On the matters of heart - Kokoro

心 - Kokoro is the title of the well-know novel written by Natsume Souseki, literally translated as "heart"

Could that delicate and complex instrument that lies in the human breast ever really produce a reading that was absolutely clear and truthful, like a clock's hands pointing to numbers on its dial?

This one and only sentence captures the essence of the whole novel itself on the question of matters of the hearts
Human are intrinsically selfish and we are just hopeless in the quest to resist that fact
Our hearts vibrate and tremble in response to every seemingly trivial stimulant in our daily affairs especially when it comes to the business of love
Kokoro describes the quest that the authors had embarked on to try to unveil the mysterious mechanism that works deep inside our breast, to try to rationalize and enlighten the motives, the way we respond to outer circumstances in such self-centered manner, fully obsessed and marred by our own circumstances
Especially when it comes to the matter of the heart
On the surface, the novel is slow and simple, telling story of a fated encounter between a student struggling to find his own place in society, and a character called Sensei who has refused and withdrawn all his connection to the current world.
Sensei has been haunted by his own past, plagued by his disappointment in human's nature of selfishness, particularly when it dawns on him that he is, by no means, any different to other human creature that walk the Earth. That fact is a final blow that internally crucified him and robbed him of his own happiness, constantly bothered and disgusted him with his question on the worth of his very own existence.

Needless to say, my stance on selfishness is on the very same note with the author.
I cant help admit that I am, a very egoistic creature on my own
At times I can direct my most willful words onto the very hurtful spot just to distress the others, only to regret and disappoint at my pathetic ego afterwards
I am another hopeless case
Mind it but when your closest one hurt you the most with his venomous words, he is probably hurting himself with the very equal or greater force
You can only hurt others the most when you are able to reach and touch deeply into their intricate hearts and that fact alone means that it makes it almost impossible for one not to feel the others' pain, especially when those wounds are willfully inflicted by none other than you.

So yes, to start my birthday week with this post is not very uplifting, especially when the sky is so grey on a monday winter morning T-T

Well, it does help me to lighten partially the burden though (-_-ll)

and here comes Crucify my love, which I feel tremendously suitable for this post haha

On red autumn and Gun n roses

"Talk to me softly. There's something in your eyes
Don't hang your head in sorrow
And please don't cry
I know how you feel inside
I've been there before
Somethin's changin' inside you"


There is something compelling, yet beseeching and urging about these lines.

An earnest wish, a soft plea to provide a shelter, offer a hand and shoulder the ever so heavy burden 

I wonder if I want to hear these words or if I want to say these words instead.

Judging from my nature, it might just be both


Autumn is bidding its farewell, carrying with its all the glorious beauty of the season

A scorching red autumn in contrast of a deep clear blue sky under the shining sun

There's nothing more beautiful on the water colour pallet as autumn shades at its very own nature

Beautiful and heartbreaking, and especially so for a lone soul

And it all reminds me of how I fell in love with autumn

I was first introduced and fascinated by the overwhelming red shade of autumn thanks to Dolls, a Japanese movie by Beat Takeshi. A truly beautiful representation of the four seasons in Japan and of love in all its extreme forms in this land of the rising sun.

And I just cant helped falling for it, strong and deep

Red is alluring and mesmerising, with its most poignant yearning disposition when being used to capture the solitude of autumn.

That was my very first impression of a red autumn, which for ever changes my image and definition of this season, shaping in me a very unique attachment and reference for it

Autumn and its unbearably intense lonesomeness

Maybe this season is just the very reason I keep listening to this piece of music

To be able to be confided and to confide in

It is just so right and apt, here and now, to listen to it

as if it is especially made and reserved for this season

a soul mate, a companion for each other... and here my thoughts again collide into this yearning for an absolute soul-mate. I am such a helpless case!  

But that is just how I feel about it

Ain't Guns n roses compose it just for autumn? or at least they must really really love this season

...well, just let me be, dwelling on my own loneliness and idealising autumn.

