Mmm sair duck.
The title of this post is Cantonese. Sometimes there are some words which cannot be easily translated without losing the *oomph* of the meaning. I think this phrase, mmm sair duck is definitely one of them. The best meaning I can think of is to "not have the heart to let go". But that doesn't really go to embrace the enormity of the feeling which is about to be the subject of this post.
This year, the phrase has come up more than the other 20 preceding years of my existence. I have also truly learnt the meaning of the word -- the hard way.
Hmm I better explain myself. Tonight, driving home from work, there was a woman on the radio crying to Richard Mercer about her husband of 10 years. He recently left her for another woman. And the poor thing is sobbing and sobbing, saying that everytime she feels like she's making a step forward, she tumbles down two steps back. And despite what he's done, all she really wants is for things to go back to the way they were, when they first fell in love. And then I hear this toddler shrilling in the background -- that's her infant daughter crying because she got scared seeing Mummy cry. Her daughter constantly asking where Daddy is doesn't help her get over him.
My heart sank so low; it's still somewhere underneath my stomach at the moment. I so know how she feels... the feeling of simply, childishly, thoughtlessly wanting things to go back to the way they were. The utter frustration of knowing that life is such that time cannot be turned back, things cannot be undone, and that the present, in its stark grating truth is what you have to live with -- that is undeniably the worst feeling I have ever experienced in my short life.
When your brain fights your heart. You know what you have to do (get over him, move on etc) but you just can't. Your heart keeps replaying the good bits of your relationship. And as time passes, the bad bits fade and you always tend to remember the good... polishing the past I guess. That makes letting go even harder, as the chiasm between brain truth (object reality) and heart truth (I can't live without him, he's the one for me) gapes wider and wider.
When it comes to relationships, I reckon girls are at a clear disadvantage from the start. The emotional vulnerability of a girl is soooo much more precarious than a guy's. After a couple has a fight, the phone slams or whatever, the girl is completely paralysed, analysing every sentence, every tone of speech, replaying everything over and over. The guy -- he's probably playing PS2, or gone to sleep. Guys can switch off emotionally, but girls cannot. And when a relationship terminates, a girl cannot let go as easily as a guy.
Why is that? I think it's because girls want coupledom more than anything else in the world. Any girl that tells you differently is lying to you or themselves or both. Case in point: Sex and the City. It spent six seasons trying to persuade a whole generation of 30-somethings that girls can be content with expensive shoes, shopping bags and no-strings-attached sex. And how does the series end? Two of them are married, one with a child, one adopting, the third one having found the love of her life and final one elated to learn the first name of her long-time lover. The finale almost acts as a moral to this warped fable -- despite how much girls think they can do without a guy, in the end they are deceiving themselves. They would give up their Jimmy Choo's in a heartbeat in order to fulfill their emotional needs with love.
But guys? They seem to prize singledom as much as girls prize coupledom. Okay maybe that's a generalisation (and I'm biased based on my own experiences) but whenever a guy gets together with a girl, I only seem to hear the guy lament about how he's lost his freedom. The girl is only too happy to give away her singleness.
So this Mars-Venus issue may go to some lengths in explaining why girls are more mmm sair duck when it comes to breakups. However, the point of my post (ha there is one) is this: whilst mmm sair duck is a very real and painful feeling indeed, it cannot serve as an excuse to not move on. At the end of the day, "heart truth" is merely euphemistic for "delusion". To stay in the shelter of mmm sair duck is like hiding in a crevice in a snow-covered mountain. Sure you're okay for now, but you're in the middle of an avalanche waiting to happen. It cannot be your safehouse because it is more dangerous than you could ever know.
This woman on the radio, I'm sure in her brain she knows she needs to move on -- she mentioned that within those last 10 years, he had cheated on her before, but she always forgave him. She sounds like she has been living in the crevice of mmm sair duck for a while -- she probably knew that she should have left him the first couple of times after he cheated. But because her heart could not let go, she stayed until finally, he did the leaving. The avalanche came tumbling down. And even now, she knows that if he came back he would probably keep cheating on her like he did for the last couple of years. But her heart just wants "things to go back to the way they were" -- a delusional fantasy which, I would be heartbroken to verbalise to her, doesn't seems like it is ever going to come true.
The best word I have learnt this year is to "ruminate": it's a psych term meaning when someone just goes "why why why" without ever seeking real answers, thinking things through logically with depth of insight. E.g. this woman, just repeatedly saying to Richard Mercer, why can't things just go back to the way they were? You talk to people, they give you answers, but it's of the "brain truth" variety that you don't want to hear. So then you just keep aimlessly asking questions.
