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Dear reader,

If you have enjoyed this blog, and would like to read on, its now being continued on at a newer website: bohemianisms

Thanks for dropping by! :)

Bamboo Enso by Deiryu (1895-1954)

I realise it has been a year since my last post. Wow. How time has gone by. In this time, i have:

1. Gone into a relationship and broken up
2. Started a new blog with the aim of testing an ostensibly more "mature" writing style
3. Graduated from university
4. Travelled further, into the Balkans and the Caucasus
5. Got depressed, and
6. Delved more into Western philosophy, particularly Continental philosophy

ps: the bugs in Blogger are still the same though.

moved!

Hello everyone,

We have moved to Bohemianisms at http://scribblesonlife.wordpress.com/

(partly because i feel i need a fresh slate, and partly due to increasingly buggy and stale blogger interface :( ...)

The new blog will be more about short stories and little, random pieces of writing, little fragments of life that make me stop, and wonder at life, and all its little moments that make it what it is...

In the meantime, thanks for your continuing support of an increasingly un-updated blog site. The new one will be better - i hope ;)

the Princes.

Having read both Machiavelli's and Antoine de Saint-Exupery's Princes, I think i much prefer the littler, piccolo prince. Ah life - is what you choose to make of it, after all. And its pretty darn short, too (to waste on Machiavellian machinations - in search of... what?)

My new life

is a very working class neighbourhood of flats and flats rising up in seeming claustrophobic despair after being evicted from my hall of residence on campus. It looks pretty grim. But the rent's cheap, and i have a year to stay, until i finish my final year.

But appearances are always deceiving. There's always something more to it, and in any case, there's always plenty to learn. In this sense its like travelling again, and opening myself up to something new, learning and growing. （三人行必有我师）

As of now, i'm done with my work, and have "earned" myself a two month plus break (the carefree life of an undergrad - the last year! at (melancholic) times it feels like i have only one year left to truly live). The mission this time is Kosovo - the highlight of the trip, starting in Dubai (stopover), to Istanbul - Sirkeci Station (back again!), for the train ride into Sofia, and then all the way up to Budapest, Hungary. Taking in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia & Hercegovina, Slovenia, Croatia...

This is certainly going to bump up my number-of-countries-visited-count ;)

Graffiti vs. politicians

Can't we see beyond our petty tribal differences and live together in peace? For surely there are more things that bind us together than tear us apart - the desire for peace, for love, and the strength and grace of the human spirit to do good. Surely this is more important than speaking a different language or having a different skin colour or even praying to a different God - which God does not teach the message of good, anyway?

Rockets and gunfire - we all bleed the same blood, shed the same tears, feel with the same human heart.

War good for nothing - why cant our leaders see that?

道冲。

True simplicity -
flowing harmony;
no attachment.

Like piling fresh fruits into a bottomless basket - You enjoy it, cherish it when it is, let go when it is not.

In harmony with yourself and your world,  you create meaningful transactions with the world.

And each of us may come to enjoy different fruits more and see many different fruits - some bitter, some sweet, some funny-tasting, but all part of this life, being unique in our own individual interactions and harmonies with ourselves and the world.

But all of us have the potential to live our lives to the fullest - to our life's own potential. For a significant life is a meaningful life, and a meaningful life is one lived in contemplation and a compassionate understanding of one's own self, and one's world. Not one based on pretense, and built on illusion, and forced. But one built on harmony (with oneself and others); only then can we truly claim to be making the best of this life - otherwise, your world must be really tiny! ;)

For the only way is to care. It is making the best of this life - making it significant - by living consciously and in harmony, making the best of what we have, finding meaning in man's inevitable good and bad fortune, and our different, unique lives.

The richness of the Tao - truly infinite. True simplicity (of the mind!) is true richness - for when you realise there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

William Blake - "He who kisses Joy as it flies / Lives in eternity's sunrise"

Vande Mataram

India taught me all the important lessons about life - about what it means to be human, about the human condition, human diversity, about the strength and grace of the human spirit. Truly, as the message of Khalil Gibran's Prophet goes, we are all much more than we think we are.

To me, India is the greatest nation on earth - for its sheer human-ness, and its humanity. India taught me what it was like to truly live, and open your eyes, your mind, and your heart to others, and the world. Granted, it is not perfect, but i really think i have learnt much more about being truly human in India than anywhere else in the world - a surreal stroll down the Ganges in Varanasi thinking about life, and death, exploring the back lanes and Vasantha Bhavan menus of Chennai, verdant paddy fields, glittering pools of water and Dravidian temples set amongst them like gemstones in the Indian sun in southern Tamil Nadu, the Gandhi museum in New Delhi and a stroll down Chandni Chowk, tranquil Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab...

