2015 in a Bottle

Gazing blankly into the ghostly sky with its morning star hidden right behind the thick, heavy clouds, I downed my cup of espresso.  I tried to shut my thoughts and listen to the sounds around me.  I sat still in my wooden chair trying to capture some form of hope for my trusty pen to thrust its wildest dreams on.

If I could, I would.  Definitely.  I would part this sheet of paper from the book, roll it up, and then put it in a bottle – and set it free.  Well, what if I actually did?

My thoughts would have the freedom to linger off through the water surface, forever encased in its protective covering.  Hopefully it would seek refuge from raging storms, and finally meet with amicable weather in the Atlantic, before sailing smoothly into the Indian Ocean.  Perhaps, thousands of years later someone would be lucky enough to stumble upon it when it gets itself stuck in the soggy sand.

Parts of the lines are quite cheesy, and I do have to apologize, Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber, for borrowing the words in your lyrics to vent my dissatisfaction.

Thank you for calling me a bitch.  Thank you for assumming that I am a slut.  Thank you for piercing through my heart all your sharp arrows, of setting my soul to flames.  Thank you for calling me stupid, and whatever other names you felt befitting.  I have never once been that, and I shall show you that I mean it.

The players are going to play, play, play.  The haters, on the other hand, they are just going to hate, hate, hate.  What can I possibly do about that anyway.  I sort of knew you were trouble when you walked in to my life, so maybe shame on me now?  Hmmm.  All too often I was just left in blank space, baby; because all boys only want love if it’s torture, if it’s pain, if it’s hurt, and if blood oozes out from their hearts.  What do you really, really mean?  You were, in the end, the reason for the teardrops on my guitar (well, ok; it was really your guitar, but I held it with my dainty fingers sometimes).  Finally, your friends talked to my friends talked to your friends talked to me, and so we are never ever getting back together.  Not like I actually cared even.  I only have to shake it all off my head.  Yeah.  Loving you was so red, in fact forgetting you was like trying to know someone I never met.

Nevertheless, from the ashes rose a phoenix with wings so large they carried it away from the consuming fire.  I started showing gratitude and showering my appreciation on people, sometimes even people I do not even know who helped me in doing something.  I allowed myself to be as genuine as possible in dealing with the different kinds of people I have to meet everyday.  These things cannot go wrong.  As a result, I am proud of myself for having grown emotionally stronger and bolder than before.  It could be that my feelings have been numbed from the constant hurt, but my chains have been broken, and my soul has been set free.  I hope.

A few more months – just one more semester – I will be graduating!!!!  (I do wish I could insert a love icon here.)  I shall be done with my degree after a long, long time.  I should be so excited right?  Yes I am, but no, I am also not.  Oh gosh, my mind is wandering to so many places!  Life is an exciting venture, a beautiful journey bestowed upon Man.  There is no other gift more amazing than the gift of life.

This year also I am chasing time to kick off my positive psychology start-up as well.  While I am working on one SBU (strategic business unit, that is) now, I will directly after I graduate, start-up the other SBU.  Currently I am looking for sponsors and venues for investors.  It has been a crazy six months running about to widen social networks and contact suppliers, and so on, whilst studying final year.  I still have not mentioned that I am also doing sales.  Haha.  Crazy times.

I have of course had my fair share of repeating heartbreaks, but yet I did all I could to keep pushing on and on.  Whether it has got to be love, wealth, fame, or self-fulfillment, I wanted it to work out this year.  I probably went a wee bit overboard, pushing myself dangerously over the edge.  But I had already decided from early this year that I am not going to let things happen to me just like that.  I am going to make things happen to me instead.

So I just want you to know: I am fiercely fighting for whatever that is meant to be mine – my degree, my start-up, and HIM!!!!!

Never say never.  All I need to do is be patient. Perseverant.  Positive!!!!  The 3Ps!!!  Oooh – how sweet.

Red Scarlet

Birthday

November rains are back.  Everyday it is raining, raining, raining.  The skies are crying, weeping tears of bittersweet joy.  Massive clouds of whitish-grey matter cover the sky, creating a reflecting gloom that shrouds the earth.  Some twists must be taken, must they not?

Even the air is set with a dewy mist.  Winds blow, though not too hard.  The ground is moist; in some places it is damp and soggy from all the wetness.