After all, it is the very season in my own name

My point is, I am fated with autumn ...lol

on ...maybe English

so here i am blogging out again to pour out a heavy heart

i am watching Downton Abbey, a show on an England aristocrat family at the edge of the modern age facing the indispensable division of tradition and modern
there i went admiring the beauty of the English and how they elegantly use English in such old-fashioned and subtle manner
I guess no matter how i am boasting about me being flexible and opened, i cant help admitting i prefer the old-fashioned stuff and rather conservative on my own business

a person or a nation would lose any dignity if they deny the tradition and the heritage they inherit

anyway, that's just how I come to adore those elegant and vintage things

the point is, again, like all those times i was caught off-guard watching movie and film, some cheesy conversations just came dawn on me again and wavered me from my determination to work

"I know you will not be happy if you're not with her as long as she walks the earth"

yes, essentially it is downright to it
how much time and obstacles needed for one to prove or come to one's sense that that is absolutely the one for them and no other else
especially when circumstances are not socially ideal

in time truth will tell i guess
in time the appropriate one will prevail
and there's no point wasting my time questioning and filling myself with doubts just yet

being tested only makes you stronger
and you just have to believe that you will get the better of it
here I am again encouraging myself to head on
the blindly optimistic, fearless, clever and adventurous sagittarian

on hardships and joy

So I was reading article on Nieztsche and his view on hardships and challenges in relation to human growth and achievement

Apparently, we, human grow stronger after each of our encounter with challenges and hardships.

The more we seek the joy of achievement and accomplishment, the more suffering and pain we have to go through. The principle is just as conflict as our complicated nature is.

It is just inevitable. To taste the greatest pleasure, one must endure the equally greatest pain.

Certainly only the brave one who chase and survive the contest will be rewarded with priceless award.

In certain point of life, everyone who seeks personal growth and wisdom will surely experience the challenge of hardships borne on the journey to their evolution. No pain no gain. It is just as succinct as the words themselves.

I am at one of those stairs leading to one of the high rooftop I've set for years.

Maybe I've made it to the middle, maybe I've just passed 30% but the hardest 30%, or maybe I'm over 70% and nearly there.

Recalling when you climb the stairs, the most tiring point is when you are about 50%~80% of the stairs. When first started, your fresh energy easily push you straight to 40~50% of the journey. That is when the energy started to drain and the prospect of the work to be done is long and hard enough to make you feel uneasy and even more tired than your physical body perceives.

It is when your mind needs only a little stimulant of the scene of you reaching the top to continue on when your physical body really is about to give up to continue to charge forward steps by steps. When you pass that hardest part, nothing could hardly become your hindrance. You will make it to your goal.   

So here I am at one of those hardest part when I started to doubt myself... but as the greatest thinkers have pointed out, the greater joy you seek, the greater pain you must endure.

There's nothing else but to believe in yourself, believe in human, believe in the future possibility and keep pressing forward. NO time to waste questioning the future. You just have to advance.

This is what you want and what you seek. 

The resilient and the courageous would prevail.

 

Wish me luck and faith to go ahead. For the greater pleasure in life

sometimes i do wonder what i am doing

once you gather all courage to throw away your warm nest and step into a different world



and you start to wonder if it's all worth your courage and effort



where's the supportive Venus to back us when we feel tired?



I had departed but have I really arrived?

it is a bit reminiscent of the first time when you start anew in a different place

the chilly quiet night with none than your solitude, accompanying by the music and your wandering mind



it is the foreign feelings that human hate; that is why we really have strong attachment to our small comfort zone i guess

On 'sometimes when we touch'

Ever since I was able to listen to English songs, I was totally captivated by this song.
At first, its enticing melody, and then its intriguing lyrics
Encompassing the vicious conflicts of a burning desire to empathize and at the same time, to crush and ruin that  feeling, it is a perfect description of a kind of physical yearning, a tangled kind of 'love' that you cant affix it to any common notion of 'love', something that you cant completely define, possess or control it.  
It touches me deep.
It is not exactly emotional or sensual like any commercial, light-hearted movie of love.
It is heartbreaking in its own quiet, intense and profound way.
Something much more real and closed to human's selfish nature
My tightened heart beats fast even now, when I'm trying to define it with my clumsy words.
It feels like as you are trying to seek and reach for warmth throughout the abyss of cold and harshness

