Soon.
Pure rock at its best, being kept alive by the best:
"All the thoughts you never see
You are always thinking"
Thursday 25 March 2010
Tuesday 23 March 2010
Ouch.
((Wisdom teeth extraction.))
Pain is a strange sensation, almost as strange as empathy. I usually find it hard to feel others' pain, but mine seems to be currently overtaking me. Typical Leo, always exaggerating and being self-centered. I read an essay by Helene Foley during my third year in Cambridge. I can't remember its exact title, but it was regarding the pain of others and the difficulty of describing your own pain to someone else, and understanding someone else's pain. She listed a number of adjectives commonly used to identify the causes of pain in medical contexts - piercing, throbbing, burning. The problem with these is subjectivity. If we are all individual beings that experience the world differently, surely we will experience emotions and sensations of the same thing differently as well? Even if that means tasting the same dish in a different manner from our partner at the dinner table. Of course, taste comes into play here as well, but what I am trying to say is the fact that things are relative and emotions are not tangible entities that we can easily pinpoint and share with others.
At the end of the day, no one can describe or feel your own pain but yourself. And this is not just physical pain I'm talking about. Emotional pain can be the hardest to heal and the one that lasts the longest. There are no chemicals to heal it, no specific timespan it should take place in, no particular point in time where it should simply stop and disappear. It could linger there, it could come and go, it could be with you forever and overshadow other less powerful emotions. How do you describe that to someone else? Doesn't everyone's pain feel much stronger to their own selves than to others? Is this feeling of unique isolation and sense of individuality an ironic reminder that deep inside we are all the same and think the same?
The good thing about pain is that it reminds you you're human, and it tells you to be grateful you have someone to look after you. The day you wake up and you don't feel pain is the day your life feels a little bit better. Nonetheless, this still doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to deal with it and just let it fade on its own.
Take me, for example. I've taken about 2 grams of painkillers since midday.
Pain is a strange sensation, almost as strange as empathy. I usually find it hard to feel others' pain, but mine seems to be currently overtaking me. Typical Leo, always exaggerating and being self-centered. I read an essay by Helene Foley during my third year in Cambridge. I can't remember its exact title, but it was regarding the pain of others and the difficulty of describing your own pain to someone else, and understanding someone else's pain. She listed a number of adjectives commonly used to identify the causes of pain in medical contexts - piercing, throbbing, burning. The problem with these is subjectivity. If we are all individual beings that experience the world differently, surely we will experience emotions and sensations of the same thing differently as well? Even if that means tasting the same dish in a different manner from our partner at the dinner table. Of course, taste comes into play here as well, but what I am trying to say is the fact that things are relative and emotions are not tangible entities that we can easily pinpoint and share with others.
At the end of the day, no one can describe or feel your own pain but yourself. And this is not just physical pain I'm talking about. Emotional pain can be the hardest to heal and the one that lasts the longest. There are no chemicals to heal it, no specific timespan it should take place in, no particular point in time where it should simply stop and disappear. It could linger there, it could come and go, it could be with you forever and overshadow other less powerful emotions. How do you describe that to someone else? Doesn't everyone's pain feel much stronger to their own selves than to others? Is this feeling of unique isolation and sense of individuality an ironic reminder that deep inside we are all the same and think the same?
The good thing about pain is that it reminds you you're human, and it tells you to be grateful you have someone to look after you. The day you wake up and you don't feel pain is the day your life feels a little bit better. Nonetheless, this still doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to deal with it and just let it fade on its own.
Take me, for example. I've taken about 2 grams of painkillers since midday.
Saturday 13 March 2010
Sexcellent
'Cause a picture is worth a thousand words. I've seen quite a few critics on the internet ditching this, but I personally think it's witty, not too pornographic, and it delivers the message it has to.