The wisps of mists fill the air as it evaporates, awakening the senses – perhaps with a start – and the soul, with a renewed vigor, skips along the sidewalks in merriment.  For through pain, through jagged maps, through persistence it came through it all, and is still coming, on its way.  One day soon it shall be no less obvious, because its dear heart would thump with powerful beats along to the tune of the music whispering in its ears.

An dizzling afternoon in downtown KL. (Photo credits to Alicia Ai Leng)

November is a beautiful month, the time of the year when Mars and Pluto cross paths and stars collide.  It is the time of the year of every other year when little baby scorpions emerge from their eggs and take their very first crawl.

Oh!  The clock is ticking, and I am running out of time.  I must put on my birthday suit.  For in a few minutes I am turning 24.  How old can I be?

I am in oh-so-deeeeep love with the month of November.

Red Scarlet

PS:  This post was written a few days prior to the author’s 24th birthday.

Dirty Little Secret

Shush. Don’t tell your mother.  Kiss one another.  Die for each other.

In the midst of the gooey mass of grey matter in the prefrontal lobe stands a huge army of Spartan soldiers with their spears sticking upwards in the air.  They are prepared to fight, prepared to conquer malaise, to combat for Truth.  For the mind is a wondrously dangerous place, and white lies are in constant battle with black lies and dirty little secrets.  With a tweak of a passage of signals, the entire perception alters somewhat drastically.  It gives birth to a thought, an idea, and though in its embryonic form, it still has the capability of enveloping the entire physique, covering the subtle pores of the skin with its vulnerable coat like myelineated sheaths of axons.  It hydrates the thirsty soul; it instigates a certain craving for – a little cocaine, maybe?  Fervently spreading throughout the entire breathing creature, it begins to speak aloud in the creature’s own voice.  But how weak the mind is!  Yet it is capable of intelligent choice.

Secret Garden. (Photo courtesy of Twitter)

A long time has past since I last published my work on WordPress.

It is a superficially busy time for me because, after this semester, I have only two more to go.  Then I shall finally graduate.  It is critically important that I do well during these last few months because I plan to sit for masters. Not only that I am working towards developing my own organizational objectives with a music business unit.  It is not easy to do this single-handedly, but I am fortunate to be able to work with other entrepreneurs as well.

It truly is one last stage for me to get by.  I admit it is tough because I am now handling everything by myself, from tuition fees to organization structure to this little powerful drug – writing – that I do every now and then.  I am consummated by exams and university projects and meeting new people.  Every now and then I am hurled into Dreamland, where I am trapped in an extremely tall tower waiting for my knight in his white horse to come around and save me of course.  At the very same moment, Time is graciously ticking away.

It definitely is fun to form mutual friendships with people and organizations, especially those who would be able to help out in the event that it is necessary.  As part of entrepreneurship all that stress that comes along with it – hopefully it ends successfully.  I want it to be a success of course!  It meaning everything.  Which encompasses education, my job, my friends, my family, my life – everything, god damn it.  All these are the work of a lifetime.  These are all my Paradise.

Don’t tell anyone.  It’s my dirty little secret.  Can you keep it?  Because I am fine with it.

Red Scarlet

P.S.:  I am quite happy being a woman.

Only Human

Tonight I am going to speak out my heart. I am going to pour out every single thought that is trying to fight for space in my head.  Tonight I just want to cry out and forget.  I am going to climb up the rooftops, stand by the edge, spread my arms wide apart, my back facing the cold, dark night air… and fall.

Fall all the way down.  As I descend through the wind, I shall look into the beauty of the skies, perhaps for the very last time.  The sack of questions slam me further down, but no, I would not budge.

I breathe in, and out, in, and out; the raw air fill my one and only lung (I lost the other a decade ago), bringing oxygen to my blood.  One by one statement after statement surface into my concious.

“My name is Alicia Ai Leng, turning 24 very, very soon, and I study psychology.  This does not mean I have answers to your every question.  I too have questions myself – many of them used to be unanswered, but more and more are getting clarified.  I daresay I know a lot more than some people, but I feel too.  I also break down and cry.  I need a hug as well every now and then.  I have the breaking point, just like everybody else, where the limits are pushed to the maximum.  But just how far are these limits?”

For the most part, my life at this time seems like an endless struggle.  If you have heard of the saying:  She stoops to conquer.  Well, I have stooped so many, many times.  I was nearly killed in an accident.  I nearly killed myself.  I nearly  lost myself to insanity., the complex of Nature and the supernatural.

