Sunday, February 12, 2006
SHOUT!
I've added a shoutbox to my blog. It's on the right hand panel if you didnt notice! Please leave messages there if you want to. Click on "get one" at the bottom of it if you want one for your own blog.... Have fun!
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Idle thoughts...
Every once in a way I wonder, as every human with too much time in their hands does, why are we here? No, I don't mean the Internet, though that is an equally puzzling question (hmm... interesting... but that's another story for another post). I mean... why are we here, on earth, living. The meaning of life, the universe and everything, if you will. What's the point of it all? We live, eat, speak, procreate--or not--, laugh, cry and die. What is the point of it all?
Maybe as unborn foetuses we were aware that it a sheer pointless existence awaits us outside the mother's womb. Perhaps that is why we are born kicking and screaming.... We are aware of what we are getting into. But later we forget. Some of us forget to such an extent that we begin to think that there is, in fact, a huge "purpose" for our existence. That we actually are meant to do something.
Perhaps we are. Sometimes I think that humans evolved (or were put on earth, depending on what you believe in) to destroy it. I mean, maybe we are meant to destroy the earth, like a virus. Maybe the Earth is just a single cell in some unbelievably huge animal. But then again, is that logic talking or the Ego? The need to have a purpose for life. We cannot accept that we are just a piece of conincidence, created and destroyed by the same coincidence.
The human ego is the fountainhead of all our beliefs. I think I lifted that from somewhere... Ayn Rand or something, but it's true. All our belief systems are based on an overblown perception of ourselves, a strong belief--or perhaps wishful thinking--on the superiority of the human race. We are presumptuous enough to talk of a greater Being and imagine narrow mindedly that we were fashioned after such a Being and that It can, in fact, be defined by shallow human terms.
The highest expression of human Ego is the belief that all our insignificant little activities are actually important to anyone but us. But when you think about it, we humans are the freaks of nature. We go against almost every rule of nature. Yet we consider ourselves superior to all other forms of being. We call ourselves intelligent and speak of that intelligence as something precious when in fact it is the root of all destruction on earth.
GASP! Take a breath Jan. Man, I hate getting all philosophical and thoughtful but these thoughts have been stewing in my mind for sometime so they needed an outlet. I guess my blog was the best place to dump them. I was just interrupted in the middle of writing this and when I came back I realised how...I dunno... stupid all this sounds. But then, it's my stupidity so I don't want to delete it when I immortalise it in the world of the internet.
Basically, I havent written anything in a while. Really wanted to put up something. So pliz excoos!
Maybe as unborn foetuses we were aware that it a sheer pointless existence awaits us outside the mother's womb. Perhaps that is why we are born kicking and screaming.... We are aware of what we are getting into. But later we forget. Some of us forget to such an extent that we begin to think that there is, in fact, a huge "purpose" for our existence. That we actually are meant to do something.
Perhaps we are. Sometimes I think that humans evolved (or were put on earth, depending on what you believe in) to destroy it. I mean, maybe we are meant to destroy the earth, like a virus. Maybe the Earth is just a single cell in some unbelievably huge animal. But then again, is that logic talking or the Ego? The need to have a purpose for life. We cannot accept that we are just a piece of conincidence, created and destroyed by the same coincidence.
The human ego is the fountainhead of all our beliefs. I think I lifted that from somewhere... Ayn Rand or something, but it's true. All our belief systems are based on an overblown perception of ourselves, a strong belief--or perhaps wishful thinking--on the superiority of the human race. We are presumptuous enough to talk of a greater Being and imagine narrow mindedly that we were fashioned after such a Being and that It can, in fact, be defined by shallow human terms.
The highest expression of human Ego is the belief that all our insignificant little activities are actually important to anyone but us. But when you think about it, we humans are the freaks of nature. We go against almost every rule of nature. Yet we consider ourselves superior to all other forms of being. We call ourselves intelligent and speak of that intelligence as something precious when in fact it is the root of all destruction on earth.
GASP! Take a breath Jan. Man, I hate getting all philosophical and thoughtful but these thoughts have been stewing in my mind for sometime so they needed an outlet. I guess my blog was the best place to dump them. I was just interrupted in the middle of writing this and when I came back I realised how...I dunno... stupid all this sounds. But then, it's my stupidity so I don't want to delete it when I immortalise it in the world of the internet.
Basically, I havent written anything in a while. Really wanted to put up something. So pliz excoos!
Friday, February 10, 2006
Calvin... yet again.
Ok, bill watterson is probably gonna sue me or something.... But couldn't resist!
