Category: Uncategorized

booklisting (and other rants)

march punya list. (cewah sebab dah berjaya tengok part 1)

  1. Man and Nature, Nasr.
  2. The Book of Disquiet, Pessoa.
  3. Deliverance from Error, Ghazali (reread)
  4. Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard (reread because it is terribly funnily cryptic)
So summer. i finished on the road, finally, after it has been lying dormant for months. oh a novel, must i read any more novels again after this, i thought, but went through it nevertheless, after skipping countless dinners, train rides, plane rides, and so on, and so forth. don’t think i’m going to read any more of his works after this. All this Dharma/Tao/Zen/Buddha thing going on between Salinger and Keroac and Hesse is really too predictable a path for them, anyway. Eastern Mysticism. I’m bored to tears (now). I have nothing more to extract from them but fragments of shady universal truths. Dismissal. How terrible of me.

Then Saramago, which is an excellent way to actually tediously study the things happening around you in a very sedentary manner. dissociation from reality in order to idealize/idolize your fantasies. poor Ricardo Reis. what a terrible fate. A Marcenda is a passive Tereza.

Danarto. Aaah, Rintrik (among the countless others) is possibly the most visual poignant meaningful short story I have ever read in my entire life.

Borges is impossible to read. nuff said.

can’t read anything inside the house anymore. only shariati, the only truly wonderfully useful thing to read with natural ease which reminds me i need to write down the name of the book he always quote from from every single one of his lectures. yes yes yes. you see, i have no one to talk to on this. not that i haven’t tried, mind you, but they either don’t read that much, don’t care, uninterested, or more admitting-ly, i’m the one who’s afraid of the ones who have really discussed them. 
but is there really a need to communicate, after all? all these book discussions and book clubs, talking about people and books and not about it in themselves. a very short introduction on the KOMSAS side of things. i guess it helps for the masses. aih, no more belittling people, maisarah. it is futile. distancing yourself, settling on establishing differences between you and other people is actually stupid. goodbye Jung, goodbye Kiersey, I have moved on.
let’s talk about the quadrant. now there is something inherently interesting about the number four. in terms of personality –  that is from Jung’s Sensing Thinking Feeling Intuitive dominances, the archetypes, to the ancient Hippocrates’ Humors, the Pleghmetic, Choleric, Melancholic, and Sanguine, and even in Ghazali’s typing of The Seekers;Theologian-SPs, Batiniyyah (Authoratives, maybe?)-SJs , Philosophers-NTs, Mystics-NFs. Also, there’s life, infancy, adulthood, maturity, and old age. and the weather – summer, winter, spring, autumn. interesting indeed. but what was i going to say? nothing, just pointing a fact of the four and how it all correlates into one big massive illumination. life is one big validation.

maybe i should write more, concretely. yes ye yes, perhaps, one day. for now (tomorrow), i need some signal processing to study. 

how to read a book

by hamza yusuf.

Part 1

Part 2

mungkin tugasan malam ini. rasa macam tak cukup mature nak buat apa apa sekarang. in the words of the argentinian neighbour, “Learn, and only you will grow”. so yes, kamu boleh lihat aku berbahasa melayu sekarang. it just means that i am less uptight. or more ecstatic.

ach, sick and tired of learning, need more creating. should kill myself to sleep tonight. yes yes yes. scattered writings all over books and notebooks and notepads and small ones and everything. i’ve never been so erratic my whole life (or not), but no one cares, ya know. too many things to do. yes yes yes, no longer bored. just filling dutifully time spent. haih.

in another unrelated matter, since i am no longer, say, angry, i’d just say, i’m somewhat disappointed. that is all. muse or no muse, there will be no mention of this any longer.

such long long paragraphs, none published.
so many words rolled out, none assembled.
so many thoughts pouring out, none verbal
so many smiles and grins constructed, none actual.

i should rightly go
and dip my head into the sea
and swim swim into the rising sun.
tomorrow.

hello world

because i can just so easily dismiss SJ people whenever i like so yes, i can dismiss her as well. after all, why must we attain a life not ours? i must convince myself not to be troubled by the actions of people that are constituently different from me, because well, there is no point. we learn from them nevertheless, and each and everyone on earth is one great teacher just waiting to spat their unassuming wisdom every other second.

doesnt mean we must forge the same path as them. but lets not talk about the future, it is ever approaching and you can never anticipate what and when an emotional storm might come to you. i am content. not complacent. just content.

at any rate, i shall be looking forward to winter. might start to think what o do. do i need $5 fish and chips for myself again? or must i leap into the unknown and savour every other thought ad culture and ideas travel travel and forget thoreau forgetting kierkegaard forgetting pessoa and be as merry as i can and face reality at its truest at last?

