I feel terribly misunderstood. Right now, more than ever. I can get away with shit when I'm being mean; never when I'm being nice.

Recently I got moved to the sub-editing desk for a three-month stint. It is compulsory for all reporters in the newsroom, presumably so that us frontline grunts will get to know better the news production process.

So for the past week I've been doing subbing hours, which for my paper means going to work at 4.30pm and reaching home at around 3am. It means sitting on a van with other owls on a long and very roundabout way home (unless of course the driver thinks yours should be the first stop). It means walking through the very dimly-lit distance between my home gate and the door and crossing a long, quiet and lonesome living room, up wooden stairs cool to bare feet, feeling that special kind of desolation that comes to one at 3am in the dark.

I'm not going to proofread the above paragraph even though it is probably full of errors because fuck that, ok.

I know it is because my subbed copies and my Chinese translations are awful. I blame the Chinese translations actually. How do I write succinctly when I don't understand half of what I'm reading? And constantly flipping a dictionary wastes too much time. The subbing team is the final line in a newsroom. It also works on tight deadlines. I wish I had paid more attention in class.

Also, I totally suck at arranging the elements on a page. And I have a sore neck.

Reading the BBC website, usual uninteresting world news and shite, then I saw this article

Kashmiris take to alcohol

"There has been a sharp fall in violence in Indian-administered Kashmir and at the same time the consumption of alcohol has started picking up fast."

Probably just a correlation and not cause, but interestingly the only violence was committed by a militant Muslim woman's group that ransacked a wine shop. Because, you know, wine is bad and makes you do violent and dumb things, unlike religion, which is great and not at all intoxicating.

I'm knocking down some vodka as I write.

Be happy. That is the first commandment of life as it should be. Of course, there's the usual modifications that complicate the pursuit of happiness: clauses like "not at the expense of others" and "treat everyone as ends not means" and "only in a socially acceptable manner" and of course  "without violating the law or at least getting caught".

All four are not the same as each other, obviously, because there are illegal things that harm no one and may not even be socially inacceptable.

But other wise "be happy" is the answer that doesn't quite need a question.

Sadly, science - even if it's the science of psychology, always iffy - is showing that happiness has very little to do with what we can do. To quote Laura Blue's story in Time on 12 Mar, "factors like genes and age may impact our general well-being more than our best day-to-day attempts at joy".

One study, done by researchers from the University of Edinburgh, suggested that genes account for 50% of how happy we are, in general. The genetically-determined traits that contribute to happiness (and tend to come together in a package) are ones like "being sociable, active, stable, hardworking and conscientious". In other words they just described those obnoxiously chirpy beings who see half-filled glasses in everything, from multiple bee stings to the Holocaust.

I'm not one of those. People who know me know that I hate people, I'm slothlike even in my hating, I prefer softwork to hardwork, and I am as careless as it gets, I could hardly care less. But at least I'm pretty stable.  

Another study said people have a baseline level of happiness they usually fall back to, even after bouts of great joy or great tragedy. Happiness, compared over age, is a U-shaped curve, which hits the nadir at about 44.

I'm 28. It's all downhill from here. After the shittiness is over? Well, I'll be old.

You can't win. I can't win.

But there's hope. That's the cursed thing about life isn't it? There's always hope. You can't just lie down and die without someone pointing out that it's not all bad there's the possibility even for the worst of you. There's the 50% of happiness that's not predetermined. (I raise however the possibility it is still pretty predetermined except not by genes.)

Anyway, here's the advice from the article: "Be social, even if it's only with a few people; set achievable goals and work toward them; and concentrate on putting setbacks and worries in perspective. Don't worry, as the saying goes. Be happy."

So here's three-step plan towards being a happier Wifflewiffle.

1. Be social: I will play more MMORPGS and take part in more groups.

2. Set achievable goals. A. Pass on expert on all the Rock Band songs I have on guitar and drums.
B. Learn to play the actual guitar
C. Don't get fired (The fact I am blogging at work may be contra to this goal)
D. Survive marriage even if it kills me

3. Put setbacks and worries in perspective: Whatever happens, at least I am not currently being raped by large hairy men with beanpole-like penises. (Note: This doesn't work if it actually happens.)

