Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2009

Ah, yesterday was a milestone event: my maiden marathon! Okay okay, technically, it wasn’t a marathon cos I signed up for the 10K, so I’ll call it my maiden 10K run. But then again, some parts of the route did coincide with those running the full 42K, so I’ll call it my Maiden 10K Marathon. There you go.

Got to Dataran Merdeka at 6pm (newbies ma, so excited la). Being typical girls, our first stop was the portable loo. The line was long and there was no flush so you can imagine what a grand welcome that was.

I didn’t bring anything with me cos I didn’t want to have to line up like crazy to collect my stuff after the run (little did I know that I’d have to do that whether I deposited stuff or not).

It was 6-something in the morning and still dark, so we spent a few minutes camwhoring. This is an important pre-run activity; it’s my duty as a Maiden 10K Marathoner.

You might be wondering why I’m being anti-Reebok by wearing Nike. First of all, I like Nike apparel. Second of all, I’d read some well-meaning article which said that wearing the official marathon tee is a dead newbie giveaway. Of course I didn’t want people to think I was a newbie *shudder*, so I decided to wear my own baju. Mana tahu when I went there, almost everyone was wearing the official tee. I was misguided. To make myself feel better, I wore the tee out to the dim sum restaurant for breakfast after the run and for the rest of the day – haha.

Everyone began lining up and I found a spot somewhere in the middle of the pack. That same well-meaning article also said to stay towards the back if you plan to tortoise your way through the run. Don’t go up front cos you’ll just annoy people who are like, real runners and are running to win (unlike me who’s running to not pass out).

Soon, it was 7am. The brass band started playing and balloons were released into the deep purple sky – yup, all five of them … or maybe there were six or seven, who knows. All I know is, if you’re going to release helium balloons at a big event like the KL Marathon, for pete’s sake, get more than six!! But I had no time to dwell on this tragedy as the run had started.

It was a great sight – the road was overflowing with people who looked like a huge army of tiny ants from afar. A sea of heads bobbing up and down, a mixture of dark-haired heads and colourful caps. One side of the road was closed to traffic for us; all the cars were on the other side. Almost felt an air of superiority waft over me. Look at us, busting our butts here. We’re so healthy and so fit. And look at you drivers in your air-cond cars, wolfing down your morning sandwich, pudgy elbows rested on your swollen belly, warm asses practically moulded into the car seat. Hah.

3km … ah, the first water stop came up. That same well-meaning article I’d read advised me to be courteous – line up, get your water and sincerely thank the volunteers. But that was not to be. Everybody simply charged up to the wooden tables and started grabbing paper cups and shoving them into the volunteers’ faces. Pour here! Pour here! The poor volunteers were working out of fear – we did look rather crazed and dehydrated. They cincai poured the water all over the place and I swear more water ended up on the road than in our cups.

5km … the run was pretty smooth. Everyone was chugging along nicely and nothing terribly exciting happened. But since you’re reading my blog, I feel I owe it to you to say something interesting, so here it is: I saw a lady with a rainbow-coloured wig, some scrawny dude in an ill-fitting spidey suit and a couple of Malay tudung-clad girls along the way, huddled together by the roadside. I think they were supposed to be cheerleaders (and I use the word ‘cheerleaders’ very loosely).

7km … I find it funny that some people say it’s surreal to be running on the same road you’re used to driving on. They say things look different when you’re on foot, compared to when you’re in the car. I don’t know about that. Everything looks the same to me, except much much s-l-o-w-e-r.

8km … somewhere between the second and third water stations, I began to get a little sluggish. This was when thoughts of the Penang Marathon crept in – thoughts like omg, what possessed you to sign up for the half-marathon, you siau or what, you won’t make it, 10K also like this, 21K sure die, blah blah blah. Just as I was about to entertain the thought of ffk-ing the Penang Marathon, it dawned on me that hey, we were nearing Dataran Merdeka! I let out a silent whoop-dee-do. Yay! So fast going to reach already; faster than I’d expected! But instead of turning right to Dataran, we were  directed left to Sogo and Pertama Complex, which meant we had to make one rather big loop before getting back to the Finish line. Tiny groan.

10km … as Dataran came into view, I picked up my pace. Can’t be seen dragging my sorry butt to the finish line now, can I? That would be mortifying. Ran past the finish line and got tagged with what looked like a mozzie swatter. I did it! I’m officially a Maiden 10K Marathoner!!

