Pic’in it
Taking pictures is fun. It is a nice way to remember things you have seen and done. Some experiences feel vaguely empty when there are no pictures accompanying them for posterity, or next month. Pictures can also give an artistic touch to otherwise mundane experiences. They can make buses and tuk tuks interesting, and can also make you look cooler on Facebook.
I’ve been taking pictures for a while now. I usually borrow that girl’s camera, but i just acquired a compact digital of my own. It is smaller than a card pack so carrying it is as easy as taking your mobile phone with you, although now essentially i will be carrying two mobile phone like objects. The camera is a Canon sd1200is, it gets good reviews on the internet and takes neat pictures. But haven’t got a chance to get my groove on with it yet cause i am yet to get a memory card for it.
In other news, I made a switch from Flickr to Picasa; mainly because Flickr is charging me $24 to continue uploading pictures, and I’m not ready to cash out to put my pictures up on the internet. Besides, I’m Sri Lankan and I like free things. Google offers 1Gb free space on Picasa, which is a whole lot of pictures as opposed to the paltry 200 pics you can upload for free on Flickr. Upgrading on Picasa is also much cheaper. The only, but significant, advantage with Flickr is the amount of people using it. It is easier to connect with friends who take pictures on Flickr because chances are that they are already on it.
Picasa has a great photo editing software that lets you edit your pictures easily, although it is not as techy as Photoshop, its perfect for when you just want to tweak your pics a little bit to make them look their best. Some interesting features include face recognition, mass tagging and easy uploading direct to your Picasa web account. Uploading is fast and as far as I can tell, better than the Flickr Uploader. Picasa also lets you map the locations of your pictures and geo tag them on Google Earth. These are some pics I tinkered with and uploaded to my new Picasa account.
Weber Stadium, Batticaloa
Dutch Fort, Batticaloa
Arugam Bay
Water Buffalo, Arugam Bay
I think Google’s strategy to take over the internet is great. They gererally put out great products and encourage people to use them for free and work on their advertising to bring in revenue. They’ve got everything from economists, neuro scientists, mathematicians and bus conductors working on improving their algorithm and products. If you’re on Picasa, add me up (http://picasaweb.google.com/halikazeez).
The Wild Vanni Calling
Vedda, Sri Lanka, 1977. Photo by laserlandsson
Looking for something to do for four days come 31st of December. I’ll be hornswoggled if im gonna spend 31st night at some boring party.
I’v been reading about the jungles of the Vanni lately. The book is R.L. Spittel’s Savage Sanctuary. Its a story concerning the Veddas written specifically for the purpose of giving life to the anthropological data that was heavily mined by British Colonial scholars during the 19th century.
R.L. Spittel (1881-1969), who was a surgeon by profession, lived among the Veddas for many years. He studied their habits, spoke to them, lived with them and walked the jungle trails with them. The Veddas are said to have migrated to this part of the world during the stone age before the tectonic plates shifted and we parted ways with India. They drifted down from the sun beaten trails of Central Asia, following the wandering beasts down to the lush jungles of this piece of land and chose to remain here forever islanded when the earth broke into pieces afterwards.
So if this land ‘rightfully belongs’ to anyone then it belongs to the Veddas if precedence is your metric. But thank God its not no? Otherwise we’d all be hypocrites.
Spittel’s story follows the life of Tissahamy, the famed Wildman. Though Spittle lived and studied after the time of Tissahamy, he was able to painstakingly put together the story of the latter’s life through the acquaintance of his son and others who knew him.
This very word; ‘wild-man’ conjures up visions of a different species. Its like the difference between a wild cat and a house cat; you simply can’t place these two side by side and call them the same. And they were a savage bunch. At least Tissahamy was. But they were also capable of the type of love and caring that optimists believe typify human nature. They were forest dwellers and even in the mid to late 19th century they had largely dissipated and assimilated into what passed for civilization then. By the 1930s Spittle writes; ‘today, no pure Vedda exists’.
