I am a law only for my kind, I am no law for all

• Dante: Inferno
• Nikolai Gogols: Dead Souls
• Truman Capote: In Cold Blood
• Nietzsche- Becoming Good and Evil
• Nietzsche- Human, all too human

~to be expanded

just love sitting on the benchtop, with the dishwasher humming in the corner, puppies breathing under the table, listening to chet faker, whom i discovered on tripleJ! i'm putting in so much hard work while in aussie. i can't remember the last time i really had a good time. just obediently doing my readings, dilligently looking up german philosophers, writing policy shit, half the time just having to appear well read, drawing all sort of smart alec analysis into one coherent monologue. man can't wait to go sydney. catching efterklang in the sydney opera house, made possible by selling band tee shirts for 2 days in a cosplay convention. haha. work is so alienating in coles. saving up every little dollar just for this far fetched dream in the distant future that hasn't even a form. okay i've enough of this wholesomeness in brisbane. i want something sleazy, i want cigarette smells that perfumes my nostrils. i want to get out of this monotony. come july, i should take 2 weeks off work and do a house swap with someone in sydney or i should go back to that hedonistic environment that is sin-city. that island with the best nightlife, best drinks and best place to pretend there are no more moral person that you youself. cause everyone just wants to unwind stress is good for that purpose and no one parties better when all stressed up.

the greatest joy i'm experiencing now is contingent to the discovery of german idealism! reading the rational thoughts and systemic thoughts of kant and hegel respectively blankets me in a comfort which no other sensory experience can achieve as competently ＼(^o^)／

so what if people were living walking anchronisms? let's celebrate this, lead us to a higher synthesis of the polar opposites, be that walking contradiction and overcome it, celebrate it!! woooo.

girls that I'm attracted to always have a frailty that glares at me so lucidly. frailty in character or defects in morals, all which could conspire to hurt me. but i find it dangerously seductive because a woman's caprice can be so seductive, especially when it is hidden in a most unassuming demure. now where is this love affair to be found?

when you categorize something, you compartmentalise it. you tie it with your logical reasoning, apply your rules on it, attibute values, and then deal with it. I try my best to avoid that. Because I study politics, I don't try to vindicate the policies that go awry. Because there was an intent, and it's utmost important to always question your intent, because sometimes the process and results veer off wildly from where you set out to be. There'll be pressures, political, personal, social. All coming from a partisan-supporting, vested-in-interest perspective. Politics needs to move beyond that for a better good. This better good has to be informed by an intellectual.Not the people, unless the people are well educated and have a holistic view of the matter. So, dare I say it, democracy isn't all it is made up to be.Especially democracy that is rigged from the core within.

Time magazine featured an article that argues and put forward the merits of introvert behavior. I read it to seek some form of a confidence booster just because to put it honestly, I've never been really proud of myself. I may be egoistical but ego is just a sham to cover up insecurities inside. Constantly seeing in others what I lack, contrary to feeling ashamed of what I am, I'm find myself upset at what I am not. Tell me, how can anybody be happy walking around with a mentality that is rooted in envy. I need to learn that the idealised success is tenuous and at best unachievable. The only success that I'll ever attain is when I learnt to really be good at what I like to do. I don't have to feel inadequate when I don't know about cricket, when I don't play rugby, when I don't listen to old-school rock. Because I know, when I'm not spending time doing those things, I'm playing with Dora,grooving to House Music, enjoying hikes or burying my head in a high brow book. Because those are what I like and it's not pretentious to ever ethuse about your favourite activities.

out of the hundred thousands of fresh young faces who leave shores for a overseas education, I feel like the sore thumb sticking out. My recollection of the feelings I was experiencing when sending in uni applications is hazy and muddled at best. Was I desiring it? Then I realized, it was the ticket to get out of two years of stagnation that I was really keen on obtaining. I never had the life long wish of attending uni abroad, I always wanted a singaporean degree, because I've always perceived it as rigorous. Then I came to Brisbane and learnt that reality's as rigorous as it is already.

