it pains me

it pains me to see you torture yourself so indefinitely, where the answer is laid before you so plainly. i only pray that you see this before it is too late, that everything that you write, i have empathised with, have been through, am willing to suffer and bear with if you would let.

and i write in your style that you may see, that maybe, two people are not so different after all.

assumed birthright

what gives us the right to anything? to physiological needs, to psychological ones, to personal and interpersonal ones? what gives us the right to happiness? and what makes one more deserving than another?

how can one write or speak or contemplate and think, of happiness and self-actualisation and love and hope, when there are those whose most extreme of concerns is surviving the next day, or hour, or minute? when in mortal danger and with life against its odds, would we think of happiness and contention, or just making it through the current ordeal?

which begets, that if you (or i) worry about the most mundane of worries, as a broken heart or a dullness to the mind, or a lack of extravagance to life, then truly, we must be blessed for everything that is threatening and dire has already been sorted such that they no longer bother us.

indeed, how can anyone of any problem not fathom anything that is worse? and so, of presumed love, or lust, or monotonous hate - of bickering and of jealousy and vanity and fate - how can one worry so much about so inconsequential? we have all fallen victim to overlooking priorities, even those who are at the deepest end of forsaken. unless we are faced with death, or anything worse. which then begs the definition of what is worse than death? maybe, to some, to all, those things which we have just mentioned? and thence negating the argument?

maybe, we assume too much, that being in this world entitles us to things - many things - that others think leisurely and frivolous. what gives us the right to anything?

what gave me the impression that i was ever entitled, beyond that i am already blessed?

p/s: existentialism is such a humbling tool, i am glad that if all else fails, i still have it, particularly upon my deathbed.

op ed

opinion pieces are the most frivolous and meaningless of the lot, because in this day and age, everyone has something to say but just like this sentence, nothing worth saying is said and nothing said is actually worth much, if anything at all.

growing with curves

in the laboratory where i do my post-graduate, i am currently doing a series of experiments which involves generating growth curves for certain bacterial strains. this involves growing an overnight culture of the strains and then coming in early the next morning to start a 14 to 20 hour experiment that basically ends with enough time for me to come home, sleep, and if the next day is allocated for another set of growth curves, repeat the whole process again. now, i'm not complaining, because as tedious as it sounds, i do take a couple hours off to have dinner (i don't do lunch, though), and in all honesty, i only have to take hourly readings from a growing sample of bacteria. the time between is allocated for other things, such as reading up on the experiments, planning future ones, studying bioinformatics and doing the chores around the lab. all of these are not too taxing, except for the reading parts, which can become quite the headache, especially if left to accumulate.

however, it is unfortunate that, i always find a few hours' worth of time that i find free, and my mind strays to things that i want to do for leisure instead - blogging, reading a few books that lay dormant now upon my desk at home, and various other things - and i always find that my motivation is at an all-time low. it's easy to create excuses - blogging has become lacklustre in absence of a (my) muse. reading is all too redundant when it reminds me of work. and i find myself wanting to do something different. something other than watch a movie or a tv series, or play a game (which i find boring except for when i have lots of work to do, when suddenly pacman is the most exciting thing in existence).

i sigh for my lack of sleep, and i sigh even more for my lack of focus.

in any case, this is not a rant post, but a brief re-introduction for me back to blogging, which i can and will hopefully be able to indulge in more often once my growth curves are done (although, knowing how postgraduates work, i have no reason to believe the workload will get any lighter). additionally, it may be influential that it is a holy month of sorts as of now, and being the superficially pious person i am, i am trying to adhere to certain religious rituals and customs that i might normally not make time for. and once the month is done... i guess that leaves me more time to do other things, even though i shouldn't? who can tell.

hopefully i write of growth curves tomorrow - a sign that my mettle is not as fickle as my focus.