Sustenance

Give us this day our daily bread

Sometimes I wonder what keeps me going. What keeps all of us going? Our dreams, aspiration and hopes? Or our disappointments, trials and tribulations? Perhaps it is really the simple things in life that makes it worthwhile. Like waking up to a good read, music, toasts with jam and hot fresh coffee. 

"Finally, the Enlightenment thinker knows that man has five fundamental needs (right now I can't think of any more): food, sleep, affection (which includes sex but also the need to bond at least with a household pet), play (i.e. doing something for the sheer fun of it), and wondering why. I put them in descending order of priority, but it is certain that even a baby, once he has eaten, slept, played and learned to identify Mummy and Daddy, starts to ask why about everything. The first four needs are common to animals too, but the fifth is typically human and requires the use of language.

The fundamental why is why things are. The philosopher wonders why there is being instead of nothingness, but he is doing no more than the average man when he wonders who made the world and what there was before its creation. To answer this question, man constructs gods - or discovers them. (I don't want to address theological issues here)."

~Umberto Ecco, Enlightenment and Common Sense.

Hotel

Sunset and my hotel with a ceiling of a thousand stars

What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well. A constant landscape of possibilities. The night sky with countless stars, reminding you that there is a whole universe out there, unexplored. My Sahara photos always remind me that I am small in the scheme of things. The world doesn't just revolve around you.

"When I opened my eyes I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with outstretched arms, face to face with that hatchery of stars. Only half awake, still unaware that those depths were sky, having no roof between those depths and me, no branches to screen them, no root to cling to, I was seized with vertigo and felt myself as if flung forward and plunging downward like a diver"

~Antoine de St Exupery, Wind, Sand and Stars

Floored

And so rock bottom became
the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life

This inability to sleep is really getting to me. With just under 2 hours of sleep the night before, it took only a couple of drinks to throw me off whack. I was inebriated, stoned and now wide awake. The looming fear that the dawn is creeping up instilled a sense of panic in me and instead of lying on my bed waiting for the first rays to hit my face, I got up. I refuse to lay down and admit defeat. Rock bottom or bedrock is the perfect foundation for me to rebuilt my life. After all, I got there by digging to the bottom of the well. I can't help doing that, it is in my nature; everyone has their nature. Although I did not find a water source, I still managed to quench my thirst. Satis.

Some say that at the heart of it all, cliches are universal truths. But they are not the truth the heart needs? People often give the advice they need the most. It is not a sin to get lost. You should lose your way. Just be sure to find the way back. Its time to Wake Up.

Shattered

喜欢听歌感人的歌
它让我觉得爱是对的
睡不着我就醒着
不再让日子被打乱了
寂寞很吵我很安静
情绪很多我很镇定
因为投入所以放弃
不愿再被痛醒

T

Some days I wish I could just go,
To distance myself from now.
To where, I really don't know,
I just need to figure out how.

Flight

Couleur de vie, couleur de joie

I took the long route home today, even though it was late and I was starving. I just needed to feel alive. The highs of the weekends can make the lows of the weekdays unbearable. Its all about striking a balance or at least thats the theory. Blasting through a set of twisty bends, windows down is the best way home for tonight. The wind noise drowns out all your thoughts and the heart pumps in unison with the engine's pistons, one beat for blood one stroke for combustion, inhale, exhale. Even the synapses seem to be in sync with the electric pulse of the magnetic suspension, turning liquid semi solid and back again, as if the brain was reacting to the contours of the road. Mechanical.
Brake, down shift, turn in and power out. The routine is the same for every bend but vary the timing and you find yourself edging closer and closer to the trees on the apex. Tires screech, the smell of rubber fills the air and then blank. Self preservation snaps you into applying just that micro bit more lock and accelerator. Its ironic how being close to death makes you feel alive.

dole

Brother, can you spare a dime?

Bright facades and uprights fail to hide the rusting plumbing. From the shadows emerges a past that was momentarily forgotten but not abandoned, with hand outstretched; seemingly suppressed by even the round table of equal opportunity. The light illuminates, showing what needs to be seen. But is there more behind, shuttered and closed off? To feed an addiction is also to offer sustenance, or so I want to believe. You are your past, there's no denying that. But can one buy off the past to assuage the present. Once again, I am left with the conundrum of valuing something that cannot be valued. For starters, how does one price memories?

Envy

The simple pleasures are free.

I was recently told point blankly that everything I said had to do with material value. I need more such reminders. Life's most simple pleasures are often free yet I can't seem to afford any of it. In Dante's Inferno, the fourth circle of hell is reserved for the materialistic. There, spendthrifts and misers are put together. The spendthrift punished for squandering their resources, the misers punished for hoarding possessions; both guilty of not knowing how to use their resources.

星情

看星星连成线
失望与梦想

Blocked

Barred and bolted but not beyond.

Through one door, to face one more.
What lies behind the next?
Dark recesses stare into my core,
Where curiosity and life intersects.
Go explore.

Cracked

We're not as tough as we like to be,
Living a life of masks, charades and escapes.
Fear is the heart of love, a rooted tree or merging lanes.
Sometimes, shadows seem more complete.

Mundi

Go on, just pass me by.

The best way to see Rome is by Cabriolet. With your head tilted back, watching new buildings fade into ruins only to return again. As if time didn't matter.
Such calculated casualness.

Glass

A window frames

Light illuminates, leaving darkness in its wake; escaping the shadow of time. But all is relative. Einstein once said "Put your hand on a stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity", Too short indeed.

