It takes a unplanned afternoon nap to bring about an unwanted muddynights moment. Unwanted as tomorrow is a work day and I don't want to be wide awake at 3 am and in a state of panic thinking about the 9 am meeting I may just miss.

It's just as well that a muddynight moment is what it takes to resusitate this blog from a prolonged haitus. Not that I've been spending more time in FB (which I am not), but that I've been freaking busy these past few months. Now that LJ is a bit more quiet that it was before, maybe its a good time to be writting stuff that I wanted to write, and not just what people seem to be talking about.

If the UK version of Big Brother is any indication at all, racism is alive and well in the planet. I used to derive an almost gleeful satisfaction at telling off people with racist tendencies. Nowadays, with the wisdom that only comes with spending too much time staring at the ceiling trying to fall asleep, I've come to realize that everybody is racist, myself included. We might not verbalize it. We may not say it out loud but just the same, our brains are hardwired to behave like kindergarten brats when dealing with somebody different. We can either just accept that fact or live a long bitter life fending off taunts of "chinks", "nigger" or in my case "chekwa". Nothing defuses a insensitive joke faster than indifference.

Back home, the Chinese is often the butt of racial jokes (not much jews there, for sure). I remember I used to be so incensed when people call me "chekwa", and called my tormentors "indio" in return (Back in Spanish times, Filipinos were derogatorily called "indio" to denote that they were brown-skinned natives compared to the white skinned Spanish occupants).

Trouble is, it is as much a racist's right to mouth racists inanities as it is the right for any victim of racism to mouth back racists remarks. Sure you can educate all those racist scum by making them watch the Discovery channel documentaries ad nauseum but at the end of it all, he is still every bit as racist as before. If at all, he only belatedly learns to keep his mouth shut next time - as his kindergarten teacher have told him years ago ("That's not a very nice thing to say. Now say you're sorry").

Besides, it's not as if you can change the color of your skin when people taunt you. Or change your sexual preference when people call you a faggot. In my opinion, you only take offense when you yourself are unhappy with what you are and nothing makes you angrier than being reminded so. You are what you are. Sticks and stones may break my bones but you are what you are. Deal with it.

The point is, being racist is expected from humans, probably a survival instinct to keep close to your own kind and scorn the rest of humanity. But being politically incorrect is an all together different beast. It takes a measure of enlightenment to know when you are being a "good" racist and when you are being a politically incorrect racist. At most, people merely demonstrate their own idiocy when they behave like politically incorrect racists, while the "enlightened" racists will just shut up. But we are all racists nonetheless, sometimes at least.

Now if we just acknowledge this fact in good humour, then maybe things will be better. As a song from Avenue Q goes -
"If we all could just admit
That we are racist a little bit,
Even though we all know
That it's wrong,
Maybe it would help us
Get along."


  

"Creativity is a form of rebellion. Creativity is inherently subversive in nature."

So I heard while I was mopping the floor this particularly warm afternoon, in this red dot of an island that has forever aspired to be creative. Pushing the boundaries. Thinking out of the box. Challenging the conventional. I wonder if the irony was lost on those called upon to be creative. Thinking out of the box from a bigger box? Pushing the boundaries from the outside? Challenging the conventional by coming up with new twists of the conventional?

Or maybe they mistake creativity with ingenuity, or maybe with inventiveness. Necessity, after all, is the mother of invention. God knows how much necessities we need nowadays - getting a taxi on a Saturday afternoon in Takashimaya not the least of them. We sure need to think of a more "creative" way of getting taxis nowadays. The other day, 2 taxi drivers waved us off because we were with a cat. We thought of bundling Mr Brown up with swaths of cloth in the hopes that taxi drivers will mistake him for a cuddly baby. But Mr Brown kept on sticking his 4 paws out that people must have thought he was Rosemary's Baby.  We had to abandon the "creative" plan altogether.

So how does one be "creative" without pushing the wrong the buttons? Without raising a religious jihad? Or stirring moral crusaders to a frenzy? Is there such a thing as "safe creativity?" Does creativity need to serve a higher purpose? Or can creativity be for a purely creative purpose? Mr Brown caught a lizard the other day and he balled up the remains of the lizard in a nice nifty package and presented this gift to us while we were sleeping. Creative, this cat is. In bad taste but creative.

 
I was about to leave a comment of "you are never too old to change" in somebody's blog when I paused to think about scenarios closer to home. Funny how conundrums are answered with enigmas masquerading as simple truth. Nothing is simple and straight-forward when you hit the age of 30, no matter how simple or straight-forward it looks. 

While some people are trying to break out of their pre-cast moulds, I, on the hand, have been a square peg instructed (or forced) to try to fit into a round hole. A lot of cutting corners but I often feel that I will end up a skewed oblong trying to fit into that round hole. If I cut too much and end up a smaller round peg, is that still considered a job well done? Or is that the price we have to pay for advancement? 

The future is bright. Too bright. I have to wear shades.

I guess it comes to everyone in one form or another, when the daily drudgery of existence takes over and casts a long shadow over everything else. Its been a long time since I was inspired. My passions seems to have dissipated,  wandered elsewhere and lost its way. 

Small joys are brushed aside.  Placcid simplicity has lost its innocence. The daily headlong rush to fulfill obligations have ushered in a psychic winter - cold and formless. I guess this what they refer to as a mid-life crisis. Sigh.

I remember the soothing voice and the warm beer in a foreign place. I remember him singing Carole King and a thought came. "If he sings "Up on the Roof" then I know everything will be okay" - a gambit for the improbable, one of desperation even, a pitiful attempt to justify the fate that lay before me. But he did sing my song. I smiled. It was then that I knew that everything will be okay.

While shedding my skin, I came across an alchemist. Between half-hearted intentions and a quest for self-delusion, the alchemist says "I'm afraid of being disappointed, thus I prefer to dream." Some say change is good. I prefer to merely dream about change. Change is such an arrogant prick.

Oh, to stay adrift in a sea of square rooms, waiting for the edge of the world to take me.

Wakefulness at 11 AM can be such bliss.