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Tell it Slant

Sunday, January 29, 2006

"Tell all the truth but tell it slant," says Emily Dickinson.

Are stories then slanted truths? Do we live in a world where the truth often gets slanted one way or another?

Fiction often get slanted right from the start. For instance:

In a country there was a shire, and in that shire there was a town, and in that town there was a house, and in that house there was a room, and in that room there was a bed, and in that bed there lay a little girl... (Wives and Daughters, Mrs Gaskell)

which is probably a good way for its readers to envision the entire setting of the story i.e. from general/wide setting down to the minute details.

or fiction gets slanted in some examples I got from here:

A long time ago in Estonia, people didn't have bathtubs in their houses...

At a time when the rivers were made of chocolate and wishes could come true...

Back in the days when animals could talk...

Here is a story! Let it come! Let it come!

Do slanted truths have elements of truth in them? Yes they do, except the entire story cannot be considered the truth because it isn't so. Animals talking is not logically true in this world but it is true that they communicate one way or another, perhaps in a language that we do know of. A fable is not true in the sense of the story it speaks of, but the moral values it relates is true.

The setting of Estonia is a real place and we don't know if people did have bathtubs in their houses but they probably didn't at such an early age, but what happens over there in the story is not true (although it may be in a strangely coincidental way).

Although a little too direct and too enthusiastic, "let it come! let it come!" does emphasise the fictional element of the story.

Now, you may think that openings are important for telling slanted truths, closings are equally important for the same reason. And they're pretty amusing too.

For instance, some examples I found here are:

There are simply too many, so I'm going to classify them into categories.

Normal endings:

And so the story goes.

And this was a story of how it happened.

And they lived happily ever after.

Indignant endings which insist on their verity:

And that's a true story!

And that's no word of a lie!

And this is a true story. And if it isn't, it should be.

If you don't believe this story is true, give me a dollar.

If my story is not true, may the soles of my shoes turn to buttermilk.

The dreamer awakes, the shadow goes by. When I tell you a tale, the tale is a lie. But listen to me, fair maiden, proud youth. The tale is a lie, what it tells is the truth.

Endings which attempt to give advice to the reader:

And if they didn't live happily ever after, that's nothing to do with you or me.

And if you are going to tell a lie, tell it big enough so that no one will believe you.

Lame endings that try to rhyme:

A mouse did run; my story now is done.

And now, my story has gone that way, and I've come this way.

If I get another story, I'll stick it behind your ears.

If my story be sweet, it is yours to keep. If it be bitter, blame the teller & not the tale.

Some endings just refuse to end like it should:

That was just the beginning.

Think hard, think long. And perhaps you will find the answer to this riddle.

What do you think?

This one takes the cake by weaving all the above said categories into one:

The moral of the story is quite simple: If you insist on inventing stories, you had better marry an even better storyteller to back you up.

Thus what Ralph Waldo Emerson says sums up everything that has begun with Emily Dickinson very nicely: "Truth is beautiful, without doubt. But so are lies."

3:22 pm
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Why we desire Mr Darcy

Friday, January 20, 2006

A tribute to all Darcy fans...

Reasons why we desire Mr Darcy of Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen):

We do love that tall, handsome, aloof stranger who remains staunchly silent even at parties or Austen's equivalent of high-class balls. The enigma is shrouded with so much mystery that we can't help but be intrigued by his aura.

We do love an intelligent man who spends his time (when not slighting other women for their lack of intellect) reading widely and gaining knowledge of the world, and also for writing sentimental letters to his beloved younger sister, Georgiana.

We do admire a man (finally!) who seeks intelligence in a woman as a criterion for marriage, instead of only (and rather shallowly I might add) looking at physical appearances. Thus we do love Darcy for his search for inner beauty because the inside should matter more than the outside.
Note: Intelligence being someone who reads widely and can engage in meaningful and sensible conversations with Darcy.

