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The art of talking. Not the best person to discuss this but hey, you’ll get your chance too.
Sometimes, we speak as though we do not hear. After all, we expect that there will be silence around, and as we ramble on and on, at least the person you’re talking to would be listening.
But are you really listening?
Did you hear what you just said?
Are you talking for the sake of saying something?
Do you know what you really mean?
Did you practice inside your head before it all came out?
Are you really listening to what’s coming out of your own mouth?
We often say things we think that others should hear. We never fully grasp the idea that maybe, just maybe, what they should be listening to is not what they want to listen to.
Experience, is just an euphemism for our mistakes.
The most beautiful words are those that suggest an outlet for escape. Something that paints a more picturesque view of the current landscape. Clearing away the gloom and the unforeseen.
Mind you, it never reminds.
Like a turtle that doesn’t need to hear that he’s slow.
Say what’s on your mind. But beware, as it always helps to cushion that fall. Give your reason, or never reprimand.
Think about your own words. Swirl them around and honestly think if you’ll like hearing them yourself.
I’m one to let emotions bully my logic. On my way to being 25, and yet it doesn’t make me wiser. Being in a relationship highlights my faults to me. Telling me that there’s no time to lose. That I’ve been missing out on life. And will still miss out on it if I continue to breathe in this music that doesn’t make sense.
To me, the world still doesn’t. Humanity is in its inevitable stages of deterioration. Right up to the lady that serves you coffee; she has no value on mankind whatsoever. She rings up the register, wipes up the mess and does the job. But does she know what is her real purpose? Who really does?
I say things I don’t understand. For a minute there, I sometimes wonder if I am sane. If I can actually be missing out on the point of being a person capable of loving. It’s like having limbs, without knowing how to groove to the music. Talent is inherent, but you may never discover it, if you don’t get to know yourself well enough.
You don’t know me. You don’t even care.
Have I lost this gift? Or have I only begun to know it’s supposed to be there?
If what you have is hunger, I should not be telling you that you should’ve eaten earlier.
Food is what you need, and I shall give it. Even if I can’t cook, there are countless ways to learn. Never say never. Never change? Good luck to ya.
And it cures my soul to know that forgiveness is in yours.
Share.
If you have love.
Share.
If you have any ideas.
Share.
If it makes you happier.
It is when we are unsure, that we keep to ourselves. But we also sometimes share, because who can really be certain of our own decisions?
Keep it all, he said. Keep everything so they don’t see. So they don’t judge.
Let real water wash away your fears. Plunge headlong and go to where you can’t come back to. Check the post box. Wait for that never-too-soon love in paper.
I’ve waited for so long. For this moment. To finally be the one I want to be. To step out like the world is mine. To walk in like life is a dream.
They have been good to me. They all have. Hardly sane as I pick up bits and smooth them into places. I love myself, but I never understand it. Perhaps, that is what they feel too.
Share
And say you’ll bring
To me deep love
You can’t say that it’s too soon to say how you feel
Share and say you’ll bring
To me deep love
Just don’t say that it’s too soon to say how you feel
I heard her. Far too long since I could grasp that they’d ever play it here. But she has returned. If only but one song, but to a million ears. Nobody cares. Everybody passes her by. But it was there nevertheless. She was there.
Imagine if your whole life revolved around music. Every word you sing, is like talking to the people. Each time you opened your mouth, there can only be melodies. We want to know what’s behind that tune. What made you write those lyrics?
Make it work this time. No more of theirs in your songs. Just you. Shut out the world and make it work.
Look who’s looking at you.
Maybe, I’ve really been too hard on the subject. The only person that seems to be upset is me. It doesn’t bring any value to my life. Man, it doesn’t even concern me.
It just got me thinking, I guess. And they have always said that too much, is disastrous. Where did all the balance go? And what is this influence he so fondly speaks of? Why does it so easily seep into our souls from the tube we glue our eyes on, or the writings we see every day?
Move over world, I’ve got my own decisions to make. I can listen, but I don’t have to make it a habit.
Say what you want, don’t make me look at you.
In fascination, he watched as his eyes grew wider. As he breathed in every word and made them his own. Influence is only a beauty when it comes from you. Indeed.
The decisions that we make everyday. No doubt it affects them too. But that’s what a life cycle is. What goes around comes around so that everyone can get their share.
Kick the ball and see it rise. Don’t expect it to perform like the boomerang. We can only watch and wait.
We don’t have that many years to play with. We can only hope for the best. Living one day at a time rarely applies now. Little by little, we are being robbed of what we know.
There is no right or wrong, only the truth. As long as we can sleep with the mind within, we are safe. Even if our dreams force us out of our room, we can only do so much to stop it.
Let it drift, and pray that it will arrive upshore. My bones are cracking, but at least I know why.
Keeping life simple, is not as simple at it seems. We look right and we look left, but still we don’t see. We drop our keys, but never think of why we’re careless.
That is life, that is only life, we hope.
As I close my eyes and turn away, I can only hope that change is natural.
Can a writer be alright, reading only his own words? Since when has reading become so over-rated? Previously, it was only a hobby of some sort.
