The Killing Joke: Who had the last laugh?

I have been on the fringes of Sri Lankan metal politics for nearly a decade. If I were to say it’ll be a sad day when a musician gives into petty power-politics and forgets his reason for being, then everyday would be a sad day for ‘pure Sri Lankan metal’.

I’m going to tell you my Stigmata story & my view of them over the last decade. I won’t go into the obvious & give you the history of the band that you all know, so I hope I’m able to bring a fresh perspective to the party.

My association with the Sri Lankan metal scene began way back in 2000 when Stigmata were just coming into the scene, I think. I started going for gigs at 80 Club where in the midst of the Kreb’s Cycle types, a group of youngsters called Stigmata were just beginning to come into their own.

A couple of years later while helping direct a school play, I heard a couple of the boys jamming to what sounded like this amazing melody during practices one day. I was instantly drawn to it. Nevermore to feel the pain, the heart collector sang. Nevermore indeed. Apparently Stigmata were covering it and it was all the rage. I downloaded the lyrics and within a week I had listened to the entire Dead Heart in a Dead World album. The first modern day metal album that I connected with. I was always more a classic Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Queen, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, The Doors kinda girl until then. Maybe with the likes of Sabbath and Judas Priest thrown in for good measure, on occasion. I would go for gigs once in a way but never until that point had I listened to a metal album in its entirety and fallen in complete lust.

Needless to say I got the group of boys to take me to a Rock Saturday. I had heard Stigs a few times after that first time at 80 Club including at On-Stage. I heard their rendition of Andura that night and I was mind blown. They were still so young and yet so confident, bringing something original to the table every time I heard them. There were other bands at the time too. Taunt. Soul Skinner. Whirlwind. Tapas. And others whose names escape me. Some pretty darn good in their own way. Some not so much. Each had a following. Some were even venomously referred to as Stigmata Pataw. But when Stigmata took the stage, everyone would listen. They always sounded better. Tighter. Influenced by the right sound, lyrically topical & relevant, but most of all, talented. Not to say the others weren’t. Stigmata were just more so.

The people I made friends with were from other bands. Some are still my friends to date. We sit down occasionally over a drink or spliff and talk about the Rock Saturday days. Problem is, that’s all we do. I’ve done my share of what I can for them. Design lighting for gigs, stage sets, promote them, compeer, type out their proposals, sober them up when they were too high to go home and helped them nurse their hangovers the next day with steaming hot cups of Milo. They would come over with guitars and jam at my place. I would sit in the studio while they would record their originals and give them my 2 cents worth. But what has happened to those bands that were on a mission to give Stigmata a run for their money? I’m truly disappointed. If they were on a mission, why not take the Avis route and try harder instead of caving in to play for 3,000 bucks a piece at some hotel lounge? Like I said, the people in these bands are my friends and through the years and because of their opinions, I must admit with some sense of shame that I was swayed by them, not bothering to ask Stigmata if what they were saying was true. So I started to dislike them on site. At least on the outside. Within, there was this undeniable sense of acceptance that they were good. Really good.

There was something essentially beautiful about the core melodies of tracks like Love Lies Bleeding, Sylvia and so many more others. But somehow they don’t seem to have pushed their limits and seen where they could go with their music. I can’t say that about Stigmata. I love my friends but not the bullshit they’ve fed me through the years. And I will say this to their faces as well. They sold out. Stigmata didn’t. Obviously they didn’t have the conviction, nor the staying power to have lasted a decade. Correction. Not just lasted. Stigmata have got better. With every gig they’ve played and every album they released.

