I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY

1

Sticky floors. Why do they make people uncomfortable? Is it the irritating noise – that constant peeling – of the sole from the floor? Or is it the subconscious notion that you are partially, momentarily stuck to the ground like an ant in honey? The sensation lingers. Thousands of tiny hands at war to keep your shoes locked, but not quite getting there. Some people are like sticky floors. I try to keep walking.

2

"I found a dead myna in our lily pond today," my mum said sadly. "It drowned. I removed it with a stick. Hopefully a fox comes and takes it away."

3

Lately, I've been trying to be less consumeristic. It seems like a strange goal – to refrain from spending money unless you 'need' to. What really is money but a device which controls us? People divorce over it, lose their children, their houses, gamble it away along with their lives, commit endless crimes to acquire it. 

The dictionary defines religion as "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a God or gods". Money is certainly omnipotent – not so much with its physicality, but certainly with the idea of the thing. The difference between money and religion, then, must be the absence of an external God. But what if the 'God' – the "superhuman controlling power" is within us, disguised as dependence, determined by our socioeconomic upbringing, our vices? Much in the way Hegel described desire, one could say, paradoxically, we are the Gods of money but also the worshippers of it. We are asserting our independence by using money in ways which we desire, but we also rely heavily upon it.

Now I understand why ABBA wrote a song about it.

4

Do you know how long a straw is, relative to the head of a turtle? I do. About the same size, if the straw has disintegrated or broken off a little bit. I watched a video the other day of a man on a boat extracting a plastic straw from the nostril of a sea turtle. The man was trying to be careful, but had to stop every so often to give the creature a break – a grotesque version of removing the Bandaid slowly when there's no other choice. It was shocking. Blood reluctantly dripping, and the stick-like straw, which was an indistinguishable colour, partially twisted by disintegration in the ocean. I didn't know turtles could shriek in pain until I watched that video. I wonder if it knew we were the cause of its pain. And I wonder if humans were really meant to evolve like we have. To be as self-obsessed as we have. To extort, abuse and not give a fuck as we have.

5

I think film ratings are bullshit. They serve a purpose only to those who believe the most important films are ones with the best overall ratings, and usually, people with this view won't give other films a chance. But films are like paintings: you cannot standardise their symbolism. Or, for a matter of fact, you cannot have an opinion on them unless you have seen them. Who's to determine soundness and meaning through a number and standardise art in such a way for the public? Critical opinion is expected, but as a consumer of entertainment, I do not let it affect me too much – especially not the rating.

Films are creative, in the end. And even in lower-rated films you can find brilliant ideas. In Triangle (6.9/10, IMDb), I found a modern Sisyphean legend. SLC Punk! (7.5/10, IMDb) was abundant in themes of individuality and anarchism. It is my firm belief that long as it has meaning to a viewer, an abstract number should not determine any such 'goodness' or 'badness'. 

6

I'm on the train and the woman sitting in front of me is wearing a hijab. The fabric is not the traditional black, but a cream and fluorescent yellow one, alternating colours in bright, unmissable zigzags. A statement: fuck you. It's a quiet rebellion, the one she chose. I like it.

7

"If I gave you a gift and you refused to accept it, whose gift would it be?" A colleague at work asked me randomly. 

I stopped spraying off the remnants of meals from plates and boards and wiped my hand on my already damp apron. I didn't understand the angle of his question. "Like, if I didn't like it or just politely refused because it was way too nice?"

He shook his head. "No, no, just say you refused it."

I was still confused, but decided to say the obvious. "It would be yours – you'd be forced to take it back."

"Exactly. It's the same with anger and hate; whenever someone gets angry at you, if you refuse to accept the anger and stay calm, the person will be forced to take the anger and negative emotions on their own shoulders. It's a Buddhist metaphor."

His words echoed in my head for the rest of my shift. ✦