Certain damnation

The great sorrows you bring,

Out of love,

Borne pain. 

The heart crumbled into dust 

And one forgets tomorrow. 

Hopes are blown out

Like a candle in the wind,

And only the dark remains.

Be still, the heart moans,

As it beats and trembles against its will,

In your unbearable lightness. 

Be gone, it commands me,

To leave your sphere.

For to be here,

Means a certain death,

And a slow and painful crawl

Towards my perdition.

The space trilogy - CS Lewis

Finished part 1 of the book - out of the silent planet. Didn't know CS Lewis actually wrote sci-fi. I'd liked sci-fi in the past but not sure why I kinda outgrew it. Story began with Ransom looking for an inn to stay the night but who ended up at a manor and was kidnapped by two guys Devine and Weston. He awoke to find himself on a spaceship, not knowing his destination. When the spaceship landed, he was told that he was on Malacandra, or what we know as Mars. It was then that he realized that he was to be offered as a human sacrifice to the sorns. He managed to escape during a Hnakra attack and ended up on the hrossa's land. There he was treated kindly by the hrossa and managed to learn the Malacandra's language, the eldil (which is uncannily like the Holy Spirit), and other creatures on Malacandra. He learnt that the hrossas are creatures of songs and poetries, agriculture, and fishermen; the sorns are the intellectuals, and the pfifltriggi are the makers of things/ sculptures. All three species lived in harmony and I really enjoyed the part where Ransom asked one of the hrossa if any one of the species had tried to harm one another. The hrossa was surprised at such a question, not understanding why there was ever a need to hurt one another. 

Ransom went on to explain about the concept of wants/needs and scarcity of resources, which we humans know best are recipes for evil and wars. 

The hrossa said that such a thing would never happen on their planet as there would never be overpopulation or scarcity of resources; resources are given whenever any species asked for them.

Ransom soon realized that the sorns were not asking for a human sacrifice but rather to get to know the race from Thulcandra (earth), the silent planet, the "bent" Oyarsa (the evil one) and about Maledil (the creator). Devine and Weston had mistakenly thought otherwise. I guess "bent" minds tend to think that others would harbour the same malicious intentions as themselves.

The story ended with a confrontation between the three humans and the Martians, with Ransom being the middleman and who was on the side of the Martians. They were eventually returned to earth unharmed. 

Although the plot doesn't seem like much, it actually holds a lot of philosophical and theological metaphors. I find it very clever. During the conversation with the Oyarsa (sorta like the chief/ elder of Mars), Weston declared that he wanted the human race to continue to survive, hence he would do anything to ensure that men have a place to live, even if that means killing off other species and conquering their planets. The Oyarsa went on to say that in order for men to survive on other planets, they would have to evolve into something else that may no longer resemble men. Weston said it was not the shape of men that he cared for. Oyarsa said if it was not the body of men that he cared for then it must be their minds. Still that was not possible as to love men's mind would be to love all species which possess minds similar to

Men's. clearly Weston did not love men as he was ever ready to kill Ransom, his own kind, to achieve his goals, and he had also killed three hrossa without batting an eye. Again Weston defended himself and said that he cared for the human race and what man begets (whatever that means). Finally Oyarsa said that all men innately knew the laws of pity, shame, and love of kindred but the evil one had made us forget all these except for the love of kindred in Weston's case. He exhibited this love albeit in a twisted and half-baked way, obeying it but not truly understanding it and hence getting it all wrong. 

Another part which just made me smile at the cleverness of it was this: 

"... You have spent all your time since then in flying from me...... To deliver you out of the hands of those two I stirred up a hnakra to try if you would come to me of your own will. But you hid among the hrossa and though they told you to come to me, you would not. After that I sent my eldil to fetch you, but still you would not come....." 

It just sounded very much like God talking to us. He chases after his lost sheeps, wanting them to return to him. But we run away from Him because of our fears (of what I do not know).still he pursues us relentlessly, sending sometimes a toss and turn in the storm so that we may turn to him for help. And Sometimes he sends us help in the form of other fellow human beings who will hopefully lead us back to him. 

I can go on forever in writing this book review. 

I don't know why we run away from God. Why do we fear to return to him? Or are we just too caught up in the webs of this world? Why do I fear living as much as I fear death? 

