Other Things

There was the nicest Guitar farewell ever on Thursday. Heh, being treated like VIPs, having a really cool slide show with all sorts of nice photos, and a song that was specially prepared for us by the J1s. All, of course, part of a gesture of goodwill towards departing seniors, nothing more, but I really don't think it does them justice to talk about notions of superficiality here. Like Briony writes in Atonement, "The attempt was all", and in trying, it was enough.

So there it is then, the end to our official tenure in Guitar. It's hard to give up such a warm and frank group of people. But then again maybe I'm being melodramatic...after all, we're not totally cut off from the RJGE people, and all that is asked of us is for us to graciously step aside and trust the juniors with the running of the Ensemble. Which, I'm sure, they will do a fine job with. Heaven knows that they're a lot more capable than us. I shall look forward eagerly to see what they do with their one year of time.

Once again I feel really lucky to have known them. Just like the people from CHS EDrama. And I daresay that RJGE has displaced EDrama as my favourite CCA. Rather unexpectedly, to be sure...I never thought I would even be in a musical CCA. But it grew on me, I guess...it grew on all of us, and it offers things that are new, different, but equally enriching as what I got from EDrama. I guess its main appeal over EDrama is its proximity; we haven't finished resigning from RJGE yet.

Anyway, after the rather touching ceremony (it was nothing fancy; it ran on sincerity, which was precisely why it was so memorable) we went to Elaine's amazing bungalow to chill for a bit and wait for the afternoon to pass away. Was playing delightfully inane games like the animal game, the cross-hands-and-test-hand-eye-coordination thing, and, of course, Truth or Dare. Heh, I gotta admit that Truth or Dare with the RJGE people is the best ToD that I've ever come across. It's because the people are bold enough (and trust each other enough) to do interesting things and ask awkward questions. It's not that they're vindictive, or that they don't give a hoot about respect. I think it's because everyone doesn't mind, they know it's all for fun. And they trust each other. Throughout the whole session, there was totally no hint of malice. And anyway, everyone knows how seriously you can take the truths uncovered in ToD =P

Watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith too. Really tiring movie, good for destressing after a long period of studying. Was actually intending to go home and continue Atonement documentation, but as it turned 0ut, made the right decision to stay with the Guitar people to watch the movie. Ah...mindless destruction, and a hint of sex. Just the remedy for endless studying. Try it; go into the theatre and imagine that all the black-suited pursuers are your tormentors, Mr. Econs, Mr. History, Mr. Lit, Little Miss Math, in no particular order =P Funny how they shoot at each other, then they team up in the name of love and shoot at everyone else. Maybe it's supposed to be an analogy for domestic conflict =P

Yesterday, went to watch Lovepuke with some of the Humans people. Not a very good play, I'm afraid. It was just a frenzy of sex and sexual innuendo. The set design was interesting, an array of toilet bowls. I thought that them flashing "supported by Sim Siang Choon" on the screen before the play started was quite a clever touch =P But it was a minimalist piece...no props, just placards as stand-ins for the objects they use. Now, I try to be open-minded with these modern takes, but it seems like replacing the real objects with placards didn't serve any artistic purpose at all. It just seemed cheap. It was funny, to be sure, but not much of a point.

The really disturbing thing was that the plot was uninspiring. Heh, after the play, it was very hard to discuss the play with the others, because it didn't really say anything new. And it is quite disturbing, because you'd expect adults to know more about love and sex and that kind of stuff. From the stageplay, you would have thought that they were in the same boat as us inexperienced bunglers. And maybe they are. But at least they should make a pretense towards greater wisdom. Just to keep our world in our comfortable and familiar perspective.

All in all, rather mindless sex and conventional love patter. My gosh, I think we could have wrote the script ourselves if we put our minds to it. But it does raise the question - what if no one really knows what love is? I'm of the view that love is one of the things that everyone understands but no one can adequately express, explain or communicate. When you say "love", you have an idea in your mind. But it's hard to express that idea. But then again, maybe the difficulty in expression is not borne out of linguistic inadequacy, but a real lack of comprehension. And that raises the disturbing point that we may never grow out of this bungling phase.

Which to me is quite distressing. That means that we'll continue to hurt other people when we try to love. And we'll never know what love really is; maybe it's a concept that is constructed negatively; our concept of love is based on what we know is "not love".

But that is clearly false. Even if true knowledge is impossible, people clearly learn more about love and love in relation to other people over time. We spend so much time unraveling the complexities of relationships, clearly it has to be taking us somewhere. And some people truly become wise because of love. Maybe I'm clutching at straws here; I realise I am sounding rather childish. But even though I've not much faith in young love, I still think that at some point we must know what love is, or at least we must settle for an adequate substitute. And in the meantime, we just have to keep trying. But we can't keep bungling without a point. The attempt may be all, but there must be a higher objective somewhere.

* * * * *

Hmm, I realise that it's easier to talk about love with people who are already attached. Maybe it's because of their greater experience. But I think it's because I feel safer talking to them about these issues. At least they won't get the wrong message about my intentions.

* * * * *

Finished documentation for Atonement, and feeling rather good about that. It's a good book, and now that I've slogged through the whole lot, I feel much happier. Shows that such intense analysis can be done, which opens up new options for me. Anyway, next week will begin Hist work, and hopefully squeeze in some math. And I've started on Gut Symmetries. What a wonderful piece of work. It's a shorter book, but I can see myself getting bogged down in it, the language is just so rich.

pondered by phoenican @ 12.6.05