Thoughts

It has been a really fast January, faster than I’ve expected. I haven’t been putting enough efforts to jot down my thoughts. Though I should. I suppose I have a pretty good memory to remember conversations and events that trigger impressions. But life, especially right now in NY, can be quite a smorgasbord of facebook-like conversations and activities. A good memory is quite useless when the mind is not sharp enough to abstract meaningful lessons out of whatever that is left in facebook life. Often, I feel that I have to search deep within myself to connect the various dots of my experiences. But along the way, I’m exhausted by the bone chilling cold and work routine at the UN, and thus trade away my soul-searching card for the more primitive task of finding food and getting enough sleep.

So I’m keeping a journal now, with a few trigger questions. I even included the question from the MAP Application as part of my daily journal: “Achievements and Aspirations in terms of Career and Personal Life”. I don’t think I’ll get the program, though it has been something that I feel God has been urging along; something that makes more sense than my other career options. But still, it is an important question to think about for post-Masters life. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. MLK was referring to greater, and more pressing things, like oppression. But I suppose it is true at a personal level as well. There are things in my life that have died their natural deaths, after I’ve stop to ask, seek and knock, after I've become silent about them. The NY City Fire Department says that carbon monoxide poisoning occurs more often in the winter months when people use their gas stoves to heat the house. Approximately 500 Americans die annually from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. Silence, like carbon monoxide, comes in an odorless but deathly manner.

I wonder how many jobs out there create carbon monoxide. I also wonder (though I’m getting a clearer picture) what is it that I hope to achieve in this fleeting life. I wonder how God speaks to His people specifically, other than the bible. In this world, there are no permanent happy or sad endings, for such endings belong to the world of fantasy, says Saul Alinsky. He is right, but that sermon can only be for a congregation of atheists. In a finite world, life is indeed a “stream of events that surges endlessly onward with death as the only terminus”. This is the only world that we are born into, and this is where we start… to tear down fallacy after fallacy, to abolish the wall between idealism and reality.

“What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put enmity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil – this is God’s gift to man,” says the wise man who wrote Ecclesiastes.

I don’t think that the wise man has suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning, nor has he transcended himself into Nietzsche’s tragedy. What he has achieved is a relationship with God who is Greater than him. Maybe I’ve tried to search for a cause greater than myself. But that cause would either send me towards Alinsky’s path of endless struggles, or Nietzsche’s tragedy. Not that I do not know this about myself. But I’ve been escaping from God, unknowingly. Because of natural deaths, and carbon monoxide poisoning. And searching for causes become a more adventurous quest than searching for God, the gift becomes more elusive and enigmatic than the Giver.

So let’s see how it goes from here, to put aside past and incoming natural deaths, and just enjoy God for His providence and grace.

Hard to express how I feel

I didn't feel too good over brunch. Decided to take a solitary walk through Central Park. It was a bit chilly, but I felt better walking among trees and basking in the afternoon sunshine. Most of the trees were quite dead. But you'd see squirrels jumping beneath, and playing with leaves. A simple lesson in philosophy, that we can't have one without the other. Life without death. Humans without society. Desires without drudge. Justice without fear. Contempt without passion. Love without jealousy. Love without vulnerabilities. Are they compliments or contradictions of each? It is quite hard to tell. Try embracing both, for that is idealism at its measured fullness, the 'glorious sadness that brings us to our knees'.

An Empty Bench

Between Two Empty Roads

The Beginning of Hope

So Obama is bringing an end to an error. Or so we all hope. Hope is a good thing when all is cold and bleak. Like fresh sunshine through my frosty morning window.

That's my thumb by the way, clad in Chelsea's lifesaving ski gloves, walking down Grand Central to UN for work. Very cold day! And I'm going to frame up this newspaper when I'm back in Singapore. Historic!

My Academic Retreat

I have a rather minimalist table; the result of scanning much of Michael Walzer's (the theorist whom I'm critiquing) readings into my mac. Guess this will be the place for me to think about my thesis once in a while. Don't exactly have any great urge to visit the touristy parts of New York. Maybe winter just makes one sleepy and lazy to go out. Somehow, the idea of drinking hot coffee and writing thesis at night is more appealing. Let's see how it goes...

I love snow (when it's not too cold)!

Off to New York

Alrighty, guess I'm all set to go. Wanted to do a separate blog for this trip, but too lazy to do so.

I suppose this trip is more UN than NY. Will be working from 9 to 5pm daily. Still, I'll try to balance unpaid working life with museums, snowy parks, thesis, and also church hopping. I think this church is pretty cool: 'Redeemer Presbyterian Church'

Will update more when I've settled down.

It's a mad rush to nowhere

Or so it seems...