This Vast Wilderness.

And loneliness is the cry
Of your soul into the vast
Wilderness
That is human life

And love is the improbable
Impossible
Imperfect reply.

/

Falling in love reminds us
Of what it is like to be young again
Hopeful, unshackled, invulnerable
Desperately, beautifully,
Myopic.

Love, then, is growing up.

When passion and desire
And the light in your eyes
Have long since burnt away
As we emerge from our bunkers
Surveying our burnt out remains

And the answer remains:
Yes

When There's Nothing Left To Burn (Set Yourself On Fire).

Welp. What a way to end a pretty awful, almost comically bad week. Not my proudest, for sure. All that fatigue after staying in for the past 5 days. Got caught up in so many silly, pointless arguments (euphemestically, "discussions") which I really shouldn't have, too. Pretty frustrated with myself over so many points over the past few days. This isn't me.

Sometimes you feel like all you need is a win, huh? Big one, small one; in whatever area of your life. Anything. Anything to halt the slide. Oblivion beckons sometimes, doesn't it? The losses are mounting and I'm beginning to lose my feet, a little bit at a time.

It rained today. Wasn't it so annoying? The exasperation as the rain, instead of thinning, got even heavier. As water began seeping everywhere. As your clothes and your shoes get wetter and wetter. How bothersome...

What a life! When was the last time you had time enough to really look out in the middle of a rainstorm, this tropical phenomenon, and not feel penned in, not feel perturbed by it? It is its own strange beauty. In the way it obscures and masks everything. In the shadowy half shapes it forms of the most concrete objects (buildings and lamposts and schools and churches). All these tantalizing possibilities, no?

Just reading The Harmony Silk Factory and have been absolutely lapping it up. What a superbly assured debut. Not a bad way to see out the rest of the week at all.

Thankful, also, for the opportunity to celebrate a dear friend's birthday over supper! Wouldn't have ended my self-imposed 5 day "residential phase" any other way. Despite all the crankiness and tiredness and frustration from days such as these.

And so.

Live through this and you won't look back.



明天會更好 ! (Thanks for the memories, kids.) (Haha gross, I know, but still....)

Working Title.

Here we go. Thus, I guess, does a new year begin, again. Year on year it just seems harder and harder to drum up any sort of excitement for new beginnings, huh?

Some days it seems as if we're sliding two steps back for every step we try to take forward - these are the lost days. Some days we try and we work hard enough that we convince ourselves this isn't happening, until we stop for just a second and notice the nothingness.

What a difference a week makes. What a difference a year makes. All this time, day by day, second by second, we're accumulating - but what difference does it make? We get older and colder with each passing day.

The kind of deep, unspeakable disappointment you only ever feel about one's own. Family, they say. And when will we ever be able to forgive each other for all these things we've done? Scar tissue fades; it never goes away. All these things we've been building so precariously all these years - how easy it is to bring it all down with just one sweep of the hand.

Do I have the energy to rebuild all this? Can I afford not to? I don't know anymore. But I think I have to. Is it worth it anymore? I have to believe so, right? Right. So here we go.

And since we're at it, here's to giving up on all these things I've held on for too long, too. Hope, even. Hold on to something too long, too tightly, and it leaves its imprint on you - grooves in your hands, holds in your heart. Sad as it may be, you let go.

Goodbye.

"Oh You're Just A Riddle In The Sky."

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 The dust motes swirling in the sunlight
as it streams through the open window.

A woman tending the fire to the sound
of crackling firewood.

The smell of tea fills the air. 

Home can be found -
Two and a quarter time zones away.

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This was meant to be the start of my Nepal-post, typed just about 6 or so weeks ago, but maybe I'm never going to do that. Instead, here we are, approaching the end of November, and the year. Guns N' Roses' November Rain, as ever, ringing in my ears though the torrential downpour we've experienced over the past couple of days, respite from the haze, welcome relief from days of claustrophobic heat.

Caught in some strange sort of time-warp over the past few days, too. From late-into-the-morning conversations with the siblings, 4am dota nights (?!!), three hours spent watching old videos of Ronaldinho circa 2004 (¡Viva la Barcelona!), board games night (Balderdash!) (...or gossip night?), etc...

It's like the 00's all over again.

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And how brutal we all are to (all) our past selves.

And some nights we just want to walk on and on and on and on - but we can't. We've got all these responsibilities and commitments and obligations. And don't we wish we never grew up? And some weeks, like these, maybe we believe.

"And you'll fall in love again," she threatened.

And partaking of a stranger's happiness on a train, as she reads a birthday card, perhaps from a lover. Perhaps not.

"And were you ever lost,
and were you ever found?"

And she casts no shadow on nobody,
and nobody cares, nobody does not get hurt.

"And are you ready for this life?
The world is calling out your name,
there's another future out there for you.

And this, and that too, shall eventually pass.
The universe is riding off with you."