Smile

Not quite tears of joy

To cry or to smile, it is no mean feat to arrive at a stage where two very opposite emotions can be confused. I suppose this should garner me some bragging rights. After all, we are the emo generation and the generation should reward it's very best. Nevertheless, one should always defer in favour of the smile. Simply because its easier. A bright facade belies darkness; window to the soul.

Mess

What a beautiful mess this is

There is a certain sense of stillness in this photo, that juxtaposes the destruction that brought about the whole scene. Its almost as if two conflicting emotions have been brought together, in one moment, illuminated by the filtering light. What a beautiful mess. Life is yours to make a mess of, which probably explains why my life is always in a mess. I know that there are pockets of stillness and serenity, if only I slow down enough to let the moment linger. Patience. Not every mess must be sorted out.

National Day

Red and White; a Divide.

The lead up to this year's National Day has been a lot less low key as compared to last year's. Perhaps all the fanfare has been overshadowed by 080808 and the Olympics. Or maybe because the economy is not in as good a shape this time round. The past year, has been a topsy turvy time for Singapore and its people. We have had record economic growth and prosperity but have also seen oil prices reach literally astronomical prices and inflation making steady inroads, wiping out any wage increments. The past year has also been characterized by the massive en-bloc fever and redevelopment boom that has left half of the country looking like a construction site. Such is the craze surrounding the en-bloc phenomenon that even TCS took it upon themselves to make a soap opera about it.

The focus of this year's National Day photo should be the little alley in the centre of the photo. Is it a dead end or is there a way out? One really cannot say for sure and I think that this is indicative of all futures, even that of nations. We can plan and see only as far as fate, foresight and chance would allow us to. But we can never say for certain what will be, even though the Government would like you to believe that it can predict the future down to the last detail. No amount of planning and postulating can detract from the fact that we only have the present to work with.

The alley splits the photo into two halves, the red of the concrete silos and the white of the old shop-house. The red is indicative of the construction fever that has gripped our nation, old buildings are being torn down, as part of the en bloc craze and as part of a surplus in credit. The white represents the old, the unchanging and our heritage. Amidst all this en-bloc/redevelopment craze, there is a pressing need to preserve our architectural heritage. If I were the tourism board, I would shelve "Uniquely Singapore" and replace it with "Ever Changing Singapore", a far more accurate description of Singapore. What will our future generations remember us by if we keep knocking down old buildings to make way for the new glassy skyscrapers. I know we have been preserving colonial buildings and shop-houses but I am not really referring to this genre of buildings when I say "old". What I am really referring to are buildings of our relative past such as Golden Mile Shopping Centre, 7th Storey Hotel, Bras Basah complex, Hong Lim complex, Pearl Bank Apartment etc. These buildings are symbols of our relative past and extremely endangered. Almost everyone of us this generation has a personal nexus with such places and so, they should stand as milestones for future generations of Singaporeans to track the nation's progress and evolution. We do not want to leave Singapore with just colonial buildings and modern glassy skyscrapers like the ones peeking through the background of this photo. We do not want the future generation to remember us as the generation that destroyed its entire recent past, leaving posterity without a historical marker of this present era.

Buildings serve as wonderful reminders of our heritage and our past which ultimately reinforces our cultural identity. Being Singaporean, it is so easy to lose your identity because of our uncanny ability to assimilate and our marketability. We are Asian, but most of us converse in English rather than an Asian language. We are more "Western" in thinking than "Asian" and more receptive towards external influences than our neighbours. So what are we truly then apart from our food? Which if you ask me is already under threat. Just thinking about all the old Hawker uncles/aunties retiring in 10 years time with nobody to take over their trade because their kids have all chosen the "establishment" route and gotten themselves "establishment" jobs gives me the shivers. Maybe in 10 years time we will have contract foreign workers cooking "authentic" hawker fare for us. After all, standing behind the wok is a natural progression from dish-washing and serving which they are already doing.

I think the alley also serves to highlight the growing divide in Singapore. A recent survey showed that the number of people defaulting on car loans have increased significantly but the same survey also showed that the number of exotic cars purchased have increased many fold over that same period. What does this really say about the nation? Not only are we at a cross roads where we can choose to divorce from our relative past but we are also at the very same cross roads where we need to ask ourselves if this divide will turn into a permanent fissure in the nation's strata. The lower income will always suffer the greatest from inflation. So as we spend millions tearing down old buildings, wasting material, and further aiding inflation should we spare a thought for the consequences of our actions? Or should we just go on, after all that is the whole concept of "free marketeering"?

Perhaps now that the economy is cooling and the blinkers are coming off, we will be able to see that being Singaporean is as much about the new as it is about the old, about the rich as it is about the not so well-off. Keeping track of who we are is important, before we lose ourselves and with it our identity.
Happy Birthday Singapore.

Experience

Experience behind the Weathered

Buildings like people have a certain character, brought about by age and more importantly by experiences. We are no more than the sum of our experiences. We are made up of what we have seen, what we have loved, what has impressed or shocked us, what we have not dared to look at, what we want to see, what we have regretted seeing; an entire complex of backward glances, real and imaginary, lived and sometimes dreamed which constitute an aggregate and a desire.

Resistor

Don't.

if it's a broken part replace it
if it's a broken arm then brace it
if it's a broken heart then face it

and hold your own, know your name
go your own way
and everything will be fine