Time and Other-ness

A quote by C.S. Lewis that has stuck with me, and resurfaces whenever someone comments, "how time flies!":

For we are so little reconciled to time that we are even astonished at it. “How he’s grown!”, we exclaim “How time flies!” as though the universal form of our experience were again and again a novelty. It is as strange as if a fish were repeatedly surprised at the wetness of water. And that would be strange indeed; unless of course the fish were destined one day to become, one day, a land animal.

It is so true, don't you think? The strangeness of how humans seem always to be surprised by time's passing, although our existence altogether is only on a moving time train. It is the medium in which we live, move and have our beings, but somehow we have a consciousness of another dimension, a different type of dimension- something called "Eternity". Otherwise, we wouldn't have known about something we call 'time'! God must have intentionally revealed to us this knowledge. I think the idea i'm grasping at in shreds is that we are incapable of thinking up anything purely original, purely out-of-this-world unless it has first been placed in us. In our conceptions, and our capacity to conceive. For example, if i asked you, what is a colour that exists outside of the colour spectrum, I don't think anyone would be able to tell me convincingly. Even if you thought of some interesting hybrid such as muddy-golden-brickish-green, it would be an amalgamation of existing conceptions, which are within our capacities to conceive. Our brains are just not programmed to perceive anything other than the existing colour spectrum! It is all we know, and in all likelihood be all we ever know, simply because we are not given to know what is 'other' in this scenario.

And that's why I believe that 'otherness', such as conceptions of Eternity, Perfection and Ultimate Goodness are out-of-this-world, beyond humanly concepts. We are incapable of being nor possessing these things, yet they are universally ingrained and recognized in every individual; we have a capacity to imagine and conceive those things. It is divine.

Now it is bed time. My mind is swimming with lots of things and nothing in particular. I would like a good solid dslr camera to capture the world around me with wonderment. (Also because my current point shoot camera is producing faded out colours and plenty of fuzzy due to poor light reception) I would like red red lipstick. Go on a shopping spree. Go on a holiday.

Rather the opposite of ennui, existential boredom. I have existential anxiety- i want more. MORE!

the 300.

oh! the 300th post. Masters has started, my final year of education (unless i go for a phD, of course.) which means this blog has accompanied me, spasmodically and infrequently but always readily, since secondary school childishness to the present foolish adulthood. adulthood is always foolish because we mistakenly believe we are more clever than we ever used to be. who is to say the sillyness of a child's imagination (where all options are available, and all forms of thinking are potentially correct), is not true cleverness? what we all believe now, in our present adult-ness, is that which the world has offered to us on a thousand spoons and a thousand doses and a thousand certificates of what it believes to be right/wrong. Now, only one Earth exists, in this one planetary system that revolves around one Sun. everything else is hocum, don't believe it. of course there are the scientists, who believe many other things, oh, and those who believe in God too.

-

One of the most occupying things to do is an accurate personality test. And no other test has been as freakishly accurate is the one i'm about to recommend to you: the Myers-Briggs test. You can do the test here and get free answers by googling your personality type. I've always wondered why my brain jumps from spot to random spot instead of travelling along a straight line.. where I suppose things would make more sense; or one thing would make deeper sense. But I am incapable of recalling in sequence what i did every day of last week, of recalling consecutive steps in a dance choreography. I just remember snippets, which links to other snippets, and suddenly things as far apart as the universe and the mushroom become inextricably linked in some suddenly explainable fashion. Well, almost all other things i've wondered about myself and my friends was explained in the MBTI test results.

a million trains

too many people spend
too much time
desiring to be loved
and too little
actually loving.

so tired and exhausted. no, it has nothing to do with coming back at 3a.m. last night from the hockey girls reunion.. you know how french philosophers summarized existential boredom as ennui? well, its not that either.

rather, its a kind of deep-seated disappointment
at things, at people, at environments
struggling to find expression but cant
and seeps out here
in a (semi-secret) space.

been thinking about what my pet peeve is.
last night the hockers went on and on about their different irks
i share some annoyance with those, perhaps
like annoying people who stuff their faces and elbows at the MRT doors
when everyone is trying to pour out.
or really touchy people from XXXXX on the train who
have no sense of personal space.
that agitation is acute- i shrug them off and it fouls my mood.
theres a whole science around the awkwardness when personal space is infringed,
called "proxemics".

but no, not really.
that's not my pet peeve.
i asked him what my pet peeve was, and he said i don't have one.

i don't like people who are intentionally late
you can always tell.
despite the smothering layers of 'sorry',
or lack of it.


i don't like people who can't be trusted
who say they're coming
and don't last minute.

but sometimes i am those people.
maybe i don't really have a pet peeve because
peeves are externally vented
but mine are secret pets
like imaginary friends,
internally directed.

i cant stand the way i cant be angry
even if i know im right, sometimes.
i dont like many things about me
but thats alright
we're made perfect in time.

--

i think william morris said,
don't place in your room anything you don't find to be
useful or beautiful.

by that logic, many things have to be displaced.

how i organize my mind determines

how my room is organized,

which in turn influences my daily schedule,

running to the cupboard-dresser,

then out the door

to catch the shuttle bus

that always running away from me

the room is like a microcosm of my universe

which is a macrocosm of my mind

which is filled with a million trains

rushing to a million places

and never quite getting there.

oh, look at the time.

i need to rush for harp.

it annoys me that you never show up.

muses

love this shot.

anakin sky-scurrier

just love the colours.

*

met adele today at mos burger and discussed her wedding plans! i will design her SaveTheDates and Wedding invitations. seems like the season of weddings is set in motion! (i say this with trepidation.) its our first architecture studio today, after our trip to Tokyo to study the food factory processes and be archi-tourists.

*

a love of paper. its my dream to open a paper shop. who can help me with concrete business plans?? paper concrete :) and shop names? haha. the unbearable lightness of being.

*

this semester will be different. im not sure how, but im charged with an inexplicable desire for something to change. maybe its consciousness bubbling over on the inside, telling me that life is more than work. that life is meant to be so much more. that God planned an awesome life for his children, and its our choice to take the strings and fly with it.

*

"do any of you like korean shows?"

...

"i like."

-my usp teacher, in class.

(outburst of laughter.)

*

wishes and kites

are made of the same stuff;

you pull it close to your heart

with your eyes set on the horizon-

that edge where your vision ends

and dreaming begins.

on their end, they are lifted

only by invisible winds

eyes cannot perceive

but the heart feels.

let it go,

into hands not your own

it was never your burden to bear

lightly hold the string end.