Geburtstag

Scraps. Every sunset brings a sunrise

And a sunrise is always worth waiting for, even though the preceding darkness can sometimes be unnerving. Looking back at last year's post of this day, I can't really recall whether I was happy or not. Probably not. But this year feels different and I am thankful for that, for the possible. This year so far has been different. I dare say that my 27th year on this earth has taught me quite a fair bit. I've learnt many valuable lessons from circumstances and from so many people, some who are still in my life and some who have chosen to move on. I guess this is all part of growing up. I may be an adult but I am far from grown up. =) Think relativity.

Transit

It takes a death,
to make you
think about life.

"One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die"
~John Donne

Pomegrenade

Terrorist? Damned? Friend? Foe?

This photo was taken at a little market in Yazd. Noticing that I was not from town, the fruit seller waved me over for some pomegranate which was in season. I snapped his photo and gladly took up his offer after the customary taarof bantering. The two ayatollahs beside me shared some of my pomegranate and asked me where I was from. We had a little chat about life, Iran, Singapore, Christianity and how we are all Ibrahimis or people of the book. They wished me good luck on my journey and scribbled their phone numbers on my notebook. I was to call if I had any trouble getting around. Unfortunately, they did not have email addresses which would have made it easier to keep in touch.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that taxonomy is the framework for our rational thinking and because of this, Man has always sought solace in labels and categories. The journalist Robin Gill said that "fundamentalism may be defined tentatively as a system of beliefs and practices which treats scriptural absolutism as the way to counter the pluralism and relativism engendered by modernity". In our new "age of anxiety", fundamentalism offers certainty and security. God has spoken and He has spoken clearly and this is what He has said. The Qur'an burning ruckus raised by a nondenominational church in Florida shows that fundamentalism and its rise needs to be examine in various forms and in different faiths. Maybe on this anniversary of the September 11 bombings, we should realign our thought classifications and look beyond "us and them". Fundamentalism is a disease that plagues our society. Like all diseases it needs to be treated, but not with fundamentalist attitudes.

Duxton

Towering; Self correcting.

John Kenneth Galbraith in his book, The Culture of Contentment, argued that our politics for the past 200 years or so has been deeply influenced by laissez-faire which asserts that any interference in the market will have a harmful effect. We must let the market work under its principles and all will be alright in the end. So the theory goes. In Culture of Contentment, Galbraith describes this as the "belief that economic life has within itself the capacity to solve its own problems and for all to work out best in the end". One cannot help but think that this philosophy encourages us to think only in the short term, for as Keynes said, "In the long term, we are all dead". In the end, what this prevalent culture does is to absolve us of responsibility. It consecrates a flight from responsibility.

Relative

rain drops window pain

3 lights, 20 minutes to sunshine.
And time just passes so quickly.

'67

Folds. Folded.

Standing at the door to my toilet, with my electric toothbrush buzzing away in my skull, I watched as the sun crept in, lighting up the remnants of yesterday; endowing it with shimmers of today. Oddly enough, everything felt serene and the thoughts that were ricocheting in my head started to settle. It suddenly dawned upon me that perhaps many things in the world and in my life are the way they are not because we speak untruthfully, that we tell lies, but rather that we speak easily words that have become empty.

World

Follow; the road beyond.

Read about the new next generation network in the papers and it made me think. We live in a world and at a time when interdependence between all parts of the world is increasing. We exchange more products, films, books, ideas, images than ever before. Potentially, that is an enormous possibility for building a human or global community. But at the same time we are also witnessing a terrible degradation of the quality of communication. I think this is because the common denominator of much of this exchange has been reduced to money. The monetarization of all forms of human commerce over the past centuries has reduced us to simple market functions. We are producers or consumers with the mediating role between the two poles being money.

XK

Chopsticks and raffia string.

Sometimes,
it really is the simplest of things;
that bring the biggest laughs.