Spontaneous, but ultimately contingent upon environment conditions, thought

Most of us probably have some sort of stubbornness; some are inflicted (correction: afflicted) with the unfortunate stubbornness that is religion.

Hurting People Around Me

I just realized I hurt someone really badly a few hours ago.

Or rather, that someone made me realize how badly I'd hurt him. Or so he reported.

Not that I wasn't aware that my behavior toward him, or people in general, are...not good, in the sense that I keep people at a distance. Though I always attribute my emotional distance with people to my lack of so-called people skills, it never occurred to me that that could cause pain at such intensity.

Of course, what I did (or did not do) to him, was not only emotional distancing. It was outright.....rude.

This incident, or as I prefer, life episode, apparently confirmed the suspicion that has been boiling painfully (awkward metaphor) in my head - part of the lack of people skills is actually due to - I don't care about people. Always me me me.

I apologized to him profusely, but alas, he formally acquainted me to the concept of "self-serving apology". To quote his (reproach^10), "I am sorry for the people who have to deal with you." Much less than being offended, I was, relieved, by this verbal affirmation of what has been quietly brewing behind my mind - that I don't deserve the nice people around me. I'm really a jerk.

I don't know.

I'm not sad. The rational mode of my mind is becoming aware of the emotional hollowness within my shell, yet my ugly basal instinct slyly celebrated my ability to involuntarily cause pain.

Me me me.

Peace.

Fetish

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Struggling with English

I am taking this "English" course - Postcolonial Theory this semester. The reason I put quotation marks on English is that the content and design of the course do not match my one and only understanding (or imagination) of English as an academic field. I am used to understanding English as a discipline motivated to learn, clarify, discover, explore the spatial and temporal paths and trajectories through which English as a language evolved into its present forms, and how the cultures mediated by the language have been interacting with one another.

It is, however, immediately obvious in the class of Postcolonial Theory that we are not and have not been doing that stated goal which I had in mind. We spent a lot of time talking about what the terms "colonialism" and "post-colonialism" mean, how the various definitions are inadequate or problematic. I could agree that words describing human experience and social phenomenon are not and  would not be as exact as scientific terminologies as their meaning becomes destabilized and contaminated by various additions through common usage by speakers with differing opinion and understanding. And there is always the problem of the scholar being part of the system being observed, i.e. society or the World. Hence although a scholar might be able to coin and present a new term (such as post-colonial) with its intended meaning, the meaning of the new word, having been used and re-used by others, shifts. (wtf) Hence the need of clarification of the possible meanings of a word and subsequent sieving of those meanings that would be applied in a discusion when a word is introduced to a scholarly audience (i.e. our class).

Ok Whatever.

Pink Dot 2012 Video: Singapore win liao la!

Coming out Scenes in Films

Dad, this is your Peter.

On Reconfiguring My Feelings and Building a Queer-friendly mode of experiencing romance

Ignore the title.

Obviously what I am claiming in this short post is informed by my own personal experience, which may or may not be generalized to other people.

Even though I have never been in a romantic relationship and I do not think I am presently ready for or capable of one, I still listen to modern love songs and watch movies, these cultural products in turn inform my understanding, expectation and fantasy of romance.

I believe, growing up in a heteronormative environment, most of these movies and pop songs produce, promote, romanticize, encourage and reaffirm binary, stereotypical gender role-playing in a male-female relationship. As gay males, while consuming these movies and pop songs, we were presented with unexpected freedom to identify with the male character, the female, or alternating between the two. I had generally been inclined to consume the plot of these movies in the position of the female character.

Love songs by male singers typically have an assumed, if not explicit female "audience", filled with the lyrics sanctioned by hetero-, phallocentric society, 2 degrees of separation from the song of my heart.

Female singers sing in feminine voices; those were not "my" voices.

I feel it is important for me, if I ever love, to love with "my" image and "my" voice; so that the feelings are not distorted as I; so that I don't have to squeeze and force them through oddly-shaped categories; so that I could dismiss questions like "so are you the guy or girl?" as nonsense as I know what sense is; so that I could experience, and express love and tenderness with my body and my voice, as equal of another guy.

Toward this end, I have been looking up male version of English songs originally sung by female singers.

So far I have listened to:

Innocence, When You're Gone, I'm With You by Avril Lavigne
My Heart Will Go on by Celine Dion
A Thousand Years by Christina Perri
Baby by Justin Bieber (this is an exception)

Listening to these songs in the male voice makes me feel, I don't know, feel as though I have been given back something that I long should have.

Even if it's just a script, a manual for romance, at least now it's closer to experience and actuality.

A Genealogy of Discontent

"Yes, but we need to analyze what contributes to the emotionality of this piece."

Dear father and mother,

You must have sensed the growing emotional distance between us. Mother was the first to have noticed or spoken out about this, the way I remember it.