There was a short period of time, two months after my breakup, when I had forgotten the endless problems in the relationship and being reminded with tiny little things of the past (e.g. driving past a special 'spot', hearing a particular song), where I was mmm sair duck. I knew deep down that we had no future together, but all I wanted was for him to tell me things would be alright blah blah blah. But you know what got me through? Seeing my other friends also ruminating, months or even years after their breakup, still hungup on a guy -- I vowed to myself that I would not end up like that. Like a friend said to me, one more day you're hungup is one more day you've wasted from moving forward. I hung on to that.
And I'm ok now. Now I can see that there was so nothing to be mmm sair duck about. I don't know how I came out of it, but I did. This woman on the radio, I hope to death that she will get out of this terrible trance. I'll bet that you think I'm writing about you right now -- but seriously I never started this (very very long) post with someone in mind. And indeed right now I can think of more than 5 people who read this blog who I think to a certain extent is still mmm sair duck about one thing or another. So to you, my dear friends, if this post resonates with you, I pray that you will also gather the strength to take a stance for your own sake to say, no more. You deserve to live in a time where your brain doesn't have to conflict with your heart.
The immense relieving joy of having your brain agree with your heart -- that's when you know it's true love.
"There once lived a goose called Proper Gander..."
Spotted at Strathfield station, a poster for new summer flick.
The title: "Team America: World Police"
Funny, that's how I'd sum up the cause of the world's current political strife in one phrase. But alas this was not a political satire, but a kiddie film aimed at bored children on summer holidays.
Orwell would be turning in his grave.
The first seven seconds.
Shrill of birds.
Sunlight sensed through shut eyelids.
Rustle of my own breathing, in... then out.
Soft moan.
Burrow of my head into the pillow,
In a vain attempt to return to that blissful state of obliviousness.
Conscious yet not awake.
For that ephemeral trickle of time
Nothing exists beyond bedlinen, haziness, tranquility,
Contentment.
Before the boulder of the world returns to Atlas' shoulders
Likewise this shortlived ecstasy of mine.
[Nota bene: Just seven more sleeps, seven more sleeps...]
Now for something de-lovely...
Haha my friend accused me of writing "yet another angry post" just then. So I'll even that out with something sugary.
Remember this song girls? It was my fave out of all the ones that we learnt with Mr McFadden.
For those of you who didn't go to my school, venture out and watch 'De-lovely', it's out in the cinemas now. Then you'll hear this elegant swell-egant song. =)
(btw this is just an excerpt, the whole thing is too long... but the following bits are the verses we learnt in the medley with the Big Man hehe)
Anything Goes (written by Cole Porter)
Times have changed,
And we've often rewound the clock,
Since the Puritans got a shock,
When they landed on Plymouth Rock.
If today,
Any shock they should try to stem,
'Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock,
Plymouth Rock would land on them.
In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything Goes.
Good authors too who once knew better words,
Now only use four letter words
Writing prose, Anything Goes.
The world has gone mad today
And good's bad today,
And black's white today,
And day's night today,
When most guys today
That women prize today
Are just silly gigolos
And though I'm not a great romancer
I know that I'm bound to answer
When you propose,
Anything Goes.
It wasn't me, it was my brain!
So while eating dinner I'm reading this article in the paper today ('A mind of their own', SMH News Review).
"Scientists have been surprised to find that adolescence is a time of rapid change for the brain. And the parts that make young people more likely to plan ahead and consider the consequences of their actions are among the last to develop properly, in the early 20s."
Ok, nice update about the forefront of medical research.
The very next paragraph:
"The research, which is based on new brain imaging techniques, is being used in the US to make cases against the death penalty for those who have committed murder as teenagers."
These two paragraphs irated me very much. I've never had any sort of law education (save for Medical Law which was about negligence etc), so the following words that I use may have some legal definition which is more precise to which I'm unaware of. So keep in mind that I'm speaking from a "common man" soapbox.
Medical research being used to excuse people who do wrong is just wrong. Some people (read: defense lawyers) might argue that their organic deficiency, as "legitimately and scientifically proven" by MRIs, means that there is a diminished responsibility to face the consequences of their actions. But there is an organic explanation for everything we do. One neuron fired off a bunch of neurotransmitters (GABA, acetycholine, dopamine, serotonin etc), which excited another and another, until a signal is sent off to various groups of muscles which contract in a co-ordinated fashion to carry out an action. This occurs whether this action be speaking, laughing, eating, running, or pulling a trigger and shooting someone. But the fact that there is an organic explanation for the action taking place does not justify its occurrence.