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Spider... Hmmmmmmmmm
You are Spider-Man
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz
| You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.  |
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Unanswered questions
At some point in life, all of us go through a phase of sheer madness. To me, these phases are a regular phenomena. A brain child (or brainless child) or one such mood of mine is my new blog, "Life's Unanswered Questions" (TADA! Trumpets, please.) Please check it out here
Enjoy having your dain bramaged.
With lots and lotsa love from me!!!
Enjoy having your dain bramaged.
With lots and lotsa love from me!!!
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Dots and dashes
There's something about punctuation. I read a lot and most--almost all--these books have perfect punctuations. They are all punctuated, italicised, aligned and presented in the proper manner. I guess my eyes are used to properly proofread text. And that it why, I state in my defence, I'm so finicky about punctutation.
A page of print with incorrect punctuation, spellings or any kind of error seems to drive me crazy. My hands itch to grab it, edit it and throw it back from whence it sprang! And this is kind of inconvenient, especially when people ask me my opinion on anything they've written. This doesn't happen a lot but we generally swap stories in my creative writing class and you can imagine how disconcerting it must be for a budding--er--creative writer to be criticised on how many dots ideally go into an elipse--three--and how multiple exclamation marks are a huge no-no for writing. So, I am forced to keep my diplomatic silence and struggle to look beyong the mundane--the world of proper punctuation--and into the deeper plane, that of the actual matter written.
I guess I'm one of those rare indivuiduals who are not irritated overmuch with the Grammar and Spelling checker on Microsoft Word. Of course, I agree with most people regarding how irritating the message "Fragment. Consider revising." can be. I mean, sometimes you want it to be a bleeding fragment. But oh... I love auto-corrects which turn double hyphens into emdashes and single hypens into endashes. And replace-alls are so wonderful!
I'm sure I've just revealed what a lunatic I am from the above. I mean, who obsesses over puntuations? Who really gives a damn what the hell an emdash is? But again, I defend myself that everyone has a pet obsession and this is mine. Who doesn't? Let me see a show of hands? Wasn't there a guy who obsessed over his coins? Silas something? And what about... hmm... oh, yes! What about dogs who can't sleep or even lie down without circling the ground a couple of times? Never mind that the first was fictitious and the latter is an animal. It illustrates my point well enough. I'm not neurotic or kooky just because I believe that all your i's should be dotted and your t's crossed...literally!
If you're still not convinced, fine! I am a kook. But at least I'm a well-edited kook! Now how many people can claim that? Mwahahaha!
A page of print with incorrect punctuation, spellings or any kind of error seems to drive me crazy. My hands itch to grab it, edit it and throw it back from whence it sprang! And this is kind of inconvenient, especially when people ask me my opinion on anything they've written. This doesn't happen a lot but we generally swap stories in my creative writing class and you can imagine how disconcerting it must be for a budding--er--creative writer to be criticised on how many dots ideally go into an elipse--three--and how multiple exclamation marks are a huge no-no for writing. So, I am forced to keep my diplomatic silence and struggle to look beyong the mundane--the world of proper punctuation--and into the deeper plane, that of the actual matter written.
I guess I'm one of those rare indivuiduals who are not irritated overmuch with the Grammar and Spelling checker on Microsoft Word. Of course, I agree with most people regarding how irritating the message "Fragment. Consider revising." can be. I mean, sometimes you want it to be a bleeding fragment. But oh... I love auto-corrects which turn double hyphens into emdashes and single hypens into endashes. And replace-alls are so wonderful!
I'm sure I've just revealed what a lunatic I am from the above. I mean, who obsesses over puntuations? Who really gives a damn what the hell an emdash is? But again, I defend myself that everyone has a pet obsession and this is mine. Who doesn't? Let me see a show of hands? Wasn't there a guy who obsessed over his coins? Silas something? And what about... hmm... oh, yes! What about dogs who can't sleep or even lie down without circling the ground a couple of times? Never mind that the first was fictitious and the latter is an animal. It illustrates my point well enough. I'm not neurotic or kooky just because I believe that all your i's should be dotted and your t's crossed...literally!
If you're still not convinced, fine! I am a kook. But at least I'm a well-edited kook! Now how many people can claim that? Mwahahaha!
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Time...
We humans have created a lot of traps for ourselves and we seem to revel in being caught in them. One of these traps is time. Man is the only animal which is obsessed with keeping track of and measuring time. All our lives are built around one kind of time table or the other. We have scedules that we feel we must meet or the world will come to an end.
Do we do this because we need to feel special or important? Man is at constant war with nature, no matter what ecologist and environmentalists try. It's not so much a struggle for space as it is for power. Man knows that nature is thousands of times more powerful than he is. He may be able to maim and conquer it today, but the inexorable hand of time will prove yet again that man is just a part of a whole that is still supremely controlled by nature.
