the workplace. Now let me get what rest I can so good night fellas.

Let The World Spin Madly On.

I've just been inspired to embark on my end-of-year post, a mere 2 (or 3 or 4 this post is taking ages to write actually) weeks after it did, indeed, end. I've been meaning to do it all this while but things kinda took a turn for the busy at the close of 2014 - happily so. Guess it's a good thing I held off on this cause the beginnings of this year have been nothing short of amazing, and offers a sort of vantage point from which 2014 can better be viewed in retrospect.

So, 2014. SSDD, as the cynics are wont to say? Definitely not! A couple of milestones arrived at and departed from - some momentous; some strangely anti-climactic and thus deflating to some extent. Yet more ticks on some hypothetical bucket list, which presumably shall allay some sort of quarter-life crisis perhaps, or at the very least much of the regret we all seem destined to bear as we approach middle age. Meh. Not sure how much these chest-beating facebook-conscious like-seeking checklists are gonna help just because "I visited 10 of these 15 places to see before you're 25!" So yes, I visited some incredible places and had some amazing experiences, but no, that's not why I'd say 2014 was on balance a good year. Not entirely.

Well. Came back home excited at the prospect of resuming a life that seemed in many respects like it'd been on hold, although it's hard to say when exactly that actually happened. Sometime between the heady days of our A levels - the sensation of being young, truly young that no one can fully identify with till it's gone - and the peculiar reality of enlistment, of endless confinements, perhaps. When life abruptly and jarringly began to be nothing more than an endless cycle of work and sleep and living for the weekends, and everything began to seem so completely pointless. Being displaced a continent and thousands of miles away didn't seem to change a thing, except to exacerbate the isolation and the fear of never quite being able to fit in. So it was that I returned fully expectant that finally, finally I could pick up the pieces of what remained and slowly begin to build on what I had.

I couldn't. Much as I enjoy and find meaning in what I do for a living, I couldn't shake the feeling that this, even this, meant nothing at all. Home at last to a decent job I actually like! How many people can say that? But no, it all felt as pointless as ever - I'd end work after a long day and think: What now? Not one of those trivial where-to-have-dinners or should-I-eat-alone-tonights but an existential question mark hanging like a cloud over every day and every week.

I began to think: all I need is someone to do all this for. Someone for whom I'd be excited to end work, someone who'd be there through the long days and the longer nights. It's a classic narrative after all, and I began to buy into it. All this led to, though, was a deeper sense of disappointment and regret, of late disquieting nights spent ruing the half chances and the missed opportunities and all those other silent ships in the dead of night. Just a couple of months away and still struggling with some of these thoughts, but I can say quite assuredly that no, this was not (and is not) the answer. It would have been an answer of sorts, for sure, but a weak one which would more than likely have collapsed on me in the end, precipitating some sorta crazy downward spiral or something. Der Untergang level at least.

Hmmm, okay. "This post will first set out the various crises a 22-year old male faced in the year 2014, before proceeding to inspect the solution(s) and will finally conclude with some thoughts on the coming year, 2015." Smooth.

There is much to be said about the availability (physical, emotional, even spiritual) of friends and family. Too much, in fact, that it should rightly constitute another post altogether if I'm ever feeling contemplative and thankful again (which I really should.) What I'll put down here is a mere (but no less superlative) thank you. It's pretty scary to realize how miserable life would've been without all these people; it's pretty easy to imagine how bad things would've turned out.

As indispensable as family and friends have been (to be filed under emotional support, direct or indirect, whether intentional or unintentional), the crux of my year was something else altogether (though not quite, everything builds upon everything else) - and it was God. It is God. An answer both exceedingly simple and excruciatingly complex; a path both joyful and painful to walk on.

If 2013 for me could be characterized by desire, of re-learning what it meant to want to want again, then perhaps my 2014 was about trust. About trusting God with my desires, my fears, my plans. With the past, the present, the ever-looming future. The past is a dark area without Him, the present a dangerous place to inhabit, and the future scary in the extreme.

I learnt so much about trust; I had to. Through disappointment, trying circumstances, failures, breakdowns. Through all the self-reproach, crippling self-awareness, attempts (conscious or subconscious?) at self-destruction. And all the natural highs too.

Solo travel to ever more exotic locales, and the accompanying sense of independence and self-sufficiency. Lesson: complete independence is not complete freedom; it is a prison unto itself. You don't claw your way back from independence. Not by yourself, you don't. Self-sufficiency feels good for a while, it's empowering, and then you think: what am I empowered for? For myself, and myself only. An unsatisfactory state of affairs to say the least.

