Random Thoughts Of A Driftwood

Gratitude is way overrated. The reason? Isn't it a natural tendency in all of us to be grateful to what has helped us, to what has been advantageous to us. It is in my opinion, an evolutionary and even primal sense within us that does things for selfish reasons. The point is that we are grateful in the hopes that we get more good things from whatever we are grateful for. It is absolutely a selfish feeling. There is nothing selfless about just saying you are grateful to someone or something. But I suppose we all do it, like bugs attracted to the glowing bright light. And why do we feel grateful for things that are absolutely not under our control at all... like existing? We can all appreciate what we have, what we've been through, the people we know, art, beauty, noble acts, bravery, and maybe for some, even money. While the the disparity between gratefulness and appreciation is perhaps not as great as I put it. Perhaps I am nitpicking, but the word grateful ...

Eternal questions of origin and creator, Eternally off limits, eternally unquestionable, If it wasn't for you, we'd all be mute passive mules, God bless the atheists For the mule lets others to ride it, To command it, you shan't think for yourself, To be a human means to have free will, to ruminate, To break the shackles of which that constricts our thoughts, God bless the atheists Death is a certainty, Life is fleeting, It is of utmost importance to make it meaningful, The question of what is good? What is noble, What is beautiful,  is a worthy one, God bless the atheists While you no longer exist, Truly have you become transcendent, immortal An irony that it didn't take God for it to happen, but the brilliant words of a man, nothing special... nothing divine... just man, God bless the atheists Christopher Hitchens 13th April 1949 - 15th December 2011

From Home... That Was Not My Home A legacy... that was born out of hatred, destruction and humiliation, A generation bred on the denigration that is thrust like a sword, In one fell swoop, a homeless child no longer cries, She is struck by the despondency of the situation, Rising up to quell the occupation, Revolution! Revolution She Cries! The cries are silenced... Melancholy stirs the air, Hatred, destruction, humiliation... the circle is complete, From Home... That Was Not My Home

If there ever was a person on this planet, that I would have loved to have met, it would have been Hitchens(Sagan was the other person). Having read his books, and watched his debates, I always felt like I had this unusual sense of camaraderie with the man(unusual since I have never actually seen him). He was like a friend that was always there to back you up. To remind you to keep your chin up and stand up for your bloody ideals... you sodding downer. He would say it a lot more eloquently though... unless he felt you really needed a 'jolt back into reality'. It has taken me by surprise that his death would affect me this much... much more than actually reading his books(which always was able to make you realise how in depth Hitchens knowledge on any topic he dabbled in was). I feel like there is a sense of urgency, of having a responsibility, to at least... not let the Hitchens ideals down. To hold them up and be proud of them. Absolutely unapologetic, and to put arrogan...

Regrets... everybody has them. Perhaps plenty of them. But for me, there was just one point in my life that I have ever regretted. Not university, studies, girls or the many problems I had in the past. The point was after my SPM examinations. That point in life could have completely redefined the rest of my life. But instead, I picked IT as the field I was going to study in. Big mistake. I didn't realise at that point just what I was naturally good at, my talents. I ignored them to go with my interest at that time.... computers. I still love computers and all geeky techy stuff but I've often wondered what it would have been like had I ignored my temporary itch to study this at that time... mysterious technology for something more grounded... such as say, English. I was a pretty good writer in my schooling days(had a few essays published in the school mag). Loved to write fiction and I had a knack of uniquely expressing dramatic dialogue on paper. I used to scribble and illu...

Recently, I've been bombarded by some rather unpleasant elements at work. Not sure how this all happened but I think it's the fallout from me loosing my temper a little last week. I still don't hold any grudges with anyone but I think some other people aren't exactly... the same. Now word spreads that I'm on my way out of the place I'm working currently. Apparently I told someone that yesterday was supposed to be my last day and that I'm resigning. I don't remember talking to anyone about such a thing. It's a mystery how such talk can sprout from nothing. It seems that people are picking a problem when there is none. Corporate culture is weird. Is it sabotage? to create a problem within the team. I'm really not sure, just going to lay low and let it pass. No point thinking too much about it. My writings have been delayed quite a bit due to the fact I work much longer these days. It's busy days in the studio. Need to get racking on a coupl...

I'm not sure where to start with this particular update. Been having an unbelievably bad week. Working on Deepavali week makes it worse and the shit I go through at work doesn't make it an easier. Things have been delayed quite a bit at work to the point that people are being pushed to the limits. Tempers flared and I sort of lost it. I have to say, perhaps I should have handled the situation a lot better but there is a limit to my patience. I don't normally react the way I did but this was an exception. I'm a lot more patient and nicer. Also the fact that everyone is on a long holiday for Deepavali and me being stuck at work exacerbates the sense of.... loneliness. Pretty depressed about it. It's a personal battle that I have to face from time to time(festive seasons are just so depressing). It's funny that the feeling of loneliness is amplified when I'm with a lot of people(which you might think is contrary to the meaning of loneliness). But this time, i...

