mydelirium333

Hi everyone. Mainly to symbolise a change of seasons - among other reasons - I have moved on to blogging at colouroursouls.wordpress.com (: It's something important for me and plus I really need to abolish the whole 'mydelirium333' thing from my life. It's really not a very honouring thing to say about myself and it's also lame.

So this will be my last entry here. This blog will still remain here for archiving's sake.

Goodbye LiveJournal! You have served me well for the past 3+ years! :D And for everyone else here, I don't think it'd matter that much to you where I blog at, since I've been so inactive here anyway, and changing bookmarks is only a click away. Or better yet, do what I did! - Join wordpress, quit LJ and let's subscribe to each other! :D My my, I'm SOOO gonna get banned from here... Not like I care hahaha.

Genius. So beautiful. His creative use of dynamics and arrangement; the song's majesty, its mystery. When it plays, it envelopes me like a thick cloud of profound musicianship and emotion. Despite its thickness it doesn't suffocate, but arouses in me the desire to rest in its embrace; like a father beckons his son to fall asleep in his arms. And yet it seems to have been built on such a stable, almost divine, simplicity. Pieces like this show that technicality is not always the key. In fact, it is almost never the key - it is at best, a valuable addition - to a beautiful piece of music.

Love this so much (:

Also a reminder of the movie Inception, which I've no regrets watching three times. I'd even go so far as to say I'd like to watch it indefinitely more times.

Inspiring. I won't be able to do that, but I will press on and do my best.

Bless bless.

"The first step — especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money — the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art."

- Chuck Palahniuk

[If you're one who's interested in songwriting, or music in general, this would be a good read for you. Or even if you're just a fan of DCFC or Gibbard. I've always been a fan of Gibbard's songwriting style and ability, so reading this was thoroughly intriguing. It's really nice to know about the way he sees things and how he thinks. I don't agree with everything he wrote, but it was thought-provoking on the whole, especially because of how much music is a part of my life. It did bring me to think about sorting some important life issues out, regarding my life and how music is gonna affect the way everything goes from here.]

Late last summer, Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard retreated to the rustic California town of Big Sur to write songs for his band’s new record, and to commune with the spirit of his idol Jack Kerouac, who’d visited Big Sur almost a half-century ago. For this essay, we sent Gibbard back to his cabin in the woods to meditate on life, art and solitude.

Why did I think I was going to come here and have this place change my life? I wanted it so badly, as I’m sure Kerouac did. I wanted to cleanse myself with this place. I’d spent years wondering what it looked like, wondering what it would be like to be here. And now here I am, sleeping in the same room Kerouac slept in. I’m walking the same path he walked when he came to the beach and wrote. Jack Kerouac sat here and wrote poems about the sound of the ocean. He sat right here.

There’s something ominous about venturing into this canyon. The first line of the first song I wrote here is, “I descended a dusty gravel ridge”—it’s like the whole album is a descent. Being here for two weeks was productive, but it was also very reflective in a not-so-comfortable way. I realized some things about myself that I don’t really like, and to come back here and be reminded of all that made me feel really anxious from the moment I first turned down the driveway. The epiphany never came. I’m just as confused now as I was when I got here six months ago. And when I returned to start thinking about this essay, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be back.

I’d totally idealized what I’d be able to accomplish down here. I thought I needed to go somewhere to finish this record, figuring it wasn’t something I could do from the comfort of my own home, like the other 30 songs I wrote. I wanted isolation, which in a way is odd. It’s not like I have a drug problem, or I have a hard time concentrating, or I’m lazy. I idealized coming here for sentimental reasons.

I read On The Road in college. I was 18 or 19, and I had a particular quarter where I was taking biology, calculus and physics. Those were my three classes. It wasn’t a well-rounded schedule at all. It was hard, hard work, all the time-—hours and hours and hours of homework. My brain was just full of all these specific equations; there was no fun whatsoever. But I pulled On The Road off the shelf and found myself reading it between classes, and at that time in my life it was exactly what I craved, exactly what I needed to hear. I thought, “That’s the way, that’s the ideal life, that’s great. You get in a car and you drive and you see your friends and you end up in a city for a night and you go out drinking and you catch up and you share these really intense experiences. And then you’re on the road and you’re doing it again.” The romance of the road, particularly from Kerouac’s work, encapsulated how I wanted to live. I found a way to do it by being a musician, which is what I always wanted to be. The traveling and the being on tour and being away from home set a precedent for me where I thought, “Oh yeah, this is how it works.”