The nice feeling lasted for about fifteen seconds until I saw the horrifically long line of people queuing up to collect their medals. The queue looked merciless, snaking its way from the tents at one corner of the field down to the road. I got in line and we inched our way to the tents.

Got to the tents only to see hordes of people shoving and pushing, flinging their numbers at the volunteers and the volunteers simply exchanging the numbers with medals. They were so blasé about it too (and by they, I mean the volunteers), like they were giving out soda crackers. There was no verification. No checking. No nothing. How did they know if you even ran in the marathon, much less finished it? Didn’t it matter whether you finished within the qualifying time? What if I were some evil marathon medal collector who went around collecting medals so I could lie and show off to impress unsuspecting people? What then??? What would the world come to then???

To make matters worse (or better, depending on how you look at it), I spoke to a friend of mine today who claimed that the 10K was actually a 12K. Holy moly. Apparently, her friend had one of those training watches and it calculated 12K. I was so happy – it was like discovering you’re actually two years younger than you thought. But then, I went to google map and the route calculation is 10.62km. Eeesh. So much for being two years younger.

Anyway, here we are with our medals.

All in all, I’m glad I went and finished within the qualifying time. While the event itself did fall short in some areas (not enough fanfare, not enough oomph, lousy goodie bag, disorganised bag/medal collection, etc), it was a lot of fun and definitely something I will do again … which is perfect since I’d signed up for the coming Shape Run next month

All pics by Susan Ng

Michael Jackson Is … What??!!!

I can’t believe Michael Jackson is dead. I grew up listening to him and for quite a long period, practically worshiped him. I had all his albums and until today, find it physically impossible to listen to his songs without getting a crazy urge to jump up and sing and dance. I love Billie Jean, The Way You Make Me Feel, Man In The Mirror (swoon), Smooth Criminal, Dangerous, They Don’t Care About Us, the list goes on and on and on.

I remember scraping together RM300 or so in 1996 (tough to do when you’re studying and have like, no money) to go see him live in concert in KL and becoming near hysterical when he appeared on stage and jumping up and down and screaming myself hoarse for two straight hours. I entertained the idea of camping outside the hotel where he was staying but decided not to as that might have been a bit too insane.

I’ve watched his videos, live performances, concerts and interviews many times and I can still watch them today and be just as transfixed as I used to be years ago. I can go to Sungei Wang and they’d be playing one of his live performances on TV, you know, in those electrical shops, and I will still stop to watch it, nailed to the floor, unable to pull myself away.

When news of all those accusations surfaced, I ignored them – those attention-whoring money-suckers can straight go to hell for all I care (as you can see, I’m totally unbiased). When they started making fun of him for all sorts of things – from the chimp to the elephant man skull, skin bleaching to plastic surgery, sleeping in oxygen tanks to dangling his baby over the balcony – my response was, “Mind your own goddamn business and leave him alone!!!”

I may not have watched Michael Jackson much recently but all it took was five minutes of youtube-ing him and I’m reminded of the musical genius he was. He had an extraordinary ability to connect with people through his music in a way that nobody – current or past – has ever done and, I can say for sure, will ever do. He was a phenomenal performer. Nobody will ever exude that level of magnetism, that all-consuming star power, that ability to work millions of people into a manic frenzy. And nobody will ever be able to carry off ankle-high trousers and beaded white socks in the same way he did.

The most successful performer of all time … the only artiste to garner eight Grammy awards in a single night … the biggest-selling record in history … There’s only one Michael Jackson; the rest are just sorry imitators.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go watch Billie Jean.

Again.

Goodbye, Grandma

This belonged to my grandmother. This was the pair of scissors she used 60 years ago as a seamstress to earn money to feed her family of nine children. The sundry shop my grandfather was running wasn’t doing well. There had been times when they couldn’t make the RM90 rent and were evicted. It was a tough life.

My grandmother passed away today. She had been in a critical condition in the hospital for over a month and her heart stopped today at 7am. They couldn’t revive her.

