Ok ok,

You remember back in school when you has to write essays for your English classes? The teach gives you a lame obscure or “thinking” question and you had to magically whip up facts in no less than 500 words.

I always did well on the essay questions. Just put everything you know on there,
maybe you’ll hit it. And then you’d get the paper back from the teacher, and he’s just written one word across the entire page, “vague.” I thought “vague” was kind of a vague thing to say. I’d write underneath it, “unclear,” send it back. He’d return it to me, “ambiguous (Stop trying to a punk).” I’d send it back to him, “cloudy.”

If i were to go back to school now, I am very sure we would still be corresponding the same way.

Cheers

ps: I leave double lines and an invisible right margin in my essays.

Technorati tags: Archtomato, Writings in Question

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Cheers

ps: Prabhu Rocks, Captain sucks.

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Ok ok,

I once wrote a story about a birth of a doll. It was a doll with black round eyes made of tattered turmeric material, warming with a fine smile to melt even the most bleakest of hearts. In the story it disappeared in a bubble along with the dust infested white teddy in the store-room.

The thing is that this story actually disappeared from my computer, after i forgot to do a back-up and reformatted my computer a while back. The way it was written was completed unplanned. All I did was write it without thinking too much of it, and now when i try to recall it it’s too hard, because I’m simply trying too hard.

I am also romanticizing about it, thinking that it was some sort of a great piece of writing or something, which it probably wasn’t. But this is what happens when you lose something. It becomes immortalized.

I am trying to figure out what happens to us when something becomes distant because it stops existing in our world. Is it really non-existent or does it exist somewhere in this other world that we are incapable of seeing.

I now remember a friend once telling me that there must be a whole world full of lost socks, just one sock each, no pairs, but they all unite somehow. She said it as a joke, and I understand this as a joke too, but what if there was a world of lost things, all the lost stories and lost socks.

We live our lives consciously or for some unconsciously thinking of a time when we might one day die. But after that, after death, can we perhaps think about the time we lived?

7-7-7

Cheers

ps: I am hunting for a socks seller who sells one piece socks.

Technorati tags: Archtomato, Birth of a Doll

Ok ok,

All week long a certain Transformers-obsessed friend has been calling himself various robot characters – Optimus Prime, Galvatron, Grimlock …

WELL, I am now calling him Dingletron. Up next might be Nerdimus Prime or JackASSScream. If you have any ideas for me please let me know.

Cheers

ps: Megatron Rocks, the rest are a bunch of sissies. Pic

Technorati tags: Archtomato, Transformers

Ok ok,

Constant affirmation without accountability is a sure-fire way to cripple a child. In other words, belief in yourself without responsibility leads to a sense of entitlement.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been rejected for anything, anytime, anywhere. We all have. How would you like to have a nice little four-letter word and an obscene finger sign for the next time you’re rejected? It’s NEXT. Next sale, next job, next date, next whatever.

Beware of people who use their own emotional pain as a tool to manipulate others instead of as a motivation to change themselves.

Parents of teens need to watch out for NMK Syndrome: Not My Kid, as in “my kid couldn’t have done ___” (fill in the blank). Well, yes, they could have. Even if you have faithfully raised them not to do certain things, kids still have the power of choice, which means they can make bad choices. NMK Syndrome can blind you to something that needs immediate attention. Trust in your kids and in your parenting, and always check out what you hear.

When you receive a notice in your credit card statement that says, “Congratulations, because of your excellent payment history, there is no minimum fee due this month,” it’s not a time for celebration. You’re still being charged interest. These people are not your friends.

It’s a humbling and sobering experience to have a child who wants to be like you.

I’ve noticed more and more people doing what I call “caboose living.” Picture a three-car train. The engine in front we’ll call facts/reality; the car in the middle is our thoughts, beliefs, decisions, choices and behaviors based on the facts; the caboose is our feelings. The facts/reality come first, then thoughts and behaviors followed by feelings. Many folks try to run their life train with the caboose (feelings) in the lead. Feelings are interesting and important, but they cannot drive the train. Pay attention to your feelings, but let the facts/reality drive the train.