Spittel’s Map
The story of Savage Sanctuary takes place in the jungles of the semi arid zones; the area East of the the hills and petering North towards Maha Oya. Mainly the Uva province. The jungles are described as lush yet not overcome with rain. They are full of wild beasts like sambhurs, monkeys, leopards, bears and elephants. Many exciting accounts of hunts and battles with bears are described. Leopards will attack only if you surprise them while they are making a kill, when their blood lust is high. If you meet one just after it’s killed it will growl at you and slink off, that is, if it sees that you are not afraid of it. Bears on the other hand are right bastards, they will attack you the moment you surprise them. They look like boars to the untrained eye but are deadly fast and can crush your face with their sharp claws.
All this excitement running through the pages into my veins makes me want to take off to the Vanni right now. I’m not pretending i want to meet leopards and bears though, or even hit up on an elephant in the dark and get trampled to death. Things have changed in those jungles now i guess. But the war must have done the most damage of all. How do you chase away a land mine just by showing it that you are not afraid?
Live Online
So for the last couple of days I’ve been at the LirneAsia conference contributing to the live online feed that Indi cooked up. Dinidu was at hand creeping around on all fours taking great pictures and flickering them live. These pictures were then taken and inserted into the blog posts that were being written as the speakers were doing their thing.
Indi did the bulk of the blogging, while i did some blogging and took care of the tweets. Sanjay took video holding up a flip; confusing people into thinking it was a mobile phone. The whole thing was pretty candid. And except on a couple of occasions, we weren’t really told to hold back on anything. Basically I was given the necessary passwords for Wi-fi access, twitter and the blog and told to get down to it.
The conference was mainly about ICT policy research. But this meant that a myriad of subjects were discussed from various angles. There was politics, economics, business and marketing. On a more micro level individual research findings and intricacies of ICT markets and future potential for mobile technology were discussed in detail. There was an overall focus on freeing up the market and making technology more accessible to the masses, the theory being that this will be a boost to development.
Some of the speakers’ idea of a presentation was simply Powerpoint slides packed with data accompanied by a speech in a monotone, sometimes directly read off a screen. But on an overall basis there were some interesting speakers and most of them accounted for my blog posts during the conference which can be found here.
I think that providing a live feed for an event such as this is a great way to boost its publicity. Attention grabbing conferences such as Davos and currently Copenhagen get a huge amount of live broadcasts through mass media. But an organized effort at giving unbiased information to a distant audience by the event organizers is an effective way of keeping all your stakeholders involved in what is going on.
More publicity is needed before the event on order to build awareness and interest. What i also think could help is an organized way of presenting everything in chronological order; maybe a mind map like layout of the program of the event where you click on the item and it expands, giving directions to the various online content on the item. Together with an accompanying indication of the progress of the event.
Providing live online broadcasting is quite a good commercial venture to chase I think. The market needs to develop a little bit more though; most Sri Lankan conference organizers aren’t very web friendly. Or even aware for that matter.
Seeing Blue
The Road is bedecked in blue all the way to Galle. Riding in a bus on Saturday blue is all i noticed. It starts from Dehiwala; the new flyover is ostentatiously laid out with blue election stuff. And every single city down the stretch to Unawatuna is laid out in the royal color, its almost as if the opposition doesn’t exist.
A friend insists that the new Rs 1,000 is illegal election propaganda. And his argument is not easy to refute. These days, ATMs all over the country are spewing out the stuff to customers and bank tellers are handing them over counters. The incumbent is everywhere, on our bridges, by the sides of our roads, decorating bus stands, in our wallets, in our faces. I’ve heard about a giant cut out from a few terrified people, located somewhere in Colombo. I’m not too sure if i can take seeing it.
The challenger needs to up his game if he wants to stand a chance. Its like that Hebrew proverb Zack got tattooed on his arm; ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Voters are fickle creatures. And democracy, at least democracy in good ‘ol Lanka, is designed to benefit the loudest screamer. The most in-your-face guy grabs the confidence of the public; a matter of significance this time, since both candidates are contesting more or less on the same platforms.