A trip for the soul.

I love...

The smell of fresh grass in the rain... the soft rustling of leaves before a rain, especially at night... In the distance there are flashes of lightning...

The night sky - have you ever looked up, and realised that it is not black? In cities, on some days it is a deep purple, on others, just before the rain, a floating band of orange in the skyline...

Piano songs and a fragment of memory. The rain always brings me back to those places where you smell the grass, the fresh flowers, after a cool rain... There was Kandy in Sri Lanka with dreamy, hazy drizzles and the delicate tea-leaf-scented breeze coming in from the surrounding hill country, a rocky road in Olympos off the Mediterranean in Turkey, flash Himalayan downpours in Nepal (at exactly 3 o'clock in the afternoon...), a tropical storm in Tangalla where a mad Englishman and yours truly went for a dip in ferocious foaming seas that  battered us around... well, actually we lounged about in a semi-lagoon while thumbing our noses defiantly at the wild crashing waves that almost reached us (try harder).

Some of my favourite pictures

the Ghorepani room... Some of the most evocative and memorable shots i took, coming back into "civilization" after a long hike up into the Annapurnas; and down into the South Annapurna Glacier - a menacing, other worldly place, a scar on the trekking map. Where it was glass-sharp jagged rock fragments and silent still green pools of liquid forming little lakes (i didnt want to know how deep) and the distant rumble of rock falls. In the sea of mist scattered solitary tors (i remembered the name from a geography class, 2 years back...) stand in remembrance, of someone, something... I could have been in another world - a post-apocalyptic one, i thought.

It was good to be back in Ghorepani - literally horse-water, where in the past the donkey caravans stopped for water and supplies. I stopped for a bottle of Kukhri rum (not bad for the price) and some chocolates, a welcome change from daily dhaal bhaat tarkari (a good rhyme, isn't it? rice with dhaal and veggies) - which in all honesty, gives you wings for the trek (the best one is in Chommrong, by the way - where the owner also speaks Malay!). Another 5 days or so from Ghorepani and i would make it back to Pokhara - and a supposed bandh (strike) that had just taken place, keeping in mind that i had entered Nepal, through the Sunauli-Maharajganj crossing from India, on the 3rd day of the Republic, where i remember well, back in a hot Varanasi cybercafe the BBC had predicted ominously there would be "bloodshed".

Reflections

Reflections in the window,
Car lights at night -
Rushing diamonds through the sky

Life, through a train window, 6.50 pm, Singapore city.

In a postmodern moment, my thoughts turn to Katmandu. And then Sri Lanka - Galle, Hambantota... The words forming places, memories... my thoughts rushing by with the train into the night sky... Which once were a part of my life. Outside the window are streaks of lights, blurry diamonds - reflection and object, real and unreal, moving past, moving by...

Then i remember the early days in Southeast Asia, sweet teenage years (where time passes so slowly... you cant wait to grow up) lounging in sunlit backpacker cafes  - too-hot-o'clock, sipping a cold beer, reading a musty secondhand book, or more likely flipping through "the Bible" itself (LP), expecting it to lead us to Paradise... All that feels like a dream right now. And i remember how we strolled down the street in a little seaside town in Turkey by the Mediterranean, sunset...

And I find myself asking - So who the hell am i? A zen koan comes to my mind - what was your original face before you were born? All these, these impossible, simultaneously real-yet-unreal moments would be my answer.

On my iPod, the lilting, melancholic strains of Katmandu by Cat Stevens still makes the hair at the back of my neck stand.  

"and your strange bewildering time, will keep me home..."

Or, as i hear it (and like better): "and your strange bewildering touch, will bring me home..." 


So far away! 

Golden temple, golden light. 
Amritsar, 2008

Varanasi sunrise... A May day, 2008

Kh-kh-kh-kh-Katmandu!

Free gold

Golden light in the evening telling me -
that this moment
is all (golden) eternity.

万事具有其平稳之道。
Everything, has its own solution.
(the universe moves on)


pic: Cyclist in golden evening sun by Martien van Asseldonk

(And it is almost raining again...)

True happiness is appreciative.

