Why am I taking a bite out of TR?

I know what you’re thinking; I even know that you’re two minded, but I want to tell you what’s rattling in your head this minute is a perfectly natural reaction. As trying to pin down the broader role and goal of Temasek Review is fiendishly difficult, its one part paradox, two parts enigma with a twist of lemon – as till now you’re just a man who knows how to draw a straight line; to strike a line, and to carve any number of given lines, with admirable speed and precision – that incidentally is how the vast majority of netizens (including myself) have come to draw their respective conclusion about the internet; we seek out the familiarity of forms, patterns and structures which edify our own sense of belief and now that you know what you know; that’s a bit like asking a stonecutter to think deeper abt the alphabets he cuts daily with such admirable speed – a perceptive shift is bound to occur; now it seems passing from the realm of theory to reality assumes an air of hesitancy; 9 out of 10, if he puts chisel to stone; the strikes comes off the wrong way and he fucks it up – 9 out of 10, if decides to use a curved chisel or a size 3 mallet to strike a curve line – he fucks it up again.

You know why that happens don’t you? Because now his job has been transformed into a thinking being – let me put it another way: it’s conceivable many of us left our back doors wide open; as its all too easy to jump from the knowledge a blog such as TR can have agency to the conviction that it must have agency to even bring about meaningful change for you and I; but if you really think long and hard about it; the only reason why anyone would accord TR, that sort of kosher appellation of an oppositional blog is simply because it seems to have all the set pieces we all traditionally associate with oppositional blogs – but as we begin to peel away the layers and look closer at why they claim some malevolent force out there is trying to cripple their servers along with asking ourselves the broader scope of their hidden agenda – then what rapidly emerges is the realization, we ought not only to treat with extreme reserve and askance many of their representations; but we would also do well to re-examine many of time honored assumptions of whether they are really an oppositional blog and not a wolf sporting fleece.

And at this juncture in the name of fair play; you would also do well to ask what exactly is my motivation? Do I have an axe to grind with TR? Believe it or not, I don’t – my motivation if I can compress it into something as compact as a pill is simply one indestructible idea – it is the belief that what unifies us all as netizens is not that the internet can change anything, but that it can preserve something – and what’s that thing to be preserved – the right to the seek out the truth – whether you realize it or not, bloggers and their cachet of readers are preservers of the truth; custodians of a tradition of authentic language; practitioners of looking into darkened interiors along with beaconing out the murk.

One day when our bones have turned into dust – digital archeologist are not going to peruse through the Strait Times; they’re going to sieve through the electronic chatter to piece together the nuances of what you and I really though about this and that – so we are an organic community; we may disagree on many things; but we can all agree without too much fuss that nothing in the world seems simple to us all. So please understand this: I have every right to question; and if that right is forcibly taken away from me (as I have been threatened no end) then many of you who would do well to consider whether it also means that thing we’re talking about when we use the word “identity” has reach a terminal end?

So let be clear, I am not stopping TR from furthering their hidden agenda; by all means cyber warriors carry on; only don’t expect me to hold back; why should I? Did you really believe for one moment that you could just waltz in; pirouette a yarn and not expect anyone here to even ask: “Is this the real thing?”

You know what’s the real tragedy in all this do you; its not whether TR is perdition or salvation; or even whether TR’s advent in our blogosphere represents the specter of a reign of dystopian mind control or opens up an new dawn of consciousness – it is simply this: I want to believe, you have no idea how much I want to believe you.

Darkness 2009

(This took me less than 12 minutes 32 seconds to write without any corrections; you low IQ cyber warriors would probably take 6 days and bit – so always remember, there is plenty more where this came from – don’t ever threaten me again)