JYG

I'm moving.

So to anyone who needs a fridge, washing machine and an Ikea double-seater sofa, I'm selling them for cheap. Still good as new.

Staying alone has its benefits. First of all, you don't have to worry about dorks complaining about how your joint looks like. Unless you invite them over for dinner of course, which i don't. I used to, in Melbourne. Maybe I'm just to lazy to whip up a meal nowadays. And most of my pals either work a lot or have a family to attend to. Gone were the days of pot-luck gatherings and college parties.

Not only you can sorta design the way your place looks, (or should not) you also have the immense privilege of dancing around naked, smoking your marlboro, while downing your Corona. The problem with this I find is that it gets depressing after a while, knowing that you are alone partying by yourself. Which is quite sad.

Of course, the loneliness could have be easily alleviated by the existence of cable tv, a video game console (did I hear Halo, anyone?) and high-speed broadband. All of which I tentatively refuse to have for a whole semester. True enough, it showed cracks into my hollow way of life. Really, there is nothing much in this world that can truly satisfy our insatiable wants and needs. I'm just a dysfunctional emotion-driven, approval-seeking, sex-hungry creature who could easily be tipped off balance by my own insecurities.

I think I'm an introvert because I like being alone. But being alone and liking it because I like doing things alone give hints that I could be dysfunctional. I can quite easily construct a nice, comfortable environment for myself where I'll just drown every moment of my supposed solitude with my favourite toys. Remove those, and as it had occured many many times - a irrepressible ache in the heart which at first disguises itself as boredom. Then comes wave after wave of ineasiness, pulling you in different directions, leaving you utterly dismayed and thinking "there is nothing in the world that could ever cure this." You can't be alone just because you like it. There is nothing more vulnerable than a wandering heart in the desert of loneliness. When the demons strikes, one can't even be fit enough to fight ,for one is already paralysed by his own thirst.

Someone asked me to teach on solitude at his cellgroup next month. Quite frankly, I feel inadequate. My ears cannot even bear the sacred hums of silence. I've been used to being alone simply by drowning my thoughts with meaningless noise and activity. The withdrawal symptoms of the last six months proves exactly that. Perhaps as I am beginning to come to grips with the ache I'm bearing that comes from the removal of those distractions, I can start experience the true peace in those "dark nights of the soul." Even in solitude, all that is flying randomly in your mind can be replaced with new meaning and focus.

Perhaps the better way to learn solitude is to live with someone. It is only with company that you learn how to be alone in a meaningful way.

Yuchun and Sophia has agreed that I could crash into their new apartment for a while once they move in as newly weds. That should be interesting. The biggest temptation then would be to get an Xbox. Well at least, I'll get to enjoy it with someone. After all, yuchun would stop me from playing too much. But then again, he might go overboard himself. That could lead to some serious newly wed disputes, for which I'm the instigator. Oh boy.

G

Posted at 01:19 am by jyg2
Comments (1) Permalink

Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.

God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realised by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethen and God Himself accordingly. He stands adament, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Father, forgive me for being that dreamer. For being proud and pretentious in all my ways. For my idealistic notions of a utopian environment, where I demand my own set of laws. May You, and only You, bound us together in one body, as You have already laid the foundation of our fellowship. For the Christian community is not an ideal reality, but a divine one. I give up my wishful thinking, masquerading as a heavenly calling. For the basis of community is not of one's definite idea of what Christian life together should be like, but of grace. Grace which shatters such dreams. I thank You for this gift of grace - the privilege of living this common life with my fellow brethrens. It is only possible with and through Christ who has done everything vital for us to have Him and one another. For all eternity.

G

Posted at 11:17 pm by jyg2
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It's 12.15am, I'm still at the office, and I want to go back. But this was so funny I just had to let everyone know.

It kinda belongs on our dormant JYG Uncensored, but it just cracked a tired and fatigued man up. So sorry, it's here to say.

From now on, you can call me:

Tricktickler Jonathan Fresh

Suede Chew Smooth

or my favourite:

Pimptastic Chew Love

As for Greg, please refer to the Man as:

Pimp Daddy G. Kicks

or

Treacherous Chang Clinton

And please, don't call Y Yuchun anymore. He's officially known as:

Mack Master Yuchun Wicked

and the ultimate,

Mr. White Chocolate Yuchun Shizzle

So brilliant. Thanks to another superdupershagaliciouswambamthankyoumaam website. The fact my brother is the editor is just a coincidence.

j

Posted at 01:24 am by jyg2
Comments (5) Permalink

I was rummagging through my lap-top today, and was amazed to find a stash of writings I had written before - poems.

I always used to love writing poems. I remember in Melbourne, I would sit on the park bench, and do nothing all afternoon but trying to craft one. Of course, that's ancient history. Work, plus a heart that is more often than not hard instead of soft, has seemingly strangled that passion I had.

Which is as sad as it reads, because when I was re-reading some of them, I was moved. Imagine that, almost being brought to tears by your own writing. I guess out of all the people it should speak to, I am on top of the list.

Here's one that made me particularly sentimental..

Graffiti on the Walls of Heaven

How my package of prayer must seem like
A misplaced air-mail of effort
Trying, striving, oh so frustrating
I wonder if it will just be smashed
Crashed, returned to sender

If I looked at the walls of heaven
What would I expect to find?
Calligraphic beauty, adorned in a perfect pattern?
Water-coloured rainbows, multi-layered from every view?
Arts of Picasso’s style of aplomb and shapely strokes?
Or photos of the sunrise captured along the horizon of Ocean Road?

Maybe I’ll walk through heaven’s hall of prayer
And I’ll glance at all of there
But I’ll come across my own
And furrow in puzzled understanding
Stretching for miles on the wall
Is graffiti
Raw and uncouth
A child-like mess of extraordinary proportions

And the Guide standing next to it will beckon me over
Inviting me to gaze upon the beauty
Though in curiosity, I’ll ask what it all means
Gently taking me by His hand, He’ll walk me through gates of splendour
Whispering in a still small voice
Son, your prayers were heard, even if they were nothing more
Than graffiti on the walls of heaven

I wonder what that nudge in my heart is. Could it be, as I am taking this long and lonely journey back to God, I should start to let my pen talk in ways my mouth cannot? Maybe.

If only I can find a darn park in KL.

j.

Posted at 01:21 am by jyg2
Comments (7) Permalink