I could never understand Brisbane's beauty. It's unpolished, plebian and unassuming. The river winds through it, breaking the city apart, inconveniencing commutes, creating pockets of sub-urban communities that is as disparate as it is varied. and doesn't lead to a coherent identity for the city. Just as Australia doesn't have a coherent identity, probably consequential from the vast piece of land. Australians are rich, no doubt, which gives them a lot of leisure time to educate themselves. I believe they learn immensely from their environment then say a pedagogical form of education. This reflects in their mannerism and outlook, seemingly outward due to the richness that wealth brings them, yet very parochial and timid at times that follows from their mono culture society. Unlike Singaporeans who are born into this abundance of variety of cultures, Aussies can only aspire towards multi-culturalism while simultaneously afraid of losing their "antipodean" character.

So what I did learn wasn't a more complex and sophisticated way of problem solving, what I learnt was the harshness of life. Where the environment can wreak havoc on your life, where immigrants are vulnerable because there's no guranteed security from institutions, I'm still trying to count my blessings from simple things like having a roof on my head, having food on the table. It's all very mundane, but australians were never demanding. Not in food, not in lifestyle. It doesn't have to be special or inspiring, just leisure time to do whatever they blooody like. But being satisfied with simple things alone goes against my nature. I need both the simplicity of nature, where nothing needs to be understood and the complexity of culture where everything needs to be understood.

I miss my friends, people, places, language, familiarity. I'm afraid I'll lose these things if I'm absent for too long. And then, I tell myself to take it upon myself, to be disciplined to stay here. to read more, write more, be more responsible for myself. and I am doing that, I got a job, I got a feeling that I'm trudging along this path, plotting my own life, paying for my own school fees, saving for a south america exchange. it's a feeling of liberation to feel like you're working for a bright future. My housemate hasn't been back to his home for years, and he seems to be a self-made man. I want to be a self-made man.

crave for familiarity and self possession,
aims consigned to oblivion,
clinging on to shards of inspirit

No job? It's your fault, US Republican Cain says - Channel NewsAsia

Sounds like another staunch believer in the inflated illusory benefits of meritocracy. Countering this republican view takes the same methodological argument in countering the ideology of the PAP. I'm just so indignant when people like Cain throw back the onus of responsibility back to you. I get that everyone has obligations to be responsible for their own success in society but certain entrenched elite interest often tip the balance of that responsibility and benefit incommensurately from both influencing political decisions and then reaping the bulk of the benefits.

farkin cheebye lexmark, snobbish developers don't wanna write a printer driver for mac os. ARGH!!!!

 i need to stop feeling sorry about my(self). 

my previous post not really of much help to this wise words but.. ignore the antagonism

 Nunca encontrar una identidad, lo haré yo....

 hola! yo escribo en espanol de ahora. por que mi examen ha sido aburrido. neccesito mas pratica. proximos miercoles, tengo un examen orales de las siete a la siete y quince. no trate de usar google traducion! dejeme describir mi activitidades por la vacaciones despues mi examen. 

yo voy a viajar a melbourne para cumplir howard, y despues ese, thiaginho se llegado a melbourne para cumplir nosotros, y viajar a tassie juntos.

 boo. i'm back here. particularly to address this problem that transpired all of a sudden, out of nothing. but it hits you, and wham, I realised I lost my direction. so many las actividades diarias (daily activities) take our consciousness away, slow sapping your direction in life as it tries to muddle you with tasks like finding your daily cuppa, keeping your tummy full, trolling on the internet. or we all develop what we call hobbies to make ourselves busy to ignore the general direction of where we are going. 

the thing is, what sparked this metaphysical search for the meaning of life was deciding where i should spend the year of 2012 in. Lucky for my rational mechanism, i narrowed it to latin america. and so was deciding between chile, mexico or colombia. then as i researched the nitty gritty details of what each country will entail, i realized i can't bring down the factor of uncertainty. i wasn't sure if i was looking for uncommon environments or i was looking for something familiar. whether it was the predictability of a city or the laidback countryside. i grew up as a city-boy, in a sanitised, sedated orderly environment. i'm not sure if i can take the step out and move in to chaos, unpredictability. i should actually, at least that's what i've been waxing lyrical over anyways.

and then the fucking rules and 'reality' of what i should be living in comes back to discipline me on how i should live. in a civilised environment where everything goes by the book and that building block of my future is set in stone right now as i complete my degree dutifully and get a well paying job as part of the 'sweet' deal. 

you know what, fuck that. i'm gonna buy a skateboard, i'm bringing my surfboard to chile, i'm going to live a life so i can worry about rent.  till then, wait till i get another guilt trip before i succumb to the comforting mundanity of a modern life.