The general doesn’t seem to have really started on his publicity campaign yet. All his initial efforts are being successfully undermined. Posters with his face on it are covered over in a matter of hours by an efficient publicity grease machine that presumably works for parties not in favor of him winning.
The opposition’s campaign is nowhere nearly as strong or effective as it should be in order for it to reach the average Sri Lankan and in order for it to have a share of voice which is, if not equal, at least reasonably noticeable in comparison to the president’s. I wonder who does their advertising.
A reason for their lackadaisical approach could be an inability to come up with something that will capture the hearts and minds of the people. Some phrase that dramatically simplifies the core message or selling point of the General. But i don’t think they have a core message let a lone a good slogan yet. They still haven’t managed to convey concretely why anyone should vote for Sarath Fonseka and not Mahinda Rajapakse. The suddenness of the election probably surprised them. Here they were, just negotiating their terms and bickering over the small print when bam! before you know it the game is on in five minutes and everyone’s gotta go and get changed.
They need to do a lot of thinking on the feet.
Add to that they may also be disadvantaged in terms of logistics. Sure, money may not be a problem, but access to suitable channels probably is. Key below the line advertising sites and TV airtime etc is all but monopolized by the incumbent. He is shouting loud right now and he’s been doing so for a long time. The Mahinda marketing machine is well oiled, its glitches have been ironed out through years of practice, its on a high after the war victory and is simply rearing to go.
It has taken the corner at 100km’s and whizzed past the starting point while the opposition is only now starting to turn the ignition on their’s. They’ll need one powerful engine and a hell of a driver of they want to catch up.
Dying Like a Gorilla
‘I say, Prabhakaran wouldn’t have died like that. He would have died fighting. If he was in a tight spot he would take cyanide. But he would never be taken alive to be spat on by his enemies.’
(Source: Sri Lanka; the years of terror, C.A Chandraprema)
Varadarajah was being delusional. Prabhakaran (or Pirabaharan as it is fashionable to call him now), like Wijeweera, had everyone duped. Even i thought he’d swallow a pill rather than suffer the ignomity of capture. But most evidence so far uncovered about the bloody ending of the war points at exactly this. Prabhakaran surrendered/ was captured and subsequently was killed/ died. Just like Wijeweera.
One wonders if it is this underlying cowardliness of the leadership that doomed both these post independece movements of rebellion to a bloody end. The leadership was in both cases inherently corrupt and unscrupulous; terrorizing the very people they claimed to be liberating. Their revolutionary ’struggles’ were undermined by their own greed and lust for power. The movements they led soon turned into a criminal war to attain benefits for the criminals who ran it. Their ideals, however noble in their origins they may have been, quickly decomposed and became demonized.
They both led priviledged lifestyles at the times of their capture. They were far removed from the ground level of their struggles and left the fighting and dying to their countless minions. In this context, Che Guevara’s statement is not even applicable to the likes of Prabhakaran and Wijeweera. Criminals probably thrive in city environments. And they all die like cowards in the end.
Rohana Wijeweera, source unknown
Existential Angst
I was introduced to this term by a friend recently. He described it as a state of depression with just being. I took it to mean a contemplative frame of mind constantly fixed on the topic of the futility of life. As in why would anyone ever worry about the future if we are going to die anyway? A disillusionment with being alive.
Now my friend is what some like to call an emo. But i think he just thinks a lot. And he differs from most people i know in that respect (as in based on what he thinks about). And something that probably makes people who think a lot depressed is that most other people don’t seem to do so. Other people, quietly obsessed with the nitty gritties of life and happily pre-occupied with the daily grind appear to hardly give any thought to things beyond the general vicinity of their noses.