But then in reading Big Sur, it’s the end of the road. You end up with a series of failed relationships and you end up being an alcoholic and in your late 30s, and not having any kind of real grip on the lives of the people around you. That’s the potential other end of the spectrum when you’re never tied to anybody or anything. I run the risk of losing touch with the people in my life that mean the most to me because I have made the decision to live like this.

If you tell certain people that you like Kerouac, they assume that’s all you read, like you don’t know anything else about literature. I recognize all the things that people dislike about the way he writes—his tone and the sentimentality of it all. But those books were there for me at a very important point in my life.

And moments in Big Sur are starting to become very analogous to my life, where I show up in a town and call up my friends, and I’m like, “Guys, we gotta go out. Let’s hang out, I haven’t seen you in forever.” And their response is “Yeah, well, our baby needs to be going to sleep and I can’t be out all hours of the night anymore. It’s time to move on in our lives into another phase; we can’t live in this perpetual adolescence forever.”

Because of my age and what I do for a living and the amount of time that I’ve spent away from my family and loved ones, I’m starting to relate more to the late-period Kerouac stuff in the way that I once related to the fun and excitement of the early material. There’s a darkness inside of me that I’m only now starting to come to grips with and accept. And it’s starting to scare me.

At some point I thought that, as I got older, I’d come to terms with a lot of things. I’d solve some big problems, and eventually I’d become content. It’s almost more depressing to think that the older you get, the more your problems multiply. When I’m old, I’d like to wake up in the morning and not really do anything—just be happy to exist. I’d like to look at my accomplishments and sit back and revel in my own achievement. But I don’t think that’ll ever happen.

Before I made a living playing music, I used to work shitty job after shitty job and think “Man, as soon as I’m able to make a living in music, it’s really going to come together then, it’s really going be amazing.” I remember hoping there’d be 10 people at a show in 1998 when there was an incredible write-up in the local weekly. I don’t want to go back to that period of being obscure and having nobody know who I am, let alone have to struggle to get people to come to the show. I remember what it was like, and it was shitty.

Since then, Death Cab has become one of those weird cultural fenceposts—people align their tastes on one side or the other. It’s weird when people come up to me, music people, snobby, critical kind of people. It’s almost like they’re confessing to me that they like my band: “I gotta tell ya, I really, really like that new record. I heard the first record, and I kinda thought that was OK, and I kinda tuned out. But your band is really a lot better than people give it credit for.”

Sean Nelson said it best: “No one likes what I like, that’s how I like it.” It’s as though people think, “I’m such an individual that I like things that nobody’s even heard of before. I went out of my way to find music and books and movies that are so obscure that I am an individual, and I am interesting because I like interesting things.” But that’s not true. Liking interesting things doesn’t make you interesting.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t be successful and critically acclaimed by everybody who likes the cool things you like. Would I want to go back to our first album? I remember what it was like to have one record out and have there be 10 journalists at these alt-weeklies around the country being like, “This is the greatest band that nobody’s heard of. You have to hear this Death Cab for Cutie record, Something About Airplanes, it is mind-blowing, it’s so good.” And the reality is, no, it’s not. It’s a decent record, but it’s by no means our best record. It’s our first record.

I’d like to think I’m a far better writer now than I was 10 years ago. When I first started the band, and I began writing in the way that has marked the trajectory of how I go about making music now, I was convinced that my writing was wildly descriptive and very dense and interesting, and people were really going to have to chew on this stuff. But now I’ll play a song like “Bend To Squares” and it’s like, “What the **** am I talking about here? This song makes absolutely no sense.” I would just write what I thought were very profound, dense lyrics. They may be about something in my head, but they don’t translate to being about anything that anybody could understand just listening.

