Night
No more constructions, chattering, and the growling of engines, night-time is the sphere where the most masculine activities go impotent and the moon puts on her most gorgeous one-peice dress. The most clear-minded men in day time become susceptible to other mad possibilities inside them. Night is more inspiring than Day simply because at night the brain is halfly closed down. When an image needs processing by the left hemisphere which is closed, the right one takes up the job, being rational in an irrational way. Perhaps the condition for creativity is being paradoxical.
Taxis are everywhere. Like fish yearning for food, those reddish four wheeled things lurk around for preys. The way taxi turn the wheels and stop at the side of the road is similar to fish pausing in the middle of the sea hoping to be fed.
I want to say something about going to a banquet but not knowing what to wear, wanting to smoke but stopped by a predictable sense of guilt, the film The Seventh Seal, the novel Master and Margarita, the problem of diet, etc.
And we were watching the second half of The Clockwork Orange when the clock stroke 12am on the 31th night.
Dried Tears
When someone decides to write a letter to his mother about his life after twenty-three years of upbringing, there’s something unhappy going on. Why not talk to her but write? Why not father but mother? Why not solving the problem himself but writing a letter, which might futher complicate the problem? The letter comprises twenty three years of repression. Something which should be said was not said; things said are for saving faces and his class status. And yet, only men of his class are able to reflect on his ownself. The people lower than him are either too humble or ignorant, and those higher than him are simply numbed by excessive eating, clothing and sex.
I wish I had changed after all these years, but someone said I have not. Am I wasting time, doing something merely for ego-masturbation, or is this a meaningless point in history, which will not be recorded at the end? If I cry, who knows? If I do not, what makes the difference? While we get a little bit elated by publicizing our emotions, someone sees through this and thought he could get rid of this cheap cheap culture. And yet, he is writing here, writing in such shitty trashy trivial cyberidiculouschismaticarelesspace.
那一夜沒有說
Don’t go November! I need you I need you so badly.
Cold, dreadfully cold; the shivering reminds me of home. I said I would tell you ‘that’ when the snow falls. By then the moon will be caught by the clouds; and the roads whisper, ‘There comes the white night!’ Forgive my clumsiness, my stupidity! I never learn a lesson ?everything should be said have not been said. So is the snow – every little white drip should have fallen but have not done so. If there is snow, will I say ‘that’ to you again? Or if I say ‘that’, do I need to wait until the next snow to fall? Speak, snow, speak snowly! Perhaps snow is my pure imagination. I thought I will say ‘that’ to you when it snows but actually the snow will never visit us. Faith or ignorance after all are not very different.
Not saying ‘that’ to you I thought I will be regretted. In French they called this future anterior, I mean the past in the future. But the point is, there is not future in the future tense, why bother to talk about the past in future? Imagine how one can live if her brain can’t store memory? Snow is not there and will never be. That’s why I want not December. Whether it will snow or not do not tell me. There is never an event but the talking about an event. Missing something is not missing its absence ?I miss the presence of my feelings because I know I will lose them very soon. Don’t go November! It said I have to finish my tears before the snow comes. I told myself the snow will never come, will it not? No It won’t, will it? Tell me, tell me! Could you stay longer and not let the cruelest month come? Listen to this, perhaps you will change your mind, listen!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCHuYuJV0pw
Yours,
30/11
2.12.2007 (this Sunday)
You all know what’s going on this Sunday, don’t you?
If you live in Hong Kong Island, May I take this opportunity to remind you to cast your vote in this by-election. Your vote will be invaluable to the future of Hong Kong. Thanks so much.
For election details:
Nine Hundred and Ninety-nine
Fog fogs my furious foe
though memories are showdows
missed or forgotten no body knows
turn on the street
there the little pebble road
footprints folded up like a cloth
and is hide in my foe
I know not
remembrace is futile
the heart shakes and the tremble in departure
smiling is but in your foe
the skeleton fingers I infatuate
destroy the image anticipated
your face collapses
senses obliterated
like a train, a chain,
fragmented, drained, swallowed up
a puzzle with a thousand pieces
need but one piece be gone
Fog please fogs my foe
let the memories shadowed
let the shadows unfolded
Unfold! Even though, even though!
(p.s. adapted)
時代巨輪
And then we are back to the question – are we being controlled by the gigantic chain of Time, or we are autonomous to this invisible monster? Can we say time is always under my control? If not, why is that? Our feet are inherently chained by Time, which cannot neither run too fast nor too slow. It’s less obious than Orwell’s 1984 – we are in the era of Kafkaresque. Whence started our master/slave relationship with Time? Was there a beginning, like love affair? Were we ever ahead of time? Why 2046, but not 2047?