Survival of uni and subsequent graduation, one more paper qualification to brandish, another chance to flex the ego, but it begged the eventual question: so what? Of course, as existential/quarter/mid-life crises questions go this is one of the most ubiquitous, repeated ad nauseam, but its worth asking nonetheless. Especially upon graduation, the end of the yellow brick road, launchpad to (reportedly) inevitable success, pinnacle of a Singaporean Student's existence. The paper chase is (possibly) over; the rat race can now rightly be begun in earnest! But so what, so what, so what. It's kinda heavy stuff if you let it get to you - which it did, of course.

So here they were, among others, elements of the good life as the world says they should be - and it all seemed to add up to nothing. All that accomplishment and achievement and it was all just as futile and pointless as the dark days, the dog days. Worse, even. At least in the darkness you want to work towards the light; when you're lost and wandering you harbour hope of being found. When I arrived at the human conception of "success" I found that beyond the peak lay nothing. I remember taking the train out of Exeter, graduation certificate in hand, shape of the mortarboard still impressed upon my hair, and sure it felt good, but it's the overwhelming sense of emptiness I felt on that train which left its imprint on me. What next? Back to Singapore, back to work, back to family and friends. But what next?

Well. Thank God for God. 2014 ended up with me poised on the brink of something big and scary and exciting all the same time. Thank God for empowering leaders - and the insane faith that God has in me too, despite all the times I've messed up, all my failures as a "leader", all the times I've managed to stray from the path. Amazing grace. Unearned, unmerited, undeserved.

The opportunity to co-lead a group during the young adults' retreat was such a ridiculous, miraculous one - one that I really can't help but thank God for. It was pretty scary, and I had to learn necessary lessons in trust, in submission, in humility before and even during the retreat. The fear of failure, of rejection, feelings of inadequacy, unpreparedness, etc. It meant that I had to step out. Step up. Grow up.

And I reaaaaaaallly didn't want to have to. At some level I was pretty happy with the status quo, with staying in the background, with weekends binge watching movies and TV shows, playing dota, being careless and callous. Why would I want to take up responsibility, take on pressure? Except that I knew I had to, too. So God places me here (where I'd never thought I'd be) and it turns out to be the right place at the right time, and maybe I'm not quite the right person - but God will mould me to be just that. I have to learn how to let God work through my insecurities, and stop allowing myself to use them as excuses to not do what He's called me to do.

So I've managed to learn so much about community, what it means to love and be loved, about joy and peace and rest, and perhaps even had glimpses into servanthood and leadership. All in the past 2 or 3 months. Sacrifice, too. About what it means to put the Kingdom of God before the other things in life - a painful lesson; a precious one. One I'm still learning everyday. Really crucial lessons at this juncture in my life, a season for growth, of learning what it truly means to be a man of God. To be a disciple of Jesus.

You know what people say: Growing up sucks. And part of me still believes that, still wants to cling on to youth - nay, immaturity. Still wants to be beholden only to myself and to myself alone. Duty-free, obligation-less. The easy life. But by no means the good life. I think I've learnt enough over the past few weeks and months to say with conviction that no, I shall not again choose the easy life. Not at the expense of the life God wants me to have.

And maybe this path will alienate some people. I've always taken a measure of pride in being pretty savvy, pretty worldly. A man of the world, if you will. I thought that was not too shabby. Maybe one of the reasons I've found it so difficult to go all out for God is that I always kinda think: I'm not half bad myself, right? Maybe so and maybe no, but even that's not enough. Not anymore. And so maybe this will seem completely weird and strange to people, but I guess a line's gotta be drawn somewhere, and this is it. This is where I lay everything down and say "Father God, all that I have, all that I am, I give to You. Take me as I am. Use me as You will. No holding back. Let's go!"

So let the world spin madly on. I will be still and know that You are God. Days shall pass, seasons will change. Years go by, life goes on. And through it all I know that You will be with me, that You love me so. So let me run, run!

A Wild Wind Blowing Down The Corner Of My Street.

So it feels like the Northeast Monsoon is beginning to set in now - light to strong (almost 15-20kn!) winds from NE - ENE, and generally wetter conditions observed. Incidence of isolated thunderstorms should start dipping as the intermonsoon period grinds itself to an end. An end to the hot, stuffy days of intense heat and equally intense thunderstorms!

Time to prepare my alternative career as a weatherman now, to prune and preen in front of a camera day in day out, oh what a dream come true that would be! In all seriousness, though, what a relief it is to be back where you get to hear honest-to-goodness thunderclaps and see lightning rend the sky. I heard one instance of thunder in 3 years in the UK, which is not something I ever thought about until I finally heard it one day and was stunned to my very core. Fine rain, light rain, cold rain, no rain thanks be to God! Talk about uninteresting weather... We literally did talk about the uninteresting weather a lot more than was healthy perhaps sigh. I miss the place.

A little strange how just as winter is probably picking up back there shades of autumn start appearing here. Kinda glad to have this seafronting accommodation I can dubiously call "home" now to enjoy this slightly more habitable weather.

