It's like starting an old car without petrol.

Not writing a blog post for so long is probably showing its effects now, as I sit here for more than 10 minutes thinking of how to begin. Now that I have, things are that much easier.

I’ve just finished reading a self-help book that my mother bought for me. It has an interesting title, to say the least, but I’m afraid the contents do not reflect the same emotion as the title does.  The subtitle is ’10 simple truths that will set you free’, but honestly, after reading it I feel more confused than free. The fact that it was written by two professional therapists with Dr. tagged to their names makes it all the worse.

I remember once upon a time where I mentioned psychology was a subject full of lies, in the sense that it tells us to lie to ourselves and to help others lie to themselves; and got into a pretty petty argument with two of my friend’s friends who were fellow psychology students themselves. Now though, I realize that I was wrong, but not in a way that makes them right. I still maintain that the subject is all about lying to the self to live a better life, but that description was not meant for psychology. Rather, it was counseling/psychotherapy. Especially so now that I’m done with that book.

Why am I so enraged by a mere book? Good question; I wish to know the answer myself. I mean, it’s just a bloody book, right? The authors probably have bollocks for brains and they can put down whatever junk they feel works and then publish it as some self-help book with the impression that whatever works for them would work for the rest of the world too, right?

WRONG

Okay, maybe not wrong after all. But what makes it wrong is that the fact that the authors are in a position of knowledge, and is supposed to impart stuff that, at least, isn’t complete cattle crap if it can’t be 100% correct. They do have the ‘Doctor’ title for a reason, and that at least proves that their head is somewhere we can look for signs of intelligence and not mere instinct-based bestiality.  Or at least I hope so.

Firstly, it says that, and I quote directly from the book, “The fool is the one who deceives, not the one who is deceived. Your kindly grandmother who falls for the insurance scam is not a fool; she trusted that the scam artist would do exactly as he said he would do. She is a person of her word, and she expected him to be also. That makes her vulnerable to deception, but this does not make her a fool. To choose to trust another does not imply naiveté or foolishness, but a choice to take another person at his or her word.”

I’m sorry, but isn’t that the perfect description of a fool? I don’t know what kind of English is being taught to American people but as far as I can work out, a fool is a silly, weak-minded, stupid or possibly even idiotic person who lacks judgment or sense. So how on Earth is someone who falls for a scam NOT a fool? Someone who is vulnerable to deception is someone who is probably simple-minded and cannot tell if something is too good to be true, therefore a fool. The scammer, on the other hand, is a genius because he knows what he’s doing and is good at it. It may not be morally right, but that’s beside the point. I really couldn’t for the life of me work this out and I doubt anyone who speaks the kind of English I do can. If you beg to differ, please enlighten me, but throughout the duration of your attempt please make sense. I doubt I have any qualms with splattering your brain matter on the floor literally if you do the same with mine metaphorically.

Next. There is a sentence in the book that mentions “to avoid the responsibility that comes with happiness and success, to protect themselves from the scariness of loving someone, and so on.”
What sort of responsibility ever comes with happiness and success besides keeping it up? I’ve yet to hear of anyone being told that once they are happy, they will have to remain happy or else some politician will be assassinated or if they are successful they have to remain successful or the World Bank will go bankrupt. And who the fuck would, in their right mind, be scared of loving someone? And why turn something as beautiful as love into something so morbid that it’s worth being afraid of? It’s not love that people are afraid of; it’s the heartbreak that comes after it. Heck, people love love. So much so, in fact, that people don’t give a flying toss about the possibility of the heartbreak. Saying that people are afraid of love is like saying people are afraid of money; the only two things in the world that people would commit all sorts of vices and atrocities for.

