Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

  The best thing about Singapore is the pool and the club. I ran yesterday, but didn't swim. I won't be able to swim today because the pool is being cleaned. So, that's the best thing about the place.  Apart from that there isn't much else - and I am not looking for anything else. I'm sure if forced to comply to being back here I will find something good to do. In the meantime... there is everything else.  So I ran yesterday and I'll do some writing today. And hang pictures and do sanding. That will be good... 

Singapore vexes me so much in the way which nothing else vexes me. It is as if all the lessons which are being used to define success are more like a what not to do. What you should not do in order to lead a successful life. What is true so called success? A long time ago success was to me about self actualisation and being able to live your truth. However, in Singapore the definition of success is so narrow that even people who have consciously rejected that model or those who have not been able to live up to that model, are strung up by it and suffocated. And it's not even so much society which judges them, but they judge themselves mercilessly. I know I left because I hated Singapore and the narrowness, especially political narrowness. But I also left because whatever it had in store for me was just - I did not have the wherewithal to resist it, so I decided to unplug and leave. The levels of pressure were so immens...

1995 Singapore is a tiresome and noisy place. It is also visually distressing. I travel by public transport everyday and it is exhausting and relentless. Something has happened since last year. Things have ramped up to a level of insanity. The park which I used to run when I was 15 is now turned into an MRT station - is turning - and the heat is now off the scale. It's mad how everything is so hot now. It was so hot that I had heatstroke yesterday. Mild heatstroke. We also bought the TV for the living room and today I will clear up the living room.  No one cares about climate change here. No one. Everyone has gone back to business as usual before pre-Covid as if deforestation means nothing to them. The Singaporean government is so irresponsible. War and famine and genocide is happening on our watch. A war broke out and then ended between Cambodia and Thailand since I've been her...

Flowers from the garden to decorate the table... Over the past few days I've been trying to organise the hall so that Ma as a cool place to sit in the afternoons so that she isn't cooked in the kitchen - and I think we have succeeded. Right. Before I go any further, I will organise the hall and then do the diary and then do some writing and then running. I do feel loads better. The heat though is insane. I don't know how Singaporeans think they can survive this. Everything feels like its about to hit a tipping point, but I did say that about the place before I even left. If at all possible it's even MORE insane. I don't know how people can think that places like MacRitchie are improvements. I can't imagine what it must be like for the people who live there to now live in front of effectively a spaghettis junction. 

Materialism is the corrosive heart of Singapore. It is heartbreaking to see children and people breaking their backs on the rocks of this behemoth. No one escapes alive. It doesn't matter if you are at the bottom or the top of the pyramid. And believe me the pyramid in Singapore has deep roots. I walked past the food bank in Serangoon and Ghin was surprised that there were food banks. I hate Singapore for this reason. That something so simple couldn't be sorted. I hate the groupthink, the materialism, the exhausting quest to do the whole one man upmanship. I hate how toxic and corrosive this attitude is. I have tried very hard to ignore it, but every now and then, it just happens to shove me in the face. I miss Ireland and the gentleness and the chilled nature of people there. All of the things which Singapore offers, I am bored and tired of. I must remember this. I love the family and I love the club. That's great. But how really, ev...

Yesterday we went to Hidelao. As a result I did not have to eat for the rest of the day. I was so full at the end of it. I didn't do any writing nor running. But I did bring the table in and then I started tidying up the place. So many memories in a single chest of drawers. Memories which perhaps do not have to be made. Time is a river in which we stand and it carries us. Ma and Pa enjoyed themselves. It's just lovely to spend time with them. I think that the time I do spend with them here - well, is there any better use of anyone's time? Travelling is lovely, not not necessary for me. I love it when I travel, but also there are priorities and... This morning,  thought to myself, it had been quite a while since I had thought of Ahab. Ahab who is now experiencing slow decline. In fact, many of my friends are so unwell. Or semi unwell. I do not fear death or indeed illness. But I do not want to be physically so frail and unable that life becomes lesser. This is now the race I...

This was a lovely evening with Jee Leong. I think Jac had roti prata with me in the morning. I did some writing but didn't finish it. I didn't run nor swim. Clearly that was not ideal. I find the ENTIRE world impossible now. The genocide and the refusal of the fucking people in power to do anything is intolerable. This generation has been tarnished by this atrocity. Not the people though. The people spoke up repeatedly. Time and time again. We risked being ostracised, in Ireland, esply Norn Iron, it opened old fault lines. The same number of people who were killed during the famine in Ireland will be the same number killed in Gaza. This time it will be know and this time people will not care. The entire time here, from here on in, will be tarnished by the horror of Gaza. I have never known such helplessness.

