Vineyards in Vienna

There is sunshine in this world.




The next 6 weeks will be pretty tough. Promos are coming and I actually feel mildly motivated to help them through the last hurdle. A new prof is coming to nus and I'm half looking forward to seeing him, to see if he likes my stillborn proposal on art and politics. After that, there will be another 40 odd essays to mark for the ps module. I think I do like the idea of having flexible hours of doing what I like. But just maybe, I'm already tired of living in an ivory tower. I probably need some 'real' work after Masters, to take a break from depressive books. Man... 'One-dimensional Man' by Marcuse is really a powerfully insightful yet depressive book. I'm halfway through the book and I feel so compelled to finish it, despite its ability to make me feel that life is pretty bleak and hopeless. At the same time, I turned to Ecclesiates and it says that I can find joy in toil (5:18-20, 9:7 - 10). Maybe, to experience deep rooted joy, one needs to experience heart wrenching sadness from time to time. Perhaps it is tempting to ask God to banish away all pain and sadness, and in the natural process, joy becomes a more surface and less deeply rooted existential sort of feeling. But won't that make life a bit too predictable; relationships become bland and language rendered empty? I think there have been instances in life when we are all chasing something precious - status, power, material, intangibles, love - only to realize that they are indeed a few pieces of golden nuggets resting on our palms after a period of struggle. Maybe the idea of 'joy in toil' can only be easily grasped when we are always in a constant disposition to surrender these golden nuggets to God. Joy resides in the means and not the end. Exploit me then.