For reasons best known to my twisted little head, I turned my back on metal for many years. The music and the memories were connected to a bad time in my life and I think I let the music take the fall for my dark days. I should have known better. The last gig I attended was a Stigmata one. The album launch of Silent Chaos Serpentine. That was years ago. On the darkest of days a little Nevermore would creep into my playlist but that would be it. And then this year, something amazing happened. I went for a gig. A relatively new friend’s band was playing and so I thought I’d go. It felt so damn good to hear the drums thundering in my gut and the guitars playing pucks with my ears. I head-banged after years and the morning after sore neck felt like I was coming home. I remembered smoky days in the pit, sometimes on my knees, on the verge of snapping my neck. I can’t describe how good it was to feel that way again. One thing note worthy; there were very few women around back then. It’s nice to see so many more of them around. Metal is no more a sausage fest & I for one am glad. J

Since then I’ve been to 2 other gigs, including The Killing Joke. Someone asked me at the gig; just before Stigs began to play Do you really like Stigmata? I mean aren’t they slightly overrated? I smiled back and unashamedly said I love them. They are the main reason I’m here.

It has by far been one of the best gigs I’ve attended in years. The sad thing was the audience. I expected more. It was a Stigmata gig for fucks sake! Where the hell were you when they brought the house down? Where were you when they played music not only from their own past, but music that was a part of shaping who you are today? Where were you when they played their new numbers, displaying how much they’ve evolved and grown in the last decade? Where the fuck were you?

Strangely enough, I realized that so many Stigs tracks are imbedded in some forgotten corner of my head. Voices, for instance. I woke up the morning after the Killing Joke and I heard Suresh singing Daddy, Daddy… in my head. When they started playing My Malice from the Silent Chaos Serpentine album at the gig, I started singing peel the flesh off my bone, slowly condone, so I may crumble away alone and I didn’t even realize that I was mouthing the words until I was half way into the song.

You don’t have to like Suresh to know the man and his music are intrinsically interconnected elements in equal parts. The same goes for the rest of the band. Besides Tenny, I’ve never really taken the time to get to know the rest of them. It’s a darn shame, come to think of it. The little time I’ve spent with them reminds me of how like-minded we are in some ways. I was on my way to a Rock Saturday gig when I got a call informing me that someone as close as a twin had just died in a bike accident thousands of miles away. My family was a mess trying to figure out how to bring the body down for the funeral in the midst of letting the tragedy of it sink in. Instead of turning around & going home, I opted to go for the gig anyway. I cried all the way in the car and it took me a while to get myself together and walk in, but when I got there and when Stigmata started to play, I was fine. During their entire set, I was fine. To date I will be eternally grateful to them for that. I’ve mourned to their music, made love to it and healed with it. And I never realized it until I sat down to write this piece. It’s strange how the music playing in the background during some of the darkest or most intense milestones in your life will stay with you in your sub conscience until they’re ready to be played again.

The Killing Joke was evidence that Stigmata are still the tightest fucking band around. The most original. The only ones who knew where they wanted to go and opted stayed true to that vision. Too many of us have dreams and let them be just that; dreams. It’s the chasers who deserve the applause, not the dreamers.

So, to Suresh, Tenny, Andrew, Javeen & Tharaka, I just want to say that you can go ahead and have the last laugh, because the joke certainly wasn’t on you.

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Obligations

Obligations | by an3n

You know I think there’s something grammatically wrong with saying “I feel obligated”. An obligation is not a human emotion. I feel sadness, joy, love, anger. But how can I feel an obligation?

Too much of the world seems to run on it and not on real emotions. I’ve been quiet for a while because I’ve been hibernating. Off from work for a few days. When you’re in the thick of things sometimes it’s too difficult to see what’s going on. When you stand outside of it and look in, it’s easier to see how twisted things are. How twisted even you become as a person without even realizing that you’ve got there.

My question to myself and the world at large, is why we let a word like obligation rule so many things in our life without stopping to realize it. For some of us we’re so far into doing things and being certain types of people based on how obligated we are that it may cause too much damage to try to rectify things. People get married out of obligation. For instance, some people do it when they get a girl pregnant. The wedding becomes a big cover-up, the story goes to say that the baby came early and eventually mom and dad settle down into a pseudo life of parenthood and picket fences. None of it has to do with how the guy really feels about the girl. It has to do with obligation.Doing the right thing. By the world at large, by other people. Never by yourself or your heart.