I’m now in her room in my uncle’s home. Everything is so familiar – familiar because they’re the same things that used to be in my grandparents’ old home years ago when I was a small kid. The old wooden cupboard with the stained mirror on one door, all her clothes neatly folded inside. A collection of short-sleeved button-down shirts and long pants, in every colour imaginable. Red was her favourite. The cupboard is lined with newspapers, just like she used to do years ago. Two small tables hold an assortment of items, one of which is a plastic container with a bottle of half-finished talcum powder, ointment for joint pain and mentholated balm. There are two photo albums with pictures of everyone, each picture carefully slipped into the transparent pocket. I wonder if she did all that herself and if she looked at the pictures whenever she was alone or feeling sad. Some of those pictures I’d never seen before. In the drawer is her passport – the pages are empty. Next to her passport is a picture of herself, nicely laminated. This is the one she’d told my aunt to use for her funeral. And there are bags of medicines – painkillers to alleviate the constant pain she had from her knee cap operation years ago, sleeping pills to help her go to sleep, all sorts of pills she’d diligently take every day. They’re all packed up in a small plastic bag. I recognise that bag; it’s the one she carried with her everywhere she went. I used to be amazed that she could read the doctor’s handwriting – as unintelligible as it was to the rest of us – and knew exactly which pills were meant to be taken when, how many times and for what.

I can’t describe the feeling of being in her room just a few hours after she’d gone. The first word that comes to mind is poignant. There’s just something very sad about going to the hospital and then, having your things come back without you.

I know she’s old and everyone’s time must come. I know we should be celebrating the life she’d led. There’s hope after death. She will always be alive in our hearts. She’s with God now. She’s no longer suffering. We’ll meet again. Blah blah blah and all that jazz. I know all that. But for now, I feel sad. I feel really sad because she’d had such a hard life and now, just like that, it’s all over. Nothing left but a few old photo albums, a cupboard of clothes and some half-empty bottles of medicines. Of course, she has a family that loves her dearly and I know most people would say that’s all that matters, but I still can’t help wishing that things had been a little different for her … a little easier, a little better.

Goodbye, grandma. We love you.

What’s The Difference Between A Man And A Chimpanzee?

One is hairy, smells and scratches his arse.

The other is a chimpanzee.

Hahahaha!! I’m sorry. This is juvenile but I couldn’t resist.

Hello Present Me, Meet Future Me

Once upon a time, a guy named Phineas Gage got his skull punctured by a 3.5 foot long iron rod – it shot right through the top of the skull and out his left cheek. This is a picture of what happened.

Not only did he not die, he recovered and went back to functioning like a normal person (although his personality took a beating). Because the damage was to his brain’s frontal lobe, doctors figured that meant people could still function normally without it. It wasn’t until later that scientists discovered that the frontal lobe (or rather, the lack of it) was good for something – getting rid of parts of it actually helped calm people down. In fact, the removal procedure became a way to treat people suffering from anxiety and depression! Problem was, while people were calmer and happier, they were also unable to see past today and therefore, unable to plan for the future.

The linkage is clear: the ability to plan goes hand in hand with the capacity to freak and get all stressed up. We’re the only animals that can plan for the future … which is also why we’re the only ones who are in a constant state of anxiety. When you live purely in the moment (like kids do), there’s nothing to stress about. It’s when you think about what’s going to happen three hours later, tomorrow, next week or five years down the road, that’s when you get stressed cos you imagine all sorts of things going wrong.

I got all this from Stumbling On Happiness (Daniel Gilbert) and I found it to be such a revelation! We’re in a constant state of stress cos we’re living for the future. Always. We’re never truly in the present. Every single thing we do, we do for The Future. The Present Me will make sacrifices so that the Future Me will have an easier time. Think about it.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

1. Present Me forces herself out of bed over the weekends to go to the park or hill or forest reserve or wherever to run so that Future Me won’t become a big fat ugly tub o’ lard in her old age.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

2. Present Me puts in late hours in the office (and suffers a great deal for it), so that Future Me won’t need to rush like crazy and suffer like hell the next day.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

3. Present Me forgoes the pleasure of giving certain people a piece of her mind so that Future Me won’t suffer the consequences of being the most despised person in the office.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

This is all fine and dandy but the problem is, Future Me is continuously turning into Present Me, by the second, by the minute. You think by making sacrifices today, Future Me will have it better but no-o-o-o-o. Future Me becomes Present Me who will now be making sacrifices for the benefit of Future (Future) Me. Flummoxed? My point is, it never ever ends. When is it ever The Future? Never cos every minute, the Future turns into the Present, the Present into the Past. You never actually “arrive” in The Future – it’s not like one day you wake up and you go, “Okay, after suffering for so long, today is the Future. I can stop this planning nonsense and just be in the Present cos today’s the Future.”

As a kid, I used to imagine The Future. But now that I’m living The Future I’d pictured in my childhood, all I can think about is The Future of my later years. So when do I stop thinking about The Future? When I’m dead, I suppose.