Which comes back to time. By trying to control the little slice of time, man is able to delude himself that he has some control over the world at that point. But isn't this is just an illusion? No matter what, man's influence is only temporary, in the big picture. Sure, we've changed the face of the earth, but for how long? How soon is man going to kill himself off or end all life on earth? But no matter what man does, the earth itself will not change. Life will go on even after man is long gone and not even a memory of him remains. Nature will revive life even if the earth is just a toxic dump when man is through with it. At least cockroaches or some such resilient creature will remain.
But while man lives, I guss these illusions are necessary. After I'm done writing this, I'm going to look at my watch and make sure I have enough time to get ready to go out. I am going to be enslaved by the need to mark time as much as anyone else. That today is saturday and tomorrow is sunday is going to matter as much as ever.
Do we do this because we need to feel special or important? Man is at constant war with nature, no matter what ecologist and environmentalists try. It's not so much a struggle for space as it is for power. Man knows that nature is thousands of times more powerful than he is. He may be able to maim and conquer it today, but the inexorable hand of time will prove yet again that man is just a part of a whole that is still supremely controlled by nature.
Which comes back to time. By trying to control the little slice of time, man is able to delude himself that he has some control over the world at that point. But isn't this is just an illusion? No matter what, man's influence is only temporary, in the big picture. Sure, we've changed the face of the earth, but for how long? How soon is man going to kill himself off or end all life on earth? But no matter what man does, the earth itself will not change. Life will go on even after man is long gone and not even a memory of him remains. Nature will revive life even if the earth is just a toxic dump when man is through with it. At least cockroaches or some such resilient creature will remain.
But while man lives, I guss these illusions are necessary. After I'm done writing this, I'm going to look at my watch and make sure I have enough time to get ready to go out. I am going to be enslaved by the need to mark time as much as anyone else. That today is saturday and tomorrow is sunday is going to matter as much as ever.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
"Except for perhaps a few dozen people on earth each person reads the same words differently. And the joke get bigger because each day the same person reads the same words differently.
And the joke gets even bigger as the mind’s needs and hormones changes the meanings of these same words in the same person from minute to minute and second to second.
And the Supreme Comedy can only rocket to another level when you ask me what these words mean when I have nothing to do with the way the meanings of words change from person to person let alone minute to minute.
And the Supreme Comedy rockets yet to another hilarious level when dictionaries then go on to tell us, with the utmost authority, that the same words can have different meanings, in different ways but not on different days."
-Source Unknown
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Reader's block...
I'm sure anyone who's tried to write regularly has stumbled upon the painful and mysterious phenomenon of the writer's block. The thoughts would probably fill the mind to the bursting but the minute the pen touches the paper/the fingers touch the keys, the mind goes blank. The words just won't flow.
Well, I'm not gonna talk about that. I mean, who cares. As long as I'm not afflicted with it, who gives a flying damn? Self-centered, you say? True... too true...
But what I do suffer from is a rare affliction. In fact, I think I might have invented it. Many years from now, it shall become a famous incurable even somewhat fatal disease named after me... Jan Sydrome. Wow! The thought fills me with an odd kinda elation. Immortalised through a disease. How many people can claim that in this day and age?
Anyway, back to the actual details of this mysterious affliction. I'm, anyone who knows me will tell you, a serious bookworm. A maniacal bookworm too. While I'm sure that there are people who read much more than I did, do or ever will, I nevertheless read a lot. Lately, however, my reading has come to a complete halt. I pick up a book, read a few lines and wham! I cant concentrate. At first I thought it was just the books I was choosing.
But to my horror, I discovered that nothing - I repeat nothing - could snap me out of that rut. I tried everything--all my favourite authors. Douglas Adams, Jordan, Gabaldon, Rowling, Nora Roberts. I tried some obscure vampire book I had lying around. I tried a much unread copy of Great Expectations, but nope. No deal.
But there is hope for me. By the mercy of the all that is good, I happened to be gifted a copy of Wodehouse's Full Moon -- A Blandings Story for new year. And yes! This seems to be the right cure for J.S. (Jan Syndrome :D) I'm now into the whole crack-pot life of Blandins Castle with the usual bunch of youngsters in love running around, plotting parents, not to mention miscellaneous crackpot noblemen and their maniacal pigs. Ah! I was in heaven!
Hats off, Pelham!
Well, I'm not gonna talk about that. I mean, who cares. As long as I'm not afflicted with it, who gives a flying damn? Self-centered, you say? True... too true...
But what I do suffer from is a rare affliction. In fact, I think I might have invented it. Many years from now, it shall become a famous incurable even somewhat fatal disease named after me... Jan Sydrome. Wow! The thought fills me with an odd kinda elation. Immortalised through a disease. How many people can claim that in this day and age?