...
I'm not even sure why I'm writing it now on Friday at 5am, beginning of another busy day of work ahead
It just comes across and I have the urge to practice using ENglish haha

Anyway,  I'm quite sure that many went through the above complicated stages of ...well, 'physical yearning' or else, this song wouldnt have become a hit then...
Just a moment to share, to our aching hearts =.=

Sometimes When We Touch"

You ask me if I love you
And I choke on my reply
I'd rather hurt you honestly
Than mislead you with a lie
And who am I to judge you
On what you say or do?
I'm only just beginning to see the real you

And sometimes when we touch
The honesty's too much
And I have to close my eyes and hide
I wanna hold you til I die
Til we both break down and cry
I wanna hold you till the fear in me subsides

Romance and all its strategy
Leaves me battling with my pride
But through the insecurity
Some tenderness survives
I'm just another writer
Still trapped within my truth
A hesitant prize fighter
Still trapped within my youth

And sometimes when we touch
The honesty's too much
And I have to close my eyes and hide
I wanna hold you til I die
Til we both break down and cry
I wanna hold you till the fear in me subsides

At times I'd like to break you
And drive you to your knees
At times I'd like to break through
And hold you endlessly

At times I understand you
And I know how hard you've tried
I've watched while love commands you
And I've watched love pass you by
At times I think we're drifters
Still searching for a friend
A brother or a sister
But then the passion flares again

And sometimes when we touch
The honesty's too much
And I have to close my eyes and hide
I wanna hold you til I die
Til we both break down and cry
I wanna hold you till the fear in me subsides

on the world situation...

NOVEMBER RAIN

When I look into your eyes
I can see a love restrained
But darlin' when I hold you
Don't you know I feel the same

Yeah

Nothing lasts forever
And we both know hearts can change
And it's hard to hold a candle
In the cold November rain

We've been through this such a long long time
Just tryin' to kill the pain

Oh Yeah

But lovers always come and lovers always go
An no one's really sure who's lettin' go today
Walking away

If we could take the time
to lay it on the line
I could rest my head
Just knowin' that you were mine
All mine
So if you want to love me
then darlin' don't refrain
Or I'll just end up walkin'
In the cold November rain

Do you need some time...on your own
Do you need some time...all alone...Ooh
Everybody needs some time...
on their own...ooh
Don't you know you need some time...all alone

I know it's hard to keep an open heart
When even friends seem out to harm you
But if you could heal a broken heart
Wouldn't time be out to charm you

Ooh-ooh-ooh--oh-oh-oh

Sometimes I need some time...on my
own
Sometimes I need some time...all alone...ooh
Everybody needs some time...
on their own...ooh
Don't you know you need some time...all alone

And when your fears subside
And shadows still remain...Oh Yeah
I know that you can love me
When there's no one left to blame
So never mind the darkness
We still can find a way
Nothing lasts forever
Even cold November rain

You're not the only One
You're not the only One

Don't ya think that you need somebody
Don't ya think that you need someone
Everybody needs somebody }3x
You're not the only one
You're not the only one

Don't ya think that you need somebody
Don't ya think that you need someone
Everybody needs somebody

Songwriters
ROSE, W. AXL / HUDSON, SAUL / MCKAGAN, DUFF ROSE / STRADLIN, IZZY / REED, DARREN A. / SORUM, MATT

Published by
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

-------------------------------------
It is not November now and there is not that much rain in Singapore though.
But it definitely is perfect for my mood =__=
sometimes we really need some time on our own to reflect

Well, as usual, I just need an outlet to release this imminent feeling of uncertainty and dreadful darkness in my heart
Things happening around depresses me in every single way

I mean everything at all
The Ukraine crisis and tension escalation in the West, the nuclear power test of North Korea, the ship wreck of South Korea, the lifting of arms trade ban in Japan, the internal war of Syria.... my inability to take initiate of my own business, my incurable impatience, my feeling of being worthless, my financial situation, my non-traveling schedule, and on top of that, my uncertain future employment!!!!