I’m reminded of this funny scene in the 90s sitcom, The Golden Girls, when Dorothy finds out that her decrepit old mother, Sophia, has been secretly hoarding money while Dorothy has been going without so that her mother can live comfortably. So when she discovers Sophia’s load of cash, she is livid. “What’s all this money for?” she asks. Sophia replies, “My old age.” That made me laugh cos she’s like 200 years old with one foot in the grave. Even in her old age, she’s living for her future self.

I think that’s the case with all of us too. We lose sight of living in the present – in most jobs, it’s near impossible to live in the present. Where I work, we practically live three months ahead, so you can imagine the chaos there – you have presenteeism and futureeism all so mixed up, it takes a few seconds for me to remember exactly what day and month it really is.

We can’t do away with planning (although a break from anxiety sounds like heaven) but maybe the thing is to try not to get so sucked into it that it’s all we see. It may sound a bit cliché but hey, last I checked, I’m no scientist or psychologist. Live a little more today, worry a little less about tomorrow. Sounds like pretty good advice. Maybe I’ll take it someday myself

Complication, Thy Name Is Cake

Why do I complicate things? Is it due to my unacknowledged fear of facing reality? Do I hide behind a façade of abstruse explanations and cleverly formulated rationalizations so that it appears as if I have a valid reason for behaving the way I do? Do I complicate matters to flabbergast other people (who usually have no idea in hell what I’m jabbering about anyway), make myself look all deep or purely to inject some entertainment value in my life?

Just got into a lengthy (read pointless) discussion with Slugabed over the issue of Cake, after which I completely pissed him off. While I won’t indulge in the gory details of our discussion, suffice to say that it wasn’t actually about Cake. It was about the significance of Cake – a significance that was lost on him, I might add.

It was hard to carry on such a conversation with Slugabed, especially when he wouldn’t keep quiet and kept interjecting with, “What are you talking about??” in a tone which first hinted of curiosity, then bewilderment, then incredulity, eventually morphing into impatience, sarcasm and finally, downright annoyance.

I cannot lie. I felt slight stirrings of satisfaction in me when I heard Slugabed starting to buckle under his gargantuan effort to stay sane while trying to understand my ramblings, be the bigger person and give into my whims.

It’s strange. I feel like I’ve succeeded whenever I confuse and/or annoy somebody. Why does this seem to give me greater dissatisfaction than say, actually coming to a mutual compromise and chalking up some progress?

I know what Slugabed is thinking right now. He’s thinking that I’ve gone completely nuts. He’s also wondering what in the world I mean by Cake – is it a code for some other confectionary? He’s trying to figure out how to handle these vile mood swings of mine. He’s formulating a strategy for the next time I decide to go berserk on him. He’s thinking next time, when she gets like this again, I’m going to just ignore her until she starts to talk some sense … or being a typical man, he’s probably wondering if he should have Cake for dessert.

Images by stock.xchng

To Love Is To Suffer

“… To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; to not love is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.”

- Woody Allen
American Actor, Author, Screenwriter and Film Director, b.1935

Image by stock.xchng

15 Words To Use In Your Next Conversation

This post isn’t about big words. It’s just words I really, really like – maybe because of the way they look or sound or stuff they make me think of. So here they are – read them and make a solemn vow to use them at least one time. Trust me. It’ll be fun.

(1) MORIBUND

First of all, I like this word because it looks to me like a Japanese word. Something very Asian about it – the ‘mori’ and the ‘bund’ like Shanghai Bund. Of course, the actual meaning is approaching death, which is rather funny. “Ooh, are we feeling moribund today?”

(2) SCHOOLMARMISH

Schoolmarmish means someone who has the matronly qualities of teacher in a kampong. I’m seeing unkempt hair, poorly applied makeup, horribly unfashionable apparel and heels never exceeding half an inch. Someone who is strict and is a stickler for rules. ‘Marm’ is similar in sound to ‘mom’ though not in a warm, nice maternal way; but in a more unflattering way.

(3) POMPOUS

Something about the word pompous which sounds so inflated, full of self-importance. Look at this: pomp and pageantry. The word even looks pretty on a page – maybe it’s the circular shape of the letters P and O and another O and the sleek curve of the U. I think a little dose of pomposity is endearing and quite funny – maybe that’s why I liked Frasier so much back when it was on TV.

(4) MONGER

We all know the neighbourhood fishmonger but I like how ‘monger’ can be attached almost like a suffix to any other thing you’re peddling – eg. fearmongering, pornmongering, etc. Just picture a bunch of smarmy, middle-aged men peddling little jars labeled with scare tactics like ‘death’, ‘regret’ or ‘pain’ in the pasar.

