Me Bloody-fool.

Growing up, I’ve been called a bloody-fool for as long as I care to remember.  It became so synonymous with me that I’ve forsaken quite early on any bitterness of being called one.  I can’t think of any particular outward aspect of me that would bring it about; it just happened.  One moment I’d be going about my own wits and next thing I’d hear “Bloody-fool!” and sure enough, that would be me.  There never seem to be any anomalies, disaster or catastrophe in my vicinity that I could attribute to having deserved such a sanglant nomenclature; so it can’t be that I was such a klutz.  I’ll admit I was not the most circumspect of characters but nor was I behaviourally bovine when in a china shop.

In retrospect, it is true that I lacked the trophies I was supposed to collect like checkpoints in a video game during those formative years; no ‘A’ laden certificates of education, no plated trophies for athletic achievements, no weighted medals in recognition, no seriffed scrolls of commendation, nor any frame-worthy citations. I just wasn’t much of a recorded achiever so the lack of such would probably qualify me as a candidate for the title to those who need such material manifestations in their opinion or judgment of a person.

Study-wise, I was constantly distracted by the intrigue of understanding rather than just memorizing for exams.  History fascinated me as true stories rather than putting dates to names or events.  Physics was such a revelation of forces around us and not just about formulas or reciting word-for-word laws and definitions.  Biology was organic mechanics that was sadly reduced to naming parts.  Language was relating the world through different ways by the placement of words and structure.  Geography was simply fruit for imagination.  Okay, I sucked at mathematics; that I left to being purely functional.  So due to my lack of Instant Data Ignoramuses Consider  Knowledge [iDICK] I would not have been a very exam friendly candidate.

For extra curricular activities, I was not coordinated well enough for the delusion of being a soccer star; I had a weak left foot.   Athletics hardly had any creative merits and seemed too regimented.  Art was about painting within the lines of statuesque poses and was hardly expressive.  Never much into uniforms and thought the boy scouts were too faggy in those shorts and scarves – and their affinity for ropes.  I had a distant disposition for contact sports like martial arts.  Of course I was into music but not the marching kind that would have made parents proud in stadiums; music I was into just had such bad press thanks to Keith Richards; so there was probably nothing there to boast about in polite circles.

I was constantly talked to for being such a bloody-fool, but that just made things worse.  Their form of conveying advise was purely instructional and was related to their own experiences which I realized quarter way through their talk, had no similarities or bearing to the circumstances or time-space I was in.  There was hardly anything that I could walk away and use from their advise; apart probably from knowing the fact that they care enough to have done so.  As there was not much from their ‘wisdom’ that I could apply for my betterment, I would then appear, I don’t know – Ungrateful? Obstinate? Rebellious? Rude? Insolent? Disrespectful? Or by their simpler all-encapsulating semantic signifier – a bloody-fool.

From my novice quasi-psychoanalysis I could say that the bloodyfoologuous phenomenon would result in low self-esteem and lack of self-confidence.  It probably did but I wouldn’t know because for one, I never had the competitive edge in me; and by excluding myself from competitions I would not know how I would have fared in one.  You could deduce that the low count of self-esteem/confidence was why I would not be competition fodder in the first place.  Well, here’s the paradox – I just could not see any sense for competivity and would be bold and confident when stating such.  No low self-esteem or weak self-confidence when I make my case against the apologists for competition; and from the fact that the bloodyfoolness persisted suggests further that I must’ve stuck to my guns quite fortuitously there; because in situations when I stand by my opinions with the full regalia of a healthy self esteem and glowing confidence, I’d hear “Bloody-fool!” once again.

What I can say was a result of the bloodyfoolomena, and am delighted to do so, is that I avoided aloofness and cockiness within myself.  [I should first of all state that the ‘cockiness’ I’m avoiding here is the ‘Mr/Mrs/Ms-know-all’ cockiness of the non-charitable variety; i.e., those who will never give credence to any view that does not conform blindly to the sheer pig-headedness of their set opinions-arguments.] I would never assume that what I know is the ultimate conclusion gouged in alabaster and in that way I’d always be open to further answers or extrapolation with the willingness and readiness to say I’m wrong when I am; simply because if you’re being called a bloody-fool often enough you’ll find that it is not easy to be too sure of yourself.  For instance, if I met someone who would not or could not blindly conform to conventions or socio-cultural-codes agreed upon by some ineffable consensus which defies sense and sensibility, I would not immediately conclude the person is a Bloody Fool.