And oh, bluebird, I would not ever
try to capture you.

A City of Dreamers.

So 13 thousand gazillion years after watching V for Vendetta - I think this is the first time I am legitimately able to say, albeit quite disappointingly now: "Remember remember the 5th of November." YESSAH. Ok thanks.

I did have a genuinely excellent, and worth remembering sorta day though - thanks to the Singapore Writers' Festival and more pertinently, Dimensions and Demons!! Truly blown away by the copious amounts of talent displayed tonight. Ferry, weish, and Riot !n Magenta - Stephanie Ye, Dave Chua, and Daren Shiau. Collaboration has never sounded nor looked so sweet. What a night.

And hope for a dreary city, no? This concrete jungle produces fevered dreamers, too.

Now before the stroke of midnight, and the considerably less interesting 6th of November, shall I depart. Good night fellas.

Enough Rope By Which To Hang Yourself.

"Very often you hear people putting so much emphasis on having the freedom to choose, and living the lives that they want. And I understand that I have been very fortunate to be born into certain circumstances that allow me to do whatever I want to do, for the most part. But freedom can also be enough rope by which to hang yourself. I went through a long period of time where I didn’t have to answer to anybody, so I made a lot big mistakes: things that I don’t necessarily regret now — because I learned from them — but I overdosed on that freedom for a while. I think as you get older, if you mature and grow in the right way, then eventually you realize it’s not really freedom that you’re fighting for. It’s what that freedom can get you."


BE•TRA•YAL: Just wanted to come out and say, equal measures proudly and shamefacedly, that the new CRJ (Carly Rae Jepsen to you plebes) album is GREAT. Dear Lord, what is going on?!? Unbelievable hooks. Top-notch productions. Bubblegum pop at its absolute finest (what a pun haha ok sue me. no, fine me.) and guilty pleasure of the highest order, I tell you hwat. I mean, Tom Hanks in a music video??? Tell me it ain't so. And yet, it works. Hook line and sinker.

And in a now-doomed attempt at street cred - here's my second discovery of the day (waaaaaaaaay further up the cool spectrum pls b3li3v3 me) - the absolutely banging School of Seven Bells (SVIIB in short, told ya they were kool.) A superb feature by Stereogum (also source of 90% of all my new music finds) and I want more. Dark synth/dream/atmospheric pop(?), can't go wrong with that eh. Pop(?), though? Okwtv genres suck. How2wraphead around chillwave/jangle-pop/dream-pop/shoegaze/electronic-rock/etc etc etc???

In other news, new Grimes, Florence (heard it on my MAS flight back from KTM whaddya know), Deerhunter, Beach House (not on spotify WHY) etc is enough to keep this would-be-hipster going.

Largely trivial post here, triggered by a vague desire that my mind not stagnate (not too badly, at least). Of course there are plenty of better things I could be doing but I simply feel unable to bring myself to. Even banalities like editing (never too much, rest assured. I am a purist at heart.) and posting of pictures. Processing some of those journal entries from Nepal, also, feels just too much to do. For now.

And now it's time to make something of my weekend, at last! Happy returns on a happy weekend, fellas.

Everybody's Here For Someone Else.

So. Over a month ago, before setting sail for the distant shores of Ho Chi Minh and getting burnt to a crisp in Nepal, I had in mind this whole spiel on the arrestingly, surprisingly, beautiful sight of the haze under the light of streetlamps. A gentle reminder of seasons past - of foggy streets and train stations illuminated in the distance; of finding a strange version of family thousands of miles from home. I hope I never grow out of this joy for fog. The haze, though... One month later and here it still persists, accompanied by reports that it might last into the new year. What! Faux fog Christmas at least, I suppose......???

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And the sea. How terrible, how frightening, how beautiful, when the sky blends into the sea, when the horizon hides behind the rain. How terrifying, how dramatic, when the visibility drops below five cables, when you can barely see six or seven waves ahead of you, when the fate of the ship's company rests in your hands.

And how to explain what sailing feels like? The headaches, soreness, discomfort, etc. that you never know for sure exactly why, or where they're from. Seasickness, dehydration, lack of fresh rations, lack of sleep... The wait for the next meal, the massive disappointment when it sucks, the interminable waits and periods of inactivity, the adrenaline, the rush, the weight of the responsibility. The rolling, the pitching, the pounding, the shouts, the myriad little decisions you have to make to juggle them all. Chasing rainclouds, sighting dolphins - and above all a wonder at this man-made steel contraption making its way through the open seas.

Presiding over stormy weather and tenuous sunsets. People watching in HCM. Watching the street sprout stalls as the market closes for the day. Wondering at the supremely independent Japanese ladies roaming the streets. The hipster girls in their cute helmets - where do they ride off to? In a teeming city of 10 million, equal parts opportunity and obstacle, how do you not get drowned out?

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