We do admire a man who is undaunted by a failed marriage proposal and strives to endeavour in his persistence in his love for the same person who rejected him. Instead of shying away from her, he tries to gain her love in the manner of manifesting his other (shall we say) more soft and sentimental side, that is, the man who could love her and cherish her all the rest of the days of her life. Most importantly, he did try to save her family from shame and condemnation from the outside world, NOT in order to impress us but to spare her from the anguish of seeing her family sink further into a wretched state. Thus, we do (very much) desire a man who proposes the second time round even though he was not exactly very confident of winning her love, but nevertheless fought so hard to do so.

We do desire a man who has character and keeps himself in check by his pride (although a little too much in Darcy but we are not afraid to teach him how to moderate his ways). Hence we do love a man who can complement us by allowing us to teach him and conversely be taught by him in all ways of learning to communicate and live with each other.

We do desire a wealthy man like Darcy who has ten thousand pounds a year, a very large mansion and estate like Pemberley and as many as ten carriages, which would probably translate to something like a millionaire in today's context. BUT, although we desire Darcy's wealth, in this society we believe that money can be earned through intelligence, hard work and sheer good luck, so fret not, we believe in choosing someone who can plan for the future (our future), so that in the years to come, we hope to be as happily married as Darcy and Lizzie at the end of Austen's novel.

We also love a man who has a mind of his own and does not go off listening to evil and mercenary but influential and rich relatives and abandon his quest for the woman he loves. In fact, this has a reverse effect on Darcy, who instead of promising his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, not to marry Lizzie, he marches right to her doorstep to do just that. Thus we do love a man who knows what he wants and will not falter in one of the most important things in life, like marriage.

We also love a man whom all other men pale in comparison and therefore hate, especially when Darcy is used as a benchmark for choosing a lover: "Sorry, but I don't think you are Darcyish enough for me."

We absolutely adore a man who can tolerate our silliness and who can understand our dry, subtle and sarcastic witty humour resembling that of Elizabeth Bennet, and most importantly, accept us for who we are and that we are like that.

Lastly, we absolutely adore a man whom we love to death (ok perhaps too exaggerated, but well you know what I mean). Hence, the love is even sweeter when the feeling is mutual.

And therefore my advice to all you girls out there is: if you ever find a Darcyish man (even in the slightest of all resemblance), don't let him go.

12:15 am
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Her Little Secrets

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

On a rainy day not unlike today, she stared as the drizzles of raindrops fell on her windowpane like all the tears she had shed before. She recalled what was called, ‘her little secrets’, simply because they were hers and they were untold. Ever since she was a child, she did not tell her little secrets because most of what she could remember were bad memories and she did not like bad memories. She had acquired the habit of mentally blocking all the bad memories; a habit which gradually evolved to a task so easily done, it became unconscious to her as she grew older.

.~.~.~.

She cried the day her mother took her to the hairdresser’s when she was six.

“It’s only a trim,” her mother said.

Her mother had lied. The trim became a clean snip that severed half the hair she had dearly loved. It was compulsory, her mother had explained later. She did not understand what that meant. It was not the word, “compulsory” that she did not understand, it was “why compulsory”.

A few days later, she stepped into Primary School for the very first time. She did not cry. Other girls were sobbing hard, refusing to let go of their parents’ hands. Instead, she told her mother to go home. She looked at the other girls and she finally understood why. In the sea of white and blue uniforms, every girl looked almost identical in their bowl-shaped hairstyle.

.~.~.~.

A year later, her mother told her she had to move to a new Primary School because they were shifting to another area and no school bus was available from their new house. She did not understand why she had to leave her friends. She lost her best childhood friends as a result.

But she did not cry. She knew it wasn’t for her to choose. Besides, what she lost in one area, she gained in another. She had learnt this early in life.

