Stalingrad – audiobook

I spend a lot of time listen to audiobooks in the evenings in the plantation.

Holding back

Early this morning. During my walk around to inspect the harvest. I reprimanded a harvester for leaving his tools on the road….he said something to me that one never ever says to a landowner. (You must understand I am a very wealthy and powerful landowner. I can literally make you disappear for saying those things to me! Btw that’s my ego talking! Fuck him lah!)

Instead. I walked away and pretended that I did not hear it.

Later on I sat down with that harvester for tea in the field. His mother passed away…he was very attached to his mum.

Jun is not an ordinary harvester. When I first came here as a penniless man many years ago…he was first worker….we have both been thru a lot.

This I cannot forget….I cannot forget. Whenever I think back, he is one of those who stood by me in those terrible years when I was all alone.

So although I wanted to be hard to him…my heart was soft.

I am very glad that I held back…very very glad.

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‘I think leaders of a country need to be considerate, thoughtful and above all cultivate a long term relationship of trust and belief with their citizens. When you do this…most people will remember it. As for those who don’t – they’re garbage any way, so even if they are with you in the thick, they are probably dead weight. But for those who really appreciate it and remember…I think they will go beyond the call of duty….it is a sort of karma..what goes around will come around. That is why natives who think it is stupid to give scholarships to foreigners are stupid…or people who think it is Ok to treat foreigners who work and study in Singapore like shit…they are stupid…they don’t understand how it all comes right back….one day you it will all come back.’

How wise is it to take what your mind says seriously?

Not very long ago. I used to take myself very seriously. That’s to say whenever my mind spoke….I would drop everything in a flash and listen in the way as if God himself was talking…that is how society has programmed me to regard my mind….I must always trust it!

One day many years ago. I decided to conduct a very dangerous experiment – where I told myself I will try from today onwards not to take my mind too seriously….infact I will even mistrust it a bit by hold back final judgement for at least a day.

After three long years. I discovered a few important lessons – firstly I was making better decisions, I wasn’t having so many regrets about emails that I wished I didn’t send, I was also less confrontational and I even came across as a wiser and steadier person….you see it is very very simple…my cunning ego was actually hiding behind the authority of my mind.

I discovered another of his hiding places.

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‘When you look into the mirror and say to yourself – I want to get rid of my ego! It’s not that simple. Your ego has been around for a very long time. He knows where to hide in your brain – he knows so well that even if he’s talking to you…you don’t even know it’s him…your ego that is.

So to discover what is hidden….one must first learn to hide things. That is to say don’t tell yourself that you plan to get rid of him…your ego.

Yes…I know it’s a conspiracy and it’s all up there…as you can see for yourself.’

Eight thousand strong!

At least someone in Singapore knows the art of war. To do this is to send a very clear message to the enemy…this is the cost of creating mayhem in Singapore…. it’s going to be uphill all the way….because all the corners are very tightly tacked down.

It is a form of psychological warfare that operates at a very primal level – where one begins to undermine both the enemy’s confidence and resolve.

The message is very terse and to the point lah…we will just tapau terrorist into a NTUC plastic bag lah! No need to talk so much!

Our NS men should have been deployed for counter terrorism a long time ago…this is very timely.

Why Singapore shouldn’t be afraid to put an end to democracy

Hey there’s talk of Oprah Winfrey being the next president. Is there like something that has been added to US national water supply…something like mind bending drugs. Why do I get the sinking feeling I am the only one who really believes that only very serious people should run for president…why?

Could it be, there’s something wrong with me?

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‘It’s conceivable Democracy as a political theory is busted up beyond economic repair. The election of Trump and Brexit merely confirms this emerging reality. In democracies like the US and EU party positions are getting so polarised that they no longer represent the common ground any longer. Instead politics has veered to the feral domain of extremes and democracy as a political theory is now closer to mob rule i.e the tyranny of the majority. The executive cannot accomplish anything because party politics is no longer about the common good and everything to do with illiberal minded partisan politics. The sooner democracy as a school of thought is done away with the better it is for everyone.’

CNY rising – part 3

Writing this is a sort of journal, and soon it dawns on one, one doesn’t need a lot of prompting to realize one is desperately short in life. All I have to do to reacquaint myself with my shortcomings is to read what I’d written in the journal the day, week or month before.

