Superficial Eloquence

"I doubt that people are attracted to whatever the persona is.... People are interested in the issues, and they're interested in the issues because they are important. We don't want to be swayed by superficial eloquence, by emotion and so on."

-Noam Chomsky.

Rule of Law

Arrest him!

For what?

He's dangerous!
For all we know he's a spy!
Father, that man's bad!

There's no law against that.

There is; God's law!

Then God can arrest him.

While you talk he's gone!

And go he should, if he were the Devil himself until he broke the law!

So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Yes, what would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil?

Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned around on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Yaya's A Sin Cara Fan

The first time she ever wanted to speak on the phone with me, of all her years of existence (four, that is) and that is merely to say 'Belikan aku topeng Sin Cara'.

Really.

Holiday Reads: Jane Eyre

"... Next morning, Miss Scratcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a piece of pasteboard the word 'Slattern' and bound it like a phylactery round Helen's large, mild, intelligent and benign-looking forehead. She wore it till evening, patient, unresentful, regarding it as a deserved punishment. The moment Miss Scratcherd withdrew after afternoon school, I ran to Helen, tore it off, and thrust it into the fire: the fury of which she was incapable had been burning in my soul all day, and tears, hot and large, had continually been scalding my cheek; for the spectacle of her sad resignation gave me an intolerable pain in the heart..."

- Charlotte Bronte, p. 63.

Holiday Reads: Sons And Lovers

" ... He looked round. A good many of the nicest men he knew were like himself, bound in by their own virginity, which they could not break out of. They were so sensitive to their women that they would go without them for ever rather than do them a hurt, an injustice. Being the sons of mothers whose husbands had blundered rather brutally through their feminine sanctities, they were themselves too diffident and shy. They could easier deny themselves than incur any reproach from a woman; for a woman was like their mother, and they were full of the sense of their mother. They preferred themselves to suffer the misery of celibacy, rather than risk the other person..."

- DH Lawrence, p. 341.

Where The Wild Things Are

Where are the answers, I asked, I feel like I know what to do but still I don't know where to start.

Seek where it's at, answered Wisdom, repeatedly.

I could not remember where I stopped seeking. Ramadan it is, the goldmine of redemption, of chances, of rediscovery of your faith. But I have yet to find willingness or good faith. I found new beginnings and eventually, relapses. I went back to where I was, convinced more than ever that I was not meant for a life of piety.

I'm tired, I have no strength. I have not been tried, yet I am already faltering.

That's because your source of strength is not God.

God made it too difficult for me, so I rejected the pursuit. Now it abandoned me.

Blasphemy!

So I went into my own universe and shut the outside world out. At some point I became terrified of leaving it. I dread every recollection of my disappointments there. I get consumed with guilt but it wasn't enough to make me brave it out and find my way outside again.

Of all things, a writing about a mischievious kid in a wolf suit, denied of his supper - sailed, in a private boat with his name on it, from the retreat of his room, to an imaginary island where the wild things are.

And suddenly, it all made sense. Life, in its essentiality, is a contract. To abandon the tiresome social rules is to sail into an island where you are the ruler of the wild things, your vices. It may be simpler, it may be more fun, it may be more natural to you, but it also leaves you lonely. You begin to make sense of why the established rules are there as you find that it is much harder to govern yourself on your own. You begin to long after love and care of others, for no simpler reason than your need for it.

So once you choose to say 'No' to the wild things ('Oh please, don't go! We'll eat you up, we love you so!'), you sail back on a boat that no longer is yours alone, back to your room where the supper is still hot, waiting for you. Coming back to your struggles, but also to your nourishment.

You could choose to cry over the sad reality; of your pathetic need of others, and the pains of being a dependent - or accept the beauty of the one-way, perilous road, laid out for you so you do not need to walk through it alone. So if you need help, ask for it. You are never better fighting on your own.

P/S: Two links - this Youtube reading of the book and Professor Manderson's From Hunger to Love.

Ian's Soliloquy

"... The only time you can really be happy, is right now. There is no other moment that exists that is more important than this one. Do not sacrifice this moment in the hopes of a better one. It is easy to remember all these things when they are being said, it is much harder to remember them when you are stuck in traffic or lying in bed worrying about the next day..."

- From I Wrote This For You. Beautiful as always.