Well we are at the halfway mark of the holiday. Almost. I actually have stopped counting. Yesterday was very good. I wrote and ran and then we went to eat porridge with Ma and Pa. Then we went to get Ghin's phone sorted. We came back and had dinner at the club. I had two LIT which I shouldn't have had. Was in touch with Deena and a few other people.  These are the simple things. The calm before the storm. The storm being and horror that is about to be unleashed upon this world, which Europe and America are going to be heading. The starving of the Palestinians. I cannot believe this world. At least if they just let them eat and fight. But no. They couldn't. Israelis are single-handedly changing how I feel about the levels of cruelty which people are capable of. There are no words in any language to describe their behaviour.  I think the people who suffer most are the ummah. They are utterly helpless as they watch their Muslim...

  Dancer portraying Yemaya in Cuba Yesterday I ran, swam and and wrote. I think my writing is better when I am not thinking too much about the subject. As I discovered when it came to writing about Maya. The opportunities then open up and I am just baffled.  So the story was short. Just three and a bit pages. It was about Lord Vishnu though and alternative universes. I think collectively the stories are celebrations but also warnings. They are warnings about the impermanence of life, as seen in this story which I wrote this morning. Don't take things too seriously.  I don't know why anyone would want to be stinking rich? It's so pointless. So much of life becomes unavailable to you once you become ridiculously rich. Even moderately rich people are hopeless. Just be happy. Know when you have had enough, as my mother would say. It was a very chilled day yesterday. Actually we visited the dentist for Ghin. He seems to know what he's doing. We are going back on the 12th. I ...

Buddha encounters Maya Since the beginning of time, people have always believed that life wasn't real. That this world, planet, cosmos which we live in, is not quite all there. The Hindus believed that each universe was a dream of its particular Vishnu. Reclining on his serpent bed, floating in the cosmos, blossoming from his naval the lotus flower, each cosmos and that there are multiple ones. Each dream Vishnu has is a dream of this other reality. We are, like the diamonds of Indra's net, just reflecting each other to ourselves. This concept is probably the oldest one we have in recorded philosophy. As old as it get - the Vedas. thousands of years old. I do find it poetic that Buddha's mother was called Maya. Illusion gives birth to the Buddha which then destroys illusion. It is a form of copium of course. To say that life is not just ephemeral is the best cop out. It just reminds us that we should never take anything too seriously. It is useful. But also deadly. You have...

It's great fun to chat with Ghin - and Oisin. Their sense of humour and ease of being is such a delight. Copium is the made up noun that Ghin made up to talk about people who cope all the time. Cope is what it says it means. People who tell themselves things to cope with life. But in a self deluding way. I was trying to explain to Ghin how SAP schools came about. That was LKY had agreed to start them to give Chinese people a concession so that they didn't feel that their culture would be eroded by the onslaught of neocolonialism, although I think the reasons they wanted to have their own thing was more isolationist and jingoistic. I would never put it past people who think of themselves of purebreds to be able to miscegenate. Anyway, I actually don't remember the point I was making. Anyway, Copium.  People telling themselves things to make themselves feel better. We use copium all the time, it's important to get through life, however, when the dosage become lethal, that...

It's 5 am. I am now finally, after three weeks in the rhythm which I recognise. I get up at 5 am. 4 am. I am thinking, and wondering... and I find Singapore hard to take. This cannot be what life is about. This rushing around. The place is a torrent. Yesterday, at NEX it was a literal torrent. People rushing upwards and downwards escalators, being driven, pushed and pulled by forces which are slightly beyond their control. People rushing everywhere, eating everything. Lining up to eat. Lining up to buy things. Lining up to get onto the escalator. It's really sort of crazy. Is this anyway to live a life? To get up and go to a job which is relentless, enriching someone further and then climbing back down again... only to be pushed back up again. It feels like that moment when you try and come back up for air only to be unable to get a breathful and then be pushed back down again. And it happens repeatedly. Over and over again, until that mouthful of air is too little and you then...

Well, I did it. I made the posts and the days match up. Just a whole load of shit posting and I got there. This is the 200th post of the 200th day of the year. It is also the day to the month of which we will be leaving Singapore. We have exactly one more month left. What has been acheived. The main reason for being here was to be with parents and to help Ma with her cataract operations. That has been a resounding success. We have managed to get it all sorted. Her eyes are on their way to a good recovery and we are delighted.  Then there was the running and swimming which had been going great until Thursday when I developed a case of acute food poisoning. That was pretty awful. The works. Including not eating for an entire day. I still can't eat. I have no appetite. I was pretty much passed out the entire day, waking up in between to do her eye drops. At 10 am yesterday morning I was slightly delirious, as I tried to stand up and couldn't. The bed's on ...

Not transforming this picture... it's perfect What will I be doing today? After this, I'll organise this desk and then I'll look at my diary. Then I'll wake Ghin up. It is 10.40 after all. Probably try and have breakfast. After that, this afternoon, go for a swim.  Then this evening, maybe go and see Superman with him.  I don't know. All I do know is I feel so much better than I did yesterday. The worst part was being unable to admit I was THAT ill. So ill that I was unable to stand up really and just kept sleeping. In between applying eye drops of course. Right. Time to clean the tables, organise myself and then wake Ghin.

