There exists in the world, a number of negative emotions. Sadness and melancholy, anger, jealousy and envy, disappointment, etc… Fear. I have a few favourite observations about human behaviour, and one of them is from Linklater’s Waking Life, which I am very sure I have alluded to several times previously. That in our existence, there are only two real forces that can rule our lives, fear or laziness.
Why do you work so hard or why do you take leave whenever you can? Why do you spank your kids (although it’s such an emotional effort on your part), or why do you ignore their shortcomings even though you know you shouldn’t. Why study or why choose to cheat and get caught or just fail. Why live actively, or why watch TV all day long, or sit in bed with an undemanding novel.
You get the idea. The more you think about it, the more you realize that people really do live either in fear or laziness. Even in the great themes that run through the story of mankind’s existence; Hope, Love, Religion… the desire to live the way we wish to live. Our entire lives are spent wanting, do we fear lack enough to do something, or is attaining the things we desire not as important as our own comfort, given you are already in a state you’re comfortable with, which in most cases, most people aren’t.
I was running yesterday evening (like I was the evening before that and the one before the one before that) and I thought how funny it’ll be if someone were to write a play titled, ‘We Shall All Die Unsatisfied’. For heaven’s sake, I don’t know a single individual who is above 40 who has all their shit together. My parents are as close as they get, but they are greatly unsatisfied with me, although I have no idea why they should even be. It’s their fault of course. I cannot even change them and they cannot ever change me, and until they choose to accept what I am, they’ll always be unhappy with the way I am.
My father said something that basically went along the lines of, ‘no one loves you more then we do, no one will give you more than us’ while we were arguing about the next few years of my life (me, ‘For God’s sake, I don’t want to study in Singapore, and I shall do everything I can to make sure I get out.’) I looked at them and told them I loved myself more then they did, I owned my own life and I was not going to sacrifice it for their happiness, because they clearly were not going to sacrifice theirs for mine. ‘All my life, I’ve wanted to leave. Now that I can, you’re not going to support it because it’s too expensive. That’s fine, but if I find a way out myself, you should at least be happy for me, because it’s what makes me happy. Otherwise, you’ll never be happy with me, and that’ll be your problem, even if I feel guilty for it. You cannot say you love me if you keep on doing this to me. I unfortunately do not love you enough to sacrifice my happiness, and you apparently do not love me enough to sacrifice several thousand dollars for mine.’
I was buying some fruit at a stall in a food court yesterday and there was this little boy looking at the slices of rock melon, clearly wanting them. He told his dad (who come along a little while later) and his dad said no.
‘So expensive, not worth it. The watermelon cheaper, two of that can buy one of those, we’ll get the watermelon instead.’
And I felt myself thinking, Jesus, it’s just 70 cents for Christ’s sakes. You think by the time people are 40, they’d have their shit together and know what’s important and what isn’t. But they don’t.
Loosing my cell phone has reminded me of one of the things I’ve nearly begun to forget. Money really is there for your enjoyment and for the enjoyment of the people around you. Sometimes shit happens and you loose something expensive, and you think, God-Damn, I could have spent all that money lost on say, giving my kid what he wanted to have that day for lunch. The way some people behave is just ridiculous.
My parents have not denied me most things in life, they’ve really only given me the best in most cases, with the exception of a few human failures I can understand… Sometimes I wish they could just see how satisfied I am with myself. They’ve been great people and they’ve raised me well, I just wish they could see that. Because it’s getting to become a pain in the ass being unable to talk to them without antagonism. They’re always blaming me, and I’m always defending myself these days. In fact, that seems to have been the way ever since I hit adolescence, and it’s just not right.
But my greatest fear is not loosing them, and it’s not loosing people I love. Love is important, feeling accepted is important, but I can always easily find people to love that will return the sentiment. Being unaccomplished is the worst thing that could ever happen to me, and it won’t because I shall make sure that it won’t.
It’s like, all my life, I’ve always known what I wanted to do. Which is really to do things that are meaningful that’ll last in society. I’m not the Mother Theresa sort, there is no way in hell I’ll forfeit my happiness for anyone, and I’ve never really been the sort to attain pleasure from being charitable. Donating money and volunteering at the orphanage occasionally (my parents used to do it, and I quite enjoyed playing games with the kids and reading them story books) is great, but that’s where it ends.
I’ll never be able to realize anything here. I know it, and most of the time, with these things, I’m right. I’ve learnt more, seen more, and grown up much, much more in the past 1 and a half years outside school than for all the hours I’ve spent in it. It’s always been a waste of time; studying here has been a waste of time. The hours in school are mostly hours wasted, unless you consider the fact that they gave me something to do while I waited for myself to grow up. The only hours that were not wasted were those spent on getting to really know the people I studied with and the people that taught me who were worthwhile to know. Which is to say, very few, because I have this strange feeling that some of the teachers here are people who failed to get into the universities and got filtered off to the teacher’s institution instead.
I just had a fabulous photo shoot with one of my photographers, Jeff (you can find his gallery in the MICA building, the one opposite the BMX bungee thing, the works on show are not his though. Although he’ll have one at the end of the year, and Dee and I are bloody hell gonna star in it). I painted a backdrop in an hour; a good friend of mine took me out to brunch and brought me down, it must have been terribly amusing for him to have seen me paint half naked. But like I told him, I like being naked and I’m more comfortable without clothes then with. It was great. And we did a few micro shots with a pieces of sushi and my pussy.
*sigh* He’s the third artist this week who’s complained about the art scene here, and it’s just terrible. Everything’s still censored more then they should be (censorships is really annoying when you specialize in portraiture, especially mine –teasing-), it’s impossible to make a living out of photography, not if you don’t want to whore your camera out to projects that’ll bore you half to death, like taking pictures of jewelry or second hand cars. He got pretty worked up talking about it too. To me, it’s like, if we’re really want to do anything at all, it’s time to help people from the down up instead of splurging million of dollars on international acts (which I believe is also worthwhile, but do we really need so many?) we should spend some locally. Well, allright, we are spending some, spend more. In fact, wait, you don’t even have to spend more. Why don’t just let censorship… go. As long as it’s not promoting bad values, why harp on it? The last time I checked, 100% of the population have seen genitalia before, so what’s the big friggin deal. Is someone else’s pussy so much uglier then yours you cannot bare to see it blown up 40 by 40? Give me a break.
xoxox
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