I guess the book stirs up a lot of questions about God, mankind, etc. and for that, I think it qualifies less as a sci-fic book and more of a theological/philosophical one. If however, I had not known about God and whatnots, then I may not have caught all these nuances and would have classified it as pure sci-fic. 

It was....

I was lured by that strange belief,

That cursed myth,

Which charmed and crawled,

Into my foolish heart. 

That mysterious thing,

which passed from the lips of those long dead,

And poisoned gullible minds.

It is archaic,

Borne from where, no one knows,

A thing that should have been buried,

When light first touched the soils of earth.

A wretched thing that had tormented

A many great minds.

That insidious thing which brought death 

To those whose faith in it grew too large for their wasted hearts. 

That thing,

I think it was called,

If I remembered rightly,

It was....

LOVE.

A dear friend

"Each and every time that I was determined to forget you and move on, you came and disrupted my plans. I should hate you for that but I can't. Maybe I never will. Each and every time u say something that makes me angry and jealous, but I forgive you anyway after a day. Maybe it is the start to a pure friendship. Maybe all the forgiving and forgetting will one day free myself from all that I ever feel for you. One day, there will be nothing left and I can look you in the eye and tell you, you've been a dear friend."

Eleanor wrote with determination but also with a sense of broken-heartedness in a letter addressed to George. Beneath her steely exterior, lay a heart that was weak, where a gentle blow could leave her grieving for weeks. At times like these, she hated herself and wished she was built differently.

She sealed the letter carefully, then paused and ran her fingers over the envelope. With her fingers lingering over the letter, she started to have second thoughts about sending out the letter.

Again, she hated herself for her impulsive determination, which would always weaken into a bout of indecisiveness. 

"Oh how wretched am I! This cowardice! This sorry excuse of a heart!" She buried her face in the palms of her hands, her face a contortion of anger (with herself), pain, and shame. 

With George, she never knew where she stood. But little did she know that George felt exactly the same way about her.

George said at his desk, the tip of his quill lingered over the thick, off-white paper that would eventually become a letter addressed to Eleanor. He had so much to say but had no idea where to begin. 

"Oh how wretched am I! To be in love with a woman with no heart! Absolutely abhorrent! What have I ever done to deserve this, my God!" He cried out. He threw the quill across the desk, the black ink splattered across the letter and the desk. He got up from the desk, furious with himself.

Ah, if only hearts in love could be tamed then there would be two less wretched souls in the world.

The possibilities - kaui hart hemmings

Very good read although the plot is very similar to The Descendants. I like how Hemmings' focus is always on the human emotions, conflicts, the interactions between people, and familial relationships. In The Possibilties, the lead character, Sarah had just lost her son to an avalanche. While clearing out his room with her best friend, Suzanne, she discovered that he had been peddling weed while working as a valet. She began to realize that there were things she didn't know about her son, Cully. Things got even more complicated when a young girl, Kit, showed up at her doorstep and subsequently left her a diary belonging to Cully. Sarah eventually learnt that the girl was Cully's girlfriend and that she was pregnant. Sarah was left in a dilemma when Kit offered the unborn child to Sarah for adoption. A part of her wanted to do it because that would mean keeping a part of Cully alive but a part of her knew that it wasn't right to mess with a young girl's life like that. I especially love the character of Lyle, Sarah's father, a witty, humorous,  sarcastic gentleman who loved his daughter very much. I also loved the interaction between him and Kit, the way they understood each other's jokes and the way they both liked and dished out little factoids. 

brave new world - aldous Huxley

It's one of those much raved about book that people say you must read. But I'm not sure if I like it that much. It was a futuristic world that Huxley created, where through eugenics and dysgenics, human beings were created according to a hierarchical system. Everyone knew where their place in life was and no one questioned why, as they had all been brainwashed since the day they were born. But Bernard one of the Alphas who was created different began to have doubts about the utopian world they lived in. He decided to visit the other world, where things had not changed and children were not created in test tubes. There he met the Savage (John), who was very much like us. He loved Shakespeare and the likes, all of which were destroyed in this brave new world. The Savage became a sorta circus freak, where the utopians would come and "see" him as we would in a zoo.

He subsequently ran away to live as a hermit but was eventually discovered. I'm not sure why the savage whipped himself as penance for feeling any forms of pleasure. Perhaps to remember the horror he had witnessed when living as a circus monkey in the brave new world, or perhaps he felt guilty for feeling joy when his mother had suffered indignity at her deathbed. 