(5) ENNUI

First of all, I love the way this word looks. So unusual. Almost foreign. I also love the way it’s pronounced: ohn-wee. Isn’t that exotic? It means oppressive boredom, like when you’re stuck listening to some droning ignoranus and you’re slipping into a sea of ennui, you know, before you proceed into a state of moribund. *snore*

(6) VACUOUS

I heard this years ago on Monty Python’s Flying Circus when this guy went to John Cleese asking to buy an argument. They get into a fight and John Cleese yells, “Don’t give me that, you snotty faced heap of parrot droppings! … Shut your festering gob, you tit! Your type really makes me puke, you vacuous, toffy-nosed, malodorous pervert!!!” – hahahahaaa!! That was so damn funny I still remember it today and still love the word vacuous (stupid) along with snotty (conceited), gob (a small lump) and malodorous (stinky).

(7) FLUMMOX

Sounds to me like a vacuum cleaner brand (I grew up with Electrolux, what can I say?). Flummox means confused, perplexed. Say flummoxed and I imagine a person with eyeballs as wide as saucers, practically bulging out of his sockets; mouth rounded into a perfect ‘O’, eyebrows twisted into knots. Flummox is a funny-sounding, funny-looking word.

(8) SMARMY

This is someone we’d call ‘damn yong sui’ – someone with a face so sleazy, so oily (figuratively, of course) and with so much insincerity oozing out of every pore that you just want to bitch-slap the smarm out of them. Beadle, the evil Judge Turpin’s idiot sidekick in Sweeney Todd comes to mind. Timothy Spall played him so well and was so horribly repulsive that I squirmed in my seat the whole time.

(9) HEBETUDE

I remember seeing this word in an article in Time magazine many years ago, “… in a terminal funk of hebetude and sloth …” and fell in love with it. It’s an odd-looking little word. While it means mental lethargy or dullness, the word itself doesn’t really reflect it. It’s also cool that until today, ‘hebetude’ is still underlined in Word as a misspelled word. Haha.

(10) SPIEL

You know that scene in the Exorcist when the girl pukes? (Blech) That’s what I imagine spiel to be. While the actual definition is to say something at great length to persuade (I say con!) someone into doing something, to me, there’s just something very negative about spiel. Even the pronunciation of the word … it isn’t a word you say, it’s a word you spit out. Talk about verbal diarrhea.

(11) MEGALOMANIA

There’s something so wonderfully maniacal about this word. It sounds so pompous (yay!) and evil. The world is full of megalomaniacs – even those with a little authority can suffer from megalomania. What was really funny was this episode of The Office when resident sycophant Dwight becomes drunk with power when he gets to decide which of his colleagues would have to work over the weekend. “This is so sad. This is the smallest amount of power I’ve ever seen go to someone’s head,” Jim says. That was so funny.

(12) SLUGABED

Slugabed speaks for itself: a late sleeper. This is my nickname for my boyfriend who’s a loyal member of a species that can slug around in bed until the ungodly hour of 2pm. Of course, he also goes to bed at the ungodly hour of 6am on a regular basis. I will never understand the concept, not even if I live to be a hundred.

(13) DOUR

Someone with a sour face. When I see this word, I picture an overweight woman, scornful expression etched on her puffy features, lips so thin that they resemble bent razor blades, patches of powdery dough all over her face. In one hand is a rolling pin while the other’s perched on her ample hip. She’s standing in an almost combative pose. Yup. That’s what I see when I see ‘dour’.

(14) CLAPTRAP

I loved the phrase ‘unctuous claptrap’ so much that I wrote it down in my dictionary. Claptrap is almost onomatopoeic (a word that sounds like the sound made by the thing it’s referring to – come again?). Claptrap means empty language – yammer yammer yammer, blah blah blah, etc. Come to think of it, maybe claptrap should be craptrap. Hey, I just invented a neologism! Craptrap: empty language that’s also full of sh*t.

(15) TROGLODYTE

I love troglodyte. It means a Neanderthal that lives in a hole. Hahaha … that pretty much describes men in general, doesn’t it? Offense intended. But I like this word because it looks so troll-like. I think Hunchback of Notre-Dame. I think shriveled, skeletal gargoyles. I think Smeagol. I think Benjamin Button before he turned into Brad Pitt.

