感觉爱...feeling alive...

深夜。

车窗外蒙蒙的细雨将周遭染成了一片幽幽梦境。此景、此情，仿佛正在酝酿着一首优美的情歌。情歌里的爱天真无邪、晶莹剔透，完全没有心机，唯有的是一味单纯的神交，贪得无厌的只为了想把彼此的一生经历翻阅一遍。

心跳加速、呼吸局促，心中压抑着的汹涌澎湃，似乎决堤了。

*****

"It's weird...it's only been 2 weeks," she said. "But it seems like we've known each other for eternity..."

"Heh...ya, I've told you more things than I've told anybody in my life," he said. "You exude a kind of charm that easily disarms people, at least me..."

*****

He has always tried to do the right things, not necessarily the things he truly wanted, and sometimes he does not even know what he really wants. Not that he does not have desires, but more often than not, they are always subordinated to the greater cause, greater cause such as the happiness of the people around him: his parents, his brothers, his friends...others...

There was also a time he fought for a love he thought was eternity and was prepared to go against the world he had known all his life. It was the happiest time of his life and he was certain he had found eternity...

天下无不散之宴席。

Eternity ended...

...and was it worth it?

*****

问世间情是何物、直叫人生死相许。

爱。简单一个字，却是百感交集，千头万绪，是天下多情种最美的地狱。感受着它，吮吸着它，好比是种最强烈的兴奋剂，教人醉生梦死，就算永世万劫不复，也都 值得。感觉着爱，浑身神经豁然振奋，似乎以双倍的能量活了过来，仿佛没有做不到的事，IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING...依稀记得当年A Levels Prelims 她坐在自己身后的感觉...

*****

Do you believe one can simultaneously be in love with more than one person with the same intensity? While appearing frivolous on the surface, this is one very interesting concept that was actually dealt with in 金庸's 天龙八部, where Prince Duan's very many frivolous affairs left with him many daughters and jealous/vengeful mothers. While not knowing the author's original intent, what I saw was a man who was truly in love with each and every one of his lovers. Every time he loved, he really gave a part of himself... Near the end when Duan was threatened with death, all his lovers finally saw that his love was true and chose to follow him in death...

Does true love necessarily mean monogamous relationships? Maybe...if you think that true love is truly exclusive, like a binary control that switches either to ON for THE ONE and OFF to the rest of the world. Like a funnel that channels all capacity for love into a little room within your heart, which will only open up when you are with THE ONE. Other than that, you will be a living husk of a human being devoid of the capacity to love...

But...is this one-size-fits-all rule applicable to the entire human race? Men differ in their capacities to and for love, so do we then deny the intensity of the loves of some of these people simply because they fall in love easily, even when those loves are truly and deeply and madly... Maybe the answer will be more apparent if there exists a pair of lenses that can distill loves from the many lusts that plagued most relationships...

*****
晨曦。

朝阳渐渐将夜的幽寂驱散。此刻，仿如犹在人间仙境之间，还未还阳。她睡眼惺忪，强忍着倦意，嘻笑一番后言道：“OK goodnight.”闭目便睡，稚气盈盈，很是可爱。男孩看着她，眼里并不是国色天香，而是一股聚聪颖与果敢，集成熟与稚气的魅力与美丽。

*****
Yes...so how did you feel about the article? Yes you, it's about you...:)

江湖笑

一曲豪情，激荡着英雄气概，也描划了儿女情长。他骨里有义，她心中有情，不论世间纷乱，不顾世俗冷眼，并列的脚步，从一而终。

*****
江湖笑 恩怨了
人过招 笑藏刀
红尘笑 笑寂寥
心太高 到不了
*****

男儿为雪当年父耻，练就一身绝世本领，英勇报国，扬眉吐气。一身绝技，不只令曾鄙视自己的所谓明门正派大跌眼镜，他满胸豁达的无私相救，更令这些卑微者无地自容。

*****
明月照 路迢迢
人会老 心不老
爱不到 放不掉
忘不了 你的好
*****

以世俗眼光看去，男儿本可仗着绝世武艺，在江湖上干出一番大事业。可是世人狭窄的目光，只怕穷尽千秋万世，也始终无法窥探她在他心中的绝对。在他眼里，只要是她不屑的，尽都卑劣如粪土。在他的世界里，只要是没了她，也就没有他存在的意义。在他的爱里，纵使无穷无尽，仿佛仅有可容纳她的空间...

*****

看似花非花 雾非雾

滔滔江水 留不住

一身嚎情壮志铁傲骨

原来英雄是孤独

*****

没了他，女儿伤心断肠，剑随意动...

没了她，男儿黯然销魂，掌由心发...