A successful marriage requires selective and strategic ignoring. The right things to ignore are little habits and irritating peculiarities that we all have. The problem comes when you select the wrong things to ignore.

I wonder if it’s a bad thing to believe that S-League or a Mega-Serial on TV is one of the first sounds of fall approaching. Most folks live with the illusion that worrying about something can actually make a difference. The only possible way that worrying can make a difference is if the worrying motivates you to take action to do something about the subject of your worry.

People often say, “Well, I’m just going with the flow.” The problem with going with the flow is that many times the flow is lost and does not know where it is going.

Cheers

ps: I dedicate this article to the newly wed couple – Razzaq and Sheila.

ps2: A Jolly good greeting to Bus on this day.

Technorati tags: Archtomato, Lifely Observations

Cheers

ps: Vesak peace out.

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Ok ok,

What’s amazing about the library is that you go to this place and then you can take up almost any book and they just give it to you, and say bring it back when you are done.

This kinda reminds me of that pathetic friend everyone has in school, who would let you borrow anything that you want, if you would just be his or her (yes ladies, some of you used to be pathetic too) friend. That’s what the library is, its a government funded pathetic friend.

That’s why you see people bullying the library. People going “I will bring it back on time, i will bring it back late, What you gonna do sue me?”.

Tragic isn’t it.

I owe the library about 20 bucks for a lost book, that some guy-bitch borrowed using my account and have since not visited the library. He threatened suicide when i demanded a compensation. For his crime against me and the state, I have stripped him of his manhood.

Cheers

ps: I have used my Ginsu knife to cut my library card. More ..

Technorati tags: Archtomato, The Library

Ok ok,

Experiences in life depend on two occurrences: what our senses detect and how we perceive them. Not everyone sees the same things I do, or you do. A rose is a rose, but oh, what a rose it is.

What we ‘see’ filters through two processes. One is objective accumulation of data and ‘unthinking’ processing of said data. Our vision detects a cactus and our brain automatically interprets: thorns, ouch, stay away. This process and sometimes the final interpretation is often subconscious; you don’t even think about thinking it. Our lizard brain is imprinted with such responses for self-preservation. And we often react accordingly: cactus = thorns = ouch = move away.

Phenomenology Merleau-Ponty wrote: “In so far as I have hands, feet; a body, I sustain around me intentions which are not dependent on my decisions and which affect my surroundings in a way that I do not choose.” What is in the world is ‘there’, but our responses to that world, and hence, our ‘being’ in that world is more complex.

The other process is perception. Now, ‘perception’ is acquiring, interpreting, selecting and organizing information detected by our senses; sight, smell, sounds, touch, taste….. The first process is the input of raw data of the world around us in a specific point in time. Perception is, well, processing all of that data and ‘being’ in the world.

This is what differentiates us from each other. And from other animals. Our perceptions ‘color our world’, our reality, more than other animals because we have the ability to reason and think about thinking. That each piece of data may be perceived differently than the person next to you is what makes us individual. It is what splashes the variety of colors, shades and shapes on each of our world and reality. And being in that world as a thinking body that senses its surroundings.

It is what makes us, ‘me’.

Cheers

ps: I polished the facts off a textbook lying around at the computer table.

Technorati tags: Archtomato

Ok ok,

Of course, everyone wants to be healthy. The amusing thing is no one’s really sure
how to do it. I love to exercise, but I still have to laugh at it. You go to the gyms, stadiums, around your neighbourhood, you see all these people and they’re working out; they’re training, they’re getting in shape. But nobody’s really getting in shape for anything.

In modern society, you really don’t have to be physically strong to do anything. The only reason that you’re getting in shape is so you can get through the workout. So we’re working out, so that we’ll be in shape, for when we have to do our exercises. Now that, is food for thought.

Cheers

ps: Local gyms are rumored to be filled with “weird” people and flashers.

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