I made a friend recently in the process of him being 2 months away from marriage. In a few weeks of me knowing him, he called his wedding off. And I have never been prouder of a person for standing by their heart. The getting to know him was purely coincidental, so please bring back those wondering minds to the topic at hand and let’s move on…

He loved her in his own way, he smiled at her innocence and naiveté but somewhere deep inside he knew that she wasn’t the woman who stirred his soul. Eventhough he knew being with the one who did do so wouldn’t be a sure thing, he opted not to settle. He opted not to go through with things that would change his life as he knew it just because of some obligation. He realized that he was not only doing himself long-term harm, but also damaging the life of someone he cared about deeply. He knew breaking her heart now would be better that breaking her soul later. And trust me I know what it is to have a broken soul. Disillusionment will only be on the 3rd page of the glossary if you want me to write Oprah’s book club, best-seller, pseudo ‘self-help’ book on it.

His soul is intact. And so is his optimism. I don’t think I would have been able to say that about him if he didn’t change his mind. I’m not being a psychic when I say that, merely someone who has seen too many people not live by the light they see at the eleventh hour. Simply because of OBLIGATION. Some of them are brave enough to say fuck it to the “what will people think” attitude, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t still follow through with things because of obligation.

They don’t feel obligated. They ARE obligated because they are subconsciously brought up on a false sense of what life is meant to be. We’re taught to be selfless. True. And I have no issues with that. But it’s more about how you live between those lines that give the next generation the perspectives that they tend to live by and pass on to the next. That vicious, vicious cycle has cheated too many generations to let it continue noh?

The woods are lovely, dark & deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep
– Robert Frost, Stopping by woods on a snowy evening

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Lau-Hilau

Love | by Enragedinfliction

Thanks for the tag DD & DQ. I spent so much time trying to figure out what to put in this post and then I thought what the heck and just started typing, letting it take me where it should. I don’t think I’ve quite got it down yet, but not figuring it out is half the adventure ya?

Love is waking up in the middle of the night to find Stitch curled up into your body like a child, wanting your warmth.

Love is something every poet and songwriter across the planet has tried to nail down unsuccessfully because love will never be the same for everyone. It’s as unique as a fingerprint.

Love is hearing the sound of Stitch & MoCuishle body slamming the gate and whimpering with joy that you’re home each day.

Love is a lonely place because the other person will never feel it the way you do and vice versa.

Love is finding a shoe-box of old love letters and being able to still cry even if the feelings are all gone because you can still remember that you were able to love so completely.

Love is 6 pm at Old Joes with Dhammika, Pahan, Paul, David, Bandu, Mahesh and the rest of the boys, singing Sinhala songs over old arrack and deviled pork served by Raja way back when.

Love is cleaning up someone’s puke without flinching and nursing their hangover when they finally wake up.

Love is Wy, writing a post to remind me that I am stronger than the world gives me credit for after the many cat-fights we’ve had.

Love is sitting on a lonely beach and singing ‘somewhere out there’, knowing deep in your heart that the words must be true.

Love is rolling on the floor with uncontainable laughter with your best friend as you read your teenage diaries to one another, knowing how far you’ve come and how much you’re still the same.

Love is crying at your own wedding when the choir sings ‘love is only for the lucky and the strong’ because you’re still wondering if you’re either one.

Love is two strangers who find themselves in a port on a lonely, stormy night and deciding to adventure the world together without questioning or analyzing what it’s all about

Love is Brandon holding you while you cry feeling that your life as amounted to nothing, and him proceeding to write a poem for you that means so much.

Love is Mirantha holding you in his parents’ water-bed at age 7 until you fall asleep and it’s holding onto his gravestone 2 decades later and hoping that he is at peace wherever he is

Love is when it is not acknowledged and you still know it when you look into eachothers’ eyes in the heat of passion and see a tear fighting to break lose

Love is breaking free from someone who hurts you and learning to find your way in the big bad world again.

Love is knowing that sometimes it is not returned and learning to live with it.

