Sui Generis

In the light of Valentines day, ipsomniac  and I had a discussion about biblical views on relationships and marriage (also because he was curious as to what he missed out on during discussion in small groups), which led to an incredible revelation (for us, anyway). 1 You know how we're all taught and lectured and reminded that we should not be unequally yoked in marriage? 2 First of all, let's look at 2 Corinthians 6:14-15: "[14]Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship have light with darkness? [15] What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?" Now, the first part of verse 14 is often quoted when speaking about/to a couple, where one partner is a believer while the other isn't. However, we have discovered that (or rather, tried to understand the context of which Paul is saying this in) 'unequally yoked' does not only necessarily mean marriage. It can  also mean...

I do suppose it's that time of the year again, where reflection is, I would say, the most adequate to do. 2015 has been a blessed year. When I mean blessed, I mean for myself. I've been given crazy opportunities to travel; far more than I can ever dream. It may have given me a brand new perspective in life -- a new mind, perhaps. At least that's what I hope I've acquired after all that. Thinking back on the year, I do suppose I've achieved a lot. I graduated with a second-upper; made my family, friends, and myself proud. I traveled parts of Europe; an experience I never imagined myself doing. I spent ten beautiful days in Japan; a dream I had convinced myself wasn't going to happen, but it did. I was accepted for that Masters degree; an opportunity I've never considered taking, but did. Wonderful relationships were made, celebrated and mourned over; a truly humbling experience. The world is also not without it's fair share of increasingly frequent...

A freshly procured book - complete with that new-book smell - is like an open puzzle, eagerly awaiting its reader to take it apart and recreate something entirely different. Would you deny it its aching aspiration? Because, honestly, what proves your existence more than a book with traces of you in it? At that precise moment, when you write even a single letter on its pages, you are the only one in the entire world who owns a book like that. That book is yours to claim as one of a kind because you wrote in it. So make that book yours - your own personal means of understanding the world and the people in it. Scribble in it. Write notes in its margins. Underline words that resonate. Don't fear defacing your precious literature. In the end, what is an empty canvas worth? A lived-in book serves more purpose than a brand new one that appears as though it has never been touched.  And after all that, you'll find yourself feeling impossible to read that book the same way agai...

It's interesting how we desperately try to cling on to anything that can remind us of the specific past; certain songs, secret notes that we do not want to show anyone, virtual pictures of sweet, memories made, gifts bought - everything seems to suddenly hold a greater significance than anything that we've owned, especially if that certain past event has impacted us in an extremely strong way, say, perhaps emotionally and mentally. We try to recall with as much precision as our faulty memory is able to. It's pathetic, really, how much we try to recreate the past in our head.

Here's just my two cents after some pondering. It's no secret that the world only, truly and actively look at beings who are successful, popular, beautiful and whatever I may have missed out but belongs on this list. I've observed that people enjoy reading about the lives of others. Call us kepoh (being a busybody) but that's just being human I suppose. Now, how I came to even have this thread of thought in my mind was when I thought of how to boost viewers on my blog. True, I don't post enough or have many interesting topics. So does that make my life mediocre, too plain to be noticed? I don't know. I'm not upset or wallowing in self-pity if anything, I'm simply curious. I follow popular blogs like cheeserland , lashes and strokes , and more personal ones by friends. I often wonder how people like Cheesie or Xiaxue (S'porean blogger) achieve such high reader counts. Time definitely had something to do with it, but asides from that, what else? Che...