Somewhere Between Mammoths and Stock Markets, We Lost Something...

It seems that my brain cells prefer to put in some over time just before it shuts down for the night (leaving only the most essential systems running, of course).  I usually take about 30 minutes to fall asleep on normal nights (which isn't good, if I remember correctly) and in those 30 minutes, I come up with my best, most philosophical, sometimes even bordering on absurd yet quite thought-provoking questions and stuff. That's terrible since I won't remember half of it when I wake up.

Well, don't expect much of that here, though, because my brain is still far from shutting down for the night. Fret not, for at times when I'm fully conscious with no expectations of falling asleep, I do come up with some ridiculous thoughts in a spectacularly messy way :) (meaning, my brain likes jumping around topics like a cartoon Lima bean).

Ok, I was going to write something about social pyramids. Something along the lines of how the huge egos of humans are what created this world that seems to be ruled by social hierarchy. I had an impressive argument, starting off with the Egyptian Pharaohs and stuff but then I got side tracked by a thing or two..

Here's the first: Cameron Mitchell. For those of you who do not know (you unfortunate little beings), he's the amazing guy from The Glee Project. Now, if you have not heard him sing, you have missed something truly beautiful. Trust me, your ears will be grateful. I know mine are:)

My two favourites from him are Blackbird (a Beatles cover) and Lost (an Aqualung cover). This guy has a beautiful voice and the way he sings is just something out of this world. I could listen to him sing all day long. I actually stopped typing when I heard his rendition of Lost, and therefore losing the whole social pyramid train of thought.

Note to self: Do not listen to Cameron Mitchell when writing/typing.


Anyway, I just wanted to express my love of Cameron Mitchell's singing voice.It's makes me go all googly and weak at the knees. Swoon-worthy, for sure.

Now, the next thing that derailed my original thought was this: What is wrong with the world? Specifically, the people in it. I know that this is a very general question which can lead to tons of different debatable answers, so let me narrow it down to what I mean at this moment in time. When did human beings lose our innocence?

Of course, the religious argument would be Adam, Eve and a sneaky snake as well as Cain, Abel, some weird smoke and an axe. I've heard the stories before a dozen times but I'm not dumb and neither are you. The stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel are exactly that; stories. They're not real. It's just something the old timers came up with to explain our existence in this world, and of course sin, from a religious point of view (and by 'old timers' I mean those who wrote the book of Genesis).

So, that brings us back to the question. Where did our innocence go? Somewhere along the way, from being  hairy two legged creatures eating raw meat to the cave men that discovered fire and invented the wheel and then becoming the suit wearing, money hungry, power crazed people that we are today, we lost it. The most important part of our humanity got lost in translation while we were busy procreating. This then led to the worst part (to me) of modern history, the Holocaust.

Where, in between killing mammoths as the means of survival and harvesting rubber to fuel the industrial age did we drop our love of life? Not just the love of our own lives but that of others as well? How on Earth did we become these creatures that we are today?

Here's a breakdown of what we have become:
We are simple creatures who spend most of our time trying to earn enough money to get by. We live our entire lives trying to be someone; score well in school to get into a good university which, then, leads to more studying so as to get god grades and a good job. All that because we need to earn money to be able to feed ourselves and provide for our family. We keep reaching for more and when we get that, we reach further because that's all we know. We're explorers, discoverers. We keep going further and further. We want more. We never settle, we don't want to.

That's what we are.

There's good and bad, of course, in what we are today but I do feel like the bad is winning at the moment. We talk about beauty all the time. We talk about how pretty a rose is or how sweet honey tastes. We go on about love like it's the key to heaven on earth. We speak of music and philosophy, of politics and economics, of the beauty of life.

But how many of us truly appreciates these things? Whenever I walked in the tube stations of London, I saw a few specially designated spots for musicians to set up and play. For them to offer some beauty in the dull underground stations.Sadly, no one stopped. Sure, one or two people dropped some change into the musicians waiting guitar case or hat as they passed by but not one person took time off their busy schedules to stop and just listen, even for a second, to the beauty emanating from these musicians. Doesn't this prove that we're missing something? That, in our quest for 'more' and the great unknown, we have lost our sense of life? Our sense of real beauty?

If we can't take time off our days to stop and smell the roses, taste the honey and listen to some simple, original music in a dull subway, I think we're missing a huge part of life itself. Don't you believe that if everyone, and I mean everyone, from the Wall Street broker to the thief down the road, would just pause for a moment each day and realise how much real beauty our world holds, that the world would be a better place? I think so.

I think if everyone would just stop trying to out do each other, this world would be bliss. There would be no Hitler or mighty Pharaohs killing millions of slaves just to build a tomb. There wouldn't be any Pyramids either but I think I could live with that. I think this ideal world is entirely possible.