Her parents wanted a better life for the kids and had decided to purchase a landed property. They could now afford better food instead of the daily meal of sticky porridge with soya sauce that made the porridge resemble brown gruel. They could now afford to have presents for the kids twice a year, during birthdays and Christmases, so that every six months, she would carefully plan what to get within the restricted budget because opportunities like these were few. They could also afford to go on a family trip to America. To a girl who had never been further than Malaysia in all her eleven years of life, America was the world to her. It was her first real trip abroad.

On the first day of her new Primary School, she was regarded with much curiosity initially and later disdain. Her classmates were comfortably settled in their own groups so she bounced around the groups. The bigger girls taunted her even though she wasn’t very small for her age. They disliked her weird ways. She kept to herself, avoiding answering questions in class even though she had no problems doing that in her previous school. She decided to befriend a plain, four-eyed girl in her class, who was perpetually salivating and whom the other girls shunned and called her names. Despite that, they became best friends.

Making friends became easier after that. She had learned the skill of choosing her friends. That was how she survived Primary School.

.~.~.~.

She hated her Secondary School at the start. She did not ask to go to a school which was an hour of bus rides away from her home. But she was posted there because her grades were not good enough for the better schools in her area. She hated not being good enough for anything. She promised herself that she would score much better the next time round and go to a better school. And she did, eventually. She topped her class every year, with the exception of the first year when she came in second. Her grades were a breeze to her. Her social life, on the other hand, suffered.

She isolated herself because she felt that her aim in this school was to score better grades, not to make friends. Her classmates found her weird and avoided her even more because of her grades. Eventually, she found a group of friends, some of whom were rowdy and popular in school. She trusted them and did not even discover until the end of Secondary School that they were the culprits who played a nasty prank on her. She cried when she realised that she had been stabbed in the back by the people she considered friends. They apologised and she forgave them but through this she had learnt something that she would never forget: the important lesson of betrayal.

.~.~.~.

Through her early experiences of interacting with others, she had learnt that they did not condone strangeness. So she learned to keep two faces: one of a cheerful and friendly smile and the other containing all her sorrows and eccentricities.

However, as she grew older, she realised that the two were swiftly entwining with each other because only in their fusion can her true character be manifested. Despite her constant fears that others will ostracize her when they discover her true self, she has learned that she cannot and will not please everyone.

Therefore, she has since decided to write this story, a story of truth and most importantly, of her little secrets.

8:06 pm
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How to Measure Life?

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Six Hundred Minutes
Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Moments so Dear
Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Six Hundred Minutes
How Do You Measure - Measure A Year?

In Daylights - In Sunsets
In Midnights - In Cups Of Coffee
In Inches - In Miles In Laughter - In Strife

In... Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Six Hundred Minutes
How Do You Measure A Year In The Life

How About Love?
How About Love?
How About Love?
Measure In Love
Seasons Of Love
Seasons Of Love

Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Six Hundred Minutes
Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Journeys To Plan
Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Six Hundred Minutes

How Do You Measure The Life Of A Woman Or A Man?

In Truths That She Learned
Or In Times That He Cried
In Bridges He Burned Or The Way That She Died

It's Time Now - To Sing Out
Tho' The Story Never Ends
Let's Celebrate Remember A Year In The Life Of Friends

Remember The Love
Remember The Love
Remember The Love
Measure In Love
Measure, Measure Your Life In Love
Seasons Of Love...Seasons Of Love

This is a song named Seasons of Love, taken off the soundtrack of Rent, the musical. Indeed it addresses what all of us want to know: how do we measure life and if life can be measured at all? Can it be measured in the ordinary things in life like daylights and sunsets, midnights and cups of coffee? Can it be measured in the truths that we learnt or the times that we've cried? Most of all, can it be measured in love? Because love is what constitutes our relationships with the people around us - our friends, family etc.