Love is Vimu never forgetting what you did for him even if he now rubs shoulders with the worlds’ greatest

Love is your moment on stage when you know you’ve got it right because you audience either gasps or sighs or cries or laughs with you, feeling it with you

Love is knowing that you are going to be let down by the very people you love most and still being able to love them

Love is what turns people cynical because the best of things aren’t meant to last simply because we think that chemistry is love and not the real connection that comes in between the heat

Love is still being able to take a risk with your heart when life has given you every reason not to

Happy now D? 😉

Anyone who wants to write a similar post, please tag yourselves.

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What Women Want

Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That’s their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about things. What we want is to be a man’s last romance – Oscar Wilde

I’ve always love that quote. Ever since I first fell in love. Or maybe even before that. It reminded me that some women are different from the norm. Not all of us want the picket fences and station wagon and twins. We do at some point with some people, but there are others who assume that we want it with every man that we’re with. I think we want it when we’re younger, but the older we grow a newer, better version of a relationship or non-relationship starts to form in our heads.We don’t want to take you home and introduce you to our mama’s and papa’s and we don’t want you to do it either.

Some of us have been through the mill and realized that our little girl notions are just a big set up for heartbreak and disappointment. And we’re sick and tired of being let down by our own ridiculous build ups of what makes us happy. One day we all wake up and start to really rethink what makes us happy in terms of a significant other.

It’s not the picket fences or the over-planned day of saccharine nuptials that have nothing to really do with the relationships we’re in, in the first place. And we also realize that the best things we get out of a marriage can also be got without being in one. If we’re in something with someone we have a mutual understanding with, the marriage part, if it comes or not is irrelevant and may even cause more complications to a perfect situation that necessary. If it works out for the best, then it’s just a bonus.

For me it’s someone who is first and foremost a friend. A good one with whom I can share the deepest, darkest parts of my soul interspersed with anecdotes about my day. It’s someone who I can call when I am down and who’ll do the same with me. It’s someone I can just shoot the shit with or ask to stand next to me and see the world through my eyes and see their world through theirs.

Next it’s someone who takes my breath away, with little things. Who can sweep me off my feet without even realizing they’ve done it. Someone who can make me smile when I’m having the grumpiest of days. Someone who is spontaneous not because I want them to be, but simply because they are that way. Someone who’ll sent me a mix of silly and naughty messages in the middle of the day, just because. I don’t want the saccharinely sweet bullshit, because it’s far too much of a cliché and comes across as a bit insincere, to be frank.

It’s someone who’ll understand my need for space as I understand theirs. Its also someone who can sit with me and be quiet, just enjoying my company while they work, or ponder or read or just listen to music.

It’s honesty. Even if the truth hurts. Being able to tell each other things you can’t tell anyone else, being able to say what’s on your mind even if it is about the person you’re with, is an amazing feeling. Understanding that sometimes things don’t happen as planned, but that those spontaneous, unplanned moments make it all worthwhile.

It’s knowing where the other person is coming from to the point where you don’t need to spit venom at each other but still be able to discuss things to a point where everyone is happy. It’s meeting me and knowing that I am different to the others.

It meeting you and knowing that I’ve been through the mill for a reason. It’s a collective belief that this is ‘right’. It’s that instant connection where you know things feel like they haven’t before and you don’t question it or over analyze it.

And of course it’s someone who I have fantastic sex with in a way that makes me feel like our bodies have been waiting for each other all our lives. When every contour seems to fit and every kiss is heat. It’s about enjoying sex together because you also know what makes the other person tick since you’ve taken the time to get to know the person.

It’s a non-relationship. You don’t nag. You don’t let each other down because you honestly care for the other person. You’re comfortable to discuss other women/men with each other, even in the present tense. You want to be nice and make the other person happy because it makes you happy. Just like you’d do for your dearest friend. It’s a friendship on fire, for the lack of a better term.

I don’t want to plan a wedding with you. I don’t want to have your babies. I don’t want my parents to approve of you. I don’t need you to fall in love with me, just to love me as a friend, which is how I’d love you back anyways. You’re not my reason for being, but you become the person in my life I opt to have around. I want to enjoy my time with you and have you enjoy who I am, just the way the big guy up there made me.

