rest in peace, mr lee kuan yew

"integrity of life is fame's best friend, which nobly, beyond death, shall crown the end." 

(duchess of malfi, john webster) 

i am thankful for my education that has enabled me to internalise the extent of his contributions to singapore; but more importantly, i am so immensely thankful that his wholehearted & passionate devotion to building up this country has even enabled me this education in the first place. 

thank you mr. lee, for epitomising the integrity of life with such a fierce passion that it inspires me to emulate in your footsteps. as i've taken away from literature classes last year: even though death is universal & "...all things have their end", the honest mourning of the entire nation stands as a testament to your greatness, which "nobly, beyond death, shall crown the end."    

on reading // (kickass) j.w. quotes

haven't posted in awhile & i was just pondering over why i have a natural inclination towards reading (possible interview q) so here are some beautiful jeanette winterson quotes i took down while reading "why be happy when you could be normal" while listening to some kickass xolo (btw the book title is more apt than it seems bc that was what j.w's mother told her wrt to her sexuality !!!)

“i believe in fiction and the power of stories because that way we speak in tongues. we are not silenced. all of us, when in deep trauma, find we hesitate, we stammer; there are long pauses in our speech. the thing is stuck. 

we get our language back through the languages of others. we can turn to the poem. we can open the book. somebody has been there for us and deep-dived the words.” (9)

"a tough life needs a tough language - and that is what poetry is. that is what literature offers - a language powerful enough to say how it is.

it isn’t a hiding place. it is a finding place." (40)

“i had lines inside of me- a string of guiding lights. i had language.

fiction and poetry are doses, medicines. what they heal is the rupture reality makes on the imagination. i had been damaged and a very important  part of me had been destroyed - that was my reality, the facts of my life; but on the other side of the facts was who i could be, how i could feel, and as long as i had words for that, images for that, stories for that, then i wasn’t lost.” (40) 

“it took me a long time to realise that there are two kinds of writing; the one you write and the one that writes you. the one that writes you is dangerous. you go where you don’t want to go. you look where you don’t want to look.” (54)

“books, for me, are a home. books don’t make a home - they are one, in the sense that just as you do with a door, you open a book, and you go inside. inside there is a different kind of time and a different kind of space. 

there is warmth there too - a hearth. i sit down with a book and i am warm. i know that from the chilly nights on the doorstep.” (61)

“her suffering was her armour. gradually it became her skin. then she could not take it off. she died without painkillers and in pain.” (69) 

“on the top of the hill looking out over the town i wanted to see further than anybody had seen. that wasn’t arrogance; it was desire. i was all desire, desire for life. 

and i was lonely. 

mrs winterson had succeeded there ; her own loneliness, impossible to breach, had begun to wall us all in.” (105)

also j.w. words, so astutely, my idealistic (& unhealthy) perspective on love: 

“when i walked away that night i was yearning for love and loyalty. the wide yearning of my nature had to funnel through a narrow neck - it went into the idea of “the other”, the almost twin, who would be so near to me but not me. a plato-like split of a complete being. we would find each other one day - and then everything would be all right. 

i had to believe that - how else would i have coped? and yet i was heading for the dangerous losses that “all or nothing” love demands.” (120) 

finding my language through the words of others is why.

a failed revolt

but what am i so afraid of? of peaking? of losing out & missing any prized opportunity that will come my way? why am i so terrified of comparison - no, why am i so afraid of faring poorer than someone - anybody - else, that everything must become a competition, a race that i must eventually emerge victorious, even if the yardstick of victory is relative?

the line is blurring between trying & trying for the sake of it - half the time i don't even know why i am chasing after something when i know full well that prestige may be grandiose but is ultimately poor fuel. or perhaps the line has already been blurred.

also, is passion alone sufficient to survive? this brings up the question that infuriates me: why am i going to spend four years closely examining a specific discipline & spiritually wasting away my hours to satisfy/benefit a corporation in the future which i currently do not even have a clue about??? of course i already know the answer (which makes this a rhetorical question) & also do acknowledge that perhaps this itself is birthed out of self-benefit but i just have to put an aimless lament out here to justify this rising indignation chafing against my chest. how i wish to outwardly protest that "i will not bow down to society's demands !!!" but truth is i am already on all fours in preparation for the revered emperor to make his way through the palace gates.

it has been a week since results day & i feel intimidated by the power of that single slip of paper - or rather the power of knowing the alphabets on that slip of paper. it feels like so much has transformed ever since, & i am almost like a different person now.

give and take

god did not gift me with the miracle that would have left the most apparent mark of his grace i.e. turning my weakest subject into a glorious, arrow-pointing alphabet,

but the rest still remains a testament of his faithfulness.

(i take heart in the fact that i am where he ordains me to be, even if it has hitherto been quite a humbling experience) (maybe learning to live with a blight in perfection, at an absolutely consequential juncture, is the first lesson.)