And so, life. Wild winds. Picks you up and drops you just as suddenly. Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.. When life's lemons give you AIDS or whatever, eh? When life's lemons do not give you aid, you just gotta suck it. Okay so maybe trying to think up variations on that adage is not nearly as fruitful (pun not even intended) a way to spend my time as it really should be.

The one unintended and much welcome effect of my long voyages to and from work has been the much needed time to read. Probably some of the only protected time I have to indulge in that most ancient art, and it is while I am in the midst of jostling with hundreds of people on the train. Life really does afford way too many distractions, especially in the way of the Internet. Why is it so hard to unglue oneself from the screen even when you know your time could probably be better spent any other way? Ah, an old lament to be sure.

This time on the MRT also lets me think, between pages, between books. How hard is it to find time to think these days? I go back home and I start watching stuff and waiting just for sleep to claim me. I go to work and wait just to go back home again. Which is kinda why I actually cherish days like this where I stay-in and have some sort of time, just as long as I forcefully unplug myself from my phone, from the internet.

Anyhow, here it is. The collected jumbles of thoughts and observations from the daily commute.

___________________________________

He came to a stop, suddenly confused, suddenly hearing what the man was saying.

"First rate stuff bro! Genuine one, no bluff."

Who are we? Who lies to passersby on an everyday basis in order to... what, turn a profit?

"It's just business bro."

No, he wanted no business in this world of just business.
___________________________________

He couldn't hear himself think. It was the city, all the friction of contact with all these people living in close proximity, all those silent abrasions, noisy encounters.

The seething writhing raging mass of the masses.
___________________________________

It was hard to dream with all that baggage. Baggage: the homogenized past and present of our youth.

The stifled dreams, normalized hopes. How hard is it now to imagine someone dreaming of a different future? A dream of his/her own, not merely that of the petty bourgeoisie, culturally ingrained, inherited from a generation desperate to not fail and therefore afraid to dream.

It is no dream, these not-dreams. Not-poor. Not-lacking. Not-a-failure. Not-sad. Not-childless. Not-lonely.
___________________________________

The sunset was particularly beautiful today, and we stopped, just like that, a five minute lull where we stopped thinking about work, the car, the mortgage.

We all know each day has the potential for boundless beauty, that hurtling at a speed of one thousand miles an hour about the axis of this earth and sixty-seven thousand miles an hour through space we are bound to meet something interesting along the way. But we choose to forget.

What's been buried even deeper is that people, too, are capable of great beauty. Yes, this seething writhing mass.

Maybe we never did want to bury all this knowledge, but we never had a choice, did we. Slowly we are smothered by this world, beautiful as it may be, by all the debris, the flotsam and jetsam of the various wrecks we've made of our lives. Until we die while still alive, screaming silently into our indifferent graves.

Until and unless we stop to see the sunset, to see each other, again.
___________________________________

Never so shockingly alive as when he stepped fresh off the plane, nor so desperately alone.
___________________________________

And if you, too, think these thoughts, then welcome! Welcome to being human.
___________________________________

Have a good night then, y'all.

Oh love, don't let me go
Won't you take me where the street lights glow?
I can hear rain coming like a serenade of sound
Now my feet won't touch the ground

To Guide Me Home.

When you get what you want but not what you need; stuck in reverse.

How frustrating it is. To know what I want and what I need and that no, they are not the same no matter how much I may wish otherwise. Ignite my bones indeed! It's strange to feel so helpless, futile, and strangely swept along... I've kinda grown to almost relish it, even. The predicaments you almost wish you never get out of. Ah, well - we'll see things out, somehow.

Quite apart from all that, life recently has been serving up much of the same dishes - work, predominantly and unfortunately (although fortune probably hasn't got all that much to do with anything) and friends, thankfully! Healthy doses of squash involved too, and quite a lot more beer drinking than I'd have expected of myself..

Good thing that professionally, at least, things have been going rather well I guess. Feel like I am currently at or almost at where I have to be right now - at least I'm pulling my weight. Even as I am typing here at 12.30am while my friends are working into the night haha.

I've had this odd sense of.. displacement ever since returning back home. What did I return to, after all? A career, family, friends, the future? That's what I'd begun to think in my final year - finally I'm going back home and resuming life once again! And so here I am. And? Sometimes it feels as if I'm running as best I can, but without realizing it I have led myself onto a treadmill, into a cage on a mousewheel. I'm not sure I fit in anywhere, anymore. Permanently transient. It's almost like something that's been cut out and stitched back - it's never going to be the way it was again. And perhaps that's the way it has to be. I guess I am figuring out what exactly it is I should be doing, what I want to do, all that jazz, except I feel waaaaay too fatigued to do it. Like all I do is get by, get by, get by. 3 short-long months and what have I to say of myself?

Okay dokes ta-ta all, then.