It was good. I have been reading some books/ lectures about Steiner education. Having been in it for almost 13 years now, I can tell you what I have found most important about it. 1. The close and honest collaboration between home and family. Boundaries are very important to children and that children are being supported by both is essential. It does not work if either side is unavailable or not pulling their weight. 2. Standardised tests and exams are unnecessary. The way in which the education system functions with the top tier universities, and league tables is TOXIC. It's adults making dollar from the plight of children. It measures only a certain type of ability. It is corrosive to the child's well-being. It places children in positions which are unconscionable. It's regressive. Also it hasn't contributed one bit to the well-being of this planet. If anything, it's made things worse. 3. Child development is a real thing and for some UNKNOWN REASON, S...

Finally made it to Oyster Bar and had great oysters. Jac and I talked about population in Singapore. She said that there are about 2.7 million Singaporeans - this includes new Singaporean citizens of which I don't know how many are being made a week. The rest, the 30% near it are foreigners. This is why the Singaporean government can now give handouts to Singaporeans - because they are using the labour of non-Singaporeans to subsidise the lives which Singaporeans live. It's weird to see it move in this direction. That Singapore's complexion has change so much. Yes, there is that definitely in Gardens. Yesterday I was recalling the shoe shop that we had. I remember buying shoes from there. And I remember Fitzpatricks. And I remember when we had a cinema. Where My village is now used to be a cinema. Then it was a roller disco rink. Then it was a Cold Storage. Now it is MyVillage. Things change all the time.  I was thinking of ...

Post exercise... after which I had fried chicken wings. I hadn't had lunch. I do love running. And swimming and doing that. But do I have to do that everyday? If I stayed here, I would. That would be the only reason to stay here. That and Ma and Pa. I'm now running half an hour, doing sit ups again and also swimming. Slowly making my way through Graeber's book. It's fascinating. So much is now being discovered about Ancient History. It's hard to know where to being when doing this Main Lesson. I love all of it... but where would we begin when so much is being shifted about? Anyway, I did transcribe three stories yesterday, two were quite short. One was just inspired by the How Dare You phrase which he always used on me... it was great. I see now how infuriating I must have been for him. How I could not be pinned down. I couldn't be broken. He really was a piece of pure shit. There was nothing which was genuine about him. His intentions,...

Breakfast yesterday was prata. Nothing wrong with that. Loved it. Double egg prata. So, I think. on days in which I am not running around in health care system, I will get up around 6, do the blog, have coffee. Go for the run and then swim. Then come back and transcribe for a few hours... or write, or do both. I think I just want to transcribe for the time being. Then take a break and have something to eat. Not sure what. But there is literally a world outside which loads of eat. I actually haven't eaten Indian food - no wait, I did that on night one. It seems like a life time away when I did that at Serangoon Road at midnight. But double prata egg is the only way to have prata now. All other ways are inferior.

Well, here we go. The rant.  The most serious rant is the fucking situation in Gaza and the collusion of the Europeans, their BLATANT racism and sectarianism and the genocide in Gaza. Most shockingly is that there is a parallel situation taking place in the Ukraine/Russia, although you could argue that the Americans and NATO provoked the Russians into it. What is terribly frightening is that there is no one with any intelligence to manage whatever situation they have created. None. They have created a massive mess and they don't know how to clean it up. I mean I can feel the mess everywhere. It is most noticeable in Singapore with the amount of fucking road works everywhere. The Singaporean government's solution to everything is to do more massive construction. So there is massive construction everywhere. It is sort of like living in a war zone. The confusion and the discombobulation... everything changes all the time. The worst case of this so far which...

The Seng Kang people were just lovely. Just smiley and super helpful. Honestly it restored my faith in humanity how gorgeous they were. Almost every person in healthcare in Singapore is a non-Chinese Singaporean. I don't know what the deal is there at all.  So yesterday we were at Seng Lang because... my mum's back needed checked after the accident. I think the accident did everything - it just shook it all up. But that saga has now come to a close. The only physical thing left is her scar. I think that really has set all of us back. It has been totally nuts. But we are ok now. 

Yesterday I finally had the kopitiam set. I don't know what they call it here. What would I order if I went to an actual kopitiam. I've only ever ordered it in those commercialised ones. The eggs were rich and creamy and the kaya toast was perfect. I don't know how the club makes any money from this here. I was soooo tired yesterday. I started the day tired and it kinda just went on. When I got home from the hopistal I slept, got up, had a headache, and then went to bed super early. I am feeling much better now. Honestly, I think it has to do with jet lag and looking after the parents, but then also I think it's just age... it sort of sneaks up on you.  I didn't do any running or swimming yesterday. I was too tired to do anything.