the quicksands of an ethical life

I think this stage where I am now- meat abstained and consumer blind; is the height of hypocrisy. All I know is, I’m trying hard – albeit vaguely- to be a better person.

I spent ages typing a post about why I’ve stopped eating meat for nearly two months before deleting it, because it led to a mind jam about the things that matter. Also, all the post did was reiterate the gory images and repeat farmed meat horrors I’ve told a everyone. I think I’ll need more than that to supplement an adequately informed decision.

But what is, an adequately informed decision? Sussing out a balanced story, where both sides of the story see light has always been first a priority, then a downfall. So now yes, carnivores are no less extreme than vegans in their dietary compulsion reserved only for dead things. But what if for some, its not a question of choice, but survival?

Pursuing one truth, leads to so many others. Okay, today I decide to be vegetarian- but hold it why not go all the way vegan- and then hell, what about being an environmentalist, a Christian, perhaps a Nobel Prize laureat? After axe-ing out choices I cannot make, I’m still faced with decision I can make. Bombarded with non-verified facts, one needs to question more, query more angles to the same story.

As a result, I now wonder if not eating meat will ever lead to me spending copious amounts of time researching on the best vegan mattress to purchase as one vegan did. I’m not saying he is an unhappy man. It just shocks you to realise what a vast turn your life will take if you have to be socially responsible for every decision you make. The more I learn, the more decisions I find myself straddling, so that I don’t undo the decisions I have earlier undertaken. How much should I know before I don’t step on any explosive, given its a minefield of vested interests – let this animal smile, but let that fish continue to be hooked?

True, ignorance is bliss. But once this myth is broken, the ‘bliss’ morphs helplessly into a selfish lack of conscience. It is not possible to un-know. And that cannot be the choice I want to make. Not to mention this is only one fight I’ve chosen. There are many other things to fight for in this life. As a bewildered rookie, I wish I could fight all – gendercide, genocide, unfair trade, enviromental degradation and all kinds of discrimination… I need to find values worth pursuing, a moral ground worth fighting for, before I can have an opinion worthing voicing.

In sum, all I know is, choosing to live out our own beliefs is humanly possible. Afterall, I’m human.

Filed under: musings

rant fan

I don’t know why I write. I can’t stand writing rants. I don’t know why you read. I rant.

Not been doing anything the past two weeks- I’m crossing my fingers that thats all the time I wasted, is all- living with the family. No, thats not a waste of time, quite the opposite really. But other than living at home, I’m doing little else. Been doing my darnest not doing anything- not meeting people, not exercising (as usual), not writing stories, not thinking. Not thinking is best. You know the whole double-think theory?

Of course not. I made it up. But come on. The double think theory? I mean when you tell yourself not to think when you’re thinking?

“I’m losing my neurons.”

Etienne said that. You know the movie Look at Me?  Brilliant, mocking piece on the excesses of the human mind. Go watch.

“The cyanide’s in the kitchen- just thought I’d break the tension.”

Can’t shut him up. Etienne I mean.

Thats him.

Where was I? No, yes, so I thought I would write another entry- one of those entries what-i-did about stuff stuff happening to me, whats up- What’s up, what I did, what I ate. I just kinda thought I’d break the rule about not writing those abit, its phenomenal how I vegetate at home, I need a bit of documentation.

Its frightening how morose I get in my entries, that I kinda like it. Secretly. I mean, who wants to be all lovely and happy? Ladeeda?

I watched something else yesterday- Broken Flowers. Jim Jarmunsch. Interesting director. His stuff is just banal and quiet and contemplative. Bill Murray was great.

Yeap.

Watched heaps of movies is what I did these past weeks. Dipped my fingers into books and read a page or two. Five pages off five books. Better with current affairs though. Well kinda. Ex. Read old copies of sis’s Newsweek. More in line with my monstrous moroseness. I mean, US jumping up and down because China shot an old satellite? Funny what.

Figured out I’d move out of Elm Towers this semester. Finally. After two and a half years. What I most wanted, to move out proper on my own. A proper house, with proper housemates, wine and talk, instead of staring moodily at my computer screen. But as usual, my mind screws with me.

Losing it a bit these past few days though, trying to find suitable people with rooms to let. Accumulating contacts I haven’t rang up. The mind is just going a bit overtime with all the imaginative trappings of psycho housemates and rat infested houses. Somene just counsel this mind of mine please.

ABBOTSFORD HOUSE

$95.00 per week

Bond	$400.00 Lodged with the RTBA
Electricity	Shared
Water	Shared
Gas	Not Connected/Applicable
Phone	Shared
Internet	Shared
Photos online: No

Comments: Seeking pleasant female with good sense of humour to join laid back and cynical household in Abbotsford. Situated right off Victoria Street (restaurants, supermarkets, public transport). Ideally you will be: funny, but not clownish; fun-loving, but not a raucous party animal; and intelligent—perhaps even bookish—but not dull. We are: a creative writing student (M, 21yrs), a freelance writer (M, 21yrs), and a photojournalism student (F, 24yrs).

What do you think?

I dont know. I’m cynical but funny? I’m not funny.

What else. Oh what I ate. Its called ‘ration mee’. What they called instant noodles done in a real economical but tasty way on board the ship. Mum sailed with Dad on their honeymoon. Six months. She’s got a few variations of ways to cook ‘ration mee’. Ketchup, canned mushrooms, potatoes, eggs- fried. Oh use Maggi. Indo-mee is a bit of a stretch.