Its composition is deliberately couched in scholarly ruminations, noenetheless there is enough self enfacing hypocrisy, pomposity and immaturity to sink a decent sized shit laden barge.

Reading it fulfills the essential function of supplying me with the necessary motivation to change myself…maybe I want to come across as less autistic…idiotic….immature. I don’t quite know what’s really behind my motivation to change myself.

In my private moments. When I am all alone. I often look back on my life and it never ceases to marvel how someone like myself managed to bullshit his way thru life…..so much of it has been made up by my ego. So much of it is self aggrandizing…it’s opulence is grostesque….bling…comes to mind.

I am a very bling person!

Bling is the height of vapiness…it’s the opposite of careful…studied….measured and precise doses of elegance. Less is definitely more when it comes to the trying convey the diametric opposite of blingness.

But how would one go about classifying someone who is actually bling, but doesn’t come across as crass and rough around the edges…instead he excudes quiet sophistication…culture and a polished nature.

How?’

CNY rising – part 2

Yes…I struggle with self doubt. Most people would never admit it. Maybe they see it as a fatal admission that may come back and bite them with a vengeance. But I don’t have any hang up’s about coming to terms with the haunting reality or crushing tragedy that never seems to ever get enough juice to break away from the gravity of who I am….the finality of my own terrible limitations and how I try to patch it up with lies, my hopeless inadequacy around people, the impossibility of ever getting it just right like how I see it in my mind’s eye…Yada, Yada, Yada, Yada.

There are times when my self doubt even threatens to boil over – when I begin to ask which emotional reactions are actually me? And which are really just generated by my cunning ego. Am I really all there?

It’s not as if I don’t make a real and genuine effort to connect with myself at a deep and meaningful level…I listen regularly to Elkhart Tolle, Rupert Spira and maybe ten other people who are really into the whole movement to peel right into our real unvarnished elemental self. They all believe once you can make that momentous connection with your real self then one can only experience what they describe as transcendal awakening.

I work hard at the idea to wake up. Maybe I work harder than most… maybe too darn hard.

That’s all I ever seem to ever do….look high and low for the so called real Mc Coy me. I realise how strange a proposition this may be to those who aren’t acquainted with people who regularly suffer from self doubt.

Well it may have something to do with….most of the time I am alone.

I work alone. And if there’s anything to be said about being alone…it’s the texture. I know what I am trying to describe comes across as slightly weird, but it’s the texture of being alone that is different from always being around people.

Texture like how a fabric either sits, hangs or just seems to be over flesh and bone.

It’s much sharper around the edges being alone….I find myself having to guard and limit my emotional reactions all the time whenever I have to spend long periods all by myself.

Otherwise self doubt alway appears before me like a dream. You know why people love to recount their dreams don’t you? You should ask your friends about their dreams and just watch how they can talk about them for hours. Well I have this pet theory that they are trying to say something which they usually can’t or would never reveal about themselves to anyone…the dream is like a metaphor, it’s the necessary lie that makes possible the transmission between what they want to say about themselves but can’t and handling the danger of it all.

I mean you could tell much more about people by just listening to five minutes of what they dreamt last night or the two weeks ago then if they stood up and talked about themselves for eight straight hours!

Thats really how powerful dreams are at revealing the terror of self doubt…like I said it’s heightened considerably by the texture of being alone that doesn’t even have the courtesy to distort or cause abberations in your emotions…. People who had known me years ago would barely recognize me when I battle self doubt in that state of loneliness. I become quiet, slow and deliberate. There’s like a solemnity that colors every though and action. After all, how could I really know if I am suddenly overcome by a spontaneous moment of sheer joy that it was really genuinely epiphany that came from some remarkable transcendal rush. Or maybe that’s just my borderline psychopathic ego fast at work to be the center of attention?

Like I said the texture of self doubt sharpens when one is alone. I could for example no longer fall back on the timelessness of my heart felt beliefs on virtually every subject ranging from politics to power tools.

The debate had withered. Instead I found myself looking at every single side of an issue as if unable to assure myself it wasn’t some how tainted by madness.

I think it’s this aspect of loneliness that scares people….one is forced to look at oneself warts and all and something what one see may not be a very pretty picture.