And thus he sings:
一開始誕下已經蒼老 一開始拍翼已追不到
Big Bang theory has been cheating – time has no beginning at all. You might say there is the invention of the concept of time. But even before a new word appeared in a dictionary, the idea signified by that word could have been existing for thousand years. The lyrics refers to man, as well as Time itself. Once a man born he has already withered (Once Time is born, Time has already lagged behind). Once the wing is streched the prey has gone forever (Once Time began to search for lost time, Time has lost forever). The image is full of energy, an unrequsite surge of energy, a picture of lethargy.
And he continues:
當骨牌瀉下已知道 天天迫我上路 天天迫我進步 難避免捲入時代太恐怖
A mere lethargic man. Ironically, we all deny the fact that time is out of our control. But on the other hand, we agree with the lyrics so much that we have to remind ourselves that they are merely lyrics! When arts become too realistic, our appreciation threshold reaches its limit. Appreciation stops and self-denial comes into place. ‘No, that’s not true – it’s just a piece of art (lyrics). I should go back to work.’
我 想好好抉擇 好想嗌暫停想一想哪樣過 怕 想一想以後 身邊觀眾便離座
Who does not need that kind of decision moment? But again true, thinking too much is not healthy. I don’t mean your health – it’s none of my business. Thinking too much is merely unhealthy to general economy. The audience will leave you, as if they don’t blame you for thinking too much. How interesting is the word ‘preoccupation’. Without ‘pre’ it means a job of 9 to 5pm. With ‘pre’ it means intensive thinking. People only ask what your occupation is but never your preoccupation because thinking is simply too much for us. After all, a theatre not in full-house looks kinda bad, doesn’t it?
At the end, he sings the chorus twice. As if he is competing with Time, hopes that by repetition meaning will suspend in the air, and creates some effect to us. Did it? How important is this song, in the history of canto pop? The joke about popular culture is that, repetition is in every product but it will never stay in your mind too long. The more emphasis made, the less memory forged.
In love with him and the lyrics. Shall this note be competant to negotiate with Time.
i live
When my right hand grasps my left – i live; when my upper lip touches the lower’s – i live; when my stomach repulses and vomits – i live. How do I know these? Do I exist? Where do i exist? How do I exist?
Don’t want to make words too philosophical. Shall we digress?
I saw them kissing each other. Yes, kissing. Sounds trivial but at the same time the most profound. The most mysterious passage between the outside and inside of our flesh. The most erotic exchange seems acceptable in the public. The most effective expression of union and affection. The most…
They began to devour each other’s lips. Cannibalism is the word. Blood squeezed out from their reddish cushions, where slits and bruises marked and destroyed, marked and destroyed. Suddenly all red turns into purple. A certain purple is so purple that only blood would be more red. They kept on biting each other. As if kissing is nothing but having another meal after the Lent. Non-stop. Their tongues tied knots, a deadly one. Who said kissing is union? Indeed eating each other is a re-union. But kissing other also means kissing the self, that means self destruction. Union is not possible without having the idea of destruction.
Four lips, two bodies, and one single flesh – where has the ‘three’ gone? Don’t rush – threesome is always in love. Love is simply defined by having three parties messing around. Jealousy is the word. When I am in love i cannot help feel jealous – that’s St Augustine. Be careful not to mingle jealousy with envy – they are enemies to each other. Magically, jealousy ties in with kissing as they both share the nature of possession. If we read jealousy as an anxiety of losing our possession (i.e. our beloved), and kissing as cannibalism, we can see both have the thirst of ownership, property, the comfort of selfish possession. My godess – Four lips, three parties, two bodies and one single flesh – with the most basic mathematics we understand love. Do we not know how to love the other now?
i live – but that’s all I can say. To finish the sentance i will have to mediate with things, with people, with the others. I can’t do that – unless i remove the ‘I’ and say ‘to live’. The I is not justified anymore when mediation comes in. Forget I and forgive I because it is never mine.
Closure
Is our window closed, or our closure ‘windowed’?
Life is a continuous struggle between autonomy and community. At one time I thought being the loneliest person in the world is cool, I have a thirst for talking to people at the other. What kind of animal are we? Human being have been greedy since what they called ‘civilization’ – we want to express our individuality and immerse ourselves into the larger world at the same time. Such dualism can only exist in human being, and which has been annoying for thousands of years. Can we solve the ultimate contradiction? If so, how?
I am not as Hegelian as Hegel to explain how to cope with life by treating it as a complete homogenous system. Life is more than a dream – it is not merely a wish-fulfulling process where every single story line is controllable. Life is shapeless, unexpected, a patchwork of puzzle. But this is not what I want to talk about.
Just because life is always bigger than itself, most of us have fallen into either side of the dualism (autonomy or community). Those who put themselves into an seemingly autonomous position I called them ‘closure’.
Radical passivity – the closure person isolates herself from society in order to avoid the every unexpected event created in the world. From asking a questino to reading the news, from asking about her existence to cooking a new dish – the closure person has long closed her window, which can only be looked through from one side. That means nobody can see her, but she can (she thought) see through everybody.