I decided a handful of years ago that I just want to write songs that you can understand as soon as you put the record on. There’s no need to veil what’s happening in the song the way I used to.

My goal as a songwriter now is to simply write some memorable turns of phrase. The reaction I’d like from every song I write is, “Wow, I listen to this song, and it’s about such-and-such, and there’s this lyric in there that’s just awesome.” At the end of the day, that’s what I want.

That’s what I’d like the reaction to be when people hear Narrow Stairs, our new record. The first song, “Bixby Canyon Bridge,” is about something very specific: The first time I came here to Big Sur, I was waiting, I was sitting here waiting for something to happen, to have this epiphany about my life and how it relates to Kerouac, one of my idols, who I have the utmost respect for and who changed my life.

Whenever I finish writing a song, I get that satisfaction of finishing something that nobody’s read or heard yet. And that moment of self-satisfaction is the most valuable type of satisfaction for one’s own work. It’s amazing to have people singing a song back to you on a stage. It’s great to finish recording a song and play it for your friend, and they love it. That feels good. But nothing feels better than when you’ve finished something and you know it’s good, and you know that those other responses will come in time.

I feel that songwriters are held to a different standard than almost any other type of writer—some fans get genuinely upset if I admit that a song that they held close to their heart was not based on actual events in my life. Like “What Sarah Said”: I was never in a waiting room in a hospital waiting for news that somebody was going to die. I’ve been in hospital waiting rooms before, waiting for a doctor’s appointment, and I got a sense of the general vibe of the room—not a joyous place—and I decided to set a song there.

With this record, if I didn’t have something to write about that I’ve experienced, if I couldn’t visualize myself in that scenario and really put myself in the shoes of the narrator, then I felt I shouldn’t be writing it. I’m having my own experience here, and I’m writing about it. I’m not writing a song about Kerouac at Big Sur; I’m writing about myself at Big Sur.

The single on our record is a work of fiction that was inspired by things that happened to some people close to me. It’s called “I Will Possess Your Heart,” and it’s eight-and-a-half minutes long. It’s five minutes of build and then a three-minute song. The song is basically about a stalker. It’s about this nice guy who wants this girl he can’t have, and he believes they’ll be together once she realizes how great he is—he just has to wait it out. That’s the part that makes the song really creepy, the delusion of thinking that they were meant to be together. It’s a really dark song. A lot of the material is about the inevitable disappointment people feel as they move through life, and things don’t feel the way they expect. No experience will ever match up to the idealized version in your mind.

I played a solo show in New York in May, and there was a really nice review in The New York Times. The writer said something that I’ve even co-opted to refer to myself: The thing that some people dislike about my music is the exact thing that other people like about it. The subject matter, the words I choose, the way my voice sounds, the specifics in my writing—those are the kind of things that make some people think, “Oh, I ****in’ hate that guy.”

Our band is very polarizing. There are people who absolutely can’t stand us, and people who absolutely can’t live without us. I’d rather spark those kind of polar-opposite feelings than have people be indifferent.

Because of this approach, I feel this is a more honest record than anything I’ve made in a long time. Elements of it are kind of embarrassing, but I’m proud of that. I don’t spend my time perusing message boards to find out what people think about me or if people think my songs are good or if people love that lyric or this or that. I just want to be happy with it myself—and if other people like it, that’s great.

I can unequivocally say that I’m so glad we were one of the last bands to break before the Internet got crazy. We actually had some time to develop. I hate hearing people say, “I went and saw this band—everybody’s saying they’re really great—but I went and saw them last night and they weren’t any good live.” You know why they weren’t good? Because they’ve never done more than five shows in a row, and now they’re two weeks into a tour—their first national tour. They don’t know how to get to the shows, they don’t know how to sleep right, they don’t know where to find food. They don’t understand how to make a set list somebody cares about. You can’t blame these bands for not being great yet. We were terrible when we first started playing. Our shows were so ****ing boring.