1. Calcium makes you shit fat

Drinking low-fat milk may help you lose weight. Or absorb less fat, at least. Apparently, a group of rather good-looking Scandinavian researchers found out that calcium merges with fat to form a foamy substance in the intestines that the body finds hard to absorb. So the fat gets passed out. They researched this by having dudes shit into a can and comparing the shit of the milk drinkers to the non-milk drinkers.

Science: Making Danish babes play with your shit since 1992.

2. Soup makes you fuller

Food in soup form is more likely to keep you feeling full than non-soup. You know the idea about drinking a glass of water when you're hungry to stave off the need to eat? Well, it doesn't really work that well. Yes, drinking water does make you feel full, by stretching the stomach. But it only lasts a few minutes. Having no nutrients, the water passes out of your body quickly. So the stomach doesn't stay stretched for long.

Then when you eat, the food, in solid form, doesn't stretch the stomach as much.

But if the water is a gloopy soup, it stretches the stomach for much longer!

Scientists researched this using MRI as well as questionnaires. They had two groups of people. One had a normal meal, but they drank a bunch of water beforehand. The other group had the exact same amount of water and food, except the water and food was blended into a soup. The amount of calories consumed was exactly the same. However the group that had the soup stayed full even when the other group got hungry.

Soup: The African solution?

3. Fat people are gross

If you're really fat, you should lose weight

There's something seriously fucked up with this state of things. It wasn't supposed to be like this and it frightens me that for some of us the cliche the best is yet to come actually refers not to the near or even distant future but to a best forever postponed. Perhaps for some of us our lives have no peaks or troughs. Maybe fate has given us no Everest.

For example, I refer to the cat that lives by the gate of my house. I call him Meow Meow, which is short for his full name, Meow Meow Meow. He is a furry brown-grey mass of typicality. It is a bog-standard Singapore street/house cat. Why the slash? Because these are essentially house cats that happen to be taken cared of (commonly by wild-haired spinsters, my observation) outside a house i.e. a street cat with no street cred. You can find them everywhere, but most commonly where there are many Malay people. They don't have to hunt for food because other people take care of them, give them food, even if they don't want them in their houses.

Well, Meow Meow doesn't do anything. He is not a productive being. He doesn't catch rats. He exists solely to eat, nap and shit, a similarity he shares with homeless bums and the Queen Of England. His life is a straight line. The geography of his life is the Mongolian plains. The best is yet to come? Rather, it will never come. Meow Meow will die of indigestion. There is no bang for a being such as Meow Meow.

What if I'm Meow Meow?

What if you're Meow Meow?

But Meow Meow is happy to be. Is that not enough?Why do we have to go around catching rats anyway?

Now I write
Only to write
Why don't I write
Anymore

And not even the answer

Loss. No other word comes closer to defining human existence, I think. Every life is a shedding away, a disappearing. People lose things, people get lost, from each other, from themselves.

It was a long time ago when I realised that adulthood, in general, is a system of suspended unpleasantness. Everything one strives for loses its attractive force the instant one attains it. Why would a builder build humans in this way? Perhaps it wanted to see humans twist and turn and move and struggle in some cosmic dance for illusions that aren't worth a single tear. It's a cruel way to run things, but it keeps things running.

What a farce the universe is. A construct of a monstrous mind.

==

I like how the education system prepares one for loss. Primary school, secondary school, JC, Uni, streaming, etc. I like how a child has to lose friends, is forced to grapple with new friends every few years, is made keenly aware that all things are impermanent, that the classmates you have today won't be classmates in four years. Everyone will be separated, and in categories: bright, stupid, rich, poor, lucky, unlucky. Then you go your way, and I go mine.

The main difference I think is that with children and kids, at least in the cocoon of the school system, is that change and loss is expected, is scheduled, is mechanical. But with adults friends are not sundered. Friends fade. People come and go on their own clock and without warning.

His speeches opposing the Iraq War. All the points have since been proved correct. He likes to talk about hope a lot; but he is also a badass.

==

BARACKKKK:

I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president.

========

BARAAAAAK:

"You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure that...we vigorously enforce a nonproliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair."

Should I?

There's nothing about that thing that I like.