You know, when you were still in school and you had to fill in those blanks on what you did in your pastime. Hoping to sound intellectual, as we were all groomed to think highly of, every child in the room would include ‘reading’ as a definite key word.
As you grow older, novels become just stories. The grown-ups, or whatever they call themselves, prefer to stick their noses in autobiographies, motivational concoctions and other similar false interpretations of life. Why I term them ‘false’ here could be because they make everyone think that we should all have opinions on anything and everything. That we should question even the unquestionable, just so that we can appear as though we have control of things, of which we never do anyway.
An author’s book is what a painting is to an artist. Or is it? Since Wilde’s brief observation suggests that a beautiful piece of art shouldn’t connote any meaning at all. At least, not in the artist’s eyes. There are no right or wrongs, only beauty or the opposite. Perhaps then, works of art are out to expand imaginations as an end result, but are not entirely written for that as the first purpose?
I, however, believe that it is inevitable for a writer to write himself in the paragraphs he weave. We leave a small part of us in every little trail that we pass. The audience will merely call this ’style’. Ironically, it is precisely when an artist/author create without including their soul, that the world will view their work as something ‘without a heart’.
Human interest is what we like to see. Everything behind closed doors is what we like to read. We delve into something with the sheer promise that it will reveal, instead of point us into another direction that we have no business going to anyways. And yes, newspapers are made to report in an unbiased prose. They merely inform, to the capacity they are allowed to inform.
In my life, I’ve had many throw the question: “you don’t read the papers?”, whenever I just so happen to not know a sentence of what they’re talking about. Not being seen hovering around the inky drifters does not make me less of who I am. It is important to be aware of what goes on around, so that we can avoid similar situations if bad luck swerved our way. But it does not make us smarter than our neighbours. It does not make us stand out, just because we read what everybody else reads.
How can noticing reports of the previous day’s events make you smarter? How about your own opinions on the things that people never talk about? And you know fairly well why they say that silence is golden.
It has been a long while since I got back the urge to read, to try something different. Thinking about it now, perhaps it was not because I didn’t have the attention span to flip through the pages. The reason was simple enough: those pages were not the ones I wanted to read. They belonged to him, the author that he found fascination with after he blindly read all that I recommended. Funnily enough, he was also the first person to tell me that he was smarter than I could ever be, just because he thought he was reading well.
Indeed, to be a good writer, if not great, I must certainly expose myself to the different works of others. To understand their thoughts, to interpret their emotions. I have started on the classical path, and find myself falling in love with it. But this is just the first chapter, and I will soon have to see for myself if I can find a niche in what I prefer to spend time with.
I find reading a very personal thing that speaks volumes. Identifying the cover of the book that the stranger is reading next to you in the subway will tell you much about what that person likes, and hopes for in life.
Fair enough, beauty ends when an intellectual expression begins. When we try to read meanings into words, and stories behind pictures, that we fail to see what stands before our very eyes. We try to go far deeper than any ocean we’ve ever been to.
But in the end, we will always return to the surface where we belong.
Pardon my absence. As always, there is a reason for everything. And yes, you may call it a techno screw-up this time.
So many things have changed since then. Family that I never thought I’d see again so soon. Mobility, that I never knew could be so close to the palms of my hands. Ironically, these are the things that remind me that miracles do happen. In the blink of an eye, we can turn the world around.
Like time never passed. Like I never missed out on this before. For the very first time, I’m seeing things moving past in slow motion. Although sometimes, I realise that I’m the one who’s too slow to catch up.
I can see their colours. Their stripes. They don’t have a care in the world. Everything’s only for their temporary pleasure. It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t know. It doesn’t even matter if he has another she, because I’m just keeping to my own lane. The mirrors can help me see, but at the end of the day, I’ll only have my own judgments to rely on.
Eat, or be eaten. They don’t care about the others. They don’t even care for each other. Only for themselves. What a fool I’ve been, thinking that you wanted what I did. Thinking that most wanted what I did. Or maybe, it’s wrong of me to judge the world through your eyes. Since there are still people who value love.
Or all there’s left of it.
Things that don’t belong to you, are understood as things that you shouldn’t touch. Unless with permission, they say. But being adults, doesn’t mean you can remove the box off the shelf, and return it only when you’ve seen what’s inside. She’ll know it’s gone. She’ll know you’ve touched it. Maybe she’ll look away, but that feeling will never leave her heart again.
And if you feel triumphant, everytime you succeed in getting what you want, when you want it, there is only sadness that I feel for you. You don’t know her, just like you never knew the victims in Sichuan. For the latter, you actually spend some time thinking about what they’ve lost. But for the one whom you’re directly causing pain and loss to, can actually make you fall asleep at night.
Yes, nobody knows who she is. But imagine, if she happened to be someone’s sister, or mother. Imagine if she was your sister. And that someone else, like you, has been continuously throwing yourself at what she has claimed first. Imagine if that was your mother. And that your father had someone who wouldn’t leave them alone. Perhaps, you’d still feel nothing then?
Whenever I accelerate around the corner, I still hold back a little, knowing that life is precious. That there’s someone waiting for me. Someone who’s doing all that he had always done, with the only difference in that he has me to think about now. And although I know that I can trust him, I still hold back a little, knowing that there are people like you who’d never start caring.