Some Of My Favourite ‘Words’

I love words. I used to read and re-read dictionaries and vocabulary textbooks for fun. Not only that. I’d jot down words that I’d read and don’t understand …

… or just list down the ones I particularly like…

… Every few months, I’d re-type all the words I’d scribbled in the pages and alphabetise them to create my own quarterly dictionary …

… I’d find out the meaning and then construct sentences out of them, like back in school. No wait. We never did that in school. We did lousy useless things like decide who had better moral values: Ahmad who helped the old woman cross the road or Ah Seng who stole ten bucks from his uncle.

Anyways, I was reading Time magazine when I came across an article on the newfangled concept of Carrotmobbing. In it was the word ‘slacktivist’ – “slackers who care about causes just enough to sign online petitions … but lack the time, money or drive to do much else.” I love it!!! It’s absolutely brilliant!

Then I got that nice warm feeling that I usually get when I come across a clever neologism. And that reminded me of my dictionary – there’s a page in there where I listed some really cool neologisms, which I will now share with you:

1. Karmageddon: everybody sends out bad vibes; vibes so bad that the world explodes and we all die.
2. Decafalon: struggling to get through one whole day without caffeine.
3. Flatulence: the ambulance that picks you up after you’ve been flattened by a steamroller.
4. Cashtration: buying something that renders you permanently financially impotent.
5. Sarchasm: the huge chasm between someone with sarcastic wit and the one who doesn’t get it
6. Ignoranus: someone who is both stupid and an asshole – this is my favourite because I know so many of them!

Pedants and language purists will argue that hey, these are not Real Words. Aiya, if we were confined only to words inscribed onto the hallowed pages of Oxford or Merriam-Webster, where got fun? Then we can’t say things like “MSN me” or “stop googling him la”. And here in Malaysia, worse. We don’t just combine the meanings of two words to make up a new word; we combine a whole bunch of languages: “You don’t ter-gostan and step on his tilam la. After he mengamok then you know.”

For the record, I’ve used the above sentence before in reference to a little two-year-old terror who’d shriek to high heaven if anyone ever dared lay a finger on his mattress. I swear I’m not making this up.

So anyway, what’s the point of this post? Oh yeah, here it is:

1. People who read dictionaries are nerds.
2. It’s good to know words people don’t know – it makes you look smart.
3. I’ve run out of points.

Self-Reliant vs Stuff-Reliant?

I need my stuff. In fact, I’ve come to realise that I can’t survive without my stuff. Guess I’m not the all-sufficient, super-person I fancy myself to be. Unlike people who constantly need people around them, I’ve always prided myself on not being that way – a little self-righteous, I suppose. I’ve always thought it grand that I can be by myself and enjoy time on my own. And yes, of course, I can … as long as I have my stuff.

Last weekend, I went for my usual morning run and to my horror, I discovered that I’d forgotten to bring my ipod. A sick, churning feeling set into the pit of my stomach. The dastardly churning was soon replaced by a sense of emptiness. I felt incomplete. I felt uninspired. I felt … like I wanted to turn around and go home. But I didn’t. I charged on anyway but it was unsettling. My mind was troubled. I had no tunes to focus on, so my mind went havoc, hopping from one thing to another (mostly work – what else?) like some bunny doped up on Prozac. Somehow, I managed to finish the route. Next time, I swear to god I’m sewing my ipod to my kidney.

Running isn’t the primal, lone ranger, no-equipment activity that everyone purports it to be (unless you’re an orang asli or a running purist or something). Purists would scoff at those who run with music – you’re not being “in the moment”, you’re not being “connected” to what your body is doing. For me, it’s simple: I must have this, this, this and this so that I can do that. Ah, the perils of modern society. We are under the impression that we’re becoming more and more self-reliant (hence, our individualistic, self-absorbed me-me-me attitudes) when in fact, we’re becoming less and less able to function without our stuff. Without our stuff, the experiences we have are perceived to be less rich, less fulfilling, less everything.

But like I said, I need my stuff. I’m a product of this society. It’s scary to not have my stuff with me. Without my stuff, all I have is … me. Egad. Which is why I’m amazed at people like, you know, monks who live in a temple in a mountain and they have no cable or wi-fi or whatever. They don’t “do” stuff, they can just “be” (whatever that means). I think if I were to just “be”, I’d go insane.

So the big question today is: do I want to be self-reliant or stuff-reliant? Should I try doing away with everything for say, a week, and see if I experience any epiphanies or should I just add to my already-bursting closet with even more stuff in the hopes that I’ll become more enriched and fulfilled – as artificial as that enrichment and fulfillment may be?

I think I’ll go with latter.