I feel very fortunate that we were able to get in before the Web really took off. But I don’t want to go back to that period where we were literally eating mustard sandwiches in West Texas because we didn’t have money. There was nowhere to get anything vegetarian. And even if there was, we didn’t have any money anyway. I remember being hungry and skinny.

At this point in my life, I find myself obsessed with alternate paths I could’ve taken. I don’t think about this with a sense of regret, but with a sense of wonder—I wonder if I made the right decision by going to the college that I went to, where I met Nick and Chris and we started this band and my life has become what it’s become. What would’ve happened if I would’ve gone to a different college? What would my life be like?

My first serious adult girlfriend got married three years ago. She and her husband have a child now. I went to the wedding, and I was thinking how great it was, how happy I was to be here. I was happy that she was where she was in her life, and that I was where I was—maybe things do happen for a reason. But for every one of those scenarios where I think things happen for a reason, I find myself regretting decisions that I never really had.

I find it very hard to accept the wonderful things in my life. My life really is great: I do exactly what I want to do for a living, I have a wonderful person to share my life with, I have a great family, I have great friends. But somehow there’s a void. I’m the last person who should be complaining or wondering why I’m perpetually unhappy. I would like to think that my lack of contentment is part of what makes my work the way it is, and for the better.

I would rather make great records than make great relationships. When I’m at odds with myself, I would rather **** up every relationship I’ve ever been in and write great records. And not because I need a breakup to provide me with material. Not like that.

It’s hard enough having a relationship with one person, but to have a relationship with three other bandmates that you are so intimately tied to and you spend so much time with—and to have that actually work and function—is just astounding. I have been in a band for more than 10 years now. I never thought I’d be doing anything for 10 years straight, let alone a band, and I feel so fortunate for that. I have been allowed for some reason to do that. But it’s even more amazing that we get along better now than we did 10 years ago.

An ex-girlfriend once got upset when I told her that music is the most important thing in my life. It’s more important than anyone else could ever be. I don’t want to be overly dramatic and say it’s the only thing that gets me up and keeps me going. But people in your life come and go. As you go through your life, you make friendships, you break friendships, you have relationships. Music is the one thing I’ve always been able to rely on. So why wouldn’t it be the most important thing in my life?

-Ben Gibbard

We all know the story of Adam and Eve right? The sequence of events involving a man and a woman, a talking serpent, a fruit, a tree (of Knowledge), disobedience to God, and the fall of mankind into the slavery of Sin. I have a very short and simple question about all of that: Do you believe in this story literally, or metaphorically?

I know what I believe in, but this theory of biblical stories being metaphorical is very interesting. Those who support this theory assert that the story of Adam and Eve didn't actually happen. They say it was a metaphor to illustrate the relationship Man had with God, and how Man fell into sin, among other things. Every part of it is symbolic of something. I don't buy that. But it was this that reminded me of another thought of mine which I'd never yet bothered to write about:

Should the Bible as a whole be taken literally or metaphorically? If sometimes either, which when and where? How do you know that?

Of course the first thing to do, almost as a reflex action, is to use the Word (ie. the Bible) as reference. But that would be a little ironic, wouldn't it? We want to use the subject in question (the Bible) to learn about the right methods of learning about the subject in question (the Bible). We have not yet even decided on a mode or philosophy through which we want to view, or 'size up', what we are about the read in the Bible. So how can we go straight into it? I hope you detect the paradox.

Well, I believe that it should sometimes be taken literally, and other times, metaphorically or symbolically. Why do I say that / How do I know? I don't. But we have to start somewhere if we're to get anywhere on this! So yes. -foot stamped down-

At this point, you might want to argue about the usefulness - or uselessness - of this discussion. My only answer to that (pertaining not only to this topic, but also every other one) is: it doesn't matter, because I want to think about it anyway. Though, it is not completely without reason - I do believe it is useful and very important, because how we choose to read and interpret the Bible (or attempt to) could drastically change the way we live our lives according to it. That is, assuming you even aim to do so in the first place. So this is not trivial.

