Social Media makes for an Avoidant Community

Its not just Facebook or Twitter specifically. Its more of the whole digital age where we text, tweet, facebook, share, post. It is a world of fast paced uploading of current emotion like "oh look! I'm angry! Let's tweet about it!" or the mundane "this is what I just ordered for lunch! I even have a photo!" or "exactly where I am right now! Especially for my favourite stalker." It is a world in which we can Add our friends or Block them (if they so very much as make a comment we take offence to, or if we feel that relationship just isn't what we want anymore.) 

We become detached, unaccustomed to the awkward need for great balls to face a problem and SOLVE IT (or at least bleed trying). It is so much easier to delete a friend from a contact list, pretend we didn't see a tweet or block them from all our online social spaces. It is with such elegant simplicity with which we ignore texts we don't feel like responding to (or those we claim we "don't know how to"), or let the phone ring when some EX-fb-friend comes calling. Let's face it. In a world of multi platforms for us to express ourselves, keep in touch with friends and ensure we are always Connected, we are in actuality slowly becoming hardened, superficial, self centred cowardly individuals who dare not even look eyeball-to-eyeball with a Friend and say "hey, we need to talk about something?" OF COURSE we run away! Isn't it? We spare ourselves the awkward silence, the uncertainty of how the other responses to confrontation. We flee feelings of discomfort since our fingers can do all the talking/clicking for us by deleting, blocking. For a community that increasingly vomits tweets and facebook posts by the millisecond, we often become SO inarticulate. Maybe it is because twitter gives u a meagre 140 Characters? Is that now the attention span of the brain capacity?

While we are presented with technology that serves as amazing tools placed in the hands of a craftsman, we need to ensure that these platforms are the tools we use to shape an outcome, rather than us being tools, unconsciously shaped by the tools we so hold and use. Instead of smiling politely to all your Followers and Friends then ranting in spurts of vulgarities because you only have a 140 characters to inarticulate yourself, learn to verbalise once more with your God-given vocal chords.If you have an issue, SPEAK UP. If you represent a cause, DECLARE IT. If you have something to say, SAY IT. (Of course it is preferred that your thought process surpasses the 140 Character limit and passes through your brain first. As much as we all LOVE to tweet, I assume we have much more than the brain of a bird.)

SO! Lovely avoident community we are all in the process of becoming, lets try to at least slow down that cart en route to downhill-dom shall we?

Crossroads

It has yet to sink in completely (even while I'm typing this), but the long drawn 17 years of education has finally drawn to a close. It has only been 2 days, but the entire moments of freedom that I have been savouring makes the exams and studying all hazy and a blur right now. Awesome!

Now is the moment people have been talking about; what do u want to do with your life. what is next for you. are you sure about the direction you want to take. dont be idealistic. this is the real world.

Really! That is the JOY I'm received with as I exit the mostly dreary education of my life? Thanks guys! Im so psyched! haha.. Ok, I know people who have been in (what they call) the "Real World" have exprienced the ups and downs and so they say its not a bed of roses. I dont expect it to be either. I just wanna know who I am, and what God wants for me. So yes, I am not sorry of my replies; no, i still dont really know what i want to do with my life. I dont know what is next for me. I am definitely clueless about the direction I want to take. I am not idealistic, just searching. My world has always been real. Reality is subjective aint it? In sum, I'm still praying, and where God leads, I know He will provide :)

So now I simply tarry at the crossroad, pulling a chair to sit and think if I must. Dear God, it's me again :)

A False Memory

Mesmerized I started. Then taking some paces in a trance. It was beautiful- the lush greenery and warm sunshine. Under a spell i let slip in a whisper "The Golden Country!"

unseen

In this world, this life, we always seek for evidence. We look for substantiation to believe a theory, we judge others based on what we see, we are convinced by another as much as their proof renders. Besides the hard evidence, the rest are shelved under the category of coincidences.
We live in such a serious world.

The gloomy weather across these days depicts and yet encourages my spirit. I have been reminded that nothing is temporal; though nothing beautiful on this earth remains, neither does hurt nor pain. While every pitiful situation evokes an amount of suffering, through suffering there is hope, and after suffering comes victory.

Before gran's cremation, I kept picturing my uncle's cremation to mentally prepare myself for it. I told myself i will not cry and to be prepared that it would not be pretty. To my surprise, the circumstance allowed the experience to be a proper close to this chapter; from the elegance of the way it was handled, to the single butterfly that was fluttering in the room below us almost following the casket, to the gentle closing of the doors after the casket was slowly put into the hole in the wall. When i was asked about it, somehow i could not stop myself from thinking about the word beauty.

In my life thus far, i have experienced worry and peace, fear and peace, but never ever such sorrow and peace. I am not saying that this is evidence, but i am saying i feel and know that I am held by hands unseen.

Amazing Grace Lyrics

John Newton (1725-1807)
Stanza 6 anon.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far
and Grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me.
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

When we've been here ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.

the Right thing to do

the easy categorization of the self and everyone else
makes it easier to draw comparison
imperfection is a lack of effort
the decision deemed selfish

they say that in many things there are no right or wrong, but apparantly in most things there are..

Wonderland

we all have that bit of it in us like Alice i guess.
As a child, we lived out our dreams , no inhibitions. We had the freedom to be mad because it was alright to be. Painting the roses red, dreaming of flying, talking to animals who wear clothes.

Then we began to grow up and the world started pressing us into the corner of realism, breaking those fantasies cos they dont support the life we've been living, or wouldnt feed the yet-to-be-established-family. Slowly that existence fades into a surreal irreality and we treat them as sweet dreams or perhaps nightmares.

Then one day we get a glimpse of that life of liberal madness again. That hope. Maybe..
BUT society has ingrained its perfect objective of pragmatism. Dreams?! Fantasy?! gibberish.

But u follow ur instincts and find yourself on a journey, an adventure. before you know it, you are fighting for your life just to keep that dream alive. It is now that you realise you cant afford to stop. Living your dream despite fighting the almighty monster out there or within u is definitely worth it all. The madness is too real too pleasing to the senses that have been surpressed for all these years of growing up.

You are now convinced and crawl out of that rabbit hole to enlighten others who are invisibly chained, trapped by their own minds like u were before. Dreams of ur childhood, not neccessarily mere castles in the clouds. You find new direction and you move on.

Are u mad? It would appear so. but all the special people in the world are :)

maybe all we need is the guts to be mad and go with our God given instincts.

im not saying we were born to be impulsive irrational being. but perhaps being over careful has misplaced us, chucking ourselves out of our own wonderland..

Dont Know Why I Have a Blog

i remember hating the idea of a blog when it first started out. Like, why should everyone know whats going on in my life? Why should it be so public? (then again, inconsistent entries kill the blog and then this doesnt really matter anyways)
then, expressing myself. but why here? I do it in journals more effectively, or mayb when its important enough. So what is this for? mere random stuff that i may or may not ever look through again?

or mayb its just the desire to keep a record in case you ever wanna look back at random bits of your existence? maybe.. who knows..