Anyway, back to the actual details of this mysterious affliction. I'm, anyone who knows me will tell you, a serious bookworm. A maniacal bookworm too. While I'm sure that there are people who read much more than I did, do or ever will, I nevertheless read a lot. Lately, however, my reading has come to a complete halt. I pick up a book, read a few lines and wham! I cant concentrate. At first I thought it was just the books I was choosing.
But to my horror, I discovered that nothing - I repeat nothing - could snap me out of that rut. I tried everything--all my favourite authors. Douglas Adams, Jordan, Gabaldon, Rowling, Nora Roberts. I tried some obscure vampire book I had lying around. I tried a much unread copy of Great Expectations, but nope. No deal.
But there is hope for me. By the mercy of the all that is good, I happened to be gifted a copy of Wodehouse's Full Moon -- A Blandings Story for new year. And yes! This seems to be the right cure for J.S. (Jan Syndrome :D) I'm now into the whole crack-pot life of Blandins Castle with the usual bunch of youngsters in love running around, plotting parents, not to mention miscellaneous crackpot noblemen and their maniacal pigs. Ah! I was in heaven!
Hats off, Pelham!
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Ah, the pain...
I have discoverd a great, yawning hole in my life. A hole that cannot be filled with anything. Except perhaps with pain. In fact, it is filled with pain. So maybe it's not such a yawning hole after all. Strike that first sentence. Which would mean, strike out the whole thing.
I have discovered a great pain in my heart. In my soul. It is created, I believe, by the discovery of my inability for greatness. Ah, yes. I can see the reader sigh in sympathy (perhaps I should refer to myself as "this writer" or "this blogger" [nah, always thought that sounded too pompus {though I wouldnt mind a little pompousness (but then only great people deserve pomposness... and I'm not. [Enough with the brackets!])}]) Phew.... where was I? Oh, right. The pain. I have discovered that I can never and will never achieve greatness in my life, cos let's face it, my life doesn't suck.
I mean, all the famous people have had some great tragedy in their life or the other. The great poets... Keats, Shelley, Shakespeare. I'm sure everyone who's ever made it to greatness had some sorrow in life or the other that inspired their greatness. And me, I'm usually a disgustingly cheerful person. I'm happy with life in general. Sure, I have a hot temper. Sure, I like to bitch about people as much as the next person. But please. I'm not languishing over some unrequited love. I'm not mourning my poverty. I'm not concerned about the loss of innocence in the world. I'm not even fricking angry with the Government. At least, not enough. Where do I draw inspiration from? From whence will those noble or elevated thoughts flow? What is to become of me? Of my family and the future generations who will lack an illustrious ancestor.
'Tis a sad, sad situation. I'm never gonna make it big. Fame is not for me. Booooo hooooo! I'm going to live out my whole life in ignominy and annonymity.
Ah, who cares?
Life's good.
So, ha! Take your fame world, and stuff it! I have enough pain about the absense of pain in my life to fill in a blog entry and enough people who don't know me to read it. So, there. After all, fame is but a fickle mistress.... fleeting and temporary. Ignominy would be a much more loyal servant, I'm sure!
I have discovered a great pain in my heart. In my soul. It is created, I believe, by the discovery of my inability for greatness. Ah, yes. I can see the reader sigh in sympathy (perhaps I should refer to myself as "this writer" or "this blogger" [nah, always thought that sounded too pompus {though I wouldnt mind a little pompousness (but then only great people deserve pomposness... and I'm not. [Enough with the brackets!])}]) Phew.... where was I? Oh, right. The pain. I have discovered that I can never and will never achieve greatness in my life, cos let's face it, my life doesn't suck.
I mean, all the famous people have had some great tragedy in their life or the other. The great poets... Keats, Shelley, Shakespeare. I'm sure everyone who's ever made it to greatness had some sorrow in life or the other that inspired their greatness. And me, I'm usually a disgustingly cheerful person. I'm happy with life in general. Sure, I have a hot temper. Sure, I like to bitch about people as much as the next person. But please. I'm not languishing over some unrequited love. I'm not mourning my poverty. I'm not concerned about the loss of innocence in the world. I'm not even fricking angry with the Government. At least, not enough. Where do I draw inspiration from? From whence will those noble or elevated thoughts flow? What is to become of me? Of my family and the future generations who will lack an illustrious ancestor.
'Tis a sad, sad situation. I'm never gonna make it big. Fame is not for me. Booooo hooooo! I'm going to live out my whole life in ignominy and annonymity.
Ah, who cares?
Life's good.
So, ha! Take your fame world, and stuff it! I have enough pain about the absense of pain in my life to fill in a blog entry and enough people who don't know me to read it. So, there. After all, fame is but a fickle mistress.... fleeting and temporary. Ignominy would be a much more loyal servant, I'm sure!
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