You know there’s actually this strange disease that only seems to afflict people who live in really off the grid parts of the world that lonely planet doesn’t write about…places that are so desolate and hauntingly silent that it literally screams loneliness….places like the Russian steppes that seems to just go right on and on like a repeatitive litany that knows no end. Or maybe sailing North to South starting from the straits of bearing and fighting those impossible currents….you could be at it for years. Anyway…this disease it’s called Siberiana.

One day for no reason this soul who lives in all by himself just wakes up, puts on his boots and decides to walk maybe east or maybe West…he doesn’t eat…he doesn’t stop even for rest. All this tortured soul does is put one foot in front of the other. Till he collapses and dies.

It’s one those Ripley’s believe it or not mystery diseases – experts have studied it. Even those NASA boffins who are designing spaceships to go to Mars have studied it….but no one really knows why it happens.’

CNY rising

‘No. I do not fear death. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it has anything to do with courage. Maybe it’s just the idea that it’s so close to me every day that I’ve got used to it. I don’t flinch when I see a snake or even a tiger…perhaps I’ll take a longer look at it out of curiosity….but my point is it’s not a big deal.

If there is such a thing as a big deal in the idea of dying. It is the people who I will disappoint when I go over to the other side. I think they expected much more from me. I know this may sound awfully strange and contrived, but THEY always expected much more from me. I am after all the man who went where no mind dares to go and I did things that many other men can only sit quietly in the night and wonder why I could do those things…so that builds up the expectation. Or rather that inflates the whole impression that I was supposed to deliver more.

Truth is. I don’t quite know how I got associated with this idea of creating so much expectation.

Maybe it’s the way I see the world and everything in it – could even be the way I come across to others. I’ve always been larger than life. It’s really only when people see me in person that they suddenly blurt out in a moment of uncontrollable honesty – ‘I didn’t realise you were so short….you’re actually a very quiet man…..you don’t talk very much do you.’

But I’ve always been caught up in this idea that was always bigger that who i a man and will ever be. Strangely what exactly comprises that idea, philosophy or credo is never ever mentioned. Since everyone assumes that everyone else knows what it is…no one ever talks at length about it. I am not saying people don’t from time to time exclaim – they’re doing this and that to make people and planet better! They do. It’s just that they can’t pin it down. Or even tell you exactly how it’s done. It’s like this momentary sensation of knowing and yet not knowing at the same time. Something like being in a stationary carriage while the train alongside pulls away. For a while you think, you’re moving. Till of course you realise from other inputs from your senses that can’t be so.

It’s a bit like that with me…or shall I say us. You know something is happening…you probably have this realization it has to be big. But you just can’t pin it down….it’s like trying to chew your own teeth.

I wouldn’t exactly say this fuzziness or dissonance or whatever you want to describe it was something I deliberately created. No! If anything I am more confused than ever. Only because of the finality of the realization that I had no control over it….even the idea of the me is a sort of fabrication. Everything has been processed and filtered and glossed over…not by me. No! I was merely the curious onlooker. Someone who walks around a theme park when everyone else has gone back home…there was always a solitariness about me that stemmed from a militant refusal to ever be part of the big picture.

I have always avoided the limelight…preferring the charioscuro of my own suspended state amid this perpetual churning of consciousness that many termed we…us…them…they. I on the other hand was the venerator of the lower case ‘i’, an inverted exclamation than screamed thru it’s silence.’

To be con’t

Emptying the self of the ego

Very easy to talk about….but not so easy to pull off.

What is really wrong with AVA

…it is simply this. The roles and goals of AVA are not designed to take stock of the oppirtunities and constraints of Singapore. Instead they seem to be designed for a country that seems to have plenty of land to grow and breed food.

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‘If I was the minister of agriculture and livestock in Singapore. The first thing I would do is hold a meeting with the HR department. I would tell the HR V.P that everyone who joins AVA must from now onwards transition after five years of working in house into a enterprise owner to either grow or breed food for Singapore. That is to say I will transform AVA from a regulatory body into a learning center to equip and finance a new generation of Singaporeans to farm.

I will demystify farming in such a way where if you are in your fifties and you have spent thirty years working let’s say as a banker and now you want to grow pomelos…I will make it as easy as this https://www.timesofisrael.com/raising-organic-fowl-isnt-a-task-for-the-chickenhearted/

I want to be honest. This is in now way original….as I studied very carefully and spied for many years on how the Jews approach the whole subject of agriculture and livestock and I have derived at a few key points.