So the masses who dont think beyond their noses get on the nerves of those that do. Or those that think they do. And this frustration is possibly increased by a feeling of being built differently and thus being an outcast from regular human life. You draw satisfaction from this knowledge celebrating your superior capacity for thought while at the same time also drawing satisfaction from a masochistic instinct that takes pleasure out of torturing your own self with the knowledge that you’re an outcast.
That’s part of the glory of being a self proclaimed outcast; the angst. It’s addictive.
But what I’ve come to realize is that this is probably a phase in every human being’s life. Thoughts and feelings such as these are extremely private and chances are that it usually takes a person with a similar mental construct to understand where you’re coming from when you experience these things. And such people are hard to find. But even they only manage to scratch the surface in getting what you’re feeling anyway. So pretty soon you seem lost in an understanding of the world that seems true, futile and unique at the same time.
But the trick in rationalizing the whole thing is to realize that everyone goes through it, i guess. Its part of the natural order of things almost. At least, that’s what I’ve come to realize. Hitler, in Mein Kampf, introduced me to this German word Weltanshauung, the closest English word that can translate it is ‘worldview’ but it means a lot more than that. Wikipedia calls it
the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing natural philosophy, fundamental existential and normative postulates or themes, values, emotions, and ethics
So existential angst is simply what you go through ’til you discover the purpose of your existence; your weltanshauung. Your own comprehensive world view. Your reason for living, your visions and your ambitions. I suppose most of us will be lucky if we manage to figure all of that out before we automate into economic machines.
Unraveling the Sarong
Wearing a Sri Lankan Sarong; pic by Munir
Lately I’ve been growing increasingly fond of wearing the sarong. I should be surprised because a few years ago i was confident i would never take to the loose wrap around with the tendency to sneakily unravel itself whilst you are asleep.
The sarong is a versatile garment. its easy to put on and take off, it does the job in preserving your modesty (an important factor in Muslim households), it looks decent when properly worn and it manages to do all these things while affording you a great deal of ‘freedom’ and air down there at the same time.
According to wikipedia, sarong wearing is on the drop in Sri Lanka. Apparently there is a strong stigma of it being the attire for the less educated, lower social classes attached to it. Most urban men therefore only wear sarongs for convenience at home or as a night garment. But it is also making a comeback as a fashion statement. At least it did a few years ago, when there was a upsurge of batik/printed sarongs worn to parties all over the place. The craze has died down somewhat i think. But I’ve noticed ordinary people wearing the sarong a lot more in public lately. I put it down to an increased sense of national identity.
Young people are yet to take to the sarong in a big way. Its popular among a few of the new age hipster crowd as a garment to wear when lounging about in expensive cafes but it is still by and large impractical for everyday use. If you’re taking the bus and have to walk around Colombo then wearing a pair of pants is much more practical. Pants were developed with one thing in mind; practicality for Western living. And most of our living originates from the West; from our houses to the way we travel to the way we eat and, consequently, dress. At least, thats a theory of mine.
Anyway, sarongs developed mostly in the Mid East and Asia pacific regions of the world as far as i can discern. The Scots had the kilt but thats not exactly a sarong is it? more of a masculine skirt. Probably more suited to bloody battles on cold winter mornings etc. But in the Mid East, Africa and the Asia Pacific one can see a strong sarong element across various nationalities’ native dresses. Was that sentence correctly constructed? ok nvm. So i guess we evolved our grass skirts in an expansive manner while in Europe they preferred a more compact constriction. But in saying that i’m presuming I know a lot about the origins of pants.
Its all very confusing really. But the phenomenon of skirt like gear is not restricted to our immediate global vicinity either. In fact, looking at what i know of our historical dress codes from all the movies I’ve seen its becoming obvious that men all over the world have started off wearing some form of skirt. Take the Red Indians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Japanese etc etc. The fiercest warriors of countless civilizations have always preferred a skirt. This knowledge has the potential of liberating thousands of henpecked males worldwide forced to let their wives wear the ‘pants in the relationship’ by the realization that wearing the skirt while your wife hogs the pants is probably the more masculine thing to do anyway. Introspection in this area is probably strongly discouraged by the female psyche in such instances.