So back to the point. When should the Word be taken literally, and when metaphorically? I don't know for sure either. The only method I use to know this is by looking to the Holy Spirit and drawing from Him revelation on any particular passage of scripture. I can't back this up, because it is carried out completely by faith. I feel that predominantly, the Bible should be taken literally, like a record of the history of events (which is really what it is, for the most part), and should only selectively be taken to mean something else underneath or beyond what is read on the surface.

Here is an example of a passage which I believe should be viewed as a metaphor. Isaiah 14 describes the fall of the king of Babylon, Lucifer's swell of pride, and subsequent descent from Heaven (the name 'Lucifer', by the way, is only mentioned once in the entire Bible, and not mentioned at all in the NIV. It means 'light-bearer'). People have asked questions about this particular passage, like, 'Is the king of Babylon and Lucifer the same person in this passage?', 'Was Isaiah speaking to / about the king of Babylon only, Lucifer only, or both?'.

If this is to be taken literally, Isaiah was speaking to the king of Babylon only, addressing him as Lucifer once, saying that he actually used to live in heaven and was literally cast down. If you want to believe that, go ahead. Literally taken, it wouldn't make sense, and I don't even think it'd be theologically sound.

Metaphorically though, scholars believe the king of Babylon refers to Lucifer. Babylon was a land of extensive defilement and sin at that time, deemed by many as perhaps the most evil kingdom. It would follow that the king of that 'most evil' kingdom would be regarded as the most evil man. Naturally, that would be the perfect symbol to represent the devil. It would be much less absurd that the devil was cast down from heaven that if it were an evil, very human, king. To take this passage metaphorically gives it its meaning, and prevents it from sounding like Isaiah was a man who was simply writing what he saw during one of his schizophrenic sessions of hallucination.

So that's one example of how a passage could only make sense and remain theologically sound when taken out of it's description and viewed from the angle that everything within it is symbolic and metaphorical. Not the best example, because even if you did believe in it literally, it's likely that nothing incredibly bad would happen to you - at least not directly.

Suppose you had no idea and just took in everything that you read on the surface literally. In many cases, you could be believing in a lot of wrong things, be deceived and deluded, and who knows what else. That's why I say this is an important topic. So take some time when you read a passage to establish a connection with the Holy Spirit, so that with His discernment you can accurately interpret it, detect symbols within it that carry significance, receive what God wants to say to you through it, and then apply it to your lives. Don't take everything as face value, and don't take everything as symbolic either. Tap on the one true Source for revelation, with the right spirit and relationship, and you can't go wrong ;)

Goodnight, Singapore.

I will begin a series of true stories, endorsed by the people involved, about the above-mentioned. I'm working towards writing a book and all of you who follow my blog will have the privilege of viewing the original manuscript (Draft 1) of this book wheee!!! But dear readers, I will have to ask that because of some sensitive information to be contained within the book, please keep it on the down-low, thanks (: I should like to emphasise that this is the first time I'm writing this for the public eye, which means two things - firstly, I choose to honour you, my friends, with these revelations because some of these things are related to how I've been shaped as a person and I feel it is your right to know (it would mean nothing to readers who don't know me, so I'm not worried about them), and secondly, please cut me some slack, it's only the first draft! :D

I will write these recounts in no particular order, although in the actual book I plan to arrange the entries chronologically. Perhaps today it would be good to start with an introduction to my father (which could be a good introduction to the book too). 

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If my dad had not told me anything about his past, I would have grown up thinking he had always been the same loving, secure, strong, intelligent, hardworking, disciplined, responsible, virtually perfect dad that he is now. In my life, I had not witnessed much of what was left of his past. The furthest, or worst I've seen of him, were manifestations of his anger, his self-destructive habits like smoking and alcoholism, and a few instances of rashness, and even so, none were extreme. He had always exemplified the adjectives I mentioned earlier, only that he had these few things in his life he had yet to deal with.

To the eyes of a young child like me even, it was alright. This was my dad, I thought. This is how he is, and this is how he has always been. For perhaps fifteen years I had harboured these impressions about my dad - an amazing person, who played every role he had to play very well, with just these few issues in his life.