But, of course, thats not what the capitalists and advertisers want you to know. For the system, happiness is always to be acquired - through the means they proffer so helpfully, of course. Happiness is then, like chasing money, always one step ahead of you - chasing shadows.

Happiness doesn't have to be acquired. We already have it - what more most of us lucky enough to have our basic needs met - food, water, clothing... It is something to be appreciated, and to be grateful for, and to share.

In any case, a prison cell may have everything - every luxury you could ask for, but it is ultimately still that - a prison cell. How do we get out? Quite simply - the key is with us. We just have to find the key, and the courage to unlock the cell and see the greater truth out there, in truly being human, and truly living a good life - for deep happiness and fulfillment is inextricable from being good, in harmony with yourself, others, and the world.

Isnt such simplicity boring, some may ask? I choose to ask, simplicity, in terms of what?

For this has come to be defined by the capitalist, consumerist system - in material terms.

It is time for us to be clearer in what simplicity actually is: Simple in material wants, but rich in spirit and human-ness. Which is more important? I personally believe true richness and happiness lies in cultivating the spirit, nurturing the soul.

(image from Urban Nature.blogspot)

Harmony. (Rain outside the window)

Is for all and each of us to enjoy, in a crimson end-of-the-work-day sunset caught on the train, in the smell of freshly cut grass, flowers yellow in the sun, birds chirping outside the window, the freshness of rain (washing away world weariness - and making me fashionably late for work...)

These to me, are like heaven-prescribed heartwarming cups of hot chai for the soul (with the scent of cinnamon and vanilla). Priceless - truly.

But we are often too busy to see it, and rush by it. Its like happiness comes knocking gently, and you tell it, no, go away, i'm busy looking for happiness. As a very insightful fridge magnet i once had proclaimed: Men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they rush by it.

For true happiness, to me at least, is not comparative - in the vein of "a happy man is a man who makes a hundred dollars a month more than his wife's sister's husband".

True happiness is appreciative.

Precious.

To paraphrase from my favourite daily cup of Tao:

"For those who  yearn for a lot of gold;

is not then your precious mind full of gold?"

From Chozanshi's the Demon's Sermon on the Martial Arts:

"I envelope the universe by means of my mind; and by means of the universe, there is nothing that obstructs my mind. Riches and honour, good luck and calamity are elsewhere. When you seek after such things, you may obtain them or you may not - this is not something that is guaranteed. The Greatest Happiness is within yourself. If you seek your mind wholeheartedly, you will obtain it for sure. Simply, do not seek after illusion."

"Confucius said, 'is human-heartedness so far away? If i seek human-heartedness, it is right here.' Human-heartedness is nothing other than the Greatest Happiness. When you pursue things, are unable to obtain them, and yet persist in desiring them, you merely torment yourself. You exhaust your life because of 'things', and will never know contentment... Those who don't realise that they are making their precious mind slaves to other things, will use their minds like this and exert themselves to the very end of the day. Nowadays people call men who are skillful in such matters wise. In the past they called them fools and men of little calibre.... Wise men know that such things are fetters and bonds... because what they treasured was within themselves"

- Meeting the Gods of Poverty in a dream

Hindustan zindabad!

One of my favourite travel experiences is joining the Indian crowd cheering for their soldiers trooping off to the Gate with archrivals Pakistan in a solemn spectacle for the border closing ceremony at Attari-Wagah, 30km north of Amritsar.

A Sikh parade commander yells commands and legs kicking, feet stomping and arms swinging they march in pressed ceremonial khakis with peacock plumes on their berets and turbans to the wrought iron gate which cuts India and Pakistan - once one country.

Civility and respect prevail as the parade commanders execute a perfunctory handshake, before the flags are lowered, keeping diplomatically at the same level and the gate closed for the night. The tricolour Indian flag is then carefully folded and marched back to the border post by a proud young soldier.

Before the march to the border it was a party - jubilant Indians dancing in saris on their side of the frontier,  Bollywood hits pumping from loudspeakers. Tiny Indian flags and cold water are peddled to the swelling crowd by enterprising young man dodging lathis (rattan canes) of police officers. An army sergeant works the crowd from the army post, booming nationalist slogans and leading choruses of "Hindustan, zindabad!" (long live Hindustan) while tiny Indian flags flutter and wave in the swelling, bursting sea of people.

It was also, by the way, the closest i came to being crushed in a crowd.

This, by the way (again) was the VIP area which i managed to get into.

Peering over to Pakistan...