 Hey Guys,

the GE is approaching in eleven days and as singaporeans I hope you guys will encourage your friends to participate in shaping the future of Singapore in this most meaningful and effective way to shape your country. Do not be under the assumption that your vote won't matter because every vote counts and the combined effect of a mass vote is a effectual voice in telling how we want things to be done.  Do check out on the parties and candidates contesting in your area and be informed of what you will be voting for.

On whether to vote for the incumbent or not, 

much has been discussed on whether to keep the PAP in to safeguard our country and its prosperity or to encourage opposition voices in our parliament. Those argue for PAP's dominance in parliament argues for the prosperity they have brought to our country and the standard of living that have increased due to their presence. I agree that on the track record, we have turned in a fantastic performance with years of GDP growth in the economy and increased standard of living. All these is reported incessantly in the newspaper and media. But what are things that have been neglected? By focusing exclusively on economic growth, what have we lost? Singapore is a country of people, of blue/white collar workers, of families, of couples, of relationships. We are not employees of this huge multi-national company this is run solely for profit. Sure, profit brings in material wealth but human beings do not survive on material needs alone. By focusing exclusively on growth, we have lost the sense of nation community in having a say in how things are run in the county. We want more parks, more playing spaces, but these spaces are given to developers to build shopping malls to generate profit for the country. We want respect for human beings as a means to itself, not based on what is your education level or your job, but we run the wage market in a way that destroys a person self esteem to maintain an economy and profits. We want to participate more in culture, these do not bring in much tangible revenue to the government, yet money is diverted away to give land to revenue making businesses like casinos. So where does that leave for our local arts scene or opera ? confined to heartland spaces because it is unviable to stage at prime property areas. 

Voting for the PAP, you get a continuation of these situation. Everything occurring in specific locations can be explained by some degree to the system, and that systems determines how your life will be in Singapore. If you want a stronger sense of being a human, and not being run like a profit-making company, choose this in your vote.  The government produces the kind of culture we possess by the very fact that they choose to run it, we recognizes how things are run and we react accordingly. We became the kind of competitive rats in a system that ignores other aspects of living. We become a nation of shoppers because we are encouraged to do so, because it benefits the economy, take a critical look at how things are run in singapore and see if you are proud to be the person in the system that you are comfortable in. When you cast your vote away from the ruling party, you are not saying you completely reject the system now, you are just saying, somethings could be changed. We can continue the literary rate, we can continue emphasis on education, but we can't continue this arrogance in how political leaders treat it people, we can't say let the low wage earners suffer in their daily grind because it's benefits companies operating in our land, we can't say let money be the deciding factor between whether to put in a local band or a profit  making overseas band, we can't say(we don't a say at all actually) pay the ministers handsomely because that prevents corruption. Having more alternative voices in our parliament won't undermine our system, having the same people who myopically believe that we should only run Sg in one manner will. It will continue to undermine our relationships, our local businesses, our sense of loyalty and pride we have in our country and create this ugly culture where things are decided from a materialistic point of view.

Joel Joshua Goh has a lucid essay on both sides of the argument and deserved to be spread around for a more informed vote.

Cheers people.

i'm not afraid of people i don't know, i'm most afraid of those that know me well. because twenty two years down the road, and i still can't put a finger to whether deep inside me lies a vacuous void or something benign. could be observed from my intrepid interest(implying this constant search of this answer) in works of dostoevsky, nietzche and kant. Cause they themselves didn't understood what is right and wrong. 

 you know how amazing the world works sometime. today morning i was viewing the documentary of the political emancipation of liberia from the cruel faction between the rebels and the authoritarian government by the peace protest of the women of liberia. 

this is an amazing documentary that deserves viewership and give hopes to humanity for peace as a process, not an end.




and then today in the library, two guys from west africa, Ghana approached me in the library for some help in looking for land degradation articles online for their masters. okay, so Ghana is not Liberia but the peace talks between the rebel warlords and then-incumbent government was held in Ghana. So there, considered me sold to the idea of cosmopolitanism in my argument for my ethics essay.