When I was around fifteen years old, my dad decided it was time to begin dispensing some of the truths about his past to me. I suppose it was a civic responsibility he felt as a father that motivated him to it, like I had some sort of right to know, being the ever-precious firstborn son. Perhaps I had shown that I was mature enough to be able to 'handle the truth'. Progressively I knew more and more. Seven years on, he says he still withholds certain things, and would tell me when I get older. I believe his discernment was accurate, and it is now my turn to begin dispensing the truth about his past. 

This is important, readers, because I want you to understand the context of his circumstances (and eventually the rest of my family's). Near-death accounts would not be nearly as impactful if the reader of the account had not yet been acquainted with, and then forming an emotional - albeit possibly loose - attachment with the person the account is written about. But enough of that. I shall begin.

My dad grew up in an extremely conservative and traditional home. My grandmother was ubiquitous in the areas of church ministry and service, from choir to the women's fellowship, from Sunday school teaching to flower arranging. My grandfather who was not a believer until 40 years after their marriage, had migrated from Malaysia, his grandfather had migrated there from China, and all of them had come from conservative, and very wealthy, backgrounds themselves. So the way things went for them was the way they made things go for their children. My grandfather was strict. No talking, reading, or watching TV while eating! No talking while in the car! Tell everyone elder than yourself to go ahead and eat first before you take any food for yourself! Do not step on the books! Keep decent hair and comb it down nicely! I had experienced these some of things myself for as long as he was around. Though by then he had toned down a lot.

So things did not go well for my dad from an early age. Apart from being forced to learn the piano - which is what caused him to feel an intense sense of disgust at the idea of playing it - he was also being constantly pressured into living up to the expectations of his parents. His elder brother had no trouble academically. He had easily qualified for Raffles Institution, then Raffles Junior College, then The National University of SIngapore, all of which were the top schools in the country at that time.

In contrast, my father had never been naturally academic the way his brother was. He had always been into the arts and was gifted in music and painting - qualities which did not carry much weight in a world where the doctors, lawyers, and bankers were the conventional high-paying (monetarily-speaking) professions, because obviously, money is everything we live for and if we have love, joy, and peace but have not money, we are nothing.

With the pressure of his brother's academic excellence - and that of all his cousins as well, all of whom went to some university or other - and in light of his 'different' inclinations, my dad found it very difficult to live with the pressure and perhaps an unspoken bias against him because of it. From an early age my dad had experienced rejection, empty promises, unfair and undeserved pressure, low self-esteem, and disillusionment. He had also been a victim of bullying. All these things contributed to his insecurity and fear. He felt left out, he was the black sheep - everyone seemed to be able to do so well so easily, while there he was struggling to even find a reason for everything.

An inferiority complex set in. As a ten-year-old, he hadn't much he could do to deal with all his emotions. There was no one he could turn to, and at such a tender, impressionable age, such circumstances could very seriously damage a child. When he felt angry or depressed, he would go to his room, turn off the light, and just wallow in self-pity. The darkness would bring him comfort, it was his escape. The darkness, the being alone, was all he had. He would talk to himself, and to his 'friends'. Friends, of course, that weren't human nor animal.

When he was twelve, his brother had a serious problem with his kidney, and for about one year, had to remain in the hospital for medication and checkups. Everyday my grandparents would visit him. Already with perpetually absent parents, this situation did not help my dad, who really needed love from his family. All the attention was devoted to his elder brother, and the relationship between him and his parents deteriorated rapidly within that year, if a relationship had still existed by then. 

This continued throughout his childhood, with devastating effects on his emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being (if one could really call it well-being). He was not well. That is the story of his upbringing. It paved the way for his life's express descent into crime, gangs, and drugs, which began in secondary school.

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Okay that's enough for now. Will continue another time. Please tell me what you guys think! Would also appreciate opinion on how this can work out as a book (: Thanks and I hope you'll enjoy reading. This is but the tip of the iceberg. CRAZY things happened.

