fake plastic words

10:07 PM
Categories: busking, europe, friends, life, memories, past, stories, thoughts. Author: sleepwalker

18th June, 9.09am:

I slept the shallowest of sleeps. I retired to bed much too late and rose much too early. I had a strange, strange dream. My cats, an ex-girlfriend and I was in it. I dreamed that Dylan, Sid and Jonsi died. She knelt on their graveyard, her face dripping with sorrow, and sat there silently. She turned, suddenly, and looked at me long and hard. I couldn't tell what she was trying to tell me with that cold, solemn stare. I had already died by then. Time was of no essence. Every scene was juxtaposed without any beginning nor ending. The mise en scene was confusing. But I remember the bits and pieces. And I remember that it was strange.


19th June, 12:45am:

As of 4.30pm today, decades ago, I came into the world in complete silence with one eye shut and feet as long as my thighs. I did not yelp a single cry. For a brief moment, my parents went berserk thinking I was a half blind, mute, semi-disfigured baby with alien legs. Thankfully, that was just a temporary joke God played on them. For whatever reason, remains a cosmic mystery. Probably for all eternity.

Fast forward to today, I am a healthy, cynical dreamer with no definite plans for world domination. Yet. There is just too much to type out the story of my life. Too much have gone by, and there is too little time and much too large of an ego (to not come off as being a tad too narcissistic) to realistically write about one's autobiography in a single page.

"My body is my temple", they say. Though I don't know if that's the case for me. I wish it was otherwise, but that's just useless wishful thinking. Over the years, my mind, body and soul have been riddled with bullets of shitty diet, haphazard hangat-hangat taik ayam workouts, infinite amounts of sins, cigarettes, and general substance abuse. As a result? I have a memory of a goldfish, fitness of a 12 year-old, guilts of a Protestant gay priest, and a perfect pair of charcoal lungs.

My only consolation lies in my firm belief that mistakes are what we're made of. I'd rather go through a life of rollercoaster than to cruise through life mechanically and monotonously with hardly any memorable bittersweet moments of stupidity and disaster. I've had a difficult, yet colourful life. And I'm thankful for that.

I'm thankful for all the memories, good and bad. For the people, friends and foes and lovers and family, that have came and gone and stubbornly stayed. For all the wrong things that I have done to others, and others unto me. For all my mistakes, stupidity and immaturity in the past. For every single one of my failures. For every single gray day and hopeless moments of utter defeat. For all the memories, and that I still have a decently semi-working one to remember them all.

I'm thankful that I'm still breathing today. 'Cause y'know, I kinda like living. More so now than ever before. And I think there's still a lot of good I can do for myself and others; friends and family and strangers. I think so. Lets just hope that's not yet another wishful thinking.

"Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than to be absolutely boring" - Marilyn Monroe.


19th June, 2:20am:

I watched Nosferatu halfway. It's an insult to the film to doze in and out of sleep, so I decided to lay it off till tomorrow. I hate sleeping.

2:33 AM
Categories: birthday, dreams, family, film, friends, gemini, gray days, health, lessons, life, memories, mistakes, night, past, quote, sleep, strange. Author: sleepwalker

Happy birthday my dear budak kecik, semi-stranger, and now, imaginary ex-girlfriend.

I remember you once asked me, "Am I strong?". I knew fully well how you were feeling at that time, and the rational thing to do would be to utter words of optimism, of encouragement. Positive cliches, albeit overused, are true. To a certain extent. But sometimes we need to hear the truth. Without rose-tinted glasses, without lacing words with sweet hypnotic perfume. Sometimes we need to know things as it really is. And there will be times that we'll need exactly that.

But that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing. It really isn't. The truth is difficult. Having to face reality is difficult. Life, being the way it is, is composed of constants and variables. I believe that the "truth", in the most general sense of the word, is a variable. I may have done bad things in the past, I cannot change the truth in that. But because of what I had to endure, I learned that I can change that "truth" today so that I will not repeat the same mistakes tomorrow.

I replied back to you, "You are not strong". Because as of that particular moment, you were not. We all have moments like that. And it is also one of those infinite number of variables in life that we all just have to deal with. Even at the most trying of times, you can change that. When? How? Well, that is all up to you.