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Sexuality vs. Personality

For those of you who follow my blog, you’ll know that I am actively involved with the LGBTIQ community in Sri Lanka. But this post has nothing to do with that. It has more to do with my subconscious observations of human choices and needs that started (the observations, I mean) way before I became an advocate/activist and continues to date. It’s not quite an analysis of why people do what they do but merely a stating of facts. It’s about what people do with their sexuality/sexual orientation. There maybe no right or wrong, just as being of any sexual orientation isn’t wrong. They are merely moments that have been stuck in my head like a diary that I think I need to put down…

Sexuality | by Laura Ashdown

Some people live the perfect external existence of heterosexuals. They marry, have children and live out all that is expected of them whilst they turn to multiple same sex lovers in darkened spaces and places in their lives.

Some very ‘straight’ individuals opt to ‘turn’ gay or bisexual for various reasons. They deem it palatable when they weigh it against the benefits. Some for money, some because it’s a convenient escape from bad memories with people of the opposite sex, some simply because they think people of the same sex relate to them better.

Some are proud to be different. It’s not that they chose to swim against the wave, but find themselves against a current and still opt fight it, with pride and conviction. They stand up to a world with a multitude of different voices and say “I’m gay”, “I’m lesbian” etc. And they are willing to fight the good fight until they are accepted for who they are… pretty much more normal than most of the apparent straight laced fellows on the planet.

Some see no difference at all. Sexuality shouldn’t be a differentiating factor just like other givens like race, nationality, hair colour etc. For them there is only one cry, one statement that holds true to the entire human race; the fact that we are ‘one’.

Some stay with their straight lovers for as long as they can, finding their experiences enjoyable but void of moments that take their breath away and a certain oomph that they know that they’ll only find when they’re ready to break free and venture into new territory.

Some go through a great deal of their lives thinking they’re straight only to wake up one day and realize that there is more to life than the mundane they’ve been experiencing and walk readily into a life that holds so much more.

Some have no choice. They love in secret because they have it ingrained in their souls that it they cannot hurt the ones they love. Because, in the process of discovering their sexualities, they are also reminded of the others in their lives, like family and friends whose hearts would be broken if they were to love as they need to, out in the open, just like everyone else. They are stuck between their lovers and everyone else they love.

Some who are born to the privilege of ‘normalcy’ don’t understand the hue and cry from those that are different to them. They don’t understand the very essence of the fact that there could be anything different to the way they think and feel in the first place.

Some have the conviction that every non heterosexual person should ‘come out of the closet’. There is no point hiding who you are. Irrespective of the big, bad world out there, within a community of people who are similar to you, there should be no need to hide who you are and opt for so called ‘better’ company instead.

Some go through life knowing that they aren’t heterosexual right from puberty. They experiment with the same sex but grow up opting not to talk about it. They believe that sex, in any form is personal and should be kept behind closed doors where it belongs. They have no need to ‘come out of the closet’ so-to-speak and don’t understand why some others try to force them to. They believe that the openness of ones sexuality should be a matter of choice. They way they are, suits them just fine after all.

Some opt to go through life pretending and denying themselves of the possibility of more than they have. They go through the motions of life, not knowing how much more is waiting out there for them.

Some rare few are born into families who have no issue with their sexualities or any other choices their children make. They have the opportunity to live their lives free of the prejudice that is an inevitability for most others.

Some dress different, which has no relation their sexuality but get tagged as a certain ‘type’ or sexuality. They don’t know how to let the world know that the outward expression has nothing to with their sexuality or gender*. (see below)

Some have the strong need to identify themselves and be known as one sexuality or the other. They believe that identification markers are an important part of one’s individuality and expression. They are proud to be gay, just as they are proud to be Sri Lankan.

Some people have fluctuating sexualities. They go through life being different sexualities at different points in their lives. They make statements like ‘I’m straight again’, much to the chagrin of their contemporaries although they don’t seem to find any choice in the matter.

Some don’t feel any need to tag themselves based on their sexual behaviour or the people they chose to love. They are in essence, people who don’t believe in the need for tags. They seem to be able love irrespective of a person’s gender* or sexuality.