The new world that Huxley created is seemingly grosteque and unimaginable. But I wonder if people from the past would view us in the same way. 

Although I don't like the book that much, I think I might have to revisit it some day coz I somehow feel that there are some

subtle nuances that I am not picking up on. 

"But I don't want comfort. I want God. I want poetry, I want real danger. I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin." 

So the Savage in Brave New World said. 

Epiphany

Sometimes I feel as if I am waiting for an epiphany. There's this feeling that there is something I am not getting, some truth that I've missed or not realized. And that the answer is just right in front of me but I am blind to it. I wonder what that truth is. Will I have to spend my entire life searching for it, or will i go to my grave not knowing? 

Anyhow, Been thinking of going on a solo trip since last year. Looks like I might just have the chance to do it this year. A little fearful but I guess I'll have to overcome it. And I hope it would be worth it. Also thinking if I should really bite the bullet and commit that one month to a mission trip. Was thinking of Nepal at first but was warned again about safety especially if I'm planning to do it solo. Sometimes I feel being a female really limits some of the things we can do and we have more to worry about. But then again, so does a guy I guess but probably in different ways. 

Over lunch, we were talking about the "talk". Most people, over the course of their life, would have the need to have the "talk" with someone. Whether it's a lover, a subordinate, etc. But I wonder if we sometimes need to have the "talk" with ourselves? 

Make you feel my love

Been trying to find better renditions of the song but couldn't really find a "best" version. Quite like Garth Brooks version, and some of the versions done by contestants on one of those talent shows, eg Marty brown (http://youtu.be/ArujgEk-le4) and Sam Kelly (http://youtu.be/o6qBQG770fo). I like the voice from this cover (http://youtu.be/9u_aTw3EV_8) but not so much of the guitar work (a tad too noisy for the song). It's a pity the original singer couldn't give the song he wrote due justice. 

Tolstoy on love

http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/08/21/leo-tolstoy-gandhi-letter-to-a-hindu/

"The longer I live — especially now when I clearly feel the approach of death — the more I feel moved to express what I feel more strongly than anything else, and what in my opinion is of immense importance, namely, what we call the renunciation of all opposition by force, which really simply means the doctrine of the law of love unperverted by sophistries. Love, or in other words the striving of men’s souls towards unity and the submissive behavior to one another that results therefrom, represents the highest and indeed the only law of life, as every man knows and feels in the depths of his heart (and as we see most clearly in children), and knows until he becomes involved in the lying net of worldly thoughts… Any employment of force is incompatible with love." 

I read that Tolstoy truly believed and extolled the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5:38-42: 

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: 

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right 

cheek, turn to him the other also. 

And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak 

also. 

And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. 

Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away."

I think this is truly the essence of Christianity, everything else is secondary. 

But I'm not sure if Tolstoy actually expressed this belief in his actions or he merely intellectualised and lamented on love. Love is not something to be spoken of, nor to ruminate on. It is all in the doing. 

Do not step on the cirrus clouds

Saw quite a few postings of this sign. It's an art installation by dawn ng, erected somewhere in east coast park. I quite like it but haven't had the chance to see the actual thing. 

Anyhow, the verse came from a poem:

Why A Man Cannot Have Wings
Alfian bin Sa’at

Because he will crash land on his head, assuming it to be
The strongest part of his body.

Because someone will put up a sign that reads:
Do Not Step on the Cirrus Clouds.

Because it does not even take a man hundreds of feet above
Sea-level to learn contempt.

Because there will be new categories of handicaps: bow-wings,
Ostrich disease, scaly feathers, carousel flight syndrome,
Or at a freak show: The Amazing Wingless Wonder.

Because he will have a new weapon, gravity,
And everything he releases becomes a missile,
Even glass marbles, books, the fatal music box.

Because he is lonely enough without being able to
Frame the house he lives in between his forefinger and thumb.

Because then the sky will shed its metaphors of freedom
And become another path for him to carry his burdens.

Because there will be a popular form of suicide:
Flying into foreign airspace and being gunned down;
All it takes is a nose-tip to press an invisible blue button.

Because each death in mid-air, each comic comet plunge,
Will be another enactment of the fall of Man.