Yes, it might sound stupid to be concern over the world politics as there is hardly anything we can do but I cant afford not to as a member of the living world
The human race seems to never learn their lesson. Are they trying to drag the whole planet to its path to war and destruction again? It looks so to my eyes!!!
I wonder if they are really keen on setting blood and massacre

Maybe I was too obsessed after reading on WWI & WWII but it all started because of human thirst and greed for power and their rationale of nationalism and revolution
An advocate for human goodness as I am, it is utterly disappointing if we cover our eyes to let history repeats itself, over and over again! What is enough and where is the line... Murder and killing is a crime no matter what reasons. No one has the rights to rip one off their rights of life
And I do not buy nationalism.
It is yet just another notion human creates to serve their quest for power
The idea, the creation of nation, borders, maps, the control of immigration, visa, passport... do they have a purpose in contributing to a better legacy? a cleaner Earth? a more peaceful world?
i DO NOT think so

I do not and will not hesitate to say I detest war at the cost of human life, whatever rationale it is behind. There is no such thing as a "good war". It is absolutely and utterly meaningless
It is painful and heartbreaking to see the physical and mental destruction of war and its aftermath
I have never experienced war but as a human being existing, I feel that human, every single individuals, are held responsible to prevent it at all cost.
Yet, we are too oblivious and take it for granted that it is not relevant to us 
.It is only not directly and not immediately but it will get to us all at the end of it when some crisis really breaks out
....
......
this is my frustration on the world situation
and fueling with my own situation
has inflicted this lethargic feeling in me

even though I have tried long and hard to distract myself by occupying my time with my various interest, nothing just seems to feel right.. so here i am venting my mess of frustration

i guess patience is called for in situation like this
oh gosh
i need to feel myself busy
i need to feel things progressive
and i need to feel motivated and involved
i need to feel excited for new adventure or traveling plan  pleaseeeeeeee

btw i'm thinking of giving German a try hah and so my post completes and hopefully my mood gets better haha

on quotes and literature

"the labour into which a heart has poured its whole love - where will it have its say to excite and inspire, and when?"

from Snow country by Kawabata Yasunari

the sentence has its own sadness as the gentle sadness that envelops the whole novel.
just as Komako's unrequited love that has been forfeited under the name of fate from the very moment that it sprung into life
a love that will never blossom in the snow country...

*******************
November 2014

"Which will die first? Who could give a confident answer to that question? I thought. And suppose the answer were clear. What would Sensei do? And what would his wife do? Surely the only thing either could do was to continue in the face of my father's approaching death back at home. A sense of human fragility swept over me, of the hopeless frailty of our innately superficial nature."

"Could that delicate and complex instrument that lies in the human breast ever really produce a reading that was absolutely clear and truthful, like a clock's hands pointing to numbers on its dial?" 

from Kokoro by Natsume Souseki

Kokoro has really addressed the various thoughts, aroused feelings, and depths of emotions on life, on people, on moments
it is like a kaleidoscope capturing the multi-colours of a young, growing heart

***************

"That fact, one might think, told how deep he had sunk into the meshes of the curse, how complete the paralysis was; but Kikuji felt the reverse, that he had escaped the curse and the paralysis. It was as if an addict had been freed of his addiction by taking the ultimate dose of a drug"

from Thousand Cranes by Kawabata Yasunari
Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker

by taking the ultimate dose of drug....
the phrase seems to stretch its echo throughout the whole passage, springs out poignantly through the mingle 'notion' of guilt and naked human feelings

a compelling and formidable comparison
only when one committed the greatest sin, one would feel free from the weighing burden of guilt and humiliation; as there is no point of turning back, and no way for cure and atonement

ultimate, supreme... we create these terms as our yearning for the greatest, highest, unreachable, matchless
something utmost and exclusive
yet, no one can really satisfactorily define the meaning, or criteria of such characteristics