will you marry it, it marry it, marry it.

the applicant, sylvia plath. it is always a pleasant feeling to read something underlined by some stranger. i actually like tulips best, out of ariel. maybe it was irony. i like to think of her as being the perfect embodiment of…  i don’t know, something. stately. 
First, are you our sort of a person?
Do you wear
A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,
A brace or a hook,
Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch,

Stitches to show something’s missing? No, no? Then
How can we give you a thing?
Stop crying.
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. Here is a hand

To fill it and willing
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do whatever you tell it.
Will you marry it?
It is guaranteed

To thumb shut your eyes at the end
And dissolve of sorrow.
We make new stock from the salt.
I notice you are stark naked
How about this suit –

Black and stiff, but not a bad fit. 
Will you marry it?
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they’ll bury you in it.

Now your head, excuse me, is empty.
I have the ticket for that.
Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
Well, what do you think of that?
Naked as paper to start

But in twenty-five years she’ll be silver,
In fifty, gold.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk, talk.

It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a hole, it’s a poultice.
You have an eye, it’s an image.
My boy, it’s your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.

maybe i should let this go. the build up is too daunting. i am not resigning. merely, retreating. until something happens. but not on my part. i am never one for actions, kan?
goodnight. 

can’t hold her together

it is almost a fleeting feeling that continuously assails us, that begins in the stomach, that lingers, in a most silver fashion, silver because it does have a very specific color pertaining to it, why i don’t really know. to try and explain it, explaining requires hard work, and as we are wont to find ourselves in this fairly nervous position, when everyone else is sound asleep.

let us try, nevertheless. but the powers of description has left me, we are no longer required to exalt ourselves beyond the necessary measure, and those fun excited encouraging english teachers you once loved are actually either those who read nicholas sparks or depressive fucks who lack life in their own lives and continue to harrow others.

she has left for malacca this morning. no, not you. her. one of those people you really don’t mind laughing out loud with. to instantly carry on where you have left her. why am i speaking in such simplistic tones. that does not satisfy you enough? you want me to be specific. geh. geh. much demands, yet you offer no compensation of any sort. i am tired. and why does this remind me of that miller movie.

there are no prejudices. even if there are, you don’t mind. she is nice, and that is all there to it. girl with a heart of gold, as zooey would say. the cute one. these people don’t command names for themselves. i like to remain nameless. and like her, i don’t like to leave impressions. i’m tired of trying. all this is paltry.

where did i even get that word from, paltry. i found a notebook tucked somewhere in the shelf the other day, it was this uh, mini dictionary i kept for myself while first starting beyond good and evil. there was a time when evil was attractive. now everything seems pale. you, you rebel aspirant, seem to be yearning for this. to acquire a life not your own, and continue to dream for impossible circumstances that will never come your way. life is not elsewhere. kundera is wrong, and as soon as the orchestra is over, while magical at first listen, it soon becomes dull. maybe i read jung too much.

but do continue, please. alright. what now. nothing. i want new books. maybe i’ll finish the yellow one tomorrow, because it really is boring. dialogues are the only thing that matters. and gestures. i suppose. if you read the year and death of ricardo reis, you’d find no dialog boxes. what are they called? collumns? colons? sounds about right. oh emulation. no, i prefer doing this a long time ago. prose if more preferable than poetry.

what i find funny is slowly you are catching up with all the remnants of the yesteryears. as if you need time to mature and understand it all. but i don’t find them interesting no more. i’d read me a little franny on a train ride if that pleases me every now and then, but i don’t know. six years i’ve held it already. i am in the process of abandoning, something. purging is the word, but using the same words over and over is boring. we used relinquished before, but that is the process of the self. not your possessions.

so how do you feel now. pure? i don’t know, i did not love them, so it torments me not. they are after all, buku buku yang kurang penting. clockwork orange was alright, but like i told you, it does not appeal to me no longer. vulgarity is now repulsive. it has always been that way. you laugh, but you let out a nervous laugh. you do not approve, but it is afterall, something that assails your senses, uncomfortably. chuck all your palahniuks into fire, they do nothing but provoke annoyingly.

besides, after the incident of a certain mister N (a self-obsessed condescending “poet”) refusing to lend books to a very Young, Indifferent but Occasionally-Enthusiastic, uh, person, combined with a little dose of Walden, screaming his simplicity and self sufficient ideas, the very notion of hoarding books and moving them in boxes and then taking days to rearrange em neatly on your newly bought shelf seems stupid. troublesome.

what i really wanted to say is this, that i am past defining myself.

goodnight.