I've been learning a little about the art of copywriting. The art of selling using written words. Interesting stuff but rather mysterious. It really does come down to the ad, the message the client wants to send out to the consumer, the theme, the things that the client would like to emphasize. I've found that writing a copy isn't like writing for a blog or a written piece of journalism of fiction or whatever your taste in writing may be.There are mainly three different areas of copy. The main headline, the sub headline and a more detailed excerpt or sales pitch(often written in a short paragraph). Often, it comes down to working closely together with the marketing team from the client and the creative director to ascertain the vision and messaging of an ad. The usual emphasis is on simple, easy to understand language. We are writing text for ads, not a novel. Messaging is kept simple so that consumers won't get confused by the message. But personally, I like to m...

Recently, a friend asked me this rather simple but incredibly challenging question... Who am I? Apparently I'm not supposed to take into account my ideals and principles... which makes answering this question an even more arduous prospect. Without my ideals and principles, I'm but a shell. A vestige of my commitment to upholding everything I believe in. Without my beliefs I am nothing. Our emotions, character, ethics, our interpretation of morality are all the symptoms of our ideals(not the other way round). We may not even realise what our ideals are and in fact discover our ideals, our philosophy and principles later in life as we get educated. And early adulthood is a journey to discover these. Our true self. Discovering our true self is NOT a frivolous pursuit. How can we live our lives without certainty of who we really are? That would be like living on the edge of our existence, never knowing exactly where the wind or the stream will bring us to. Yes... like a driftwo...

So I've been thinking, why do we work? I mean I understand the fact we get a salary and money is used to finance our daily lives but exactly why do we do the things we do at work? Is it really a simple matter of financial incentive that drives us? The fact is, we don't always do the ideal thing we would want to do at work. Everyone ain't working their dream jobs so the motivations and incentives are different. Corporations had often used money and even punishment as a way of getting employees to produce results which I've always found to be rather... offputing. Why can't it be different? Why can't employer employee relationship be more reciprocal or rather about cooperation rather than fear of getting blamed for things? This was something I looked into as I wrote a preliminary write up on Cooperation vs Competition in the free market as an alternative philosophy of business. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we cooperated with other, helping others...

So the whole thing about quiting smoking... didn't quite work out. I lasted about 1 and a half days without cigarettes. So I've dropped plans of rewarding myself with a fancy phone. Will just go for a functional phone instead. Checking the internet and posting on social sites etc. I don't want to talk much about the failure to quit smoking. Won't even think of doing this ever again unless I'm dead serious(which I thought I was). Anyway will m ake another post soon on another topic.

Or rather... a lack of smoke on the... erm... water? I've quit smoking. Or at least, I'm in the process of being smoke free. Today is the first day I haven't had a cigarette since waking up in the morning. It's going to be a really tough month. Already feeling restless and I'm probably going to get a lot more stressed up as the day progresses. I'm being too negative here, but I know how I'll feel when I don't smoke cigarettes for a long while. MISERABLE! The thing about smoking is that it's an addiction. A bad habit that's hard to kill. Lots of thing brings the urge to smoke... music, the time(at night before sleeping is often the strongest and most difficult craving), eating out, hanging out with friends, bla blah blah the list goes on. I just feel like sleeping while listening to some hard hitting metal music... perhaps some Metallica would make me feel better. Not sure if I think properly today :s It's all a blur... and I'm wearing m...

So I couldn't find the books I wanted, mainly the books by Noam Chomsky in our local book stores(I know I can probably buy them online but I like going to a book store). So one fine day as i was browsing the political science section in Kino and found a rather slim selection of books on Anarchism, I saw a book on Mikhail Bakunin which I have heard a lot of especially his writing titled "God and The State". So I decided to pick up this book on this Russian troublemaker/ father/grand father of Anarchism(depending on who you ask). That was nearly a month ago. I'm now more than half way through the book. I decided to go to Kino anyway last Saturday, and get my next book(before I finished the previous one which is not like my usual self) and got myself Hitch 22, the Christopher Hitchens auto biography which has been on my list of books to check out. Not a huge fan of Hitchens but it is interesting that after Bakunin, I would be moving onto another auto biography(Bakun...

First post has always been a tradition with new blogs so here's it.... That's it. I don't really have anything to say. Okay, so the reason I started a new blog is to separate my own views and thoughts into things that just wander into my mind(like the title of this blog... which I might change later once I've got a more catchy title than a rather long and perhaps... clichéd title). This isn't going to be my experimental writing blog but just my thoughts in plain English. Okay so not so plain, as anyone who knows me knows I tend to over think and ramble on and on about something. Just like how I'm doing it now. I've got a couple of ideas and things I have in mind for the next couple of posts(in between the usual ramblings). Any topic goes... Oh and I might post a couple of off topic stuff(if it is even possible to go off topic with random thoughts). So this is a little like a personal blog for me. So don't be surprised if I post kitten pictures and link...