Some have no clue what to tag themselves as, even if they wanted to. They know they are attracted to both sexes, have been involved with both as well, but can’t seem to pay any heed to a person’s sex or genitalia when it comes to matters of the heart. They wear their hearts on their sleeves, but find ‘bi-sexual’ too limiting a word to use when it comes to love.

Some are merely disgruntled with their relationships and turn towards a new direction hoping to find some peace and love and comfort there, without stopping to question if they belong there or not. Some do. Some don’t. Sometimes both situations work out, sometimes neither do.

Some identify their sexualities based on their sexual behaviour patterns and not by their feelings at all. They’ve not been exposed to the fact that one’s sexuality is not merely determined by having sex and has to do with a complete emotional, physical and spiritual attachment to one gender* or the other.

*Gender is an entirely different issue altogether which only my friend Skywalker can describe with such apt eloquence that I’ll never be able to find on my own, as he’s done here.

There are many more observations that you have probably made. Mine were in relation to people’s sexualities within the bounds of my observations and I thought I’d share them with you. And within those very limitations, I want to still bring back my initial point; nothing is wrong or right.

To round it all off, I’m reminded of a that I think is most apt. I’ve been listening to it while typing this post out but can’t seem to upload ot or find a proper video since youtube is bloody blocked at work. It’s an original by Seal, covered by Alanis Morisette by the name of “Crazy”. Try and give it a listen if you have the time. I’m sure you’ve all heard it. 😛

We’re never going to survive unless we get a little crazy

In a world full of people only some want to fly. Isn’t that crazy?

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The BRG : Is it going out of fashion?

No, no this not about the Lansi Recreational Group. If such a thing even exists that it. What with the BRC and BA, I wouldn’t be surprised. And I’m certainly not complaining. For someone whose an ethnic sambol, the Burgher side of me loves the put a party attitude.

Getting back to the topic at hand though; BRG. One might call it a tad old fashioned, but I think it should still hold in this day and age when everything else of value that added to the quality of life seems to have diminished.

Take your average relationship. I am talking strictly in a concrete jungle and its suburbs kind of sense of course. People meet and date. They use the term going out, as if to imply that their relationship consists primarily or even solely of going to places together and I don’t mean in a metaphorical sense. A few years into it (and in some cases mere months) the parents are told and eventually introduced to each other as well. The couple move up the career ladder, mingle with each others’ friends from school and work. “Party” together. Apparently going out and getting smashed and dancing the night away is a party. It is no more the thing you got an invite to. Party has become a word. People go partying. A few years into it a rational discussion takes place as to when and where since it’s high time and before you know it you’ve booked a hotel, a band, sent the invitations and low and behold you’re a married couple. Slightly reduced goings out and partying, but you still go out of course. Cook together, watch TV together, travel together…

I could keep going on and on about this pattern, but my point is that something vital is missing. And I’m not talking about love. I sincerely hope that in the midst of going to places and partying, some love managed to creep in and stay there! No, that’s not what I’m on about at all!

The BRG I was referring to at the beginning of this post is the Big Romantic Gesture. Sweeping her off your feet. Taking his breath away. Marriage is supposed to be as a result of a proposal. A knock the socks of him or her proposal. And it’s not just in reference to marriage at all. I’ve become the biggest supporter of the un-marriage these days after all.

Swept off his Feet | by SKILZFLIX

Romance doesn’t have to be about roses and chocolates. I agree very much that we’ve moved away from such clichés. It’s not about the movie gestures. It could just be a blog post that the other person will read and walk around with a shit-eating grin as a result. It’s going to Nuwara Eliya and looking for magic mushrooms like a madman. It’s bringing her strawberries because they tell you it’s an aphrodisiac. Romance and the BRG is what you make of it, what feels right for the two of you. But please don’t let it be dead!

Call me old fashioned, but like I mentioned earlier, we’ve given up on so much else, should we also be content that romance is dead in a new age world of “adult” relationships and sedate expressions of love?

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Jesus… is a TV Show Host?

Pardon the rather rude title but I’m at odds as to how to react to a bit of news I received a few days ago. It’s been stewing around in my head for a while and I thought I’d let you in on it to see how you’d react to it as well.