on the west end of the map

this will end. i am struck with a sickness of some kind. a bout of melancholia, if you please. she blurted out to me, i hate to look at your face right now, you’re so bald. you’re saying i’m ugly. i am not, it’s just, ah, i am not in the mood to engage in anything right now. it’s the weather. it’s the bloody rain. it’s the sweat. it’s the country.

it is not sadness that smothers us rather something of a peculiar nature, i am thoroughly still. nothing moves. there are no dancing stars to cause chaos. treating things as if they didn’t matter. i thought all of your sibling reads books. no, it’s just me, with the exception of my father. everyone else falls into normalcy.

he is silent. but in his silence he moves around the coast, batting his eyes here and there, make an exclamation without an exclamation mark, a mere monotonous announcement for anyone who cares enough to listen, his audience gone, he speaks to no one now, his words; everything is directed to the air, easily dispersed, yet they vanish within seconds.

yet i am always listening. only, i want to be your sole audience.

i am sorry. there is no spite, only bitterness.

swiftly she moves along

“I’ve always rejected being understood. To be understood is to prostitute oneself. I prefer to be taken seriously for what I’m not, remaining humanly unknown, with naturalness and all due respect”

-Fernando Pessoa.

i just feel like including this, is all. i might just go ahead and buy the book itself. or wait three more weeks and borrow it from the library instead. it can wait.

what affairs do i have left here anymore? i have seen enough of my friends, for meeting people in flesh seems no longer appealing, with the words you manage to transmit across each other over this virtual world, over the phone is far more than what you will speak to each other in person. it is always this case with you and i. the problem is insoluble, says Virginia Woolf. so be it, so be it.

then again, i do still have that star wars poster somewhere in the living room. to think that i borrowed ten dollars for this. it needs to be given, but it has not been mentioned. let it dust. let us not trouble ourselves with the task of carrying one in a crowded train with all the sweaty women. they like to think of themselves guarded in their little department.

always take the left coach when boarding the ktm at the ukm station, and proceed to the right. people, when bound to the left, will always keep left. but let not that be you. chances are, you’ll get yourself a nice seat and a quiet 40 minutes of reading.

in fact, i have no need for any physical representation anymore. one does not need to profess, to extort or to implicate the things you like in exclamation forms. they are useless anyway. we ought to be ashamed, not proud to have given way to such trifle things.

perhaps i have lost the power of expression. i am uninteresting right now. i have marred myself with some exhausting read and now my faculties are slow. but one learns to see. one learns to learn with the slow.

i cannot type anything anymore, everything gets jumbled up in one entry. there is simply no consolation within a single post. one needs to start a fresh, and let that be during the morning. nights are only reserved for simple astronomy lessons during the full moon.

father says he only needs around four to five of sleep everyday. he wakes up before five each morning and does his tahajud and zikr. i sometimes see him do this. says humans need only around three hours of truly deep sleep, one that gives rest, not some mindless daydreaming. one needs only training.

mother says it is always possible not to eat a meal every single day. we were looking at this really corporate guy, contemplating on his stomach. would you like a dad with that stomach. no. of course not. gluttony. the polar bears can survive a summer without eating. muhammad only ate dates and a glass of water when he breaks his fast. well he was very, sederhana. one needs only training.

goodbye.

they always want to invent names

for themselves. funny ones that don’t make sense. there is fire, water, and earth. and what is another? is it air? maybe. we need another one to complete ourselves. who would be a good candidate?

but no one. no one cares. he probably spoke of her, passingly, as if she didn’t matter. but passingly can mean something. a fleeting thought. but a probability nevertheless. everything suspends.
suspense. or is it agony? neither. anticipation? maybe. if we crawl around each other, will we finally converge in the end? is there such an ending? would you like it to be so?
probably he hast lost his vigor for writing, or his prime mover never moves anymore, everything is hidden. perhaps he is hiding. or busying himself with boring people again. tell me, do you find your company pleasant at the moment?
no? let me tell you about my mother. everyone from her past life, before she got married, was erased. perhaps it was time, or the lack of means for communication, but she did not busied herself to reconnect, as the word goes, and everything way back simply does not exist. 
but this is about you. or about no one for that matter. no one floats infinitely. 
i could picture this, the scene keeps building and improvised every waking hour. a prelude to something novel. a novel, perhaps? no, not that. just an inner world, if you please. perhaps in another two years. 
i thought of a joke yesterday. if someone asked me what did i read during my uh, budding high school years, i’d say, nietzsche or some other dude with wild eyes, and if they asked me whether i was an existentialist, i’d say, i am an ex existentialist.so does that mean i’m non existent?
funny? no?
i knew you liked 9gags jokes better.