Here's the hard part; not everyone is going to jump on the bandwagon. Not everyone wants a world of beauty. And so we're stuck on this huge orb, all trying to survive and all looking for the great unknown. That better 'something' that is guaranteed to give us happiness. And while we're doing that, we try not to miss the blooming roses or the buzzing bees.

I miss....

Hello again. I'm back! :)

This post is dedicated to all things I've missed while I was away.

I miss my shower, which I know exactly how to control.
I miss Malaysian ringgits and coins (not the new ones, though).
I miss hearing the Azan, fives times a day.
I miss the desktop at home.
I miss looking at my Harry Potter books everyday.
I miss the Malaysian heat and humidity.
I miss Malaysian food, obviously.
I miss the messiness of my room (although, we weren't exactly the neatest tourists around)
I miss my usual makan shops.
I miss the almost-not-working-anymore glow-in-the-dark stars on my room wall
I miss ceiling fans.
I miss being able to go out any time I want and not get lost.
I miss my slippers.

Those are what I can think of right now. So, yea. What I actually missed the most was just plain ol' Malaysian-ness. I didn't really miss the people because I knew I was coming home. So, I wasn't really upset about that. But I did miss the day to day stuff because a Europe Trip meant no total Malaysian-ness for 24 days straight. I didn't really realise it till I came home but I really missed it here. But now I'm back so no worries:)

Anyway, I actually planned on posting the daily Europe thing. At least once a day... But then I thought that it would be a little hard and not to mention kinda disorganised and messy. Therefore, I've decided to create a separate page for Europe.

If you just look underneath my Blog Title (A Big Bowl of Something), there's a link called 'My European League'. You can see that it's right next to 'My Wish List'. Click that and you'll find yourself on the page on which I'll post Day 1 to Day 24 of Europe. So far, I've posted Days 1-5. Happy Reading:)

Missing for 10 days, so Here's Day 1:)

Hola! Bonjour!:)

So, as you've noticed, I've been away for quite a while. Well, my Europe trip with Mama and bro is on it's 10th day now. I've been writing down something each day and I've been meaning to post it everyday but sometimes we don't get internet access so, it's quite tough.

I've got everything saved on the laptop but now I'm trying to work out the logistics of posting what I've been writing. I think I'll just post one a day. If I happen to have anything to add, then I'll just do it after my daily thoughts.

For today, I'm supposed to be asleep because we have a long day tomorrow but I can't help it, I finally have the laptop to myself for more than 5 minutes and even thought it's already 1am plus, I just have to take advantage of the wireless connection:)

I've been having a great time, really. It is an amazing journey and I still have 13 days of it. Well, here's Day 1:

24th April

Adrian drove us to the airport. Our flight is at 10.55am, if I'm not mistaken (which I am, and you'll soon find out why). We checked in our bags and headed to Kopitiam for some breakfast. At about 9.30, we decided to head to the boarding area, thinking that we should explore the shops there as well. Luckily we did because as it turns out, our flight is actually at 10.05 not 55! OMG!

We were rushing like mad towards the gates. Thankfully, we didn't miss the flight. That was too much excitement for me, right at the beginning of everything. We hadn't even left Malaysia yet!

Anyway, there's nothing much to report about the flight itself because it was really just the most terrible 12 hours of my life. I was just sitting, couldn't really do anything. I couldn't make myself pay attention to the movies of the songs or even the games. I couldn't focus and I was restless. I couldn't sleep comfortably either. It was really terrible.

The only really good parts were seeing snow capped mountains as we passed Nepal and landing, of course! Clearing immigration was not an issue. The line was quite long but they were working very fast, so no problem.

Once we got out of the airport, we took a bus to Victoria Station and then a coach to Faversham, where Ma's long time friend, Uncle Kumar, picked us up in his small Nissan Micra (one of the more common cars in England).

By the time we got to Uncle's place, it was already 11.30pm. So, in essence, the whole of the 24th was a traveling day. We had some bread and fish curry, then landed on the bed. We were all really tired. Man, at that point, the thought of spending another 12 hours in a plane to get back to Malaysia was the least tempting offer anyone could ever make to me, no matter how homesick I was.

Ish.... But the ride from the airport to Faversham wasn't too bad. We got to see a lot of the English countryside and some parts of the London town. Everything looked to picturesque and like it could've come out for a post card or something. And when the driver announced the stops, it felt like something out of a storybook. Everything, from the accents to the brick buildings, brought me back to those old movies and stories I've read. The voice in my head even adopted an English accent. I hope it doesn't stay too long.

:)