unencumbered musings.

cos tonight im feeling like an astronaut
sending sos from this tiny box.

To learn more, please visit http://www.cozycot.com/birthdaybash2011

tomorrow marks the end of my tertiary journey.

i don't know how am i supposed to feel.

this is totally random.

There's only
1 thing
2 do
3 words
4 you
I love you.

There's only
1 way
2 say
Those 3 words
That's what I'll do
I love you.

so i watched "religulous" because a nice friend introduced me that documentary and i have to say that i have learnt a lot from it. okay, you may say that such documentaries might be biased and project only views that they want to show and thus condemns religions (mainly christianity) BUT however certain points did make sense.

in addition, i have always believed and feel that a person rooted to your religion should venture out and take in other viewpoints because if one's faith is so fixated then there can be nothing, nothing to stop you from believing. in fact, i think these differing viewpoints help to understand one's religion more, and offers the opportunity to question and jar on certain issues that has always been bothering you. but what i'm saying here is just a facet of the whole documentary; i'm touching more on faith. the disclaimer: i am not defacing any religion but just sharing my views or questioning from a different perspective; a by-stander/neutral vantage point.

i have christian friends who have doubts about the bible, or go to church just because they need to be there. i have friends who keep their bibles in their storeroom and this shocked me aplenty. i have friends who are aimless and just go with the flow because "religion is an in-thing". for that, i feel their purpose of going to churches is wrong and in what they are doing - bringing in more friends to their community - they are just spreading across the wrong message. i have been invited to a few of my friends' churches and there was this one experience that was quite bad to reflect upon. i remembered vividly that they condemned buddhism by saying that it doesn't make a lot of sense to pray to a statue. i was quite ticked off. firstly, for first-time church-go-ers, this sentence can be quite crude, when they have not fully know the god that they will be praying to, they have not learn any tongue, or be baptised but yet to hear such defaming remarks - it just turns you off.

and if a church can practise that in public when i was there, they could have been giving people the wrong impression about other religion all the other times and if all other churches do that, i believe it will cause an upheaval of conflicts. it is quite unfair in that sense. i have always wanted to know how tangible Jesus really is, or why all christians want everybody to turn into christians and i found out that they "want you to go to heaven". i heard from another pious friend before (who had 10 years of faith) that "heaven isn't exactly what many picture out" you think it's a paradise with pots of honey and luxury but heaven is simply just a place whereby you are with Jesus. to relate to the documentary, yes, i heard this man saying "even if i was in a rubbish bin."

what i garnered from the documentary itself was quite overwhelming and it really made me about how faith works. can everything be dealt with faith? if a bear is hunting you down and you had a spear in your had, would you just stick by faith - to squat down and pray? or would you do something more practical at that point - use the spear and pierce the bear? faith is a hard medicine that many agnostic people find it terrible to consume. how do these faithful people lead their lives? scientists never based their theories on what the bible teaches. but there is every reason for them not to do so. like the birth of babies were once known to be the miracles of god's creations but centuries later, it was discovered in science that it was caused by the fertilization of eggs. so for all those people who actually believed that magical divine creation, are they now disillusioned to know the real truth?

let me digress a bit too. i have another friend who had this on her msn nick: god, please heal my eyesight. believe me, when i first saw that, i was thinking how shallow her mindset is. i rather she believe in eating carrots than just praying for something that she knows is not going to happen. although yes, carrots don't make one's eyesight better but that sound more logical. i am not being mean, just trying to show the depth she knew about her religion. and as many probably know, the only to solve short-sightedness is through lasik surgery.

i just think everything needs to be explained in a more logical way, with answers to back up with and not just leave retort every difficult question with "i have faith".

ultimately, how far can one run on the fuel of faith?

i realise that one of my greatest fears is not being alone; it is being vulnerable.

i wish i was stronger sometimes. i wish i could be more immune, and be bullet-proof.

perhaps i should include that as a new year's resolution.

so here's to the love
the love that we had
here's to the time
the good and the bad
here's to the ones
you never forget
here's to the year that we had

thank you all for being a part of my life.

thank you for all the memories that i have to shoe-box for 2008.

sometimes, a sorry does not always solve everything.

from the summer to the spring,
from the mountain to the air
from Samaritan to sin
and it’s waiting on the end.

i watched tuesdays with morrie on youtube and i could not suppress my tears. it was so empowering and i realise i was like poor mitch who is afraid of death and prefer to skip conversations about that. but when a dying man tells you stories, it will not be about death, it will be how to live, and let love in. i realise that whenever i watch dramas and when i already know that there is not a good ending in it (with eventual painful deaths), i prefer to stop watching at that point because i don't want to see those characters go, i am not ready to see them go. i don't want them to go. it's simple, i see death as an uncomfortable subject.

maybe it's selfish on my part to only want the happiness in all its entity, maybe its selfish not to feel sad at all. i remember i watched one litre of tears more than three times but i never get to see how the main lead actress (the girl with spinocerebellar atrophy) die. yes i know she struggled ten years, from being able to run free in basketball courts, scoring points for her team, to slowly having to quit her greatest passion at the expense of poor health and pain; a black pain so acute like a clawed hand clutching her life.

she dies slowly but what she teaches us is definitely not about what death revolves around, or how to whine and curse at bitter fates, but rather how to live. just like morrie. i was glad i managed to finish the 90 minutes show. i have to say i learnt a lot on this christmas night. that really, there is a bigger picture out there that i should be looking at and that death happens to everyone and at some point of your lives, you have to let the people you love go. perhaps i haven't fully grasp on the "letting on properly" part. i am just like mitch, up till the point when morrie was in his frailest condition, he still doesn't know how to say goodbye.

i guess everyone has weaknesses like him. i do too. i remember that when one of my very close friend's mother died, i wasn't even there to hold her because i believed that was what she needed. i was at a concert and i only learnt about that after it ended. and i felt a very sharp pain strangling my heart. i did not know what i should do and i felt very sorry for my friend. the extent of her grief really made me feel that same sort of pain but she moved on so strongly. and that really inspired me; all her strength, courage despite life's toughest odds, at all the wrong times. how did she do all of that, on her own?

i remember i met up with her days after her mother's death and as she shared her story with me, i teared. yes,i teared. maybe i am really that loser who can't take another's death. although it wasn't a very personal type of grief, the vicarious sense of pain is quite the same. maybe i don't want people; the good people to die. maybe because we all hold on to so much hope, leaving it to a higher judgment and we yearned so much for a positive answer, more time and when it isn't answered, we break down. maybe all we have ever wanted, in our deepest (and loneliest) of hopes is just for a small miracle to happen. and maybe i am quite a lousy friend to come to, i should be the one who is strong and gives support but it turns out that i cried because i felt sad, so very sad for all that was happening.

is it selfish to just ask for more day with your loved one? maybe we cry so much is because we don't see these small miracles bestowed upon these beautiful people, people that we loved so dearly.

tuesdays with morrie really taught me a great deal. i remember i cried when i first read the book, and it was just exactly the way i pictured it; i dreaded turning each page to read about all the painful circumstances morrie had to go through and how he died on a saturday. i cried when i watched the film too. i should really learn how to live and include this for my resolution list. thank you morrie schwartz, i believe your story has touched and changed millions of people.

and my favourite quote from the book: "Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward." you have to agree that it is such a brilliant way to look at aging and eventual death and for that, you really have to salute this man.