Just curious, how many times can you remember God LITERALLY saving your life? Personally I can only remember one incident in my life. At least three in my sister's. And hahaha there's no way we can count how many times it happened with my parents... Am I being morbid by asking this? Surely not. I'm proud of these things. I'm grateful for how God had delivered. I'm proud because I believe that this is a reflection of our importance in the Kingdom, such that satan would continually try and try and try to eliminate us from the picture. And he had always almost succeeded. ALWAYS ALMOST.

He failed in trying to get rid of my parents. I don't believe he knew the future of my parents exactly, but I believe he might have been able to sense that there was something great in the spiritual destiny of each of my parents, and not wanting to take any risks, had attempted murder on countless occasions. You'll get to read more about that soon. Of course he was unsuccessful and then *poofBOOM!* I was born, and then my sister was born. I don't mean to sound cocky, but my parents' great destinies definitely have something to do with both our emergences. That is why I believe we're called to something very significant. Oh my goodness I can't wait to write about everything else it's so exciting...

SATAN YOU WILL NOT SUCCEED IN KILLING ANY OF US!!! I WILL FULFILL THE DESTINY GOD HAS SET FOR ME!!! GET THEE BEHIND MEEEEE!!!

Oh happy day to you (:

The other day I saw a girl, about 15 or 16 at the bus stop, peeling and eating bananas which she took out of her little tupperware box. She was alone. The box had little cartoony characters on it. To most of the people around her, considering what it's like in secondary school where so many are caught up in the stage of 'How to be cool and remain cool', not many would deem eating fruits out of a cartoony box the coolest thing ever. Heck, I reckon it's even deemed by some as childish (that's the sort of thing primary school kids would do), an indication of being a Momma's girl - which might lead to the idea of her having a lack of independence (which I think is nonsense because doing that displays self-sufficiency, but kids don't usually think that far), being a loner (doing an activity that could've been done with friends - eating - but 'Oh, that girl probably has no friends...'), and overall, just  an uncool act.

Bananas aren't a cool fruit - except perhaps when thought of in a different angle which I won't elaborate on. The cartoons weren't cool either - they'd be the coolest thing in a Kindergarten at best. To many if you told them how you had lunch alone they'd go, 'Aiyo so saaaad! Why?!', but that was what she was doing. 

But she liked it! If she wanted to eat fruit from a kiddy-cool box all alone, she'd do it. And she did it. I thought it was a great example of someone disregarding public opinion, doing what she wanted to do because she felt like it, and because she could. Okay, to many of us, this might not seem at all worth much attention because we're at least at the level where we know that it's okay to do things alone and to do what you want to do whether or not the public or society thinks it's fashionably attractive or impressive. But when I was 16, HAHAHA, I would NEVER have done anything alone in public if I had the choice, I'd NEVER have eaten anything out of a box I brought, let alone one which was exclusively kiddy-cool, or go for an uncool fruit like a banana (I love bananas though). 

Do whatever you feel like doing. The opinion of society holds about as much weight as the points on Whose Line Is It Anyway? (you'd get the reference if you watched), when compared to God's opinion. He'd be proud of you for doing so, that is, place His opinion incomparably above all others'. Dance like nobody's watching. I wish I'd do that ll the time, too. 

Imminent transitions everywhere I turn. There's one there, there, there, there, and yes, even there. 

The reasons for my transiting are the very same reasons I don't want to transit. 

Changes everywhere I turn. People change, relationships change, responses change, feelings change, settings change, places change, we change. 

It is at a time like this when everything turns white and nothing is consistent anymore except God. I cannot depend on anything, or anyone else. Nothing is as reliable as He is.

Everything escapes my attention, like a piece of cloth flung off a cliff, and then disappearing into oblivion. Because nothing matters anymore. Nothing can matter anymore, when everything around you keeps turning, twisting, contorting itself into unfamiliar shapes, making strange sounds. Like a black hole, they beckon me to join them, to join in their frivolous reverie. But I will not turn to the things offered by this temporal world. I will not turn to anything other than my God. 