踩着清风，飞身降临敌阵的他俩儿，一掌黯然销魂、一剑伤心断肠，双双击向来犯敌寇。掌里剑里挟带着的并非精忠报国，而是一种悲悯的恐惧，一种只有真爱过的人，害怕失去其真爱才会有的恐惧。剑掌击出，排山倒海，纵使是千军万马，亦难敌其跨越数十载的真挚震撼。

*****

江湖笑 爱逍遥

琴豁萧 酒来倒

仰天笑 全忘了

潇酒如风轻飘飘

江湖笑 爱逍遥

爱或恨 都不要

仰天笑 全忘了
潇酒如风轻飘飘

*****

当一切尘埃落地后，他俩儿便潇洒如风般，踩着来时的清风，走出了尘世。宛如仙境般的高山流水间，情侣相互凝视，情深意浓，此时此刻，俯瞰来时路，无论艰辛，都是值得。也许千锤百炼后的爱情最美吧，十数载的离别苦，两地泪，根本无须多语，爱已在不言中。

A little of the night

There was a time I wrote a lot. Not because I had a calling, not even because I had a flair. In retrospect, it was perhaps a self-fulfilling prophesy that circled around my gift, or perhaps, my curse of being born with too much in the department of emotions.

Even from a very tender age, I have always seem to be feeling a lot stronger towards any and every thing. My awkwardness at dealing with these overloads of emotions oftentimes resulted in either catastrophic outburst of anger or embarrassing barrage of tears, making me a very unpopular boy amongst friends and family. My tumultuous ride of feelings carried me into my teens, crescendoed in my first encounter with love, or what I thought was love.

Maybe it was God's Design, that in the darkest moments, utterly lost in the maze of a raging thunderstorm of emotions, I found my release in writing. Even though my grasp of the language did not offer the entire spectrum of expressive arsenal sufficient to do justice to the depth of my emotional turmoil, I was able to get to the point with the simple words...simple words that resonates with the song of my heart...

The fundamental theme that transcended my words, throughout all my works, was simply a love unrequited...questions unanswered and a future unbeknownst. For a man obsessed with the incessant search for the ideal love, I was never more lost. It was a time I started sleeping late, seeking solace in the blanket of darkness that night offered. In the darkness, the world around me suddenly disappeared, shrinking into the point where there was only me, my thoughts and the sentimental number that filled the empty void with a warmth that was only mine. As the melodic waves soothed the frayed ends of my raw nerves, my words would gush forth, bringing with it a little part of my heart...

* * * * *

"...You don't know...I love you..."

The last verse was sang out amongst the backdrop of a melacholic sax...and all I can see in my mind's eye is the heartbreak on her face...

It was times like this I feel like thanking my Creator, for filling my heart and the heats of all with the one thing that make us all human...

Beauty...?

Never thought that I would actually like Korean movies, as I have always dreaded those artificial tragedies which seemed to peppered all over Korean soaps. However, ever since "Volcano High" and "Windstruck", the comedic treatments Korean movies brought to serious issues gradually began to grow on me.

You will laugh, you will cry and after the movie, you will think about it. The latest one I saw goes by the name "200 pounds beauty", a movie that deals with the primordial conflict between inner and physical beauty.

Of course, having cute Korean babes helps.

* * * * *

"Why do you like her?" The guy was asked. "Because she's beautiful?"

Guy gave a shrug. "Only losers like you would say that..."

"Then why?" He was cornered. "Because of her innocence?"

"Hmm...," Guy sighed. "Only losers like me will say that."

* * * * *

No matter how we try to evade it, the truth remains that man, ultimately, is a tortured, self-contradicting creature. Nothing exposes this as much as the perception of beauty.

Deep inside, we all know that beauty is only skin-deep and we all would really like to say, with crystal clear conscience, that our love goes way beyond the superficial, beyond the looks, beyond the figure, all the way into the very fabric of her innermost, her nature and her soul.

However, when push comes to shove, when what looms before you becomes a gigantic globule of 200 pounds worth of good nature, you are suddenly not sure anymore. In place of a gorgeous, good-natured girl, all you suddenly see now is a humongous blob of a woman. Yes, good-natured as it is, you only see a humongous blob of a woman.

For the instrospective guy, the basis of his love is suddenly casted into the worst possible doubt: Was he in love with the body or the person? Is the person lesser without the body? Will he fall in love with the body of a different personality? As he traverses the entire continuum of this thinking process, the question becomes ever more philosophical, bringing him towards the enormity of doubt that culminated in Descartes' famous quote "I think, therefore I am".