Sometimes she tries to open her window – but hardly widely. She is tempted by the other face of her ego which loves society. But she is maticulous. There is no handle at the other side. She makes sure everytime the window is only opened by her but not anyone else. What is the consequence? Nobody is going to understand this closure person, nor is she going to understand the others. The window has to be fully opened; and more importantly, it has to be opened by the others, at the other side of the world.
While we are talking about community all the time, it’s important not to overlook the autonomous subjects. Because they offers a strange heterogenous force to the world, which on one hand threatens those who want to conquer the world, on the other hand stabilizes the governance of the authority.
The side effects of closure are being impulsively egoistic, narcissistic, magalomaniac, monologic, over-pessimistic or over-optimistic, etc.
But after all, we have to be careful when we put these words on people. When we look at a closure, we can only look from one side. A closure is only a closure because it is described from the outside. Is it not fair to demonize closure? Can it be?
If only we could see without seeing, and hear what has been standing in front of us.
One String or Four?
As far as size goes, one’s life can never be bigger than the other’s.
Reading some Hegel in the study room, I heard noise made by banging the door. My thirst for society rang the bell, ‘Who is so loveable who wants to see me?’ It was alsmot mid-night. People who come in at that time could only be people who are idle and unoccupied. The passionate Portugese father went in with a not-so-happy face. Never thought of his possible intrusiveness, he said, ‘Ohhhhh, I am confused and desperate.’
Why? Because of my son. What happened to your son? Well…I am confused. I have no idea why they put my son into a lower standard class. I have paid for a private class. He was in the royal school of music here, and now, he is allocated into a much inferior music class, learning violin with a girl who has just learnt how to hold the bow! When he was in the royal school, he used to play with four strings – that sounds obvious to you – but, but now the music school allows my son plays only with one string. They called it progressive learning! How ridiculous! They have no good senses, something gone wrong in their mind…I miss my son. But he had to go back. We will not stay in Manchester for good after all…
The father’s face filled with grieve. He just could not focus on his study. His son is way more important than the pursuit of knowledge. He went on rumbling, criticizing the education system and things like that. He needs someone to talk to, regardless of the content, just because he misses his son. How desperate to a father when he loses the power to protect his son, and worse – it’s the father himself who decided to let go the power just because he wants to pursue higher education? Bacon’s cliche ‘knowledge is power’ can’t be more illusive. The most intellengent man also faces the moment of lethargy, the moment impotence. One can enjoy absolute freedom only if he is in absolute solitude. The chain between the father and son will not be broken. The way how the father misses a son is like a prisoner wishes to sees his parents. Are we not free? If the father is imprisoned, who put him there? The father? Or the son? In a violin course, should we learn with one string? Or four?
Blogging On
Why am I here again? The heaps of books on my desk conveyed the message quite clearly – I have no time for xanga. But I am no machine. If I were a machine, I would have been a desiring-machine. Everyone, everywhere is a machine. We do things without asking ‘why’ anymore. We desire things not because we need those things. In fact we desire things just merely because we have to. There is no cause and effect in explaining desires – all sorts of desires, from sexual to commodities.
I am a writing machine. What I write is going to connect with another’s writing. My blog will automatically plunged into other blogs. Blogs are interconnected and form a maga-machine. It’s like IBM computer in the 60s. Everyone intends to write something special in their entry but end up clicking the SAVE button with a bunch of rubbishy rumbles left on the screen. You could say blogging is a way to keep a record of the everyday. But then what’s the point of recording if everyday is almost the same, and the things we recorded were merely fantastic stories we made up for our own pleasure?
I can’t give up writing because I am still a sociable human being after all. Animals don’t write do they? Here I refer to those who are not self-conscious of their being. What makes human differ from animal is that mankind notice the fact that they are literally living in the world. Hence human Being or Being human. Writing is an investigation of one’s self; is a self evaluation of human as a Being living in a particular time and space. Me today is not comparable to the me a year ago. But the turtles or zebras living in Kenya are hardly conscious of their existence. They live because they have to. But we live because of all sorts of (unconvincing) reasons. Nietzsche said to live is already miserable enough – the only thing to reduce misery to die asap. How true is that?
Either Happy or unhappy does not matter really. As long as we are susceptible to emotions – we can still proudly say that we are human. Yet, for ages we just look at the screen (which reflects one’s self), it’s time for us to look at the others. Blogging too much will just expand our ego and diminishes the others. Once the others disconnect from the internet, their ‘lives’ will falsely stay on the screen, and let you and me to ‘understand’ them. ‘Pls update la, long time no see you la.’ Your friends will say to you. But wait – do they care about me, or they only want to understand me, as a body without organs? As if the spirit has long left the body, which left hanging up in the cyber space, with the entrails flowing out and be ready for some cruel inspection.
Who am I? And who is the Other?
Obshchechelovek 