Transitions. I am still, on a solitary platform just wide enough for me to stand on, thousands of feet above the ground, and a million things are moving around and through me. They rush past my head, and I feel the bursts of wind through my hair, and then vindur í hárinu*, on that other mountain-high platform you stand. I sway forward, backwards, side to side, according to the whim of these winds. But I do not sway violently enough to fall off, because my God is in me, and has provided me with a divine stability in my disposition. Transitions all around, everything changes, but with my God, I will stand and continue standing. These winds are not enemies, they are there by God's will. But if I choose to turn my eyes and trace their movements with my eyes, instead of holding on with a tenacious conviction in the strength of God, I could lose balance and fall. People fall off their platforms, but I will not be distracted, lest my eyes follow their descent, and my spirit likewise.

...

I don't mind losing it all if I still have You, because I've already lost it all when I tossed it off that cliff. But I kept a tiny piece of it with me, and left on what was tossed a mark of my own - my involvement in its existence - so we'd each have exchanged a part of ourselves with the other. We leave a little bit of ourselves everywhere we go. And take in a little bit of everywhere we go. You have left something in me that can never be lost or forgotten, and can never decay. 

I sure hope what I left in You (you) will never be lost or forgotten, and will never decay.

Everything changes. But You never change.

-

*'the wind is in your hair' in Icelandic.

Today was my first day at camp since I returned, and God has already been phenomenally gracious. I can't wait to encounter him during the rest of the week!

Here's the story of the blessings bestowed upon me this glorious day.

I went for out of my office for lunch, at about 1.30pm. Halfway to the canteen though, I realised I'd forgotten my wallet. There'd been no more free food in the cookhouse (I left the office late because I had work to do, and missed the [free-food] lunch hour), and the office was quite a walk from where I was, so retrieving the wallet would be a real, time-consuming pain-in-the-scallop. It was highly unlikely that I'd see anyone I knew to borrow money from - hardly anyone at all was around at this time. But I decided to trust God and continue walking towards the canteen. I prayed for God to provide just one person I knew somewhere along the way, and someone who'd be nice enough to lend me money. I entered the canteen, and God had provided two. Good friends, they were, and good company too. I got my lunch, and left the place with amazement and gratitude.

Immediately after that, I was faced by another trial. My CSM (Company Sergeant Major) called me and wanted me to get immediately ready for a parade there and then which would last for the next three days. It's my first day! I know you can be an ass, but at least gimme some time to get used to your ass-ness man! According to the book, I wasn't supposed to be taking orders from him either, because I was still part of the team that went to India. I called up my IC, who said he'd take care of it. I was shortly excused from the parade, and I was filled with amazement and gratitude.

Back in the office, I was faced with another trial. A particular 'zipped' folder I was trying to send since before lunch was uncooperative. I had left for lunch hoping it'd have been emailed by the time I got back. And for the fourth time, 'SENDING FAILED'. I decided to take a different approach and tried to send each file individually. Still didn't work. This is why every computer in the world should be a Mac. I decided to cast the spirit of technical faults (??? I don't know what I was thinking. I was desperado) out of the damned thing (yes, damned. It's a PC after all), and after rebuking this spirit, IT WORKED!!! I kid thee not. It was the first time ever I even had the remotest notion that a spirit of technical faults existed HAHAHA. Nonetheless, thank God. I prayed in tongues all the way until all the files were successfully sent, and I smiled in amazement and gratitude.

After that, I was faced with another trial - the ubiquitous, ever-hostile, mountain of work. I shan't attempt to describe it to you, lest you collapse in awe at it's mountainous-ness. But the Bible says that if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can move mountains. And boy was this mountain moved. In fact it was so moved, that it was drowning in it's own fresh, mineral-filled, straight-from-the-glacier tears. Totally owned by my mustard seed of faith-muscle. God is awesome. And now I'm typing this in the very same office, with amazement and gratitude. 

All this happened in one day. I hope you're encouraged. When faced with an opportunity to exercise faith, take it with gusto. He never shortchanges us.

Bye bye! Or as they say in Iceland and pun entirely intended, bless bless! (: