Replying notes

i think i have written about the above topic somewhere in my blog but i can't be bothered to look for it.

but essentially... to answer the note from Emz...

does it matter that we "we were just plopped onto earth to merely exist for a few paltry years before dying and never ever existing again"? does that fact make our life meaningless? purposeless?

i don't see why it does. so what even if i were just to exist for a few paltry years? my life matters to those around me. my mother will probably die within the next a couple of decades. that will put her lifespan at 80 years. yes that might be paltry. but she has led a purposeful and meaningful life. i can attest to that. similarly, when i expire, i would have, i hope, touched some people, impacted some lives, created something, left some legacies.

so perhaps life deson't have an absolute meaning. but our interations, our relationship with one another, the intricate web of interdependencies that we weave as we journey through these few paltry years in life creates meaning for that journey relative to one another.

one of the issues that i might have with the afterlife is its implications on our motivations. if i believe in an afterlife and therefore strive to do good so that i can have an eternal time in heaven, then i am driven to do good not because i believe it is good, but because i am effectively selfish and egotistical. doesn't that make me no more than a dog, acting only to be rewarded?

further, without the afterlife, without having a pre-defined standard of judgement of the meaning/purpose foisted upon me, i am then free to create whatever purpose/meaning of my life. that freedom is what makes me human.

Cheng... i don't think he/she/it can be classified as an executive trannny (a la Eddie Izzard). but a battalion of those as paratroopers, heli-inserted deep behind enemy lines would most certainly win any war.

the enemies will die from a) shock, b) utterly grossed out, c) laughing to death.

Death and Orchard Road (not related...)

strange that emz brought it up. i've been thinking about death a lot these days: the moment just before you are about to die, the moment you die, and what's it like after you are dead. and my conclusion is... no... i don't believe in life after death.

the reason why i've been thinking about death is because i've started reading Garth Nix's "The Old Kingdom" trilogy. and death features a big part in it.

well... on a lighter note... was walking down Orchard Road just now. i've not been there for quite a while. it has changed a fair bit. not unrecognizable, but definitely different. Cats in the Cradle was playing at Indochine, Wisma. and passers-by like me who are too cheapskate to go in and get a drink at hyper-inflated prices (this happened even before the recent spate of inflation... pretty prescient of them, eh?) could just stand and watch. and sure enough, there was a huge crowd watching. though some of them were as likely to be watching the band as they were watching this Tranny. not that being a Tranny automatically draws attention. but this Tranny must have thought it was Wednesday and she/he/it was in Zouk. cos she/he/it was unleashing this entire repertoire of grossly mutilated mambo moves and hooting what she/he/it must have thought to be complimentary but to the rest of us sounded like a banshee cry.

yeesh.

and i think the Tranny made me think really weird things. like when i saw Miss Selfridge, i suddenly thought... why sell fridge? why not toasters? or ovens? or better yet, toaster ovens? washing machines do well too! why selfridge?

and if there's a Daniel Yam, perhaps we should have a Richard Potato. or William Tapoica.

hey wait... i thought of all these before encountering the Tranny...

erm....

Just a thought

time, per se, stretches on into eternity and is thus infinite, yet we never seem to have enough of.

but it is meaningless to talk about time per se. while there may be an infinite amount of time, we are miniscule vessels which can only hold so little of it such that we never have enough of it to use for our purposes. our lives are like a brief spark of light in the infinite darkness of an eternity before birth and inexhaustible time after death. upon what shall this tiny spark shine? what will this tiny spark illuminate?

X-files

it was 10 years ago that i watched the first instalment of the X-Files movie. i still remember it quite vividly. i went with 2 friends. one, a girl who had a thing for me, and the other, one of my best friends in school who had a thing for that girl. i still remember how our little triangle seemed to matter the entire world to us then. how our troubles and problems then seem so trivial in retrospect.

i lost contact with the girl. i still meet up with the guy. he's a father now. while me... well... i was considerably more naive, idealistic and innocent then. now... i think i am a little more grounded in reality, perspectives tinged by darker shades, perhaps slightly more cynical. i have seen more darkness in the last 10 years than i did in the first 18 of my life.

how quickly time leaves its mark on us!