Memories

Sometimes the best memories we have are the ones of things that never even happened - nostalgic dreams of long walks in gardens under apple trees and a warm spring sun, or of lime milkshakes sipped through straws as our eyes meet for the millionth time. 

Perhaps, it's these very memories which give life and love more meaning than reality itself; as though we never need experience anything but the serene happiness of a moment which will probably never happen; a moment which is so beautifully perfect and so unspokenly loved that it need never exist at all. 

LOVE

“We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.”

-Albert Einstein

In the beginning, the Universe was created. This single act is often hailed as the most pointless and self-important anomaly of all time. Indeed, ‘time’ itself only exists as a result of the Universe being created and thus, by the very nature of it, the creation of said Universe is the very deed which allowed such a monstrously purposeless thing as a ‘universe’ to exist in the first place.

Regardless of this, here we are: Irrational, self-obsessed smidgeons of life with a bizarre fixation upon discovering the meaning of our, otherwise meaningless, existence. Yet, if it weren’t for one miniscule occurrence, we would have realized the futility of our pursuit many centuries ago. This occurrence takes the form of something which we have come to call ‘emotions’ – socio-environmentally stimulated responses in the prefrontal cortex of our brains, which we have the greatest difficulty describing and understanding.

One emotion in particular has caused us both irreparable damage and irrefutable joy. Yet, in what is possibly the most ironic act in all of human history, we decided that this behemoth of a sentiment should come to be known simply by the short and undescriptive name: Love.

Considering Life

(Written on my cellphone, in bed, on a sleepless night when I was only 15)

I am lying under the covers in my bed at boarding school. It’s after lights out and technically I shouldn't be typing on my phone at all, but seeing as how I feel liberated and inspired at this precise moment, I consider it acceptable to be bending the rules.

I often have become depressed while pondering about an afterlife and its conflict with logic and science. I was raised a devout Catholic and up until the age of 13 I never had room to consider alternative possibilities. As far as I can gather, the powerful minds of free thinkers have had a problem with religion since the beginning of time.

My Thoughts, during Maths

She’s born and bound in these pages

The messiah of hallowed ages

For she sees through the hypocrisy preached by their sages

Standing in a void she provokes-

A snake and serpent enrages

And she sees mirrors on turn-styles

And echoes of teenage death howls

In subterranean deluges

An inexplicable tiger growls

The Unknown Acquintance

Upon the death of a man I knew...


We are humbled by your passing
Your bridging the eternal unknown
But in your subdued agony
The way for us is shown

We are saddened by this news
Stumbling upon life's bitter end
But in your memory and message
You are forever a true friend

For I may not know you
But we did both walk this ground
And we both must face our deaths
In this we are ultimately bound

For we do strive to be like you
That when our last breath is stole
We will have lived a life of honour
That we may have a worthy soul

Science vs. Religion

(Originally delivered as a prepared speech during WIDPSC 2013)

“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”

Today, we find ourselves engrossed in a reality where human knowledge and innovation culminate in a society devoted to progress - a society which has a profound yearning for truth and precision. But alas, we also find ourselves in a world where the desire to answer the fundamental questions of our existence has resulted in an injurious war between scientists and theologians. It is now a commonly held belief that faith and science are incongruous approaches to answering the central questions which all introspective individuals must ask themselves.

It does not, however, have to be so. My aim is to illustrate how science and religion are, in fact, destined to be allies and that the conflict between them will degrade into a mutual agreement for the benefit of humanity.

Before we can formulate a solution, we must outline the problem. The difficulty may seem to lie only in the realm of the inherent differences between science and religion, but if one analyses it then it becomes apparent that the problem has its roots in the historical conflicts between the two.

Nuptial Nostalgia

It was the morning of a wedding. Thankfully, it wasn’t mine, but rather some obscure relation I was barely acquainted with. Sitting alone, detached from the congregation, I randomly perused the hymnal, while the preacher painstakingly prepared to deliver his propaganda. There were candles on the altar, tall and ivory white. I smelled them burning and subconsciously recognised the odour. It was somewhat synthetic - almost like burning rubber... 

I swerved to avoid the bystander and lost control, the wheels of the sedan screamed, spinning toward the edge of the bridge. There was a moment of unexpected serenity as we hung in the air, beginning to fall, then came the inevitably freezing, brackish water beneath. Gripping the steering wheel in terror I turned to see her face for an instant, before plunging in...