It is written that life is fated and predestined, but never forget that God gave us free will for a reason. And it is our duty, whoever we are, whatever our beliefs are, to utilise it to our very best. To search for that constant in life, whatever it may be. In hopes that it will give us something strong, something concrete, a constant truth if you may, to hold on to dear life and enjoy the ride for better or worse, in sickness and in health, in death and in dreams.

You may not be strong today. But isn't it true that we need to be weak to be strong? That we need to learn to walk before we run. That to be able to climb a thousand stairs we need to take that first step. It is only natural to fall and falter every once in awhile. Sometimes we trip over a small boulder, sometimes we fall into bottomless pits of despair and hopelessness. But isn't that just the other half of the yin and yang of life? The other duality. The central idea and concept in life, in Islam. There is the beginning and the end, good and evil, weak and strong, male and female, black and white, life and death.

I've never believed that the other half of life's duality to be something bad nor should we fear it. Darkness is not darkness in itself, rather it is merely an absence of light. It is just a necessary evil. And necessary evils are, of course, a necessity. For a good reason.

Fix your variables. Find your constant. And believe in yourself. Nothing in the world can stop you from finding what you want.

I hope you will one day see the light in yourself. Because believe me, I see it in you.

"Is it true that some of our strength comes from suffering? That suffering hardships makes us stronger? That those of us who have never known a real hardship, and true suffering, cannot have the same strength as others, who have suffered much? And if that is true, does that not mean that your argument is the same thing as saying that we have to be weak to suffer, and we have to suffer to be strong, so we have to be weak to be strong?" - K.

3:55 AM
Categories: birthday, constant, duality, friends, islam, life, truth, variable. Author: sleepwalker

You can see it in their eyes. Their hopes, fears, insecurities, and the abundance of masks they try to hide themselves in. Their past, present, future. Some people carry it in their eyes their lies and truths. You can sense where they've been before, their pain and anguish, and the changes that transpired later that made them the people they are today. That fiery passion, that blind determination, that peace of mind, that sincerity.

I saw that in her. She's a person twice my age with an energy of someone twice as young. She carried something in her eyes. I remember seeing her past, present, future. Her past was painful, difficult, it was full of emptiness and turmoil. Her present is a monumental sigh of relief, happiness and a peace of mind. Her future is full of unbreakable hopes.

But what really struck me was her sincerity. She carried such an honest, innocent heart. So much warmth, so much compassion. But at the same time with the maturity and realist of an experienced woman who have gone through enough in her lifetime to know how to keep her feet planted firmly on the ground without letting her ideals turn to aloof wonders and float about with careless childish abandon.

She turned to my mom and said, "You have a powerful son".

And one of the last things she said to me was, "I can see it in you. I believe. You can move the world".

Thank you. For your honesty. For your encouragement. For your hopes. For sharing your life with me for those brief two minutes. But believe me, you gave me so much more.

6:44 PM
Categories: conversations, dreams, hopes, life, moments, stories, thoughts. Author: sleepwalker

The beauty in life lies in the fact that there are no certainties. There is no absolute truth, no real answers, no definite reasons, no perfect equations. Nothing is for certain. Life is arbitrary and constantly changing, evolving, and spinning in unpredictable cycles. Everything we do can be explained by science and mathematical equations, no doubt. But at the same time they are not definite. It is not final. It is only an estimate. It is only the best possible approximation of perceived truths.

I suppose that's why I find art so intriguing. There is no correct interpretation. There is no true perceptions. There is no final answer. There is always a question. It can always be this, that or it can be nothing at all. And it can be everything at the same time. Art, in the most general sense of the word, is so multi-layered. There is so much texture, movement, meaning, story, questions. There's always a question mark.

That is why art is so beautiful. That is why life is so beautiful. Because we are always left guessing. Always wondering. Why, what, who, when, where.

What is real, what is not.
What is right, what is wrong.
Where are you now.
Where will you be in the future.
Who were you yesterday.
Who are you today, now, at this moment.
Who will you be tomorrow.
Who will you be in the future.

Who am I today, now, at this moment?

I am a pensive wanderer. I am a sinner. I am a fake, a lie, a shadow wearing a mask. I am an overjoyed, confused, meandering self-righteous moonstruck boy. I am a normal person. I am a reader, of random words, of moonsongs, of strangers. I am a writer of complete, utter nonsense. I am a pretentious elitist bastard. I am concerned son. I am a terrible father to my cats. I am a lurker, a stalker, a voyeurist. I am a happy person. I am a sad person. I am a pseudo protagonist in a make believe world.