No matter how disadvantaged you might be in having a less-than-developed brain because you are an adolescent, it does not excuse your behaviour. Even a 2 year old knows the difference between right and wrong, and that is scientifically proven. No one put the gun in your hand and pulled the trigger for you. Sure there might have been neuronal impulses coming from your amygdala urging you to carry out impulse actions, but you are also borne with a frontal cortex which inhibits such drives. And more importantly, you are imparted with a soul and conscience. This is what differentiates humans from animals. And fundamentally that is what secular law is about -- an outline of rules delineating societal conscience -- what is morally acceptable and what is clearly not.
If we blamed the fact that "my brain made me do it", where would it end? There would be no person at fault in car crashes because my neurons were too slow to respond to your braking signal... oops sorry. I raped your daughter but that's because my limbic system was in overdrive. I started a holocaust because my frontal cortex is underdeveloped compared with age-matched controls. I couldn't help it!
Use medical research to help sick people get well. Not help guilty people escape jail time.
(I do apologise for my tone, I tried to remain impassive but clearly it didn't work =Þ)
The vilest word.
The vilest word in my vocabulary is 'hypocrite'. To say (and condemn others of not doing) one thing only to go and do another. It is better to never have made such a stance or judgement than to have done so, on some moralistic high horse, only to turn around and commit that exact same action.
My superego is ripping me into shreds right now because lately I question whether I did something contrary to my own words. And I feel pretty crook about it.
I will freely admit, the current incident is a rather trivial thing. That's why I'm blogging about it rather than talking over it with people, because I know what they will say already. That I'm simply being unreasonable in having such high expectations of anyone, including myself. I pitched the post too high, I'm just being pedantic. Or, well it's very different when you're actually in the situation, life isn't idealistic. But despite all this, and how seemingly unimportant the thing I'm fretting about is, it's very hard to convince myself I'm not wrong when I feel it.
The very point of setting standards is so that when the critical moment comes, in your apparent weakness and wavering, you will be able to remember your principles and abide by them. If not then these codes are nothing but an intellectual daydream which never leaves the pages of theory. Moreover, forgoing your ideals isn't just a matter of complacency -- the catastrophic consequence of flying in the face of one's own standards is the corrosion of the most beautiful word in my vocabulary -- 'integrity'. And even if no one else knows what the hell I'm talking about and think I'm creating a storm in a teacup, I still don't feel any better.
Because I have dropped a few more rungs in my own eyes.
While I'm on hiatus...
I'm too tired to blog. I think I'll leave you with a Fiona Apple song. As a friend I was talking to recently mentioned, poetry in song is just one of the best things about music. And Miss Apple is one of the best wordsmiths around. Incidentally her real surname is Maggart -- I can understand why Apple is more attractive.
Fast As You Can (from the album 'When the Pawn')
I let the beast in too soon, I don't know how to live
Without my hand on his throat; I fight him always & still
O darling, it's so sweet, you think you know how crazy
How crazy I am
You say you don't spook easy, you won't go, but I know
And I pray that you will
Fast as you can, baby run free yourself of me
Fast as you can
I may be soft in your palm but I'll soon grow
Hungry for a fight, and I will not let you win
My pretty mouth will frame the phrases that will
Disprove your faith in man
So if you catch me trying to find my way into your
Heart from under your skin
Fast as you can, baby scratch me out, free yourself
Fast as you can
Fast as you can, baby scratch me out, free yourself
Fast as you can
Sometimes my mind don't shake and shift
But most of the time, it does
And I get to the place where I'm begging for a lift
Or I'll drown in the wonders and the was
And I'll be your girl, if you say it's a gift
And you give me some more of your drugs
Yeah, I'll be your pet, if you just tell me it's a gift
Cuz I'm tired of whys, choking on whys,
Just need a little because, because
I let the beast in and then; I even tried forgiving him, but it's too soon
So I'll fight again, again, again, again, again.
And for a little while more, I'll soar the
Uneven wind, complain and blame
The sterile land
But if you're getting any bright ideas, quiet dear
I'm blooming within
Fast as you can, baby wait watch me, I'll be out
Fast as I can, maybe late but at least about
Fast as you can leave me, let this thing
Run its route
Fast as you can
Fast as you can
Fast as you can
Fast as you can