To us honourable gentlemen

To us, honourable gentlemen
Gathered on an evening- cold
A few young minds assembled
Before hope grows old

To us, honourable gentlemen
The prodigies of culture and thought
Assembled after hours
Before our lives mean nought

To us, honourable gentlemen
Devotees to logic and art
Here to discuss the meaning of-
Life. And the secrets of the heart

Controversy

Controversy.
It is the sordid taboo which we avoid undeniably.
Like a hot potato, it is tossed to and fro
Between hands which burn with fear of it.

Controversy.
For we are aware of it and controlled by it.
A hot potato passed around, yet
Unwanted by the hungry guests of life.

Controversy.
We despise and ignore it.
A hot potato wrapped in euphamism's napkin
We disguise its sting of pain.

But controversy.
It is the only thing which can nourish our minds.
For a mouthful of burning starch is the only bite which sustains us and
Only controversy's full brunt can enrich us.

Challenge not that which I say,
For it is the only earnest thing
Any man could.

Eleven-Nine

“Today is nine / eleven.”

“I know.”

“What should I make my Facebook status?”

“What?”

“Should I use a bible verse or something? About the people who died?”

He sighed. 

“Are you really asking me that?”

“Yes.”

“Well you’re an ignorant fool who fails to recognise that a brief public statement is neither relevant nor of any value. You bear no humanitarian connection to the terrorist attacks of the 11th of September: it wasn’t you that lost a relation or friend, it wasn’t your city that descended into chaos, and it wasn’t your president that sent you to war.

What entitles you to mourn the lives of people so incredibly disassociated from you? That day saw its own victims and they have been iconized by cell-phone footage and the snowballing momentum of the American patriotic-propaganda machine. But the real victims are the people who suffer oppression and the unending conflict of religion. 

Bush declared war on Iraq and invaded them as an act of vengeance. It was justifiable retaliation in the eyes of the world, and the west felt good to be hurling an inexhaustible military might at a small Arab nation which was deemed responsible. America was painted as the undeserving victim and granted every right to hate Muslims. 

A lunch line extrospection

“To observations which ourselves we make,
We grow more partial for th’ observer's sake.”

-Alexander Pope

When I arrived here as a preppy, pre-pubescent child, I knew nothing of true camaraderie and love. I also knew nothing of the ineptitude of reality’s institutions. One thing I did have, however, was a great mentor in the form of a towering, blonde-haired prefect who would go on to teach me all that is valuable in life; from appreciating good spirits to experiencing spirituality through a Hendrix solo. At the very least, I expected a friendship to form. Instead, I learned the beauty of observation.

Subsequently, there was something which I noticed on my first day that I still notice every single day, even four years later: the toils which five hundred boys endure thrice daily in the servery are, in fact, a perfect metaphor for their lives, indeed all life. 

Universal Symmetry

I thirst for the sweet sap of a Universal symmetry
The convergence zone of analytical and poetic
Spawning a devine no-man's-land
Which I tread
Shoulders brushing with those of
The other few

I hunger for unity and precision in my prefrontal chaos
Seasoned with the drugs of love, lust and manic euphoria

I must dine upon a feast of language, lyric and melody
Interspersed with courses of reason, rationality and recursion

And then cleanse my palate with the sorbet of a succulent end

Insignificance

Conceived as insignificant specs only to grow into insignificant people only to die an insignificant death. 

What reason is there if there is not love and lust and mother and sister, brother, schoolroom, first kiss, rebellion, first smoke, failure, defeat, misery and repeat?

Live our lives we must and poems we must write and songs we must sing because soon it will be over and the sting of insignificance will sting!

Just as we are born into life, so too do we rise merely to perpetuate our species, like a Darwinian clusterfuck of futile inevitabilities. Born. Shall live. Shall die. Was born. Lives. Shall die. Was born. Did live. Dying...

And for what reason but passion do we live? For a full life is no less empty than one of suffering when compared at the knelling of death bells. There is nothing in this life.

Nothing but us

And that which is of us.

I, the educated

I sit in class, biding my time.

Wishing time were more relative than it is.

I wish it would move faster. I wish I could be free of this 

Pestilential putridty -

Which we misname education.

Then I realize I'm wishing my life away. For life is moving too quickly and soon I will be dead and gone.

In that moment, I realize just how much I hate this place.

The End to a Great Idea

I was fortunate to experience something exceptional and inspiring recently. A friend who was involved used this experience as the topic for an essay, for which he asked me to write an ending:

"... for despite enduring years of the incessant grindstone of monotony, the rapier edge of their excellence had remained unblunt. Armed with prose and the thrill of rebellion, they fenced with satire, parried with wit and all the while remained resolute in their desire to be not just men of thought, understanding and culture, but infinitely more too."