If I were a true Romantic, I would say that according to Keats's theory of negative capability, life cannot be measured simply because the things in life happen randomly and infinitely. If I were to say life is as boundless as the sea, I would be measuring life in terms of the boundaries of the waters marked by the sea beds, which would be a restriction in itself on the meaning of life, wouldn't it? However being human, we are tempted to name everything and everyone using human terms like the life-sea analogy. We also tend to drift away from the ordinariness of life in order to come back to it later and pretend that this ordinariness is what measures life. I mean, do we really notice the daylights and sunsets or the midnights and coffees in our lives? Everything moves by so quickly that we sometimes don't even notice the simple things we often take for granted, not to mention trying to measure life in these things.

Are we then mere hypocrites when the situation calls for it? Only in times of distress do we remember what it feels like to be human. We take for granted the happiness because happiness seems swift whereas pain seems neverending. We complain about the bad times but never praising the good times. That is exactly how our society works towards results too: we blame ourselves or others on performing poorly but hardly appreciate the good lest we become complacent. But is it too much to ask to merely rejoice in the goodness that life may bring to us? Are we doomed to appreciate something good only after we realise that we have missed the boat?

At the start of every year, we reflect on the past year and encourage ourselves very optimistically that this year will be a better one. But this line doesn't seem to change as the years passed, and year after year, we find that we're still saying the same thing, which probably means that we haven't grown at all.

I haven't grown at all.

Perhaps I have, in terms of acquiring knowledge because that is what you go to school for, but otherwise, I feel I haven't grown and I don't mean physically. In terms of assessing my own self, I think I know it all and others don't, but the fact is that I haven't grown at all. And every year, I hope for the same thing: to be given guidance during my path in life. Maybe I'm just not listening hard enough for it.

4:35 pm
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Doors of the New Year

Sunday, January 01, 2006

When a door closes in your life, another will be opened to you.

This is true of the New Year, where new doors of opportunities await the one who seeks them. In Japanese, we say 開けましておめでとう　(akemashite omedetoo), which literally means: congratulations on the opening of a New Year. The word for "opening" is the same as that used for opening doors. With every New Year comes the hope of making it big, striking it rich, better grades, improved relationships - basically for all kinds of opportunities that would seemingly better ourselves. Perhaps in all this materialism, what we've neglected to consider so far is the condition of our soul. When the New Year arrives, we do not hope for a better heart, one that will be kind to others. We do not think of restraining ourselves from committing the sins of the past year, neither do we put in effort in becoming a better person. Maybe we do think about all these things, but as easily as they come out from our mouths, they are forgotten in the same way within a few weeks.

I used to think that when a door closes in your life, that's the end of that passage way, where each door has a passage way which length depends on the effort and time you put into it, and there are many many doors in a person's life, some of which interweave with one another. On hindsight, however, a door may become closed but that is not all it has to it because of the promise of a new one opening. Moreover, even when a door has been closed, it does not mean that its passage way cannot be accessed forever. When another passage way crosses its path, the memories are thus renewed. Therefore, does this defeat the purpose of closing the door in the first place? Yes and no. Yes, because when things are closed, they are not meant to have any light, even a tiny single strand of it, entering, yet there is the possibility of letting light in at various points in the passageway through interconnectivity. No, because even when a door is closed, the closed door and its passage way still remains in one's life, perhaps just as a memory or as a part of someone's past. Thus, we are not likely to avoid a closed door precisely because it has been part of us before and perhaps more significantly because the door is closed - only when we realise that we can't do anything in a closed-door situation do we delve more frequently into nostalgia or reminisce more often about the past or regret that our past actions have resulted in this.

Like an old person, I tend to track back into the past and relive in its memories. However, while most people would go back to the good old days, for some reason or other, I can remember the bad times more vividly than the good ones. And though I have been immersed since childhood in the scriptures: Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened unto you, I have often dismissed this as a mere pep talk or plain optimism. But as a I reflect upon it on the first day of the New Year, I realised that what the Holy book has been saying all along is not fiction or parable. It is real, as real as my life has been and God's unconditional love for me.

As I embark on yet another new journey towards Him and love, I shall do well to bear in mind His words - that the door shall always been opened for me, even though I was the one who closed it in the first place.

4:19 pm
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