I am a hollow heart. I am the blood that runs through my veins. I am the vibrating particles in this tired body. I am the fingers typing on this keyboard. I am the amber at the end of my burning ciggarette. I am the smoke that chokes this troubled room.

I am someone. And maybe, just maybe, we'll meet again in another lifetime.

(Don't forget to say hello, because I won't)

4:45 PM
Categories: art, beauty, life, questions, reflection, science, thoughts, truth, uncertainty. Author: sleepwalker

I left myself upstairs.
I've been falling down, down, down.
Stumbling.
Tripping.
Slipping.

What if it's already beautiful,
down here.

What if ever since the beginning,
I never was.
I never am.
I never will be.
And I can only become,
just another stranger.

Where will I go,
from nowhere?

4:55 PM
Categories: confusion, future, life, memories, nowhere, past, present, stairs. Author: sleepwalker

I love you in ways you will never know. In ways that even I am unsure of. In ways that I cannot comprehend. I loved you before, I love you now, and I will love you for a thousand tomorrows that have yet to come. This uncertainty, this pain, has been carved in the vacant walls of my heart for far too long. I lie to myself with hopes to forget, even for a fleeting moment, these futile thoughts. How can it be possible? How can it ever be possible? It may never be. You and I may never be.

But I love you anyway, irrefutably, irrevocably, unequivocally.

I yearn your presence.
I crave your laughter.
I dream of you.

You make me feel alive again.

(circa 2008)

6:06 PM
Categories: dreams, hopes, life, love, thoughts. Author: sleepwalker

I've met my fair share of characters.

The sane, the working-class hero, the soldier, the communist, the successful capitalist, the politician, the racer, the story-teller, the beleaguering idiot, the traveller, the comedian, the garderner, the fisherman, the aimless wanderer, the wicked, the adventurous, the zany, the zestful, the hateful, the cynic, the pathological liar, the nihilist, the faker, the pretender, the addict, the drunkard, the nymphomaniac, the kleptomaniac, the musician, the ballet dancer, the socialite, the celebrity, the model, the lonely songwriter, the poet, the sufi, the god-fearing, the free spirited, the heartbroken, the lovesick, the photographer, the artist, the actor, the amatuer pornstar, the part-time lap dancer, the writer, the out-of-this-world insane, the nutcase, the terminally ill, the hormonally imbalanced, the suicidal, the cutter, the mentally ill, the rapist, the murderer, the unrelenting criminal, the bi-polar, the schizophrenic, the lost soul, the dreamer, the fictitious, and the rest who lie in vague spaces of my self-eviscerating memory.

Some I've brushed shoulders with, many I had drinks with. Some became friends, few I fell in love with. They come and go like seasons, like a river flowing by. Although we may not step into the same river twice, it nonetheless has an impact on us. Some affect us like a butterfly resting it's furry legs on our warm skin, some rampage our lives like a merciless storm. For better or worse, much is there to learn from friendships made and relationships lost. From people you love and hate, from friends and foes.

They have taught me many things. More than all the books in the world can ever teach me.

(11.30pm, 8th December 2007)

6:15 PM
Categories: friends, lessons, life, non-fiction, people, stories, strangers. Author: sleepwalker

I've traveled far and wide.

To beautiful landscapes and foreign cities. Through dreary back alleys and abandoned spaces. Skipping train tracks and lying on asphalt grounds. Swimming in droning moonsongs and existential thoughts. Drowning in the pages of fictional bedtime stories. Into and out of the lives of friends and lovers. To far reaching dreams that beacons my pathway and the mistakes that darkens it. To bittersweet memories that cuts my heart at every replay. To tumultuous journeys of laughter, blood, sweat and tears. To places so dark you lose yourself.

I've traveled too far.

There is nowhere else I'd rather be than now. At the most trying of times, this is where I begin to search for the person I lost a lifetime ago. The battles were never this difficult, the pain never this real. The fear of an impossible future. A dim hope. Nevertheless, a shred of hope. Maybe there will be better things to come. Maybe one day I'll find something meaningful. Maybe I still have a chance.