Friday 12 March 2010
Wednesday 10 March 2010
Tuesday 9 March 2010
And the Oscar goes to
...the people and movies that didn't necessarily deserve one for the specific performance or contribution in the specific year, but because the Academy decided it was time. On Monday morning, I yawned my way through the most predictable ceremony in recent years, as one award after the other predictably went to the same people that had, in a way, already won in their categories before they even took their seats in the Kodak theatre. While regretting not gambling on what seemed to be a surer bet than Roger Federer beating Andy Murray at the Australian Open final, I sadly realized that the Oscars have lost their glamour and the audience its interest. Yes, it's hard to be surprised by anything anymore, but a couple of shockers in any of the categories (the only shocking thing about Bigelow winning Best Director was James Cameron's sincere demonstration of joy at the moment of revelation) would have definitely made the night more interesting, and would have given us something else to talk about apart from dresses and awkward moments (yes, Mariah Carey, I'm talking to you).
Sunday 7 March 2010
Mi Theory
There are some things that come under your possession that you never use. A toy from the time you were five. A book you never really wanted to read. A DVD you watched once and left on your shelf. Furby.
Some other things can be really useful, like the smartphone, keyrings, external hard drives. Things you don't really need but that nonetheless make life just a little bit better.
And then there are the things that make life what it is. One of the things I always loved when going to Disneyland was the fact that, finally, someone found out what was missing from life and added it to the recipe. A soundtrack. Everywhere you walked in Disneyland, you'd hear happy instrumental music playing discreetly in the background. It's still like this, I think. People watch movies and dream about being in them. Not just about acting, but about actually living the life of the characters. I guess Freud would call it wish-fulfillment. Everytime I walk down the long corridor of a tube station and I hear a musician play, I smile. They are the providers of short daily doses of the soundtrack of people's lives. Then a product came along that gave people the right to transform their reality into a cinematic one, just for the price tag of approximately £200. The mp3 player. Of course, what changed everything was the iPod. But I have to take this opportunity to show off my clairvoyant skills here, by saying that about 10 years ago, before the iPod even came into existence, I bought something called the Creative Jukebox. It was fantastic. I couldn't (still can't) live without music, and this little gimmick, about the size of a normal discman, could fit my entire music collection and allowed me to take it anywhere with me. If I felt happy, I could play a happy song to go with my mood. If I was sad, I'd play a sad one. Anything I wanted to play to accompany my life, I could, just as long as I had it.
Fast forward to 2010. People everywhere have white earphones hanging from the sides of their head. Walking down the street, on the bus, the tube, the airplane... anywhere that is outside, you see people listening to their own customised soundtrack. Something to give us a sense of escape from reality, both in forming our private soundtracks but also our private world in which to live in, be it just for a few minutes.
Some other things can be really useful, like the smartphone, keyrings, external hard drives. Things you don't really need but that nonetheless make life just a little bit better.
And then there are the things that make life what it is. One of the things I always loved when going to Disneyland was the fact that, finally, someone found out what was missing from life and added it to the recipe. A soundtrack. Everywhere you walked in Disneyland, you'd hear happy instrumental music playing discreetly in the background. It's still like this, I think. People watch movies and dream about being in them. Not just about acting, but about actually living the life of the characters. I guess Freud would call it wish-fulfillment. Everytime I walk down the long corridor of a tube station and I hear a musician play, I smile. They are the providers of short daily doses of the soundtrack of people's lives. Then a product came along that gave people the right to transform their reality into a cinematic one, just for the price tag of approximately £200. The mp3 player. Of course, what changed everything was the iPod. But I have to take this opportunity to show off my clairvoyant skills here, by saying that about 10 years ago, before the iPod even came into existence, I bought something called the Creative Jukebox. It was fantastic. I couldn't (still can't) live without music, and this little gimmick, about the size of a normal discman, could fit my entire music collection and allowed me to take it anywhere with me. If I felt happy, I could play a happy song to go with my mood. If I was sad, I'd play a sad one. Anything I wanted to play to accompany my life, I could, just as long as I had it.
Fast forward to 2010. People everywhere have white earphones hanging from the sides of their head. Walking down the street, on the bus, the tube, the airplane... anywhere that is outside, you see people listening to their own customised soundtrack. Something to give us a sense of escape from reality, both in forming our private soundtracks but also our private world in which to live in, be it just for a few minutes.
Wednesday 3 March 2010
Monday 1 March 2010
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