It's hard to be happy alone...

...but I'll live! Come what may, time and hour runs through the roughest day....(Shakespeare).

A prayer granted...

26th October 2005

Yesterday, I returned home late from a long dinner after a gym workout in which my right shoulder complained a little towards the end.

Lo and behold, I found a white envelope containing a set of airtickets which were sent back to me by a certain D.G at my behest because he could not make the trip. I had paid for them and needed to get my hands on the physical tickets in order to claim the monies from the travel agent which I booked it from.

A set of tickets which travelled halfway around the world and back without fulfilling its function:allowing the person named on it to do the same.


Ironical isn't it?

Anyway,I am still rather thrilled about it. I was already three quarter of the way convinced that I would have to forgo the price I paid for it, before D.G told me that it had been sent back to him by mistake and he had sent it out again(after which I had more than a few glimmers of hope that I would be able to retrieve it).

Still, all in all, a pleasant surprise.

Let It Be.

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is.
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be. yeah
There will be an answer, let it be.
And when the night is cloudy,
There is still a light that shines on me,
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be,
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.


-The Beatles

The Cusp of Courage

23rd October 2005

My emotional state can be likened to a quicksand. One sinks by just staying still and if he trashes, the sinking accelerates. For me, sinking equates to feeling negative emotions like sadness and anger, while floating equates to being happy.

If I do nothing to 'prop' myself up against the quicksand of negative emotion, I find myself getting more and more morose, and this continues with me to bed even. As you may imagine, I have to expend a lot of energy on positive thinking to get myself out of this depressing mud.

Yes, my future(in terms of work and career) is clouded a little and I'm still alone since Ray(God bless him)ergo eight months and friendless as ever.

But I still have my plans and my dreams and my health, so I have much to be thankful for, whether I know it or not.

I'm currently doing my homework for some short-term speculation on the stockmarket that will either dissolve all my financial disappointments for the year or put me off investments for some years.

Redemptive suffering

16th October 2005

A curiousity struck me today as I read the Sunday papers: famous folk were splashing their loud, vulgar millions on a prestigious 99-year leasehold condominium project, a project located beautifully in the midst of other steel and concrete towers, as well as within viewing distance of a mildly odour-giving body of water.

A condominium tower that hasn't even been constructed yet.

A few pages away, families in Pakistan were suffering from ever and ever increasingly absymal poverty,death and deprivation as a result of natural disaster.

Has the world descended to such a level that human beings would rather splurge vast sums on temporary yet-to-be-constructed, unessential living quarters than give a miniscule fraction of that financial outlay to alleviate the sufferings of thousands who collectively possess a slightly larger fraction of their assets, and now have even less than that?

I for one am willing to bet the entirety of my comparatively palty assets that an overwhelmingly large proportion of these 'people' have not spent a cent or a minute on helping these striken folk.

If I were in their position to be able to afford(and those who are taking out bank loans to buy can't) these ridiculously pricey condos, I would sooner spare a thought and a dollar on the suffering thousands than ostentatiously fling my money at something that is glamorous at best, and a travesty at worst.

Yet such people take greed and hedonism to new heights of abandon.

So don't blame me if I'd rather spend the day with a lifeless laptop than with an intelligent, wealthy, but ultimately hopelessly flawed and foolish human being.


Don't get me wrong. I'm one member of the human race, but less foolish by far.


To the people who I've gotten to know and lost touch with:

Lyrics from 'When All is Said and Done' by ABBA

Here's to us one more toast and then we'll pay the bill
Deep inside both of us can feel the autumn chill
Birds of passage, you and me
We fly instinctively
When the summer's over and the dark clouds hide the sun
Neither you nor I'm to blame when all is said and done

It's so strange when you're down and lying on the floor
How you rise, shake your head, get up and ask for more
Clear-headed and open-eyed With nothing left untried
Standing calmly at the crossroads, no desire to run
There's no hurry any more when all is said and done

Contentment with fleeting happiness

15th October 2005

Happiness is a mind game.Even achieving your greatest dream can only lead to temporary euphoria because the brain cannot humanly sustain it's elevated feel-good state for an indefinite time.

I came to this conclusion after reading a Times(UK) article on happiness and related scientific discovery and research results.

The crux of the matter is that whether we get it from sex, money,attaining our life objectives or companionship(NOT in my order of priority, I must add*chuckle* ), human beings are wired to take these for granted after a while. I suppose it could be a mechanism for ensuring that struggle and conflict remain motivators for homo sapiens to improve further and in doing so, ensure their own survival.

For me, once I swore off companionship, happiness had to be internally generated.

Sure, when the blissfully contented state wore off, I got depressed. But I always recovered with some strategically timed intakes of chocolate, bananas and other serotonin-sparking foods.

I like eating, by the way......a lot!

Believe it or not, staying happy for as long as possible is becoming more and more crucial as my life story unfolds. Right now, I'm writing songs to keep myself contented(contentment being what I equate to to happiness for now, happiness being such an ethereal, indefinable quality)


My strategy to stay contented nowadays is to occupy myself in some form of productive pursuit: writing a story, weaving a piece of music with my mic-equipped headphones or figuring out the next great stock play or speculation.

I have spent some hours online and in the new National Library consulting technical analysis and charting books and have narrowed down good candidates for a punt involving $10k: Creative Technology covered warrants, Midas Holdings or Surface Mount Technology.

Wish me luck!

(And I'll update you on my progress so keep reading...)



For all those who have recently broken up with someone else, here are some lyrics from ABBA in one of their early songs 'Another town ,another train':

Day is dawning and I must go
You’re asleep but still I’m sure you’ll know
Why it had to end this way

You and I had a groovy time
But I told you somewhere down the line
You would have to find me gone
I just have to move along

Just another town, another train
Waiting in the morning rain
Look in my restless soul, a little patience
Just another town, another train
Nothing lost and nothing gained
Guess I will spend my life in railway stations
Guess I will spend my life in railway stations

When you wake I know you’ll cry
And the words I wrote to say goodbye
They won’t comfort you at all
But in time you will understand
That the dreams we dreamed were made of sand
For a no-good bum like me
To live is to be free

Just another town, another train
Waiting in the morning rain
Look in my restless soul, a little patience
Just another town, another train
Nothing lost and nothing gained
Guess I will spend my life in railway stations
Guess I will spend my life in railway stations

Lesson: Never go into a relationship thinking a person will be the heart and soul of your life- people are unpredictable and only you can free yourself to be happy

Ode to (my/your) existence

9th October 2005

Because I can’t find happiness by being with others(not that I can find any others to spend time with, and don’t ask me why), I have decided to some sort of poetry to try to convince myself to go on living….

We laugh, we cry
We break up, but still we try
To plod or glide through life
Braving all the strife

No one shares their soul with yours truly
But solitude has not taken my sanity
Though some may beg to differ verily
Loneliness has never betrayed me like some humans have
It has in fact reassured me, a buffer against disappointment
When I had no optimism left
Yes, being by oneself is never as horrendous as it is painted out to be
One must learn the value of solitude
In teaching the dilemma we all face at some point:
For ultimately, we are all alone.
At the conclusion, only the person in the mirror can free us
From our lives of quiet desperation.

More and more often, I feel like a pale shadow, cast on the very real world around me.
I look forward more and more to sleep as a temporary death, and am accountably tired more and more often these days.

Tired of living?

Maybe.

Or maybe I don't see the point of my life anymore.

Another Crossroad Of My Life Approaches....

8th October 2005

'What is the ultimate torture?' I sometimes ask myself...

My self-absorption sometimes answers: " To be born looking absolutely gorgeous to the gender you have no carnal interest in, but which society dictates that you must have."

No, I have not really come to terms with my 'deviant' sexuality yet, mainly because I can't really convince myself,despite myself, that it's not really deviant after all.

Yet almost every night, I tell God(if there is one listening) that I have not chosen voluntarily to be this way. That I am rather un-cheerful by nature because I was literally birthed into darkness, having gone through physical ordeals as a very young child that I wouldn't wish on my worst adversary.

Yes, I have dealt with these demons(or so I think) but my unhappy experiences have also made me who I am and dictated my sexual preference, much as society, family and other communal forces try to dictate that I marry(and pass judgement on the fact that I haven't yet settled down with some bitch and started making babies).

Yes, I have consciously resolved(99% successfully, 1% in vain during dark brooding moments) not to blame my parents for leaving me victim to those painful abuses that have shaped(or misshapened) me.

But who am I to judge that others' sufferings are not equivalent to mine?

I am firmly set on quitting my current job, mainly because I have lost all heart and all vestiges of faith and fail to see any point in slogging on for another year. In an environment where justice only serves the 'favourites' and personal bias reigns supreme, the only path is towards the 'EXIT'.

In my next occupation, I have decided to pursue money first, and then happiness and job satisfaction a close second.

Acquiring more money will always be a noble goal in my books because I would then have the freedom to right the injustices in my life and even the score with those who take their good fortune for granted.