My old soul is slowly fading away into the past.  Now is now, and I have to act very swiftly.  I have drowned myself completely  into positivity, completely into work, and studies, and business, and enterpreneurship.  And wallahi, for all of heaven’s sake, love!  Oh god, what is going on?  Why is this happening?

The answer is because people change.  With time, people deviate from the norms of tradition – I know this might sound sad, but it is not the time to shed tears now.  I change.  You change.  We change.  All of us change.  Like all other humans I have blood running through my veins.  I breathe the air just like everyone does.  My heart pumps life into my body just like other living being.  I eat.  I pee.  I poo.  I cry real tears too.  I am definitely not a Bobo doll, a punchbag everyone hits mercilessly.  I laugh so loud you would have thought I were out of my mind, so long you could have thought that I were out of my mind.  There are occasions of burnout too everyone experiences that I also experience.  Of course in reality I am only literally meaning what I say.  Whether there are ups and downs, I acknowledge that I am imperfect as I am; I cannot please everybody.

Ich schwore, that is just me.  I could probably use a hand sometimes.

Getting Lost

Pack your bikini.  Throw in your hammock.  Take along some food, maybe.  And, oh, do not forget your sunglasses.

Go alone.  Switch your mobile phone off.  Disconnect yourself from the world.  Throw it away; forget yesterday.  Lose yourself.  Challenge your limits;  go the extra mile.  Push yourself a little further than usual.  Gain the courage to embrace the unknown.

And there is no need to be afraid.  Where you find water, jump in.  Where you find the ocean, plunge in.  Get wet.  Inhale and exhale whole-heartedly as you allow the tiny rippling droplets of sea hydrate the  pores of your skin.  Where you find the forests,  run through and get yourself lost in the trees. Capture the magic that you find in the air.  Look for that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that comes in between the rain and breaking sunlight.  Sketch imaginary dreams in the blue sky.  Close your eyes.  Live in the present, in the moment.

Pay attention to the inner dialogue, that little voice speaking inside your heart.  Be one with your mind and soul.  Be it rain or shine, let the weather wash away your anxieties.  Let the gushing sound of streams in the waterfall filter out your emotions.

One of my Getting Lost excursions. (Photo credits to Alicia Ai Leng)

Drive somewhere you have never set foot before.  Head out to the beach in the morning; slowly tread along the shores in your bare feet, and feel the waves brush gently between your toes.  Head to the hills in the evening and find a little spot where you can get a good view of the sunset.  Turn the light breeze into music as it orchestrates over your ears.

Grab hold of Mother Nature, and never let go.  Permit yourself the luxury of freedom.  It is best to travel without planning the day.  Let life happen as it should.

Life gets in way with what we are occasionally; it has us chasing after several things that we wish could be ours – but are not, unfortunately.  Normally we forget who we are in the process; we imprison ourselves in our own rigmaroles and deny ourselves the meaning of life.  Like auto-generated assembly lines we operate tediously from dusk to dawn.  Every single interaction with another human being becomes programmed by rules and instructions set by society.  We arrive home flustered, exhausted, and frustrated.

The solution?  Get yourself lost.

My Getting Lost excursions are kind of memorable.  The last time I got lost, I hiked up a hill filled with waterfalls.  The trail was steep and slippery, but I managed to climb all the way up.  I had fun on my own in the gushing currents. On the way down, I met a furry little kitten who was fending itself from nasty babboons.  What did I do?  Well, I picked him up and carried him down to the foot of the hill, chasing those monkeys away in the process.  I even had lunch with him; I watched as he munched at the burger I bought him.  That was just one of my excursions.

What about yours – why not go somewhere new, away from the world today?  Find your Narnia; it could even be simply at your backyard.

Red Scarlet

Show You Off

I have always wondered… are writers considered artists?

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” – Albert Einstein (Photo credits to Alicia Ai Leng)

Where knowledge seeks to understand, imagination strives to satisfy its curiosity.

If we could turn back in our journey, wherever we may be leading ourselves to, and look at the origins of the term, it would mean a “lettered person” in Old French.  On the surface level, art is about utilizing creativity and imagination to come up with something innovative, fun, and, well, creative.  Most of all, to me it means a method of self-expression, the work itself symbolizing happiness, anger, jealousy, hatred, and madness.  This does not come easy to all of us.