Finally, there’s this. Near the end of the book, it tells people to use guided imagery, imagining a traumatic event, to let go of it. In other words, we must recreate our greatest nightmare to get rid of it. To me, that is along the lines of saying “kill yourself so that you won’t die.” Sure, how are you going to die (again) if you are already dead? Isn’t that defeating the purpose? It’s bloody hilarious now that I put it this way, I must admit, but I digress. Point is, if you’re trying to let go of something, why do you need to get to it first? Sure, if you want to throw away, say, a bottle you need to pick it up first, but this is ridiculous in the sense that if it is already lost or gone missing, do you still need to go looking for it and then personally put it in the rubbish bin just to make sure it is gone?

On a side note, I am reminded of the nonsense people say to their youngers involving the words ‘now is not the time to’, ‘this is just the beginning’ and ‘you’re still young’. From experience, my father used to tell me “UPSR is nothing; it is PMR that will determine your future.” Then three years later “PMR is nothing; it is SPM that will determine your future.” And just before I entered university, I got “SPM was nothing; your results in university will determine your future.” Yeah, I’m sure now he’d just say when I graduate that it is my job that will determine my future. I’m just wondering what would determine my future when I retire. My death probably, though that idea is as hilariously impossible as committing suicide to be immortal. Then there’s my mom who told me “high school is not the time to be looking for love; wait ‘till university,” and is now telling me “don’t look for love when you’re still studying; wait until you’re working.” Yeah, sure, when I’m working I should wait until I retire before looking for love, right?

I’m sure I’m not the only one getting this sort of bullshit, so to those who share the same problem, here’s a tip: they’re always going to tell you that either you’re being one step too far ahead or that it is just beginning; the next step is the important one. I say, “Fuck You” because according to that logic, there is never the right time for anything because either it’s too early or what you do now does not matter since the big one is only just coming up.

And now I don’t know how to end this episode of ranting because I can’t think of anything interesting to say.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

Biting the settling dust.

I see others take the path I once treaded,
The path which destination I've since dreaded,
A place of absolute extremes,
Where one is either in cookies and creams,
Or in anguish beyond expressible screams.

I would forsake my happiness,
If it means freedom from sorrow,
I would embody eternal coldness,
If it means a tearless tomorrow.

The flames have died and the ambers have cooled,
A dead passion that can never be refuelled,
The path less travelled I no longer choose,
Instead I'll be a hermitic recluse.

The eternal flame now eternally dead,
I realize I was in over my head,
As another cycle has just begun,
The tangled web of fate has again been spun,
After all that has been said and done,
It all amounts to absolutely none,

When all hope was lost.

Here I am once again in Kampar, where I am to spend the next 14 weeks in the purest form of suffering known to humanity.

It’s a Monday today as I am typing this, but I have no idea when I will be able to publish this online as the new place I am staying at has no internet connectivity. Hell, I don’t even know the other tenants (if there are any at all) to discuss with them the solution to this problem. I realize I was in a rush when I got this place and didn’t think several things over before I decided that I wanted to spend one more semester here. Fortunately, Plan B is easily available. Of course, like all back up plans, it isn’t as ideal and there will be extra complications to deal with, but in this case I’m quite grateful that it isn’t totally unreasonable of a plan.

I still remember the Saturday that I arrived here. The moment I set foot on the familiar streets, I was immediately filled with this overwhelming surge of sadness and sorrow. I was instantly depressed and felt intense weight around my eyes. But, as always, letting those tears out is the hardest possible thing for me to do. It was so bad that I actually decided that for once I might actually benefit from spending the night with my parents at Grand Kampar Hotel.

Fortunately for me, Sunday was a much better day. The morning spent with mother and father was actually quite enjoyable. Again, never thought I’d say this, but that’s how it turned out to be. Ironically, I might actually have that bout of depression to thank for getting my father back to talking terms with myself, after almost half a year of deliberately not talking to him. Lunch with the family actually did not feel irritating, even with father’s usual blatant self-embarrassing. After they left for home, I killed the entire afternoon at the local cyber café, Fecca. Got a damn good friend (probably the best I have over here) to help me kill the evening. We went to the local McDonalds and talked about the good old times during our first year, how the second year became the point that tore everything apart, for both his course and mine, what were we planning to do after graduation and so on. Then just when we were about to leave, our Tae Kwon Do instructor showed up with his assistant, and we decided we should get some other fellow students to come over and talk crap until midnight.