Because in concentration camps people will break wings
And use the feathers for quills to write sonnets
And pillow stuffing for innocent dreams.

Because he will have less to fantasize about, less of miracles
And the word ‘levitation’ will not exist.

Because there will be children who will empty their bladders
Under cloud cover in an attempt to make yellow snow.

And because he might get the wrong notion that he is closer
To heaven, when he has not even come to a mile
Within the presence of angels, despite the resemblance.

Poem's kinda out of whack. Probably a bit too modern for my liking but I still like how some of the sentences were crafted.

Prosperity

http://iantan.org/2012/06/christians-and-hypocrites/

I actually wanted to write something similar on the topic of prosperity gospel some time ago but didn't get round to it. I think Ian Tan's piece is very well-said and aligned to my thinking, so I shan't waste time writing one. 

WHEN THE VACATION IS OVER FOR GOOD- Mark Strand

WHEN THE VACATION IS OVER FOR GOOD

It will be strange
Knowing at last it couldn’t go on forever,
The certain voice telling us over and over
That nothing would change, 

And remembering too,
Because by then it will all be done with, the way
Things were, and how we had wasted time as though
There was nothing to do, 

When, in a flash
The weather turned, and the lofty air became
Unbearably heavy, the wind strikingly dumb
And our cities like ash, 

And knowing also,
What we never suspected, that it was something like summer
At its most august except that the nights were warmer
And the clouds seemed to glow, 

And even then,
Because we will not have changed much, wondering what
Will become of things, and who will be left to do it
All over again,

And somehow trying,
But still unable, to know just what it was
That went so completely wrong, or why it is
We are dying.

EB white's letter

http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/05/06/e-b-white-letters-of-note-book/

"As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time."

E.B. White's letter about the goodness of men or so he hopes. 

Jostein Gaarder- The Ringmaster's daughter

Didn't know he had a new title. Had practically read all of his works after falling in love with Sophie's World when I was 18 thereabouts. After Sophie's world and solitaire mystery, this is the work of his i liked best amongst the rest. 

The character of Petter that Gaarder created was highly innovative and interesting, the plot wasn't much though. But still a very worthy read solely because of its inventiveness. We meet Petter as a highly imaginative young boy who preferred his own company as the worlds he created in his mind were far more interesting. He was able to constantly churn out new ideas for stories, tv shows, radio programs, etc. He very soon used this ability to start an unofficial one-man show organization called "writer's aid". He basically gave his ideas to writers with writers' block for a sum. He had never wanted to be famous nor did he have the tenacity to sit down and write a complete story. 

Although he preferred his own company, he was not a loner and was a womanizer until he met Maria, a Swedish art student ten years his senior. He told Maria his stories until it began to frighten her and Maria was also not one who could stay committed to one man. They later had a child but Maria had made Petter promise that he would never make contact with them nor acknowledge the child. Petter never fell in love with anyone again after Maria until he met Beate. Beate was about 20 years his junior and they had a whirlwind romance after meeting in Italy. It was when Petter began to tell her a strange tale of a ringmaster's daughter that Beate realized who he was. He had told her the same story 26 years ago when she was only 3. Petter was naturally devastated. The ending was a bit obscure. We don't really know what would happen to Petter in the end, I guess it's really all left to the readers' imagination.

I like that the book contained small bits of stories from Petter's imagination. Sometimes we all have these ideas or short stories/plots in our minds but we do not have the capacity or ability to fully develop them. And they remain as they are- ideas. 

I think this book is less philosophical than the rest of his works but he did briefly mention some philosophical ideas from Descartes, Leibniz, etc when he created a story called "The Souls' Constant". The story went that there is a fixed number of souls allowed on earth, and that magic number was 12 billion. Once that quota was met, a small group of children borned into the world would be soulless. That's actually a very interesting idea. What are we really without souls ? An object, an animal? What are souls really? Consciousness, conscience? Are souls eternal? I remembered during BS a line was drawn between soul and spirit but I can't remember what it was now. Is there really a difference between the two and what is that difference? It says in Petter's story that those without souls were basically just animals, without a conscience, without emotions, etc. They killed without thinking, mated without feelings... But there are human beings who behaved like that too. Are they without souls or are they just psychologically damaged? 

After reading the book, felt a little inspired to finish my story.