"Be in it but not of it"

I'm practicing the art of detachment.

Sometimes a book will fall out of the sky and into your lap and it will be the right book at the right time even if it has praise from Britney Spears

A month ago, a traumatising and expensive long-distance conversation left me with this dichotomous chest pain of woe and relief. Yes, relief is painful too.

I sat one day at the Phra Athit park with large bottles of Chang beer and a notebook, I was trying to be proactive and get my thoughts in order to decide what must be done next. All my major life planning and solitary drinking occurs on the banks of the Chaophraya at the twilight hour. With a monkey mind, a sore heart and a pair of itchy feet, I thought to myself "I feel restless but I don't even know what I want".

But it went deeper than that. I think the petrol fumes coming off the river tends to get you high and start contemplating God and the universe. It went a little like this: to know what I want I need to know who I am, to know who I am I need to know my place in the universe, and really this is all very exhausting and who has the time to do all that thinking?

Now I know who! This woman: LINK. (Please don't groan loudly at me with your judgement!)

Thank you E., for the recommendation.

The Despair of Being Unproductive

I have been staring at an open Word document all morning. I'll scroll up and I'll scroll down. Then I'll check Facebook for the 7th time. Write a useless email. Read every single story on the BBC front page. Then head over to IHT and spend at least a half hour trying to figure out if the IHT-NYTimes merger is fo'realz or an April Fool's joke.* Then I'll come back to my open Word document. I'll scroll up and scroll down again. And then I'll read some blogs. And watch Dr K Chaudury videos.

I have 2 grant proposals to finish and an annual report to edit. The boring, tedious, boring, boring, boring side of human rights work.

OK, time for early and unnecessarily long lunch.

*Oh wow. I am going through an excessive period of stupidity.

Pearls of wisdom from a Reformed Marxist

My boss is a tall, former Marxist, lawyer from Kerala. He is soft-spoken and has a gentle air about him. He smiles more than he frowns, which is to say he smiles all the time and never frowns. Some days I think he is too passive to be an activist and there are resulting professional frustrations that come from this. Other days, he will speak a gentle, uncomplicated truth and I realise he changes the world by mentoring headcases like me one crisis at a time.

Today he said to me:

"Whenever something bad or undesireable happens to us, it is our opportunity to reflect. The reflection is our chance to reconsider or reaffirm the path we take and the choices we make."

My current state of mind

Need new hi-def TV but my broke ass thinks the old one's just fine. Ya dig?

Another awesome Brezsny forecast

I am not much of a horoscope reader, but when my friend started sending me Brenzsny's newsletters I found his forecasts to be uplifting and inspiring. I now look forward to them every week, because they usually say something awesome like the following:

"While loitering on a sidewalk outside a nightclub in San Francisco on a September night back in 1994, I found the cover of a booklet lying in the gutter. Written by Marilena Silbey and Paul Ramana Das, it was called "How To Survive Passionate Intimacy with a Dreamy Partner While Making a Fortune on the Path to Enlightenment." Unfortunately, the rest of the text was missing. Over the years, I've tried to hunt down a copy of the whole thing, hungry for its wisdom, but have
never had any success. I'm hoping that maybe you will consider writing your own version of the subject in the coming year, Aquarius. With the luck I expect you to have, you might actually be up to the task."

Resolutions

To never hold back.
To be a fearless decision maker.
To be truthful.
To listen to the universe.
To educate and be educated.
To have the best time of my life.
To love. Always.

Recession Season Snowman

All he has to his name is a 1992 Pinot Noir, reservation cigarettes and 6 cents yet he smiles though he will melt tomorrow because life exists within that in-between state of creation and destruction. This too shall pass, he said to me the next day when all that remained of him was a carrot and some twigs.

can i haz a philosophy klass?

pants says:
I feel really connected to the universe lately
pants says:
I feel like the universe and I are one
XXXX says:
are you taking drugs!
pants says:
no, I'm serious!!
XXXX says:
why exactly?
pants says:
I don't know
XXXX says:
I am waiting for an explanation
pants says:
it has to do with my horoscope last month
XXXX says:
fuck horoscopes
XXXX says:
sorry continue
pants says:
I dunno ,ihave to think this through
XXXX says:
I won't swear any more
pants says:
no really, Ihave to think this through
pants says:
I have to formulate my tohughts
XXXX says:
formulate them and get back to me
XXXX says:
is it because obama was elected
pants says:
there s no cause
XXXX says:
you were like 'puleeeeaaseeeee universe'
pants says:
it's not like the unvierse is doing what i am asking it to do, but it's more like, see there is always noise and it is always hazy you know, it is always difficult to connect shit with shit [note: TS Eliot reference FTW!!1]
pants says:
oh fuck I don't know
XXXX says:
formulate
pants says:
ok it's like, the promise of no noise, like somewhere beyond yonder there will be less noise
pants says:
as opposed to there is endless noise
pants says:
ya dig?
XXXX says:
dig
XXXX says:
so things are clearer?
XXXX says:
are they becoming progressively clearer as we speak
XXXX says:
or hazy again
pants says:
your face is hazy and ugly
XXXX says:
no need for ugly now
XXXX says:
right, yeah it's like we're coming out of the dark ages
XXXX says:
sure there's hope
pants says:
you're misunderstanding
XXXX says:
ok
pants says:
I should do drugs shouldn't I?
XXXX says:
just once
XXXX says:
if you ever want to, in a neutral environment let me know
pants says:
there are no neutral environments
XXXX says:
alright socrates
pants says:
bite me existentialist
XXXX says:
give me a name
pants says:
Camus?
XXXX says:
did you just google camus
Poojapants says:
no I had to google The Outsider because i couldn't remember his name!
XXXX says:
hahaha
XXXX says:
yeah that'll do

Message from Universe to me

Cheers

It was late last night after work, after I had spent the day monitoring the Maldivian elections through satellite television and live streaming feeds on the innernet. The human rights movement is online, this is for sure.

We sat after hours, after dark, after we had unplugged ourselves at a bar in a roadside market. Exhausted, we let the sounds of the cheesy Thai band and traffic make up for the lack of conversation. One jug of Singha beer gave way to a second.

"Cheers to the end of capitalism" she said. And thus, it began.

It's the end of the world as we know it

Cyclones and tidal waves and earthquakes and food crisis and water shortage and melting ice caps and whose side is God on and burning food for fuel and let's blame China and India and terrorists and whose side is God on and rotting corpses in Burma and murder in Tibet and whatever happened to Irom Sharmila anyway and whose side is God on and blackvoteswhitevotesbrownvotesyellowvotes and who cares who votes and feminism versus racism and whose side is God on

The characters are all fictional

Flash Fiction Inspired by the writings of Jack L. Whitman

On the television, black and white images of people speaking in distant languages comprehensible only by English-language subtitles offered the backing overture to a familiar and weary argument.

They had been here before, in this exact same room, and hurled the same accusations at each other. Each time it happened, it grew less painful and a little more strategic.

“Stop using me as a cure to your boredom”. He jabbed her in the solar plexus.

“I am sick of the way you portray yourself as a victim”. She roundhouse kicked him to the head.

It ended with sex. It always ended with sex. Instinctual, automatic, manipulative. Sex

Remember Me as a Time of Day

Remember me as that time of night where
Soft knocks past midnight led to
Soft caresses and slow whispers.
Shield me from the cold world,
Here
You and I are everyone we know.

Remember me as those early mornings where
Fast lives and loud cries: "Turn off the alarm NOW!"
Were fast reminders of ended nighttime romances.
Don't forget me while you're on the 401,
Please
I'll make us dinner tonight.

Same Same, but Different

I had turned this blog into my life's pariah, not feeling much urge to write as I lapsed into momentary "what's the point of it all" darkness. While cyber dissidence in Burma ballooned admirably, there was trouble at work over my small, insignificant blog that irregularly published very boring and badly-written tripe. It seemed to me that if I could not write to create change, then why write at all. Streams of consciousness and misinformed political analyses served only to have me eventually take down most of the blog's content, lest it be traced back to my place of work.

After years of being able to only connect nothing with nothing, I figure I might as well continue along the same vein. I am often wrong, I am often unoriginal and I am often unentertaining. Why change, really?

Happy new year.