So thank you Vingent for being a friend in need, a friend indeed.

I was about to talk about what happened during my semester break as well, which was actually spent very meaningfully, but I guess I’ll just leave that for another time. All in all, those 4 weeks were the time where I potentially fixed some broken bonds with my ‘19’ family, made a small number of friends halfway across the globe and otherwise having a jolly good time on PSN with said friends, as well as chilling with another brother of bonds.

And to close, to every one of my friends out there with a PSP, please pick up a not-too-old game called Phantasy Star Portable 2 and join us, The Grey Army, online.

With that, adieu to y’all.

P.S.: This is finally published on 17th

The end of immortality

Fading is my confidence,
Lost is my coherence,
Is this a sign of my mortality,
Or am I losing my sanity?

Will I share the fate of the lotus eater,
Or will my suffering be much greater?

Perhaps in the end it matters not,
For even losing battles must be fought,
Knowing I've strived for the best that could be,
Empowered the few who matter to me,
That, is my unofficial victory.

Take a bloody hint, you necrophilic cunt!!!

It is amazing sometimes. People who you barely know anymore speak to you once a year at most, not in person, just to say something trivial like ‘happy birthday’ which they are not even sincere about. Why do people even bother to commit such trivial hypocrisy when the disadvantages outnumber the benefits infinite to none?

To the bastards who have stopped committing this foolish deed i.e. terminated all forms of contact permanently, well, good for you. Though it took you bunch long enough to realize what you did was incorrigible and have finally moved on. To the arseholes who still continue to do this, wise up, fools. Then again, if that was possible, what happened wouldn’t have happened in the first bloody place. So no need to wise up (since you can’t, anyway), but get the message, then move on.

Some of you may say ‘don’t make permanent decisions based on temporary emotions’. If you do, then you are an idiot, because, well just imagine what one was put through if one has to make such a decision, so that one doesn’t have to go through that again. Especially when those words come from the cause of all the agony. It’s like a thief telling the owner of the house he/she looted to ‘don’t permanently decide to lock the door at night just because you feel threatened the other night’. Bollocks. Complete bollocks.

Adieu to y’all. To the bastards and arseholes, permanently, I hope.

The obvious and the ironic.

Sometimes, it takes more than a smack to the face for some people to realize that they screwed up. Hell, you could smack a brick into some thick person's face and he won't be able to tell if it was a brick or a block of cheese.

In case you do not live in Malaysia and/or have no idea what’s dominating the local newspapers these few days (since last week if I recall correctly), it’s the fact that many people of my generation will be internationally illiterate. As in, they’ll only be able to speak the language that they proudly defend, but is hardly understood by anyone else not of this country.

What’s worse though is that the people, or rather, the person with bollocks for brains who ensured this disaster still had the balls to wonder publicly why is the standard of English among new generation Malaysians so impossibly low. No pun intended by the way.

Some say that the reintroduction of teaching maths and science in English was quite the fiasco. If you ask me, I’d say the re-reverting to teaching said subjects in Malay was a catastrophe, and that is still an understatement. It may as well spell Malaysia’s Armageddon. It’s not that they do not realize the importance of the international language at the time (or at least I hope so), but rather they wanted citizens to be proud of the national language. Another lesson for us that whenever pride is involved, things tend to go, at best, a little too far and at worst, way off target.

Then, on and on people talk about how they should import English teachers and revamp the education system to improve the level of English and all that. And they all keep missing the best method: play more video games.

Seriously. If anyone ever played any of the Final Fantasy games and actually paid attention to the story you can expect them to learn more than reading the entire Lord of the Rings series. And I can say for certain that I owe my competence of the language to the entire Metal Gear Solid storyline; from the Snake Eater/Subsistence prologue to the Guns of the Patriots finale, among other games I play.