A certain church of the folk plans to open a TV and radio station to further help spread the good news to the people they haven’t been able to reach by now. Or at least that’s the assumption I’m making, because why else would a church want to venture into owning their own media if not

Jesus & Elvis in space by Vernavulpe

Now my first reaction is that if an entity has that much money, shouldn’t they focus on if there was a bigger need for it? I was thinking of the IDPs who have no homes to go back to. I mean you read posts like this and you wonder what you can do yourself. Far be it for me to make a decision on how someone else should spend their money, but when it’s a church I guess it becomes a matter of public interest.

Now I’m all for spreading the good news. A friend of mine, non-Christian of course, asked me why the Christian church was so adamant about shoving their religion down the throats of others. I told him that it was the foundation of Christianity. Some know that a man called Jesus, the son of god himself who died that we can all be absolved of sin. This amazing piece of news needs to be spread to the corners of the earth. True, I agreed that some groups can be radical in their approach and thereby come across as forceful or annoying, but I told him that at the heart of it was good intention.

But the more I thought about it, another more crucial quote from the Bible comes to mind. One that will solve everything. End wars. Feed the hungry. Change the world. All the epic stuff. Only if it was believed in. “Love one another as I have loved you”. For me, this means more than spreading the good news of the next life. What’s the point if we can’t get along and help each other in this one? Even Jesus focused on feeding the 5000 before he preached to them after all.

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Love is

This is not about the Brian McKinight / Vanessa Williams song that came out when I was running around in that ridiculous box-pleated contraption called a school uniform. Nor is it about the current blog drama going on. As pissed off as I am about it, I think it’s time to get back to the normal scheme of things.

I wrote this a while ago and while doing a clean-up of my hard drive I discovered it and wondered why I never posted it before. My sentiments on the topic are a tad different now, but I still believe in the essence of it. Have a read…

 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds

– Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare 

I could finish the whole sonnet, but I think its beginning encapsulates my thoughts. It does in its entirety as well, but maybe this post should be about me putting in my own words. 

I’ve heard that love ends. But if it was love to begin with, is that possible? Isn’t love supposed to be something that lasts a lifetime? Isn’t the whole term “love ends” an oxymoron? Love in infinite. Endings are just endings. Journeys end in lovers meeting et al. 

But people tell me that they’ve stopped loving someone. That they fell out of love. Could it possibly be that it wasn’t love at all to begin with then? Ofcourse that in itself sounds ridiculous too. Have we all ever truly been in love with just one person our entire lives? Or have we mistaken other lesser things for love? When someone breaks your heart, does it mean that you stop loving them or do you hurt so much because of the very fact that you love them still? The fact that you don’t have it in your power to stop loving that person. Isn’t that what kills you? 

You don’t look at someone one day and say “I’m going to fall in love with this person”. It just happens. It’s absolutely out of your control. All you can control is what you do, or don’t do about that wonderfully excruciating feeling that creeps up on you secretly and lets you know way too late to push it away. So if we have no control over the beginnings of love, how can we control the end of it, when it’s clearly stated in every holy book, every piece of poetry on the topic, almost every song that it cannot ever end. 

I said almost every song, because there is one that’s caught my fancy a few years ago by The Darkness called “Love is Only a Feeling”. It’s nice to comfort yourself with when something ends or doesn’t even begin. But I wonder to what degree it’s true. Because if love is ONLY a feeling, then by Shakespeare’s claim, no man ever loved, nor did he ever write anything. That seems a classic opener to go into the scholarly debate about Bill Shakes’ identity here, especially because of that claim, but it’s not the topic at hand, so let’s move on. 

Does love end? Can it? Of it does then is it a lesser version of love? Was it love at all? Or do we grow up to the new age concept of love that allows you to love one completely and then move on to love someone else the same way? Marriages made in heaven have ended in hell and the couples have moved on to love and even marry again. They were in love before. They are in love again. Or they have always been on a euphoric high mixed with tolerance of eachother for a certain period of time before the tolerance ran out? How un-romantic, but how very real. 

