an epiphany.
written: 10:19 a.m. on Monday, Jul. 18, 2005

It was so amazing. You watch two people do nothing but talk meaningfully on film and it's even more exciting than watching buildings explode in War of the Worlds. The notion of a genuine connection between two people is so well played out in this film and the previous one that it makes me forget my cynicism and feel something for once and a film that can do that to me is just brilliant, amazing and completely awesome. My attempting to gush over it doesn't do any justice to the greatness that is the film and how much it deeply affected me, but I just had to get it out somehow, because even when I'm writing this now I think I could start crying any second now.

It's like, crazy. A total brain orgasm, because it's so intellectual and deep, and they talk about these crazy issues that normal people don't even think about. The environment, the state of the world, how life is essentially shitty and I sit in my living room, sprawled on the couch and I'm thinking, God, if something like that happened to me I'd die with a happy smile on my face right there and then and I won't complain about how life sucks anymore. It's simply wonderful and so achingly heart-breaking that you feel it so deeply and you hurt because of what was lost, irrevocably.

On a slightly different note, I liked how open-ended the conclusion was. They never said that Jesse went back to New York and never saw Celine again, or that Celine decided to leave her eerily passionate photographer boyfriend who's so engrossed with his work that he's detached from humanity and flies off with Jesse to New York where he divorces his wife and starts a family with Celine blah blah shit fuck. It would've been just shitty if the film ended like that, because it would've been too final, like the last nail has irretrievably been hammered into the coffin and that's that, the end of the films and the characters. The ending allows them to live on, and it's just so damn great.

Okay I'll stop talking about this now.

So last night I went down to the Esplanade with Tingren to check out her cousin's band Lunarin and they kick major ass. I really dug the three songs that they played, although the songs kinda sounded the same but still, it was good stuff. One of the songs was called Ariel. It's so pretty, the melody and Linda Ong's haunting vocals and everything. The guitarist is an engineer, a fact which shocked the shit out of me. Sorry but my impression of Science-esque people is that they're boring numbskulls without a single creative cell in their bodies...okay that's just mean, biased and totally unfair, but last night's revelation about the guitarist made me change my mind so it's all good.

Wow the sky looks set for some serious pissing. I'm going to Orchard later to lunch with Pei and Mel, get my tailored Guess jeans, and maybe pop over to HMV and get a Dandy Warhols CD, if I feel like it. I really dig this song of theirs, We Used To Be Friends. It's funky and I can so relate to the lyrics, like, "A long time ago, we used to be friends but I haven't thought of you lately at all." Doesn't that happen to all of us? And when you realise it's happening do you even care? I don't think so. Sometimes it's just sad though, but when too many of such instances happen repeatedly, over and over, you just kind of get so used to it that you're numbed to whatever effects it might've had on you otherwise.

So yes, the sky. It's all dark and pretty. I better bring an umbrella with me later when I head out.

What is it about guys and not hugging female friends? I mean if a girl says that she'll give a guy a hug that doesn't automatically mean that she has a thing for him. I mean, hugging is like, a norm in other cultures...I guess it's the Asian, maybe-Singapore thing. I mean, I don't go around hugging my male friends (they don't seem to be the type who're open to it, sadly) and the only male friend I've hugged was Lawrence, during last year's orientation when I was OGL-ing and on a total high 'cause it was just crazy-ass and shit like that, but I don't think it's that big of a deal, really. Like, it's simply a display of affection, telling your friend that you care for him, in strictly friendly terms.

Or maybe I'm just paranoid and, well, I don't know. To be honest I don't understand what goes on in their minds sometimes, like one minute I'd think that this dude has a thing for me, the next minute I'd be all, shit no way, he's totally not showing it, blah blah, and it really shouldn't be so complicated but it is, sadly, and what's to be done about that? But it doesn't matter 'cause I'm still a train wreck and I don't want to hurt perfectly nice guys whom I value as really good friends so what the hell.

But seriously, if I gave something to a guy just to cheer him up he'd probably think that I have a thing for him. God, I wish we could be more open with our feelings and thoughts, so that none of us would have to speculate endlessly and torture ourselves with it, because it drains so much out of you and you go crazy with your mood swings that after everything you forget how to be normal. Doing something nice for a friend should be a perfectly acceptable gesture, everything's exactly as they seem, no implied hidden declaration of a liking beyond friendship, but it's just not like that, just like the hugging thing. If a guy makes physical contact with a girl she'd read too much into it, and it's exactly the same with the hugging and whatever else.

Human beings are so dysfunctional, or is it an Asian epidemic? I don't know. I've been doing some thinking over the past few days. I thought I liked this guy but I don't think I do anymore. I thought it mattered that he liked me too but now I just wish that I was being overly imaginative (which makes it doubly bad if you think about it), and that whatever happened between us over the past week and a few days can just stay that way and neither move forward nor go backward. And it's funny, I really want to do this nice thing for him but I just don't want him to get the wrong idea. And yet, at the same time, I really want to do it because I don't see why I have to be restricted by stupid conventions and rules of thumb that really don't make any iota of sense and stop myself for doing something nice for another human being just because some people may see it as something more than mere friendship.

I think we're too restricted by possible misconceptions, paranoia that our actions may be misinterpreted by the other party, and just plain artificial politeness sometimes. Maybe it's an Asian thing, I don't know, but we're so guarded that we have all these walls around ourselves and we don't even realise it. It takes so much for me to show affection and love towards my parents, even more towards my brother, and it's preposterous and it shouldn't be like that. There always has to be a catch, even in the simplest of gestures, the most fundamental of human instinct, and this subconscious expectation of uncovering something more beneath the innocuous surface and the fear of this knee-jerk reaction sadly prevents people from showing others that they care.

It shouldn't be like that. I don't want to be so guarded anymore, so cautious, as if showing concern were like stepping onto a beach full of landmines. It's absurd.

And so I will do that nice thing I mentioned. I think it's time I stop being as dysfunctional as I am.

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010