– First all their regulators are not regulators. They are first enterprise owners themselves. This is very important as you don’t want to create a us against them system. Rather you want a system where the authority partners with the enterprise.

– Secondly, they make agriculture and livestock knowledge very accessible to ordinary Israelites. For example if you want to grow mushrooms – their equivalent of AVA will have a subject matter expert who can generate excel spreadsheet of the cost right down to advise you on how to build and operate the facility.

– Thirdly, all produce and livestock in Israel is priced in such a way where Farmers can make a very good living.

As the first minister of agriculture in Singapore. I will start all over again. This time round it will be centrally planned. The first cohort of farmers will start and run enterprises in Singapore. Once they reach critical mass in both their technical and management knowledge – they will have to go abroad and start farming satellites.

This is how I envision the future of farming in Singapore.’

Why it can never be right for men and women to use the internet to highlight sexual harassment

It’s not the right channel (period) No one is saying irrespective whether you are a man, woman, planet of the apes or Pokemon. Your species and gender doesn’t have an elemental right to lodge a complain.

But there already exist proper and orthodox channels to do this – you can go to the police shop to see what is available….the internet however is not a place where you can make all sorts of wild allegations and post photos of people who you attach all kinds of labels to….if you want to do that…you can. But you have to live with the consequences and implications.

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‘I am so sorry. But if you take to the internet to complain that someone is sexually harassing you in the train or in the Singapore Flyer.

This is not the right channel!

I REGRET TO INFORM YOU, YOU ARE ABUSING THE INTERNET. PLS GO AND MAKE A POLICE REPORT.

The rational is very simple and straight forward.

Everyone is presume to be innocent unless proven guilty. You are god. You cannot label people negatively without any basis of proof based on justice. Besides your account of what happened no matter how traumatic it may have been is not an objective account. Since it doesn’t take into account the other side of the story. Hence an unilateral account falls short of the legal criteria – Audi alteration partem.

The second reason why your account cannot be treated as factual is due to the legal criteria – nemo judex in causa sua. Since you are a vested party, you cannot be a judge of your own case.

You can certainly take your case to the internet. But if you are proven to be factually in accurate or wrong. You can be sued.

So once again go make a police report! Don’t be a cry baby drama queen.’

Beef & Liver Spaghetti – 6 servings

If you are a woman who no man wants to marry. All you have to do is cook this for him and his parents and either he will marry asap. Or the parents will force him to marry you asap.

If you are a man and you are always complaining about the cost of living in Singapore….the first question I will ask is do you know how to cook 666 spaghetti. If the answer is no. You do not have a right to complain…I am so sorry.

Once you know how to cook ONLY then do you have the right to complain.

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The reason why it is called 666 spaghetti is because there are only six cooking stages. Serves six and can sustain you for six hours of rigorous physical activity.

First always use liver with beef. Never cook just beef or liver alone…you will just end up with cardboard tasteless sauce. By combining the two – you are creating complexity and layers of flavor. This is a professional kitchen trick. I get about 300 grams beef and 250 grams liver. If you are cooking for your future husband and in laws never tell them you’re putting in liver, as it is considered in Singapore poor people Budget food. Instead use the term ‘foise de voilles,’ for la effect.

I have in the palm of my hand aromatics. You got to understand some basics about pasta. In Italian cooking, the oil is always the carrier of the Flavours – that is the means of transmitting the X factor – that is why olive oil is such a dominant feature in meditarennean cuisine. Not the meat or even the sauce. They are just there for the ride…the oil is what actually imparts flavor!

What I have in my hand is star anise, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, dried chillies. Fry all this in light olive oil. Use a lot of oil.

Add three chopped white onions and one bulb of garlic chopped. Fry with aromatics to infuse oil with flavor for fifteen minutes Low flame.

Add liver and beef. Make sure you break up the liver. Providing you break it up till it’s all disintegrated. No one will ever be able to taste the liver…they wouldn’t even realise it is there – they all think you are a Holland V high class girl who only shops in Marketplace and bought premium chuck! Actually all bought on buy one get another free discount day at Sengshiong. Add one big spoon of meat curry powder.

Chop cheese. Any cheese will do. But use the whole block like so.

Cover and let the cheese melt.

Simmer….Low flame…stir from time to time. Then add one jar of spaghetti sauce…any flavor will do. But if you’re cooking for your future Husband or in laws just hide it in a Tupperware under your skirt…don’t let them see this. As this is the short cut. Remember the flavor is in the oil – all this is just for show.

Once the oil comes out it is ready to serve with spaghetti. Add one tablespoon of sugar. Three tablespoon of fish sauce. Another secret professional kitchen trick as this will give a tangy flavour.

Summer some more…usually I simmer for at least 60 minutes…Low.

Every man should learn to use a Thermos

A real man should never be ashamed to be seen lugging a Thermos in public. As it shows that he is a man who not only knows how to cook, but most importantly appreciates good food and much prefers to eat by himself…a quiet and reserved sort of fellow. There will always be something very attractive about such a man to a discerning lady. Of course lah Sengkang Sally will never appreciate all this….if you are chowing on economy beehon from a styrofoam box…she will appreciate lah!

I can assure you not many men can do this in Singapore. Maybe one in five hundred…so if you can do this. You are already in the TOP drawer market of men.

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‘I don’t eat out much. Maybe one out of a hundred meals. The reason is very simple I can cook much better than what’s usually offer for retail. Besides this whole idea of searching for food like a vampire, looking for a parking slot, standing in line etc etc….is all very stupid to me. Successful people never ever waste time on the nitty gritty – they just cut to the chase.

I hunt for my own meat and cook myself. Most of the stuff I grow. I like to eat stews with bread. Stew is very easy to cook, easy to digest and very easy on the stomach when I am out in the field.

I use two food jars by Thermos daily. The first is 0.5L, it’s maybe enough for a small and light meal. The other is a Doreamon 0.7L that can hold a big meal in the field.

When I go out into the field. I usually pack two. I give the smaller one to the dog that is following me out….he usually appreciates a hot meal with biscuits especially when it’s raining.

I am very happy with my Thermos.’

DISCLAIMER – I don’t get paid in any shape or form for writing this.

Maybe…just Maybe Miss Tan…he doesn’t want to fuck you!

This is what I understand. If there is anything that is inaccurate in what I have posted. Please kindly let me know. Otherwise what I write here will stand.

Not long ago. This perculiar woman after yoga or kamasutra I cannot remember. Anyway she boarded a train. Thereafter she claim that a man was staring at her. And this made her very uncomfortable.

Personally I feel very sorry for the man. As since his face is plastered all over the internet. He is now very well known in Singapore as a sex crazed maniac who stalks ugly women in the MRT.

Singapore is a very small place and this sort of character assassination by AWARE kangaroo court will certainly affect this man’s opportunities for employment…..personally I don’t feel this is right.

Because there have been times when I have emerged from the jungle and behaved exactly in the same manner due in part to my autism. But in my case I am very fortunate as ALL the women I stare at smile back and even ask me for my phone number and some even insist that I make a move. When I ask what movement they are talking about…that is only when they look at me in a very odd and suspicious manner.

If anyone knows the identity of this young man and if he is in need of legal counsel to pursue a case of slander and defamation against this psychotic woman. Please let me know. I may just know a few generous anonymous farmers who may be willing to fund his legal case to set the record straight so that he can live a normal life after being falsely accused as a sex maniac.

Kindly pass the word around.

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‘SMRT should set a corner marked safe zone. No this not to protect women against sex maniacs. It is to protect innocent men from being falsely accuse of sexual harassment. The way the safe zone works is it is a location on a corner of the train that the man can actually go to seek protection. There he can use a cable tie to cut the circulation from his cock and balls which shouldn’t be to difficult for SMRT to supply since cable ties are holding the trains and rails and everything else up in the MRT and I am told in Singapore as well….maybe this is the only way for men not to falsely accused by psycho women who seem only to see the world thru their little petty me, me and me sex fixated world!’

The power of understanding

Knowledge is a great thing. But there is one thing that sits higher than knowledge itself….and that is understanding.

People generally do not lack knowledge. In this world you can find all types of people who have all manner and form of knowledge without too much fuss. You can even find people who have the knowledge to design contraptions to enable man to walk on water!

Knowledge it seems is not a problem with mankind.

The problem is merely this – the capacity to understand. To be precise man does not understand and it is this lack of understanding that prevents him from using knowledge in a way that will bring good to both people and planet.

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‘When you have developed perfect understanding of how YOUR own mind works. Then it is almost impossible to get upset when you come across people who behave immaturely, rudely or even in a manner that is directly motivated to insult you!

I say it is impossible because with the benefit of complete understanding of the self….you can never get angry with that obnoxious person. Maybe the wave of anger will last only momentary at best. After that you will be filled with pity for them. Because you are like a Kung Fu master. You can see so clearly without having to go thru the bother of fighting, how messed they are to such a point where they are falling over each other….they don’t have understanding.

I think you should always be mindful of the variety of men who understands himself completely.

I cannot continue to emphasise how dangerous these category of men are. As not only do they have the uncanny ability to know what you will do and even think….I think when you know yourself completely, it’s a sort of secret knowledge that can be abused in the wrong hands by bad people. That is why if you observe all forms of ancient martial disciplines, they always emphasise this cardinal aspect of the mental training – know yourself completely!

What the master doesn’t tell you is once you understand yourself – then you can see so clearly what your enemy will do….you see it so clearly, as he was like you before you gained mastery over yourself!’

Real Awakening

A wise man may perhaps tell you that he managed to learn either this or that to improve himself….a wiser man will tell you…he unlearnt either this or that to improve himself.

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‘I’ve reached a point in my life when I am getting sick and tired of slaving just to satisfy the demanding needs of my ego….in the past. I could not really distinguish between the real ‘I’ and my ego. To me it seemed like basically one blob that I and everyone else called ‘me.’ But once I overcame the traditional scripting and programming of how most people perceive themselves and others. I became sensitive enough to the idea that ‘I’ and my ego are really two separate ideas and that had nothing whatsoever to do with the other. That was when I could make out what was from ‘I’ or ‘me’ and the ego…that is to say, I could see the duality in my thoughts, actions and deeds. This insight allowed me to audit myself on a regularly basis….and from there I able to lay the basis of the foundations to awaken.

I think to be awakened is a very important process of reincarnation if one is genuinely serious about living well. If I had to simply cite one compelling reason why this is so – it’s because so many people are still in a comatose slumber that they are yet to awaken from….the problem is when you try to tell them to wake up and they look at you as if you’re stark raving mad…that I believe is a very big problem. Because I don’t think you can really talk about freedom or for that matter rights when you are still imprisoned by the ego that you believe is indistinguishable from the real you.’

Ferrante

The funny thing about her is when I read her…I have to keep reminding myself this is woman and not a man writing about not women per se. Rather it is the soitariness of womanhood…the hood being a sort of cloistered state of cosy inderism that only women would really know about….which is a paradox within a paradox. Because if she writes about women in the way that only a woman can feel and express…why would I ever for one moment assume that a man is writing all this?

I guess its because all her characters are so unlike women…they’re masculine. Maybe not in a gruff sense, but there is certainly a hardness and determined will about them that suggest what she writes about can only come from knowing more about how it feels to see the world like a man.

How perfect women think themselves into failures

One major reason why so many women live unfulfilled lives is because society has successfully sold them the idea of the ‘good life’ package – for a woman to be truly happy she can only discover this thru a man.

That is why so many single women continue to suffer unnecessarily.

Since they have bought hook, line and sinker into the great lie – this means, these women have inadvertently handed all power to some stranger they don’t even know as the holder of the skeleton key to their happiness.

If ONLY these women know – they are have all be conned by the greatest and cruelest lie ever propagated by insecure minded men…if only they know!

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‘You can never feel good about yourself and optimistic about the future if you live in a lie. That is because the lie has absolutely nothing to do with reality and it will always let you down.

I don’t believe your dream man or woman can provide you with everything! I believe that to be a Mother of lies!

Maybe…just maybe. They can supply some of the things you consider important. Even then, you’ve have got to seriously consider that those things may come come with conditions such as an expiry date. I mean for example if you’re looking for tits and asses that can stay perky for a ten year mileage. You might have to reset your expectations. Otherwise you will be very disappointed. Or if you think the man who used to be a good listener when you were dating will always be there for you. Then I don’t think you’re being realistic.

I am not saying you can’t get other good things from your man or woman. You can, maybe good conversations, or financial reliability, or even intellectual compatibility, or maybe just being on time – but my point is some is going to be there only.

As for the rest. You either have to learn to live without or if you really still want it. You may have to look for it in someone else. It’s only in the movies that you find a perfect man or woman who can give you all things you wish for. My point is there is a very big difference between reality and what is so often depicted as life in the movies.

In the real world, you will never find that part which is missing in your life in either your dream man or woman.

I hate to say this! But someone lied to you….and you believed in these lies so much you acted on them and that is why there will always be a yawning gap between yearning and the fulfilment of that deep need. That’s real.

The only truth that you can really pick up and run with is simply this – you have everything that you need now to be complete and whole…you don’t need a man to make you whole and complete. Men came out with that ultimate lie to put your heart and soul in chains!

I am here to tell you the truth – the truth will set you free!’

How we rob ourselves of meaning in our lives

Recently I went back to Penang for a break all by myself. It has been a long time. Or maybe it just seems that way. I was at first afraid that I would not be happy going for break all by myself….as it turned out, it was a very beautiful day. It was a cloudless sunny day, the sort where the sun can cut a building like a cake rendering deep contrast of light and shadows. For some inexplicable reason this is the way I associate happiness with the place called Penang.

I spent the whole day cycling around Georgetown and at times, I would simply stop and watch the play of light on buildings and things….the story of light and shadows I notice operate by indirection – often changing the mood from this to that and that to this and letting the mood carry us to the final destination. Rather than speaking outright…it is this quality of imprecision of the language of light that allows us as the observer to wordsmith the narrative of what we see…the way light curls ever so slightly at the outer edges around old glass…..the unevenness of the brick and old lime walls as they swell in and out creating ripples of shadows…so much like human flesh that they’re almost alive….I even discovered by sheer chance, a variety of tree that secreted the full majesty of it’s bloom within it’s thick canopy.

I savoured all these with my eyes slowly in my own time. I wish I could find the accuracy of words and phrases to describe the sensation of savouring the freshness of nowness….but it would not be far off to say, it is like seeing things for the very first time. Even things we have always seen and experienced before.

Perhaps if not me, in the borrowed words and eyes of Elena ferrante…where she once described the magical qualities of the first time,

‘Some time ago, I planned to describe my first times. I listed a certain number of them: the first time I saw the sea, the first time I flew in an aeroplane, the first time I got drunk, the first time I fell in love, the first time I made love. It was an exercise both arduous and pointless.

For that matter, how could it be otherwise? We always look at first times with excessive indulgence. Even if by their nature they’re founded on inexperience, and so as a rule are not very successful, we recall them with sympathy, with regret. They’re swallowed up by all the times that have followed, by their transformation into habit, and yet we attribute to them the power of the unrepeatable.’

I did not care where I was or even where I might be headed or end up…like a man cycling around a labyrinth I was not beholden to either time or space ….on some of my most memorable rides. I even found myself in places where I could hardly recognise where I was…I actually came back here to bury a painful past – there is an aching pain in my heart like an open wound that I will always associate with this island of my lost heart.

As I moved in the rhythm of the afternoon that eventually gave way to an indigo evening…..Soon I felt happy and I am very glad that I made an effort to come here again…..all by myself….I often tell myself…if you do not try your best to make yourself feel happy…then who will?

You must try….you really must try to be happy all by yourself.

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We are living in a culture that is fixated with ONLY what will happen in the future and what has happened in the past.

That is the reason why the so-called present moment does not seem to exist at all.

Since we are NEVER present in the present. Our entire frame of thinking is almost completely designed to look for meaning by scanning our memories or by forming expectations about what will happen in the distant future….it is never about the act of appreciating the NOWness of what is happening in and around us….so much wasted…so much is left to rot away.

We have forgotten that there is such a thing as now…and why NOW is infinitely more important than what has happened or will happen.

It would not be incorrect to say.

We are therefore out of touch with reality.

Ministry of finance stupid to hire stupid people to publicise their stupid message

To drum up awareness or to soften the punch for what is to come…whichever lah because it is never ever clear when stupid people are the messengers. The Ministry of finance has paid ‘influencers’ to carry their message…the problem with these bloggers is they usually write about vapid and trivial pursuits like which mud pack to use or whether acrylic nail polish is better than real wax polish, should you kiss a girl or boy on the first date, if you hold someone’s hand till either your or his or her begins to sweat will you get the zika virus etc etc.

So the problem is when stupid people who usually write about stupid things are suddenly hired to broadcast a very serious message….it can all only come across as Super stupid lah.