Do I have to be resigned to this school of thought or can I please continue to believe that love is much, much more than just a feeling?

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Dear Blogosphere…

In relation to the latest drama on kottu, I thought I’d add my 2 cents worth. 

Did anyone watch Merlin? The one with Sam Neil playing the title character? The whole thing was based on the concept of the old ways ending and a new, Christian era coming into reign. The old ways, as they were, were ones where people believed in magic and dragons and ofcourse wizards like Merlin. But it was infact he who realized that it had no real holding in a time when change was needed.

The very last line in the movie was ‘there will be no more magic’ and with that, he turned his back and walked away from Mab, Queen of the old ways. Everyone in turn also walked away and she began to disintegrate into nothingness. I was not too thrilled with the end of the age of magic, but the movie had a valid point, which to date I have carried with me. 

The point was the fact that if you don’t believe in something, it ceases to exist. 

Now I’m not trying to be high and mighty here. If I was, I wouldn’t have stated the source of my apparent wisdom. 😉 

But why do we bother to read blog posts that upset us? Stop reading them, stop commenting, stop reacting and the perpetrator will cease to affect you.

thekillromeoproject said it perfectly when he commented on the blog post in question. Some people are just not decent enough to be considered human. So why bother giving them the time of day?

And then, some others handle situations with aplomb and humour who we will continue to read, simply because they have more class and decency and also because they make for a damn good read.   

It’s just a sad situation when you are not able to laugh even when the joke is on you. If you can laugh at others, you can bloody well learn to laugh at yourself, especially when the joke has no malicious or vicious intent behind it. If you can’t, then you’re smaller than a Montessori child. You can huff and puff all you want, but you can’t blow this blogosphere down. 

Isn’t as simple as that?

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To the end of the game!

 

I think it’s downright ridiculous to have to a play a damn game at my age. I’m not entirely over the hill at 29, but I am too old to have to partake in age-old rituals which I’ve long since considered to be entirely silly. People think I’m just faking the anti, simply because I get a silly kick out of the agony of it. I’m not in agony. I’m just irritated. I think cavemen had the right idea. Bang on head. Drag into cave. Bang the daylights out of her. Nice, uncomplicated and certainly minus the convoluted moth-to-a-flame dance. Now I might be sounding like I think male chauvinist pigs have the right idea in their methods. Not the case at all.

I’m just exhausted with all the effort we need to put into the mating game. Some people get a kick out of the not knowing stage. When you play and toy around with eachother instead of just coming out and saying what you need to. You’re either interested or not right? If that’s the case why do you need to beat about the bush? Even if I want to break out of the mould, I still seem to be forced into the meaningless process of it out of some sense of decorum and etiquette. (Barf! I hate the word. Etiquette. Shudder)

Besides, if my goal is not the babies and picket fences, I don’t see the need for me to have to play this no-win game that seems more complicated that sitting down with Gary Kasparov for a game of chess. I don’t think of it as a challenge. For me it’s an absolute unnecessary ritual that I feel compelled to play because it’s become the norm. You can’t break out of the mould. Besides, it’s been set up as a barrier to defend our pride hasn’t it? Is that it really? We play this silly-assed game because it’s easier that getting shot down? If we knew for certain, would we still need to go through those steps and moves and pirouettes that seem so rehearsed and completely unwarranted?

I know I’m whining but I hate this whole façade. I don’t like this kind of anticipation. I don’t get a thrill out of the waiting. The impatience in my soul makes me behave so neurotically. More so than others. And I prefer to retain my metaphorical posture and not become a nervous bag of rag dolls being tossed around while they’re being carried merrily into the garbage disposal. Ok, so I got a tad too vivid with that description. But you get my drift, don’t you?

People love drama. I just like theatre. I prefer my life free of it and full of the excitement that comes from being fearless. Not waiting for things to take their own unnecessary time but grabbing the bull by the horns and riding the bugger out until you fall or ride him home. I want the stage to the place where I release all my restless theatrics. I want life to be about much more than that. Games are for children. Waiting is for the nunnery. What I want is to know. And know now, before the next damn tango begins. 

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