We express ourselves in various ways.  Some of us spin around the dance floor, some of us write songs – but some of us also prefer to keep to ourselves and let the voices in our head do the talking.  And it comes out; it comes out in shades of red, blue, yellow, and orange.  At times it comes out in streaks of the pen as the nib scribbles through a blank sheet of paper.  It gets petrifying, once in a while, especially when the mind is doing all the talking, and the poor, unfortunate pen has nothing to do but etch out the mind’s jibberish.

Hell yes, writers are artists too.  Writers of every kind dances along the lines of words, making music in his own way – the words find a certain kind of harmony, a certain kind of tango, with a high or low pitch, and then connect themselves in coherent flow.  Just catch a glimpse of Shakespeare’s work; how meticulous it was written, that till now, hundreds of years later, people are still scratching their little round heads over the meaning behind them all.

Anyway, there goes…. I have been “wearing” this hairdo for nearly a week by now – and it makes me strangely cool.  At least that is the way I think. What do you think, anyway?  Is it not a spectacular piece of art? Haha.

Breaded [sic] hair. (Photo credits to Alicia Ai Leng)

Artists have the capacity to imagine to greater heights.  They have the ability to “wow” the average human being, because that is just what they do.  Even the most famous inventors are artists, too.

So, yeah.  Writers – we are cool just like that.  We are bold.  Brave.  Courageous.  In our own silent way.

PS.:  Apparently my body needs a bit more body-rocking to get going.  Just saying.

Tik Tok

The time has not arrived yet.

And when it comes, the butler shall open the huge oak doors.  The Lady shall step out in her five-inch gold heels, and glide across the path to the Mercedes Benz waiting at the other end, her beautiful dark red hair brushing against the wind, and the satin ruffles of her long black dress sweeping lightly along. The chauffeur shall step out and open the car doors for her, and usher her in.

And then the Lady shall go on a journey deep into the unknown, but she shall not be worried, for she knows she is in safe hands.

Not every Tom, Dick, and Harry is capable of comprehending my writings;  it takes one of considerable wisdom, I suppose.

Does Time wait for you, or do you wait for time, I wonder? (Photo credits to Ekamil Razali)

Yes, I am aware time is ticking by.  The minute hands are sweeping away by the day, and at each forward move rocks of obstacles are hurled my way.  Yet it is only the code by which this intangible thing called time works.

The effort spent – time itself, and energy as well – it shall not go to waste.  When I wrote The Blitzkreig, I meant it.  When I wrote all the other posts after that, I meant them too.  Whilst I have been busy sharpening my swords of authenticity, I have been through nightmares too, where pots kept clanking and alarms kept ringing perpetuously.  Probably I was faced with a paradigm shift, but no, not that I deny it, however it absolutely is not so!  It has been like this until someone came over and shook me tlll he woke me from my bad dreams.  Just saying.

Tragedy befell the poor, pretty mind, and it purged out a loud: “Oh!”  Nonetheless, the neurons still decided to head on to the party instead together with the protons and the electrons.  Together, they downed high doses of whisky, zapping all the way up and down through the cranium, and left with empty bottles lying on the dance floor.

And emerged as one from the doors more silent, solemn, and whatever else, with their minds readied for mental combat.  The thing is that every time after something bad occurs, a bigger, brighter thing is churned out.  At least, that is the general idea most people think happen.

Time to jump in the ship, and start flying!! Woo-hoo!!!

Red Scarlet

P.S.: Turn up the music loud, please. o.0

I Feel Like

The night is calling, and the fleecy clouds that adorn the stark sky are soon closing in over the round moon.  Out in the marsh, I see a dark horse galloping steadily toward me.  There on his leather saddle lies a little sack of maybe heroine.  Should I climb him up, and ride with him, and ingest all the substance in that sack?  Or should I not?

I need answers fast.

Dehydrated of – what? (Photo Credits to Alicia Ai Leng)

I feel like giving my baby (my site, really!) a complete makeover – sort of.  I feel like emblazoning all over her critical reviews of movies, and drama, and whatever else that has to do with performance and the eclectic arts.  There are two actions here involved – not only reviewing, but also writing on those reviews.  I do not have any intentions of discontinuing other topics that are currently in progress.  I feel like adding other subjects into the cocktail, things like feminity, and fashion, and dancing, and music, and dreaming, and the science of happiness and all things positive.  If it were dancing, I definitely would write on hip-hop. Or any kind of dance.  It does not really matter, does it?