Fight club.

What Tyler Durden's Philosophy Teaches Us About Travel (And Life)

the Office and the Beach

I just love forming juxtapositions during my free time at the Office.

Like:

In a cubicle, typing away (or pretending to for the matter)

Waking up with a hangover (the result of one too many gin and tonic last night) in magical Mirissa, the sun shining on another beautiful timeless day, walking down to the beach...

Taking the bus to work (again).

On a bus ride, somewhere, thinking about things, my life so far, replaying and reviewing scenes and conversations in my head, past lives, as the scenery changes outside the grimy window, from water buffaloes to verdant rice paddies to children shouting... in a language i don't understand, and yet in one i do - of joy, happiness, and innocence.

Reading newspapers on supposedly important and serious stuff like interest and exchange rates

Reading local newspapers waiting in airports, oscillating between bored and hyper-excited (even more so after paying extortionate amounts for airport coffee), waiting for my flight and getting all hyped up looking at departure boards (MH203 - CASABLANCA - NOW BOARDING)

On expensive things revisited (Epicurus' take)

(sorry folks this font and formatting is driving me crazy too. its been at least 5 rewriting attempts and so IT idiot me now decides to give up and present it as is. Blame it on fate and Blogger then.)


Apparently Epicurus had, 2,000 years ago, reached a similar better conclusion:

That the ratio between Wealth or Expensive Things ("belongings" - which i find is such a sad word) and Happiness gained is heavily imbalanced, exponentially so as more emphasis is placed on wealth. 

(sorry still not very good at all at describing charts and graphs - it will have to speak for itself then)

Such that the "quid pro quo" of acquiring wealth beyond essential and necessary needs is often at no great help and perhaps even at detriment to one's true happiness (time with loved ones, appreciating what we already have, treating people fairly and equitably etc...)

As an aside, On work, i would like to be rewarded for my effort and hard work, not for my Machiavellian machinations and petty-minded bullying of others. I refuse to believe it is a zero-sum game. Life is not.

So is the pursuit of wealth worth it? Its your call. (we all have our different circumstances and trade-offs to consider after-all)

Epicurus does uses "pleasure" but one senses this has more a spiritual/mental, as opposed to material dimension to it. And spiritual pleasure (being rich in the spirit) lies in being Good, and living deliberately and consciously, thinking, and reflecting. And being at peace and accountable to oneself and one's principles.

For Epicurus himself said, "It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life."

To end off, "One must regard wealth beyond what is natural as of no more use as water to a container that is full to overflowing" (and it is by no means a huge container...)

Khalil Gibran has this to add "And what is the fear of need but need itself? Is not dread of thirst that when your well is full, the (very) thirst that is unquenchable?"

p/s: may i very self-indulgently add here: see what i mean by "cheating the system" and calling the bluff (saying enough is enough), because the greatest trick this system has ever played on us is that we will never have enough? Actually, for me, it is only now that i see it clearly and beyond doubt, after by sheer luck bumping into Epicurus.

Certainly not quite what the advertisers would have you believe an Epicurean life is about:

(to be honest, this made me lol. Rich folks are welcome to scorn me as a country bumpkin, by the way - it may be true, but what does it matter - does it make me a less-worthy person to be looked down upon? If so, so be it.) 

静

Moment of quiet -
inspiration strikes -
Creation!

(for even watermelons manage themselves)

(my very unorthodox attempt at a haiku, sorry :)

On deliberate living:

On deliberate living \di-ˈli-bə-ˌrāt ˈlɪvɪŋ\: A way of living that is about being "fully aware; present in the moment, to the experience that we are living through our body, mind, heart and spirit, in deep connection and relationship with the world and everything in it." (Stephen Hodge)

This is the edited version, as, as usual, it is much better than how i have put it, before i saw Hodge's version.

 "Conscious day-to-day living stemming from an attempt to understand, to empathise with one's world, one's environment and oneself, and thus actually living life spontaneously and creatively. That, to me, is true freedom. Be good. Be reflective. Be quietly contemplative. Be wildly artistic and expressive. Go and truly Live!"

Its about being (the joy of being), living, learning, and growing (and falling down, of course).

(and it is all beautiful, in that peaceful little way...)

(and if you're religious, even better!)

In Mandarin, i would just put it down in two words: 用心 ((very) literally - using the heart)

See also: Focused living

On understanding and empathy, I am amazed and very touched by this brilliant short article: The key to enlightenment is learning