Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Only love can break your heart.

The crazy of the world seems far away here. Life goes on in Holywood. The rolling seas of geopolitics mean nothing to anyone here. How we live at the skin, the surface of globalisation in Singapore, the edge of everything, has melted away. Emma said that Ireland is dreamy but Singapore is a fever dream. The way cultures interpolate, the buildings and the extreme affect which humans have had on the place, the massive buildings, the levels of luxury and the gaps between the rich and the poor, so extreme that it hurts.  I would be in One Deg 15 and see the cleaners cleaning there. Yes cleaners exists all over where there are things that must be cleaned but to know that they go from such opulence, unwarranted and unjustified, to where they live, which is probably something less than the average, made me uncomfortable. To know that the maids and the drivers and the 'staff' have all left behind a life which has necessitated that to come to such staggering wealth, and this not even be...

Back in Ireland and it feels like I never did leave. Do all holidays feel like this? I have begun reorganising the house and it looks better. Laundry is being done and today I will go quite someway to completing the lectures. I might invest in a dongle so I can work here. And a new keyboard... we'll see. We have had an amazing holiday. I keep in touch with Ma all the time making sure to check in now to let he know, encourage her. She seems to be much better and feeling chirpier. Still though it makes being away harder every year... but I'm really hoping that one year is indeed one year not suddenly three years. People seem to have a very odd sense of time. Human beings are very good at rationalising irrational behaviour. It is particularly bad in Singapore. There are many annoying things about Singapore but the top five must be, how people who have some power LOVE exercising it. They seem incapable of asking people to do things ni...

Well I was going to write something here but I have forgotten what... It was something to do with how I am going forward from here on in. I always comes back from Singapore feeling recharged and rejuvenated. Like things have been reset. I get a shot in the arm, as it were thanks to being in Asia, I reaffirm my Asian roots, I am around amazing people - but this is the summer which the entire world decided to go into meltdown. Literally and metaphorically. The US is now completely out of control and honestly, Singapore - well... it is lost. This massive architecture is just unsustainable - it is as if the people who were responsible for the mess have gone, actually you know what, I'm gonna show you, mess, what mess? It is like they have doubled down to prove a point. It is tremendously annoying. Right... I need to start doing something...

What exactly have I learnt travelling the world and seeing all sorts of people? Walking around Singapore and seeing all sorts of people? What I have learnt after 52 years of life? That money does not buy happiness. Enough of it buys stability and security, but look at me for instance. I did consciously reject the life which I could have had. But would I have wanted to be part of this charade, of people thinking that success is delighting in buildings which other people have put up, romping in grass which other people have cut, badgering the children which other people have brought up... it is a kind of delusion at best and a poverty of the soul at worst. To float around in this weird bubble of disconnection... what does that mean? Much of Singapore's colonial architecture, like City Hall, like Victoria Hall - that was all built by slave labour. Built by convincts from India. They used to laugh and say these buildings were painted pink because of the sireh which the Indian labourers...

Who knows how many people there are in Singapore? No one knows. And I mean that literally. The government may have some idea but today they said that 20% of the people who do NS are not native Singaporeans. So it stands to reason, if 50% of the people are men, 20% of the population are non-native and 100% of the non-native population must make up 40% of the citizens of Singapore. It seems to be simple maths. Unless they are only accepting boys or if parents are only making their male children citizens. OK, maybe 30% - since maybe a few of those parents are actual Singaporeans. This means that the government thinks that they have managed to engineer 30% of certain PAP votes. There are a few very interesting things I have discovered walking around Singapore. Firstly, there is a mind boggling array of types. You have what they love calling the 'heartlanders' - people who stay in HDB flats. They are the salt of the earth, the people who - to be honest I don't know the jobs Sing...

The mid way point of the holiday has been passed. I have walked roughly 115 km around Singapore, give or take. I think I can start running again... and swimming. This is going to me be from now on.  Going to the club tomorrow. The entire world has now gone made. America is now on course with a Death Wish. For some unknown reason the Biden administration is insistent on opening up what appears to be a third front for war. Who knows what they are thinking? Are they actually mad? Will someone not do something about these people? No one on the planet is saying anything, and China is beyond pissed, understandably. Instead of actually fixing real messes here we are. What have I learnt on my trip around Singapore?

I walked around the CBD yesterday - made my way from Rochor to Chinatown, the belly of the fish. Having spent much of my childhood here - although I did not think I had done that when I was small - the things you take for granted! - it was a revisit as such. Walking around I found that so many places had disappeared and that I didn't remember what had been there.  How unreliable memory is... But I am gone Singapore, I am gone. For the first time I felt like I was a Hungry Ghost, wandering around with nothing to do with the things which were taking place in front of me. Singapore was now a foreign country. I did not understand a single thing about it. I mean I understood something, but most things... I have decided I have given up with Singapore. I can't really fathom it any longer. It is too huge, too crazy, too much. Too complicated. And I guess it was always like that. It is a miracle it actually took place really. A pure accident of history. I walked 5 km yesterday - that...

Degil. Bodoh jahat. Cekek darah. Just some of the words to describe the stupid  Singapore is unrelentingly ugly. There is no more charm left in it. Tiny pockets. Maybe in some older neighbourhoods. Places like Serangoon Road and Geylang. But overall it is just painful and hideous and awful. And I'm just completely heart broken. It is also full of useful idiots. Despite decades of trying it has failed to develop a proper writing and art culture because it consistently fails to understand what the point of art is. I would trade all of this so called progress for one proper quiet fishing village where people are allowed to go about their business unmolested and in peace. The bollocks we put people through here. It is the ultimate in the absurd. God I am I a most very bad mood. I cannot meet people in this state. Tomorrow I will be starting to work on class prep. So emails, etc tomorrow morning. Back to writing and drawing. I must complete Durga on Leo before I leave. My finger seems t...