But all this digression is besides the point of my post. Which is basically about the sarong. And how I’m beginning to like wearing it more and more. I might even start rocking one in public very soon. Be very afraid.
Where have all the Terrorists gone?
Cobra is a desease, meet the cure
Ok now here’s a question for all you people out there who think Prabahakaran’s a terrorist. Does he not wank at night before goes to sleep? If you prick him does he not bleed? If you stole his lunch and beat him up, would he not cry? Is he but a man like you and me? Or is he really a woman inside like Boy George or Mervin Silva? Or is he, like many believe him to be, the illegitimate, discarded son of the devil himself? Illegitimate because the devil in a drunken stupor landed in Jaffna thinking it was LA and did it with a bush lizard of some type thinking it was Celine Dion or Donald Trump? And even though you might say all the devil’s children, like George Bush, are illegitimate since after all the devil leads by example, discarded because a bush lizard is still a bush lizard and even the devil has his standards?
Yes, yes it is very brave of me to sit safe in my room in an undisclosed location in the greater Colombo area and smugly type away vicious insults to the grand old boy of Sri Lankan terrorism I know. But that’s okay, I am not asking for any medals, just doing my civic duty as a roadblock loving Sri Lankan citizen who would think nothing of sacrificing about 15 minutes of the first part of his crucial CIM exams so that some power loving money hungry white shirt wearing deranged komodo dragon of a politician can wait for his wife to leave (through a different route, eliciting the services of other patriots and honourable citizens such as I) so that he can get his servant to suck him off in the kitchen and still get his nice round ass to parliament for the next power hungry bastard with something to gain to kiss in 15 minutes flat. Oh yes, I am all for efficient governance.
While retracting my rather tasteless comments about the devil and his dirty deeds above, for after all a lady is still a lady even though she may have been unfortunate enough to have a son like Prabhakaran, I am forced to ask, who is the real terrorist here?
One, gets people to die for him without even meeting them in the name of an ancient cause that frankly no one even knows anything about anymore. The other, revels in the war effort and uses it to consolidate his power by scaring the people making them bend over double and give him all their money. Probably half of which he uses to buy weapons netting a handy commission out of the whole deal. Some might call it a lost cause. But no one really knows anymore.
It’s like when Mr Perera snapped at Mrs Soyza’s dog and Mrs Soyza called Mrs Perera a drunken whorebag because Mr. Soyza who drinks every night, can’t resist looking over the wall to get a peek at Mrs. Perera’s extra large green cotton panties hanging on the washing line. And so begins a long drawn out battle between the Pererá’s and Soyza’s and including, among it’s many casualties, a cut down thambili tree for daring to drop its produce on the wrong side of the parapet wall, a surprised bas unnahey who chose the wrong side of the border to keep his foot on during some construction, a harangued local police officer sick and tired of dealing with petty complaints and who ultimately suffered a stroke, and even more harassed looking neighbours unable to sleep due to noisy arguments from both sides all through the night, and who went out and didn’t contribute positively to the workforce and spread the insomnia throughout their acquaintances and throughout over ever widening circles causing car accidents, bus accidents, moral degeneracy and a serious economic down turn preceded by a financial crisis in the US where the Perera’s stressed and vacation deprived son was working at Bear Sterns as an investment banker looking for a new high return, risk insurable investment opportunity.
Ultimately, the Soyza’s dog died from a heart attack and Mrs. Perera stopped wearing extra large green cotton panties due to having lost so much weight by fighting all day and through having developed an allergy to cotton that brought her out in itches and boils that her doctor said was due to stress and from not being able to stand the colour green anymore because it gave her traumatic nightmares about how it all started. And Mr. Soyza stopped drinking after a bout of extreme depression when Mrs Perera stopped wearing extra large green cotton panties and stayed sober in order to better focus on the fight at hand and trounce the opponent even though he hadn’t the faintest what it was all about, having been drinking at the time it all started. And Mrs Soyza wouldn’t stop fighting till Mr Perera stopped and Mr. Perera didn’t see why he should stop until Mrs. Soyza backed off and apologized despite the pleadings of the harangued police officer and his insistence that there was nothing left to fight over anymore.