"Our mother, too, likely sensed that we were different. She moved in to protect us from what she rightly sensed would be a slow and subtle betrayal by our fathers. She nurtured. She favored us. She over-validated us to compensate for the betrayal she saw us suffer."

Dear Papa,

My first recollection of having to need mother to interfere between us was when I was 11, when we ran out of stamps at home and I needed you to buy them for me. You were in the bathroom, me standing outside arranging words in my head. Mother saw me and had to encourage me to speak with you. I don't know the exact reasons which made me anxious about asking for money to buy stamps. (Fucking stamps!) Years later I learnt that was a stressful period of your life. That contributed, partly, to your stricter parenting style at that time.

"Of all the invalidation we will receive in our lives, this is by far the most damaging. The first man that we love - arguably the man we will love the most in our life - is incapable of validating us at a time when we need it most. It is emotional betrayal of the worst sort."

I'm sure, as I later learnt, that your change in parenting style is somewhat intentional. You believed that as my adolescence drew near you needed to instill a stronger sense of discipline before my teenage rebellion kicks in. Somehow I felt I have never really been rebellious in my teenage years, unless you count the time when I kicked you as you threatened me with that 30cm wooden ruler during a heated quarrel. I was 13. If my lack of rebellion was anything desirable, I credit it not to my personality but your recognizing the need of a new and more liberal parenting style. Of course, I was quite possibly a boring studious A+ student myself. Now I look back at my teenage years I hope I had been more assertive and adventurous. For example if I were a girl I wished I had run away from home with some random, tatooed guy and fucked around. (I LOVE SEX! I LOVE MEN!) Somehow this social drama script is not available for boys. There is something against The Script about a teenage boy who runs away from home. I can imagine how I would as a parent forbid my son from coming home for a long time if he were ungrateful enough to run away from home. There is some independence and abilities required of boys in order to rebel, something I definitely lacked in my teen age.

Around some time when i was 8 you started criticizing my supposedly feminine effeminate mannerism, from the way I walk, my table manners, and the way I speak - in your words "don't speak through your nose." I tried to fit my behavior to your expectations with little success. At one point it was impossible to walk or speak in front of you without inviting some form of scolding. And so it became impossible to walk or speak in front of you. I honestly believe you were just trying to rectify what you saw as my weakness, some wrong, and that none of the strong words were used with the intent to hurt.

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(to be continued)

Next Year's Roommate

So in my college, and probably in a lot of others, when it comes to housing, returning housing were given a lottery number which indicates their priority in room selection. I got number 68 out of 900 people, that means I get to choose my room before people with the number after 69.

And you know Americans....dia orang punya pattern banyak. Not only can you select your own room, you can also choose to what they call "pull in" people to become your roommate or your neighbor (notice how I spell "neighbor" rather than "neighbour" lol). Since I got a pretty good number, a few friends approached me to ask me pull them into the room they want. But I can just pull in a roommate and a neighbor, so the others I have to turn them down ==

But a lot of people wanted a single room, so I had some trouble finding a roommate. I was basically selling myself to people, like

DeluSion: hey, do you plan to stay in a "double" room? How about me for a roommate? I'm pretty quiet, respect privacy.......

It's kind of like selling yourself in a way, lol.

Anyway, in the end I decided to be roommates with a Filipino guy (he's not gay by the way if anybody is wondering).

The night before we chose our room, we were having dinner with a few friends.

DeluSion: Alright I think we need to talk about rules and protocols.

Roommate: ok.

DeluSion: Wait. Do you snore?

Roommate: Ya. A little.

DeluSion: oh shit.

Roommate: .......

DeluSion: What do you think about masturbation?

Roommate: ...... Fine I guess? Just put a sock on the door knob?

DeluSion: What do you think about masturbation when the other person is in the room?

Roommate: ......err....as long as you're not pointing at me.

DeluSion: What about nudity? Is it ok to change in the room?

Roommate: Yeah.

DeluSion: Guests?

Roommate: I don't usually have guests; but it's fine if you want friends to come over.

DeluSion: Cool. What about "special" guests?

Roommate: Yeah, just put a sock on the door.

DeluSion: Can I just text you?

Roommate: yeah.

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(later)

Roommate: Are you really going to ask girls to come over to have sex?

DeluSion: Oh no. I'm gay.

Roommate: Sorry, I mean guys.

DeluSion: errr.....not really. Just in case, you know. Not like it's not going to happen very often!

Roommate: Ok. So what you put on your profile is not just a joke?

DeluSion: No. (I say I'm interested in men on facebook.)

Roommate: hmm...you're pretty brave.

Delusion: Not really. haha.

Roommate: You thought nobody will read it right?

DeluSion: Yeah.

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Ah, I like my roommate.

(Title becomes Unnecessary)