That said, one needs to have the right attitude to gaming in order to reap such benefits. Most people I know skip the in-game cut-scenes and jump straight to the gameplay, then complain about the game being too complicated and quit calling it a stupid game, when it is the cut-scenes that tell the story, giving hints on how to play and what to do at any particular stage. These people are the idiots who feed the stereotype of the older generations that playing games make you dumb. The fact however, is this: when people play games, the dumb get dumber and the smart get smarter. Among my closest friends, most of them are gamers who have the correct attitude to gaming; treating it like a movie and actually appreciating the story the directors put behind the gameplay. They are also the ones that I can speak English to comfortably, and is, more often than not, our preferred method of communication.

Teachers all around the world should take this as a serious approach to teaching the language. Parents should also learn to dismiss the stereotypes and pick games with epic storylines (like any Final Fantasy and the whole Metal Gear Solid timeline) for their children to play, instead of letting them surf the net when all they want is to play some pointless Facebook game. In fact, letting them play merely the prologue of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker alone and they will learn more English and Cold War history than they would learn anything from every Facebook game combined, besides how to click real fast at certain parts of the screen and thrash your mouse real fast that is.

With that in mind, I am contemplating on whether or not to take bro Yat’s suggestion of teaching English. Hopefully I will be able to clear the name of games and introduce it as an effective method of teaching the language. Perhaps with this method, we may see the day where every major examination in the country has not just a 100% passing rate, but a 100% A rate for English.

With that, adieu to y’all. Sorry no bombshells today.

Ironic how vast the difference is

Last week, like every other week I spend the weekends over at a very good friend's place. On Saturday night, his brother and a few other people had to bring someone into the house due to said person experiencing some sort of complications. Not wanting to have anything to do with the whole situation or speak our minds aloud to further complicate matters, we went upstairs, away from all the commotion. The area, being predominantly a Malay 'kampung', had their share of such complications before, or so I believe.

Then my friend, Yat, said something epically priceless: "Is it just me, or it is only people who face such problems are those who believe?"

Let me explain.

The 'victim' as I shall refer to as the person facing said complications, was experiencing a period of intense fear/anxiety all of a sudden and, as I believe, for only a very short time. From what I heard, it began abruptly without warning.

Now, there are 2 ways of defining such an explanation. People from the fields of mental health, such as myself, and medical science, know that this is textbook panic attack, or hysteria depending on severity. People from the field of teaching speculation and denying facts, however, believe that this is a sign of a possession, either by malevolent spirits or by demons.

As I mentioned earlier, being a Malay 'kampung', any such occurrences are almost immediately identified as a possession. So, too, was how it was identified when the victim was brought in. Thus I understand how Yat felt when he said that only people who believe in possessions are the only ones who end up ever getting possessed.

This is a problem. When there is a proper medical explanation to such symptoms, there are people who do not seem to be able to have that cross their mind, but instead jump immediately to a pseudo-explanation. The root of it? Simple. Back in the day, when people did not have the means to satisfy their own infinite curiosity, they relied on pseudo-explanations to satisfy, almost to gratify, in fact, their own need to know; the greatest of which is the non-existent dictator called God. It is sad that now, when people are capable of finding true and proper explanations, people still rely on pseudo-explanations to questions in life.

On a side note, it has been a while since the last time anyone ever told me to go to hell. When I was a child, I used to fear the notion. Recently, however, some saint-wannabe prat just told a friend to go to hell because he used strong words in idle chit-chat. And his name was Gabriel. Probably the same kind of Gabriel as the one in Gundam Seed Destiny, that war-mongering prick, I thought. Not very pure yourself, if you condemn another, for whatever the reason. If I were there, I might just tell him how happy I would be to go to hell by being a bit obnoxious and reciting my own poem ‘My Immortal Stand’.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

P.S.: Long hiatus, I know. But, could be longer.