this isn't the first time i've felt this way.

i feel like i'm wasting my time doing so many inconsequential things. even with the arts sometimes. i want to get myself away from all this and really do something. really do something.

i want to change the world. i want to help with hurricane katrina, i want to lead protests to stop the war, i want to ease the poverty crisis in africa, i want to ensure that food is no longer contaminated. i want to do all these things, but i'm stuck here and most of the time i'm selfish. i don't see the point of going to University and leading a comfortable life when you know the world is in shambles and you're not doing a thing about it. you don't have to be qualified to help - you don't have to.

but then, let's be realistic again, shall we. people would say: not everyone can help, if everyone helps, who's going to run the economy we so depend on? i'm not good with this technical stuff, i don't understand it. all i want to do is just do something, help someone.

I WANT TO STOP THE WAR. i feel very strongly about this, and always have. the whole situation seems to have blown over now, at least among those i know in Singapore, but we have to remember the war in Iraq is very real. far too real. we can't keep living in our little bubble, we have to do something. i hate war, it's one of the things i hate the most. don't give me all the practical and logical reasons about war - they mean nothing to me. war is mass murder, and many many innocent lives are being destroyed. patriotism, glory? that's just hogwash. there is no glory in war, and there's no such thing as patriotism. the nation exists because you need it, not because it needs you. what is more precious than human life? what? definitely not patriotism - if it's even real. seriously, the events taking place in the world right now are so absurd it seems like the whole world is a sick joke. i mean, God, i have to do something. it would be fine if i didn't feel anything and was trapped here in this body of lead, but i do feel so many things and that's the problem.

i'd give up all these things i love - art, film, theatre, literature if i had the courage to use the opportunity i was born with to change the world. i'm serious. everyone is born with that opportunity, you just have to use it. maybe this post was another blip on my flatline of emotions and thoughts. i don't know. only time will tell - i really don't want to sink into meaningless enjoyment [sleeping, going out, wasting time in general by not doing all the things we yearned to do during the exam period] after my exams as many do [including myself]. i'm determined to do things.

Greater Love

Red lips are not so red
As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
Kindness of wooed and wooer
Seems shame to their love pure.
O Love, your eyes lose lure
When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!

Your slender attitude
Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,
Rolling and rolling there
Where God seems not to care;
Till the fierce Love they bear
Cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude.

Your voice sings not so soft, --
Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft, --
Your dear voice is not dear,Gentle, and evening clear,
As theirs whom none now hear
Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.

Heart, you were never hot,
Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot;
And though your hand be pale,
Paler are all which trail
Your cross through flame and hail:
Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.

Wilfred Owen

+ posted by M @ 7:02 PM