Love being at home.

My uncle is out of the hospital. He had one blocked artery operated, one broken father-daughter relationship on the mend. Pretty decent trade I think.

Filed under: daily grind, moronics

don’t tell me this is the start

2007 I know, is kinda new. But it is wearing out on its brand-new-ness, know what I mean? The year is newly minted yes, but I forsee so much… that I am weary, forsee so much yet not enough to be glad. Things are certainly going down an uncertain path.

Everything is so worth noting down, dwelling upon these days. Yet no conviction to write and confide, without cause, nor reason. Everything makes sense, yet nothing makes enough sense. I absorb like a sea sponge and am as confused as a blind bat in the sunlight. What am I to feel? What am I to do? What can I possibly want? Why do I care? Its. mind. numbing.

For example, I was at the hospital today. My uncle met with a heart attack and was having a minor surgery while we waited. The hospital, is such a malleable place. Emotions totally on the brink of spilling off every face you see. I see medical professionals exchange a friendly greeting in the lift- lunch yet? yes/no. Busy? Coffee break? Assuming such commonplace normality (know little else how to put it) is – is- surreal, because in that file the nurse is holding, there are probably less than positive results of a patient who is seemingly recovering in the surgical ward. And also because in that moment the doctor is out of the lift, he quickens his steps and walks definitively to Ward 5c Bed 12, someone is struggling, his pager is beeping. Such doom, such routine, such deliberate cheerfulness all contained in a mish-mash. Smells terrible too. I know people do get well in hospitals, I do. But if everyone were happy and well in the first place, there would be no need for hospitals, yes? So hospitals, are sad places. Negative places.

Hospital fatigue, probably. Thats what is up with me.

No. What about the train platform? Droves of people, staring soulessly (or soulfully I dont know) across the wide middle berth of Jurong East, starting at droves of the same people staring right back. Me. Tiny dot among these many dots. We beep as we walk on this imaginary radar screen, green says we’re alert, red says we’re gone. Just malfunctional. The train interrupts our souless gaze and we squeeze in like flies. And then. Three Bangladeshi men in shiny black shoes that hide under long crumpled suit pants next to me cannot stop talking. They are excited. They are holding folders filled with information, their folders are called ‘work safety’. They are filled with new dreams for their lives, furnishing in their minds new homes in places hundreds of miles away from Singapore. They thrive. Then. They are earning a living, they live for dinner tonight, tomorrow they wager their safety- they forget what they have learnt in those files. They forget. Their dreams, and their work safety precautions.

Months later, they stand across the platform from me.

The older I get it seems, the more depressed I get. Depression is a well. Standing at the top, you never for a moment imagine you’ll fall in. Standing at the top, you cannot fathom how deep this well gets. And then suddenly, you’re inside. You’re on the other side. Suddenly, you canot imagine how you were ever up there, high up there. You cannot imagine how much it takes for you to climb back up. Never? Will there ever be a rope?

You can only hope for a rainy day. A rainy day when the waters rise and you’re seemingly close to reaching the top. There is no other way back out. Uncovering this hole, knowing this well, depression will always exist as a condition you’ll recognise. A possibility, an ‘if’ yes, but always a reality.

Filed under: moronics, musings

if i were a cat

 

If only I were a pet

 

 

 

a ?

I’d be happy to sit and wait

wave a silent goodbye

from my heart

When i see you-s leave my gate.

 

I see you-s in the morning

 

and in the night.

 

(not in the day)

 

I like how you-s come home, but

I despair how I stay home.

This mad , with her

 

amphibian purr

 

shut her eyes (in the day)

 

thinks up a storm.

Of tomorrow- what of? wait.-

 

Will she still be a fat ?

 

How not to be a ?

Of other-worldly-tomorrows-

 

Exactly how not to be a :

 

Perhaps she’ll swing trees

 

instead of lick knees

 

Snatch wild fruit

 

instead of wait for fish to cook.

This , this pedigree bat, not.

 

(although not quite royal, yet)

 

is what this real world calls-

 

“working middle class”.

She lives next to a wet gutter

 

hunts when a rat chances.

 

She sleeps in a lined basket

 

milked regularly, always, at eight.

Her friends: Banker-, Doctor-, scholar-, filmmaker-, solictor-cat, model-, teacher-, once-I-graduate-i’ll-be-the president .

Her: cat. Just another cat. Just morning-and-night-notintheday-cat.

 

Happy to sit and wait.

If she were a pet. A .

Filed under: musings, quirks, written word

Like I can.

Don’t know what to do with myself. It’s midnight. Family retires. Sat in the kitchen, stared into the reflected-stainless-kettle-world of my kitchen. Mum spoons medicine into sis’s mouth. Sis swallows. She looks a tad pale, but cared for. I feel like safe. Non-existent-kind-of-safe. (You know the invisibility cloak?) Goodnight I say. Goodnight they say. The cabinets are a stark yellow, a little misplaced at this time of the night. I sit here. Like I can blend right into the cherry wood table and its stools, like I can smell like this kitchen, like I can forget that I need to sleep. Like I can sit here everyday and night, watching this warped up stainless kitchen world, with fondness.

Is it time to leave again?

Filed under: daily grind, places, written word