***************************
June 2011

this is from a book i've read "The reader" by Bern Schlink

"I had granted Hanna a small niche, certainly an important niche, one from which i gained something and for which I did something, but not a place in my life"

... it was just a simple line but succinct and retain all the tension of the fluctuated love, hate, denial and bitterness

****************************

Dec 2014

The Little Prince

But seeds are invisible. They sleep deep in the heart of the earth's darkness, until some one among them is seized with the desire to awaken. Then this little seed will stretch itself and begin--timidly at first--to push a charming little sprig inoffensively upward toward the sun. If it is only a sprout of radish or the sprig of a rose-bush, one would let it grow wherever it might wish. But when it is a bad plant, one must destroy it as soon as possible, the very first instant that one recognizes it.

"The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her . . . I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her . . ."

The world of yesterday
Stefan Zweig

For I regard memory not as a phenomenon preserving one thing and losing the another merely by chance, but as a power that deliberately paces events in order or wisely omits them. Everything we forget about our own lives was really condemned to oblivion by a inner instinct long ago...

We long ago ceased believing in the religion of our fathers, their faith in the swift and enduring ascent of humanity . Having learnt our cruel lesson, we see their overhasty optimism as banal in the face of catastrophe that, with a single blow, cancelled out a thousands years of human effort. But if it was only a delusion, it was a noble and wonderful delusion that our fathers served, more humane and fruitful than today's slogan. And something in me, mysteriously and in spite of all I know and all my disappointments, cannot quite shake it off. What a man has taken into his bloodstream in childhood from the air of the time stays with him. And despite all that is dinned into my ears daily, all the humiliation and trial that I myself and countless of my companion in misfortune has experienced, I cannot quite deny the belief of my youth that in spite of everything, events will take a turn for the better. Even from the abyss of horror in which we try to feel our way today, half-blind, our hearts distraught and shattered, I look up again and again to the ancient constellations that shone on my childhood, comforting myself with the inherited confidence that, some day, this relapse will　appear only an interval in the eternal rhythm of progress onward and upward. 

As you might be able to find out for yourself, these lines are written in one of the darkest time in mankind history, when violence and death roamed the Earth and robbed thousands of lives in the two World war. Compared to people living in that period, we, certainly are in a whole lot better situation. But right now, two thoughts are rivaling in my head.
This is how a human with sense feel in time of chaos where all and everything he could place his faith crumbles, where all sacred grounds of belief vanishes into thin air and nothing but doubts, disgust, horror and despair avails. Nothing is more frightening than the present. Yet, there, his hope and unyielding faith that that horrid time is just an interval in history. I cant help but admiring that faith. Though we are not facing human devastating destruction to that level, we are aware that we are living in a period where nothing remains 'secured', 'eternal' and 'guaranteed', or at least to me, it seems so.Things are ever so transcendent and momentary.
Another thought is that in my wildest imagination, who could ever ensure that an even more horrifying and pulverizing destruction is not making its way to the world we are living?
And yet, human are still too engrossed in game of power and territory. It sounds all too stupid in the face of death and destruction to me though.

What on earth could be of more value than life?

**************************

March 2015

Far from the madding crowd
Thomas Hardy

He had just reached the time of life at which 'young' is ceasing to be the prefix of 'man' in speaking of one. He was at the brightest period of masculine growth, for his intellect and his emotions were clearly separated: he had passed the time during which the influence of youth indiscriminately mingles them in the character of impulse, and he had not yet arrived at the stage wherein they become united again, in the character of prejudice, by the influence of a wife and family. In short, he was twenty-eight and a bachelor.

This is how Thomas Hardy describes a man of twenty-eight years old at that period.
Twenty-eight seems to be the gate separating the world of adulthood, the entrance to calmness and wisdom, with a definite sense of self-worthy and unbiased opinion of things firmly grounded and nurtured.