It was dear old Socrates who had once upon a time mentioned that the unexamined life is not worth living.  Life is a never-ending piece of examination, isn’t it.  It is never static, for life is but a winding river gushing with water.  It overflows into a whirlpool of information – and overpowered by the enormous strength of the currents one is swirled in together, consumed in all, for once, of its magnificient omnipotence.

Oh well.  That is because I am doing it too.  Question is, should I divert my attention to another site, or should I just remain here zapping my Bazooka thoughts, under the pseudonym Red Scarlet?

My brains have been dehydrated of words like a burning desert in dire need of water, the brown earth caked hard in the excruciating heat.  It is extremely thirsty of whatever that quenches its – what?  I feel like grabbing firm hold of a shovel, losing control like a crazy word-o-maniac, and continuously digging all the way down, and down, and down, until it reaches the intoxicated id.  I feel like revealing its naked, provocative truths to the surface of the superego, out of the frontal lobe – where dreams meet reality.

Oh.  I just feel like.  I hope you hold your horses.

Red Scarlet

Halfway There

Charon, Pluto’s beloved son – he rowed the fragile boat through the dark blue waters of the Styx.  It was all pitch black except for the little oil-lamp which had been lit before they began their journey.

Lovely Athene sat below him, silent as a child, unbeknownst of their final destination.  The vagueness of the mist which had so far enshrouded the air (if it were air they were breathin’)  was nothing to her beautiful grey eyes; in all her purity, her vision pierced through every bit of haze, thick and thin.  Her ivory white skin reflected on the murky waters as if they were but glass.  And her ears – she listened to hear, but she heard nothing.  Nothing could be heard.  Nothing spoke of life itself; except for the swishing of Charon’s oars through the mystical river.  She was all alone in this journey.  Or was she?

For out of the whitish-grey fog, something big and dangerous (at least, it appeared so) scooted away from the back of a huge boulder to another.  Just what was that?  Athene asked herself. More importantly, should she proceed?  Or should she turn back?

Going back where I come from is decidedly an incredibly long way.   Much time has been consumed – it must have been years, in fact; no, decades, that I have lost count.  Now I am so deeply entangled within the web of myelineated axons and dendrites, like Athene who is so deeply lost in the surreal gloom, and yet steadily emerges out of the Valleys from Charon’s boat.

Athene knows she is very close to the surface of the Darkness, where Artemis the Goddess of Light shall triumph in all her glory.

I presume I am more than halfway there, too, that the answers are going to sprout up sooner or later.  Which is so because I have noticed.  It is as if I am wiping clean an old window pane that has not been dusted for centuries, and it gets clearer with every swipe.

This is of course quite exciting, in all events.  The eyes capture a glimpse of hope shimmering from the East; Dawn breaks and dew from the midnight rain cools the air with a magical mist.  I must leave, and go ahead on my journey.

Heartbeat

Do I look like I have won a battle in my dreams or something? (Photo credits to Ekamil Razali)

At times I find myself blungeoning deep down into the abyss of deeply-crested emotions.  My self is lost, fully submerging into an array of resounding heartbeats that pierce through the ear canal with as much pitch as the sound of gunshot.  As I descend, countless questions bombard my existence, some so easy I could simply hurl them back wherever they came from, some so difficult they nearly crush me with all their weight.

In all the mania of drama, yes, I am in reality, hurt.  Tired of the predispositions I have been placed in.  For no one knows not what I long for.  There exists this consistent battle between the silent heart and the beautiful mind.  Sometimes, the heart wins; sometimes, the mind.  Sometimes the heart and mind find a way to work together amicably, amidst all battle – and that, I tell you, that is a very funny thing.

Which is so because they have to please the Soul, a wondrous piece of art, mere atoms framed synchronously in position.  For the body is to live.

And when this occurs, gallant music orchestrates out from within the Chambers of Life, through the arteries, all the way up to the Pineal Gland, where the Soul sits.  His Eyes gaze forbiddingly, as if he had been forced to wait for the answers for too long.  His Ears catch the first notes of violin softly humming from far below.  Slowly, gradually, the harmony echoes through the empty space of flesh and blood, filling the entire abode of humanity.  As if the battle has been won.  It has, in its own way.

As for the Body – She triumphs.

Red Scarlet