And so they bred the same hate and ignorance within all their children who in turn proudly presented it to their children as a part of the great heritage of their respective families and the Perera’s and the Soyza’s continue to fight to this day and no one really remembers or cares that it all started over a long dead dog and a pair of extra large green cotton panties.
So who’s the real terrorist here I ask you again. If you were to ask me, I would say neither. There are no terrorists here at all, only angry people with weapons (and a possibly inherited fetish for alcohol and extra large green cotton panties), who have forgotten why they got angry in the first place.
And as for terrorism itself, well we are all unknowingly embroiled in it. It is an aura surrounding us that we can’t shake off.
Disclaimer -The selection of these two esteemed Sri Lankan last names was purely random, and may have been triggered by the memory of two families in my former neighborhood that were constantly at loggerheads with each other. No offense meant to any individual bearing the names of Soyza or Perera, nor to anyone fond of green cotton undergarments of any size.WWSD?
Wiping off a smile by Chavie
So now that it is more or less confirmed that the General will be running in the presidential election to be held next year, we responsible voters (yes, ha ha) should ask ourselves the question; What will Sarath Do? if he gets into power.
My sentiments on Sarath so far are largely expressed in Indi’s post here. The more I read about him i too find him less and less attractive as a potential president. He comes across as a whiner for privileges and a man even more ideologically removed than the current establishment. DBS Jeyaraj has an (almost too) lengthy analysis of the general here, it may come across as somewhat biased but it is not hard to form a general impression of the general (congrats if you noticed a pun) by reading one of his personal interviews.
His assertions and pledges to bring back media freedom, ensure decent human rights and secure a future for the IDPs strike a hollow note to say the least; largely due to his words and deeds while the war was in full swing. Also, minorities will be hard pressed to hope for a ‘better future’ with the General after his careless remarks to the Canadian press which will no doubt be bandied about by the media quite openly in the campaign to come.
Product Promise
In the world of business, for a new entrant to be able to successfully dislodge entrenched competition, it should be able offer product benefits that are better than what its competition offers or offer benefits that are unique. In both cases the product must cater to unfulfilled needs of the market.
Sarath Fonseka’s track records on the issues of freedoms, human rights and the ethnic rifts have already been discussed. His economic and diplomatic experience is almost nil and he has so far avoided talking on the subjects openly. His brand promise largely relies on a perceived capability of being able to ‘remove’ corruption and nepotism from the political system of Sri Lanka. The popular perception is that only with the abolishment of the Executive Presidency will we truly progress down the path to a corruption free government. Victor Ivan talks about these phenomena as something that was ingrained into the very structure of our governance framework starting from J R Jayawardene’s constitutional amendment.
Abolishing the Executive Presidency is something the General, given his personality, is hardly likely to do. At least not within the timeframes of the conditions imposed (apparently a 180 days after coming into power). All previous promises by earlier contestants to change the constitution have always proven empty. There is no evidence that Sarath Fonseka will be any less power-hungry or any more altruistic than Chandrika or Mahinda. Indeed, all evidence of his Napoleonic ego points to an even more dictatorial bent.
Mahinda, so far has proven himself adept at making quick decisions and sticking to them. But economically, he is yet to prove his mettle. He had savvy advisors during the war but questions are being asked if those same advisors are appropriate for a post war Sri Lanka. The main points of contention any successful challenger to the incumbent can have therefore concern corruption and better economic management. The vast majority do not really care about devolution and other issues more popular among the intelligentsia. Sarath Fonseka however, does not possess the credibility to be able to attack Mahinda on any of those lines detailed above.