As an adult of 28 nowadays, I wonder if this standard still stands true? or is the difference in the independence level between the East and the West does make it appearance here?

********************************************

this is a post I will revisit once in a while to update on quotes
the act of writing really places me on different stands and calms my impatient self... more than i thought

@ picture: a rainy autumn day - Arashiyama - Kyoto '2012

on destinations

ok i just want to note down a destination that i have to go before the end of the world
so that i'll never forget this desire of explore and conquer

Austria - Hallstatt, Innsbruck, Vienna, Salzburg
Norway - Stavanger
Iceland
Switzerland - Wengen / Grindewald
Czech - Prague, Cseky Krumlov
German - Regensburg
France - Provence, Giverny, Versaille
Neitherland
Canada
Denmark
Finland
UK
New Zealand
USA - Portland & Alaska, Seatle

and in Japan
Hokkaido
Yuzawa - Niigata
Morioka
Kanazawa - Kurobe Alp - Kamikouchi
Shirakawa-go
Ise Jingu

* Updated on May 22 2014
Japan - Chugoku, Shikoku & Kansai area
- Yoshino (Nara) - sakura blossom
- Iwakuni (Kintai Kyou bridge)
- Matsuyama - castle & dogo onsen
- Kinosaki (trendy onsen town)
- Kobe
- Himeji

Kyushuu
-Kirishima - Ebino kogen
- Yakushima
- Takachiho & Amano Iwato shrine
- Huis Ten Bosch

that's it for now... will update soon lol XD
to the life of Sagittarius!

the year of horse: Of youth

so the year of horse has come...
a new year, a new beginning
a wish for a vivacious and exuberant year ahead
2013 is really an eventful and efficient year when i achieved many things ... of course by sweat and tears, by sear effort and hard work ...(well, i admitted i did laze off sometimes)

the chosen road ahead is still long, dark, obscure, challenging and unpredictable but somehow i have faith in myself (more than I ever had in my life), in the values of hard-work and efforts
even if it is frightening and tiring, you should still persevere to press forward
that should be the spirits

As the lyrics of Jupiter, a Japanese song, we taste loneliness in order to learn to love...
defeat and failure is there to teach us the secret of success
with the will and the heart, passion will lead us the way

Well, with all that said, I still refuse to admit that I sound really old and grown-up now ahah
The difference is that I am ready.
To work harder, to take more responsibilities, to err and to grow from the errors
Below is Mariane, a Japanese pop song that I cant stop listening to
Touched by an incorruptible loneliness, it exudes an indescribable yearning of a youthful heart
...now it reminds me of a line describing Daisy in The Great Gastby
'She wanted her life to shaped now, immediately and the decision must be made by some force - of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality - that was closed at hand'

...yes, one is aware of time and space more than ever when they start to slide on their limited youth -  the breathless race to catch up with the passage of time, to cling onto youth; for youth has started to bid an eternal farewell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CobGe2M4k_4

メリーアン

作詞　高見沢俊彦・高橋研
作曲　高見沢俊彦

夜露にぬれる　森を抜けて
白いバルコニー　あなたを見た
すがるような瞳と　風に揺れる長い髪
ときめく出逢いに　胸ははりさけそう
メリーアン　メリーアン
メリーアン　Ｗon't　you　stay　for　me

遠くきこえる　チャペルの鐘
あなたを奪う　夢を見た
輝く少年の日々　恋の謎もとけぬまま
つのる想いは　激しくかよった道
メリーアン　メリーアン
メリーアン　Ｗon't　you　stay　for　me

メリーアン　メリーアン
メリーアン　Ｗon't　you　stay　for　me
オー　メリーアン　突然どこへ消えたのか

嵐の去った　真夏の夜
あなたの姿を　求め歩く
夢からさめた僕の　胸に残ったまぼろし
誰もが通りすぎる　みちしるべか
メリーアン　メリーアン
メリーアン　Ｗon't　you　stay　for　me

メリーアン　メリーアン
メリーアン　Ｗon't　you　stay　for　me