Michelle, this is everybody. Everybody, this is Michelle, mi preciosa.

Rocking the Non-Sensei's world since November 27th, 2004.

So have you shot yourself in the head yet? Get on with it!

I'm getting to it! Give me half a chance to reload, wouldja?
Jeez!

*click*

Between the ages of about, let’s say, 18 to 26, is there a bigger wake up call one can receive than the death of a parent?

You are old enough to understand responsibility and capable of taking it on. You just hadn’t needed to until now. Now, growing up happens at a hyper accelerated speed. There are just SO many things you had no clue about, but now have to learn in double quick time. On your own.

This must be especially true in the event of the death of the father in conventional middle class families. He’s the decision maker; he’s made all the investments, the insurance policies, the bank loans, the purchases, the debts, the savings, down to the personal relationships he’s developed with plumbers and electricians – all of which you probably know very little about. Apart from the immense grief of the loss, there are all these other mountains to be scaled. And they must be scaled, because, in all probability, there are still people depending on someone taking charge. And a young adult who manages to do this successfully would rate bloody high on my respect chart.

I think, whatever age you are, the death of both parents leaves you alone. Spouse, children, a successful career, a comfortable life…they help, no doubt, but loss and grief are always personal. Always.

I have, some might say, radical views on procreation, the idea of parenting, and more recently, baby selling (not swapping; and to childless couples). But I still have to get them in order, for I was unable to defend them in a discussion. I know my philosophy on life. I believe everyone has one – most just don’t know it yet. I know the essence of mine, but I haven’t explained it to another in so long, I hope I haven’t forgotten how to! The only way one’s ideas are strengthened (or changed, if you have an open mind) are through discussion against opposing views. But all this is for another time. This is about parents.

For all our incompatibilities, fights, misunderstandings and periods of minimal communication, I would be very lost without my parents. In the immortal words of Siddhartha Basu on the Britannia Child Genius programme,

“Thank you. Thank you both.”

Does not knowing enough to contradict mean one must, or reasonably, should, agree?

(Assuming there will not be a future time for discussion, so one cannot learn and come back knowing enough to contradict.)

It's all about expectations... or not having any.


Come into these arms again
And lay your body down
The rhythm of this trembling heart
Is beating like a drum
It beats for you
It bleeds for you
It knows not how it sounds
For it is the drum of drums; it is the song of songs

Once I had the rarest rose
That ever deigned to bloom
Cruel winter chilled the bud
And stole my flower too soon
O loneliness, O hopelessness
To search the ends of time...
For there is in all the world
No greater love than mine

Love love love love love love
Still falls the rain....still falls the rain...
Be mine forever...

Let me be the only one
To keep you from the cold
Now the floor of heaven is laid
In stars of brightest gold
They shine for you, they shine for you
They burn for all to see
Come into these arms again
And set this spirit free...

- Love song for a Vampire, Annie Lennox

There's just an undeniable magic in this song. The whole gamut of Gothic love was captured so brilliantly. I fell in love the first time I heard it, and I'm still in love with it.

Whykings

Pioneers are essentially ‘Why-kings’ – those who constantly ask ‘why?’ or ‘why not?’

Just like the Vikings. In many ways, the Vikings were pioneers, in terms of exploration of the lands around them, for instance. In those times, that was arguably the best or only way human knowledge was considered expandable. Leaving aside the argument of their reasons for exploration or invasion, their very endeavour reveals an underlying human trait – the quest for understanding what lies beyond.

And yet, we do not, by and large, encourage questions from those who ask the most fundamental ones – children. It is said that Einstein was able to achieve what he did because he asked the simplest questions, as a child might. What if a person traveled as fast as the light from the headlight of this train? I believe his ideas on relativity stemmed from a clock he saw on a station platform, as he was traveling home from work. And the very basic questions he asked himself about the relative passage of time for someone on the platform and someone traveling at the speed of light were what gave rise to one of the most celebrated scientific theories in human history.

When I was young, I remember most of my questions to my father, about anything, were almost invariably answered by something which amounted to “why do you need to know?” Thankfully, my mother encouraged my questioning mind and helped me learn how to find answers to them. I remember, at around the age of 9 or so, I used to ask a fair number of questions about how much things cost. A chocolate, a soft drink, the servants’ salary, a car. It probably stemmed from a desire to understand the relative value of things. Which becomes increasingly important as a child grows up. I was almost never told what anything cost. This just might explain why I am hopeless at bargaining.

Few things are as irritating as people who question just for the heck of it, or to appear smart. But every time we shush a curious child without at least trying to explain the world to them, we just might be repressing genius. There is a fine line between raising a genuinely inquisitive child to think constructively and creating a painfully supercilious know-it-all. Every parent can only hope their kids turn out alright. If I have a child, I can only hope I will find the fortitude and patience to answer all his questions, and the courage to admit I don’t know the answers to everything.

Let us nurture our Whykings. Let us temper their curiosity and not dismiss their innocent queries as ridiculous. Let us help them on their journey of discovery of this thing we call life. They may teach us something yet – about what we think are our limitations and how we can surpass them.

Everybody can be a teacher, everybody a student.

Some days everything just seems to fall into place. Looks like all your plans are going to pan out...and everything's gonna be just fine.

Now, all ya gotta do is sit back, relax, and wait for it all to get buggered.

Like the wise man said, in times such as these, you would do well to remember the first law of constipation:

"Good shit comes to those who wait."

Wind on Skin

A wealth of memories, frittered
carelessly, prodigal child
Fingers burnt by touching your skin
I watch them turn to ash
and scatter in the nonchalant wind.

She cares not for my pain
though healed in parts, scabby
She picks at it, intermittently
and I indulge her,
How foolish, you say
Maybe.

Blow hot, tormentor, blow
over the raw skin, but let it be slow
so I can feel the peeling
Blow cold, nurturer, blow
over trapped time, so I can know
when began the healing.

There just aint no nothing like reading a mail from her first thing in the morning...
:-)