Friday, October 24, 2008
There is a clown on the world's stage.
A clown who doesn't even stand in the middle of the circus but rather by the side of the ring. A clown who works so hard to juggle whatever is thrown at him, practises and performs to make the audience laugh and such. Hoping all the time that he can be in the center of the ring even for just one person if never the world.
But all in all, a clown who is laughed at, laughed with but never significant. A clown who will remain by the side of the ring when the lights dim and the audience shuffling out, left there with teardrops flowing over the artificial smile. Un-noticed and unremembered.
Is this really how he feels? Nah. There is only so much a narrator can describe what is felt. Words are only words. Somebody else's shoes are always his, walking around in his shoes doesn't make you him.
The Origin. 10/24/2008 12:28:00 am
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
I was leaving school with a friend yesterday evening. On the way to the bus stop, he enlightened me on the bus timings informer which works in such a way that all you have to do is to sms the bus number and bus stop code to the service provider. After which, a reply would be sent to you, informing you about the time the bus would take to arrive at the bus stop.
According to him, this gives people a fake sense of control. Even though the buses still come at an already planned timing, the service (for bus timings, not the buses) now gives people a sense of purpose or knowledge when waiting for buses. While in the past, it was "sigh.. I have been waiting for this long, I wonder when the bus is going to arrive", now it is "I have already waiting for xxx minutes, the bus will arrive in another yyy minutes".
In addition, it also gives him (my friend) the power to make a choice as to which bus to take. For example, he can now know if he should wait for the next bus 75 (which may arrive in less than 5 mins) to get home or board the 184 that has already arrived. Taking bus 75 would mean a shorter walk for him back home.
With all its advantages, my friend and I ended up waiting for about 20 mins for a bus that was meant to arrive in 12 mins. We waited for another 10 mins for the same bus which was meant to be arriving.
The Origin. 10/22/2008 11:26:00 am
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Understand this. There are some things that I cannot share with anybody. At the very core of them are ideas so bleak that I sometimes wonder how am I even surviving now. These ideas won't take you now, they may not take you tomorrow nor maybe even a month after but someday when you are down, they will haunt you as a word from an anonymous person from your past or maybe even as a revelation from yourself. This is how things work. Idea are not born every second of our lives. They are passed down, bonded with other ideas and rephrased by our very thoughts and deceiving us into believing that we own them. That we are unique. The truth is that we neither own them nor are we unique.
The Origin. 10/18/2008 08:22:00 am
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
A friend had very recently challenged the very idea of holding hands when you are attached another person. He brought it up as a very simple question, "Actually what does holding hands mean?"
I guess there had been a time when I would have answered it differently or I would have challenged the same thing in a similar sense. However, the truth is that some things still linger on.
The Origin. 10/15/2008 11:10:00 pm
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
I came across a pretty mild shock this morning - the Killiney Post Office near Centre-Point is in the process of being torn down. It was a shock because I just saw its lights being on last Friday night as the bus I was on went by it. Maybe it had already stopped operating as a post office then but with the lights being on, one would assume that it should still be running.
In any case, I have never stepped into the post office but somehow that post office had always held a prominent position the map of Orchard Road in my mind. I guess it has got to do with its uniqueness in the modern shopping district that attracted my attention everytime the bus went by. Furthermore, if u cropped the mental photograph of the post office a little and get rid of the modern architectures around, it has a pretty nice scenic background of the surrounding miniature park (which has a name and I don't remember it).
Next, I went to the make-shift market for Albert Centre (in Bugis). They are renovating Albert Centre. As I visited the make-shift market, I felt a certain tinge of sadness for I knew that it was going to be the last time I would see the market for itself. The thing about make-shift market places are that the vendors tend to bring what was in their stores over. This preserves the authenticity. however, when the places get renovated and vendors start to move back, they would renovate their shops with newer brighter signboard which essentially strip the stalls of their age-old feel.
The Origin. 10/07/2008 11:59:00 pm