Opposite of a Champion
The opposition alliance is fielding Sarath Fonseka simply because he is the strongest candidate available at the moment. But the President appears far stronger in the same areas that the General is strong in and has other strengths to boot, which the General does not appear capable of matching.
What they need to look at is bringing in a candidate capable of offering potential benefits to voters that the president has not shown capable of offering; things like equality, a genuine end to nepotism and corruption by serious structural reforms and most importantly strong and robust economic solutions.
But the opposition may not, as a matter of fact, have a better candidate. In which case the people will simply vote for Mahinda in the face of a lack of better choice, i don’t feel he is a particularly bad choice given our options anyway.
Rifts are emerging already in the fragile alliance with the JVP putting in and pulling out their two cents every now and then as they see fit, based on whatever inverted logic they work their policies on and, in latest news, Sarath Fonseka himself has expressed dissatisfaction on the agreement. Talk is also rife that the whole thing was a smokescreen cast by the UNP and that Ranil will run again as usual. Perhaps for one last time.
Letter to my sixty year old self
Overkilling the tag. With apologies to RD.
To My sixty year old self, i hope you have the eyesight to read this, if you’re still alive.
Life will always contradict itself. So before you look back and think how carefree you were at this age. Know that at the age of twenty four you were looking back at yourself at the age of five and thinking the same thing.
Also know that with irresponsibility comes little wealth and material gain. So imbibe some responsibility into your front press. Although irresponsibility gives you more freedom to do the shit you want to, it’ll do so within tight financial constraints; which is not much fun. So i hope you got off your lazy ass and did some money making with your life.
If you are rich then know that you had no idea you would be so when you were twenty four. Now you may be fat and relaxed (i’ll get to that later) but there was a time when you were lean and hungry. And your lean and hungry self thrived on ideals. And was resigned to a brave life of near destitution if thats what it took for him to be true to his heart. Yes he also spoke through his backside often then. Has that changed at all?
I hope you stuck to your guns, and didn’t change for anyone else, especially not for a woman. If you’re married, I hope thats a nice girl you married and that she didn’t nag you too much. If you never got married, then i hope you died in your forties in a botched mountain climbing attempt, or even better; fighting for what you believed in.
I hope you stuck to following your instincts but hopefully time taught you a thing or two about making decisions. It simply must, or you’ll be sweating over vanilla or chocolate until the ice cream melts for a long time. A life without frozen ice cream man, not sweet! I hope you’re reaping the results of being more firm and aware of what you exactly wanted out of life.
I hope you gave up wearing ties. ‘Ties are a leash that will lead you like a dog and then hang you like a chicken before they’re done with you’ I hope you remembered that quote from your twenties. You were a wise man then. If by any chance, you did take to wearing ties and didn’t end up like a trussed up chicken (however metaphorically) please also remember that you were a bit of a fool sometimes also. But a fool thrives where wise men fear to tread. No i don’t know why i just said that. But i hope you do.
You better not have become a pot bellied old man. I hope you’re still lean, that you never gave yourself up to excess and waste. I hope you’re still fit. On the floor, give me twenty-five! on the knuckles!
Ok good.
I hope you always remembered the stars. The universe is unimaginably gigantic compared to your petty existence, try and imagine it everyday (most people forget this when they are confronted with the ins and outs of daily existence); it will have kept you sane and hopefully humble. And whatever you did, I hope you didn’t sell your soul for anything. The devil is only at your doorstep all the time.
Tinkerbell clap clap clap! is it true that you become a kid again when you become old? Get back to your newspaper and armchair! or is it Warcraft and heavy Sunday lunches? In reality i’m the old timer here and you’re new age. So forgive the archaic language. Just know that it was the shiz back then. Or back here. Yes, back here you were the coolest person on the blogosphere, if anyone tries to tell you anything to the contrary, just close your ears and go gagagagagagagagaggagagaga. Works everytime.