Personally, I think there can never be a straight answer, especially for people at different stages of the love continuum (infatuation->madly-in-love->just married->marriage in the golden years). However, broadly speaking, the relative importance one places on the body should gradually diminish as he moves from left to right on the continuum of love.

Having said all that, it is almost certain that physical beauty will continue to weigh heavily as a criteria for the ideal girl, and I would reckon that this is due, in large part, to its ephermeral essence. Finally, I will be lying with a straight face if I were to say that physical beauty is NOT important at all, but to me, it serves only to bring you through the door, beyond which it will be the fundamental character that continues hone the entire beauty of a person. Without good nature, physical beauty will only head south from there. In other words, my ideal girl is one whose physical beauty is amplified by her inner qualities, of which innocence and kindness ranked amongst the tops.

I think I would gladly trade places with the delivery man to have the gorgeous and kind Hanna (played by Kim Ah Joong) fuss over my fall...

I think you understand...

惺惺相惜

“你...是如何看我，”她胆怯地问道。“不像人吧。”

“这...，”他吞吐着。

“你夹在半人不妖间，不得不苟且活着，”她继而说道。“我也因天职缠身而得完全丧失情欲，如活死人般。要不然，妖怪便会乘虚而入。”

“嘿！你怎么了，话这么多，”他想缓和下急剧僵化的气氛。“一点儿也不像你。”

“哈...对啊，一点也不像我，”她自嘲着。“也许...不杀你...就因为我们太像了...”。语未言尽便毅然站了起来，心里虽有些不舍，但职责的巨掌如往常般推动着她的身躯。

“呵...，”他有些错愕。“你明天能再来这里吗？”

她回过头来，只见他一脸腼腆，顿时觉得他有些可爱。“怎么了？”

“我有样东西...，”他又吞吞吐吐了。“想送给你。”

“是吗？”轮到她感到错愕了。“这样的话，我也有样东西像送给你。”

他笑了。好久没有在另一个人面前笑了。想起来，自从母亲去世后，他就没有再放下本能的防备了，顿时间好轻松...

There goes my Blade

"That's how you do it..." I shouted and executed a hockey stop, hoping that my friend could see what I was doing and picked up the modus operandi.

At that instant I felt a sudden weakness on my right leg. But dismissing it as a weak ankle, my usual problem, I continued and completed the action. As I recovered from the braking action, the wobbly right foot continued and turned out that it was the blade! Omigod, don't tell me...

My worst fears was finally confirmed when I removed my rollerblades, when I saw the loosened rivets hanging limply from the 'undercarriage' and a distinct gap between the wheel frame and the boot. So much for being a hockey blade, when it couldn't even withstand my blading habit, all but a weekly affair of leisure stroll along the ECP.

Well, I guess that's how the rollerblading industry ensures continuous demand, by not producing real quality blades anymore. I still remember my last pair of Mission, bought in the fall of 2000, that survived a whooping 5 long years of callous punishment and and was still going strong until the tropical climate's deadly agent of corrosion finally managed to eat away the hard rubber base...

So, I shall graciously accept this and move on...

缘

只是巧合吗？

"Don't read too much into it..." 我警戒着自己，不愿自己又再迷失。她当年的斩钉截铁，难道不依然历历在目。

不只一次。

是不是自尊心作祟？一味追求“真”的自己，却忘了磨练方才萌芽的心意，在爱还未成形之前就自行夭折了，只为一个约定，一个对自己的约定。回想起来，命运奇妙的轮盘并非不曾给彼此续缘的机会，只不过两人都没能走上这条路。是命运作弄，还是人为的破坏...无情的是她，还是“强说愁”的自己。

多年以后的再度巧合。

完全没有想到会在这样一个不起眼的周末午后。依稀记得她说过想学rollerblading，却没想到会看到她真的在rollerblade，还挺不错的。听了她过去四年的际遇，真的不能不佩服她的勇气：独个儿到一个语言不通、种族优越感甚强的国度，不只学成，还留居工作，最后还以expat的身份回国...wa sei。其实也不难想象她能如此，怎么说她一向来都很有主见、很独立。

喜欢=爱？

回忆是一种极度严重的近视。看到的只是景物的轮廓和事物的大概，其中的内容仿佛都是后来加上的，只图给自己一个交待，是真是假也没有人证物证可依据。其实也已无所谓了。隐约只记得自己喜欢的只不过是一种憧憬，对于她我并不了解，也不曾有机会了解。可笑的是，她的主见与独立却不是喜欢她的缘由。什么时候变成爱，更是不得而知了...

夜了。

心情的起伏随着文章的将尽渐渐平息。看着电脑荧光幕上的几行心情，竟然觉得有些语无伦次。罢了，也不是第一篇写给她的语无伦次，更何况，真正的知音也许只有自己吧...