And maybe, there's still time.

(6.01pm, 7th December 2007)

4:26 PM
Categories: dreams, future, hopes, life, memories, mistakes, past, present, regrets, thoughts. Author: sleepwalker

We were on the way to the surau when he told me bout his story.

He woke up one day and decided to leave.

He sold off everything he owned. House, car, furniture, some clothes, everything. With his entire life in one backpack, he set off to Europe with his then girlfriend. They travelled everywhere. Amsterdam, Paris, London, Bordeaux, Berlin, Milan, Rome, Barcelona, Granada, everywhere. They lived together hand in hand, hostels to whorehouses, streets to riverbanks. For 3 years.

For 3 whole years they survived by busking.
(He's one of the best musicians I've ever, ever met)

I wish I had that freedom. And that stupid bold blind courage. To just drop my life and run away to do whatever the hell I wanna do. Wouldn't that just be fucking out of this world insane?

"Man is free at the moment he wishes to be" - Voltaire

(circa 2007)

10:47 PM
Categories: backpacking, busking, freedom, life, music, non-fiction, stories, travels. Author: sleepwalker

Cheers to the New Age. Whatever that may be.

What is this ‘New Age’ anyway? What is ‘modern’? It is a popularly held belief that today we are living in a post-modern age. What is this ‘post-modern age’? I hear a lot of talk about post-modern this, post-modern that, but never really about post-modernism and what in god’s name is it. That is one of the few concepts in the past decade that has eluded me time and time again. That and, of course, women, Nietzsche and Britney Spears. When I think of Po-Mo, I’d think of Las Vegas, silicone tits, the Endgame Theory, Jenks, post-structuralism, the internet, Warhol, Foucault, de-construction, Derrida, McDonalds, consumerism. Not to forget Mr. Paul who taught me Film History back in 2004. He had the pleasure to confuse the living hell out of me by introducing the class to this whole Po-Mo she-bang thingamajig.

Maybe there are just too many ideologies and complexities in this melting pot with a capital M smacked on it. There’s just too many of too much going everywhere at the same time. Today’s world seems so endless it’s scary to think that we might not be far off from the tip of the bell curve. It’s even scarier to read Fukuyama’s teleology-buttered ideas. I don’t know whether we’re about to hit the brakes or that we’ve been screeching for the past few decades. Either way, it still boils down to the fact that we might be one of the last generations of this great yet sometimes benignly stupid family of humanity.

The global warming clock has long started. Mother Nature is pissed (think El Nino, Katrina, the recent 30-minute mini storm in Subang Jaya). Invisible forces like the internet, the Secret Police, corruption, intolerance, are taking over. Capitalism has humanity by the balls. The end of days prophecies of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are steadily being fulfilled. Children are growing up (or rather pushed into the adult world) far too fast. Groups such as women, gays, blacks, Jews that were repressed in the past have now finally risen and are taking over. MTV, drugs, consumerism become new religions. Globalisation has bridged continents and is quietly bringing the world suffocatingly closer together. So close that we willingly let foreign forces through our membrane (in it’s most primary form, membranes ensures the security of cellular identity) and risk losing ourselves.

Theology and secularism are both still stuck in an endless war. Pollution becomes the new ignorance, a kind of an intangible version of your friendly neighbourhood treehugger. Reality TV programmes are mushrooming from every ridiculous microscopic cell of shit ideas known to man. Girls are becoming boys, and boys are becoming girls. Fashion is starting to look like “oh dear lord you poor soul, did Ray Charles climb out of his grave and dress you up?”. Music is the same. There’s even a music band, with two band members who look the same, called Same Same. I mean for the love of god the road nearby my place is called Jalan Bot Laju. That’s Speedboat Road in English. Can it possibly get any worse than that?

It’s a classic case of ideas running away from us. That infamous phenomenon called the writer's block. We are so running out of ideas. Wait. That’s all I needed to say actually. Ignore the whole two paragraphs above. All I had to say was, “We’re running out of ideas”.

We are running out of ideas.

And that my friends is exactly why the world will end.

(12.23am, 25th May 2006)

7:29 AM
Categories: capitalism, end of days, fashion, future, global warming, globalisation, ideas, life, media, philosophy, post-modernism, religion, rhetorics, thoughts, zeitgeist. Author: sleepwalker