Poker Face

Hello everybody. I started playing poker on Facebook. And I am losing badly right now. So sad. I played poker during Chinese New Year and lost too. So sad. I need to work on my poker skills. No poker face apparently.

This leads to another topic. Perhaps I am being too sensitive (thin skinned?)

I want to build muscle. It is hard. I would like to be a bodybuilder if possible. HAHAA but that is dependent on my strength of mind... Just that, it seems like around here, many people don't seem to think of a muscled body as something good. They think it scary or weird or freaky or - basically something bad/negative.

I understand beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Everyone's got their own taste. But it is quite depressing to be ridiculed for trying to aim for this. Gets even worse when sickly looking guys are considered 'hot'. Meh.

P.S. : I hate Rain. (Arming myself with umbrella, defending against salvo of counter-fire from fans).

P.S.S. : They found a real vampire for Twilight.

The Wind is Calling

I am scared of heights, but I have dreams where I fly. I like to feel the wind rushing past me. Curiously, the sensation I get when dreaming about flying is just like the sensations I experience when moving through water. I guess my brain tries to tie flying through air to the closest thing I have experienced - gliding through water. However, since I am no swimmer, my dreams of flight are aggravatingly slow... Sigh.

One of my favourite pieces arranged into a piano solo.

Fukai Mori

"As we live on,
we lose a little bit more.
Shrouded in falsehoods and lies,
we stand frozen to the spot, unable to cry out."

~~~

Dark: Humans are strange creatures.

Soul: What about them do you find strange? There are many things I can think of.

Dark: For the moment, just this. Look at what happens to their hearts as they grow older. When they are young, most of them are like bright sparks. Ignorant of the world, of cause and consequence, they live their life in relative bliss. They suffer for their foolishness, and for that they learn.

Dark: And yet when they grow older, and are wiser, they do not seem much better off. Indeed, can it be said that they are wiser? For they seem to suffer even more. For now not only are they left to fend for themselves, they are now able to perceive more of the cruelties of life. It almost makes me pity them. Perhaps they are better off as children. Perhaps some of them realise that. Perhaps that is why many of them remain children even as wizened old things; petty arguing, denial to face the harsh truths. Just look at them and tell me these are not the most disgusting things you have ever seen.

Soul: I have looked. And I think I understand how you feel. But I wonder if you do not see as well as I do, that there are just as many outstanding humans who grow to shoulder their responsibilities very admirably. True, they may falter. True, they may do so at sometimes at the expense of other things around them. But they strive to learn. They strive to do things better. I find that admirable.

Dark: You speak of few that I can see. I agree there are some who are just as you say, but I also think there are not many.

Soul: Can you be sure? Have you counted?

Dark: No. But I can guess. I have watched for some time, and more times have I come across a distasteful heart than I have a respectable one.

Soul: Perhaps you linger too long and too eagerly upon these distasteful ones.

Dark: No. It is as it is.

Soul: Then look closer. Might I remind you that "good" and "bad" are inventions of the human mind. There is no human who does only "good" things. There is no human who does only "bad" things. I am sure that among those who disgust you, there is another side to them, things they do in other situations, at other times, for other things, which are less likely to seem so crude.

Dark: Perhaps. However, you speak of doing things. I speak of their hearts. Many do "good" for that is expected of them, or because they are being watched. They do it out of fear.

Soul: Then, you doubt their hearts? That they become tainted as they live? That their "good" is born out of fear?

Dark: That is of course. They fear retribution and judgement from other people and from their "gods". They do it for their own sake.

Soul: Of course they do. And what do you find so disgusting with that?

Dark: That they have malice and anger in their hearts still, even as they do what they must.

Soul: And you think as children they do not?

Dark: I think they have less, if not none at all.

Soul: While that is possible, I also think it possible that that is not the general case. Life goes on. To live is to suffer in one way or another. Everything comes at a price, even if you cannot see it sometimes. For example: A person may laze and rest in his bed, but is paying the price of time. That time could be used for many other things.

Soul: But life still goes on. They might offend one another. They may consume the life of another living thing to continue living. But that is life. Suffering is inevitable. Do not judge them too harshly. In the end, what matters more is what they choose to do, is it not?

~~~