When Ghosts Speak Of Ghosts

I’ve always been intrigued by the supernatural. Probably started about the time I was 11, after having received a book prize on haunted houses for being the fifth in class. [Yes, they did reward such back then; and I have been prize worthy at some point in my life, thank you.] My literary diet for awhile since then consisted entirely of ghost stories, the macabre, and of course the unexplained. After that followed the natural progression into horror stories until I was eventually no longer spooked by the unseen but terrified of the hidden. Then came the slasher movies and by the time Freddy Kreuger was brought back to life for the umpteenth time, it was all simply of limbic entertainment value. And of course there are the empirical sciences, especially the epistemology of cause and effect that greatly contributed to my obstinacy for diagnosing sense before shivers.

Still, I would constantly meet someone with a scary story to tell. Always a show of reluctance at first but will readily do so as if pushed to by the inertia of fear to disseminate with caution. They’d tell it like they were there, all wide-eyed and in your face. Some with an amateurish sense of the dramatic such as the drop of the voice, the quaver in the narration, the impregnated pause followed by a shudder at the recollection of the eerie, the nervous twitch or gesticulations as if sculpting the ethereal. And it is told as if, as if they were there.

The thing is, they weren’t – they were not there. They were nowhere near there. No, they never tell you from their own personal experiences. It didn’t happen to them. It never happen to them – much like it’s never happened to me; or at least happened to me such that I cannot explain it off sensibly. It’s always a retelling of someone else’s experience; someone they know, someone close to them, someone close to them who knows someone, someone who knows someone close to them who knows – so goes the permutations in the chain of narration. Where credibility might be put in question, the protagonist would be someone emotionally or sentimentally attached to them, so you would be a real bastard to even doubt the words of such.

It’s never of first hand direct experience of the teller themselves.

However, if it is claimed to be their very own experience, my intrigue wanes when they adamantly refuse to discuss earthbound possibilities of what could have happened or been the cause. It’s as if it has to be supernatural or nothing. They refuse to approach it with House diagnostics or Grissom forensics or even Velma’s logic – they would actually prefer to uncompromisingly concur with Scooby Doo than wrest through reasonable doubts or rational explanations. And of course, it so deeply and emotionally shook them such that you would be a complete bastard to even consider doubting them.

What concerns me of the phenomena though is this – it’s not that they tell it to be believed; but why do they need to tell it to such effect? Not being savvy in psychoanalysis, I can only see someone who needs the spotlight with what they think is worthy of it, even if it is just for that one moment; hoping that it’ll still shine on them in absentia when the story is retold further – assuming of course that the next narrator is not a dick and obliterates them from the narration in order to take the spotlight for themselves.

Everyone has a story to tell; but when it’s a ghost story, it always seem to come from personas that do not seem real – much like the ghosts in their stories. It’s really like ghosts talking of ghosts.

Life through apertures at the speed of shutters.

In the hands of teenagers around me, the laptop is a RM3K digital photo album. It’s where they store all those pictures taken because them young ‘uns way of enjoying their moments is capturing and recording it to be enjoyed later and in anticipation of posting ‘em up for others like them to join in the merriment.

It’s not that the pictures need to be displayed so as to weed out the more desirable from the lesser ones. No, that narcissism starts much earlier. Thanks to the technology of digital photography, the selection is done instances after the photographs are taken. After every shot, the consensus will decide if the image is to what they always imagined they’d look. If not, they’re more than prepared to go through the rigmarole again, with their catalogue of semiotics for the necessary poses, expressions and gestures till their expectations are met. It’s kinda bizarre that people actually freeze themselves in order to be captured and frozen by fractions of seconds with the shutter; to freeze for a phenomena that would freeze you anyways. Why, in Asia they’ve even devised a sign to indicate when they’re ready to be captured -they portray the number two with their fingers to announce their readiness for the shutters. The degree of readiness is further indicated in direct proportion to the number of hands indicating the number two.

I don’t know about you, but i would have thought that with all this I would enjoy conversations with them young ‘uns more cos their stories have got pictures as well. But I find that what makes for narration and description are just captions, and the illustrations are so much of their persons that it obliterates all else around obscuring any sense of place. If there was a landmark, you couldn’t get to know much about it apart from the simple fact that they were there. If it was a picture postcard scenery you could not look further than them in in front of the lens hence obscuring the wonderous view around them. But you could probably have a hint at what food tastes like cos that gets a sapient-free picture; and it’s only because they are the prologue to images of being devoured in various states.

It seems like this will be the mode of communication with them for awhile. They’ll probably say that you can’t get to know them better than this where all is recorded and captured. Memories start early. They are setting up and pre-selecting for recollections and ruminations later. The enjoyment is not just in the now, but also set up for the later.

Everything is set up to be captured in order to be related through still life. But i’ve always felt that no one and nothing exists in the fraction of a second. Everyone and everything exists in the realm of continuous time. So how much of a person is in a photograph, except for a fleeting illusion cos a captured image cannot be much more. So are they simply just setting up illusions for others to perceive through those illusions? I only lament that I could not get to know the real them, and despair that when not being frozen in time, there might not be much of  real them behind the images.