The Human Virus

There is this public service annoucement that has been playing a lot recently on the Astro radio stations about the plight of the children of the world. About how every few seconds, a child dies from starvation or disease. I have no doubts that the statistics mentioned are not exaggerated but however tragic the facts may be, it leaves me wondering if it is altogether a bad thing that children die young under the circumstances they are born in. Don't get me wrong, I mean no insensitivity towards to suffering of the less fortunate but look at the state of the world we are in. I don't mean to sound like an advocate of doom. The human population of the world is at its highest ever in the history of the planet. At this rate, we are consuming resources faster than it can be renewed. The current path of humanity is a vicious cycle of deterioration. Every single thing we do in the name of improving the "quality of life" is edging the planet closer to exhaustion. As life expentancy improves, it can only mean the need for more living space and resources, something the planet obviously can no longer support. There are news reports everyday about how the world is teetering on the brink of collapse but nobody really cares. Why should we care when we don't feel its effects right? Twenty years ago there was no such thing as haze. Now we speak about it as "the annual haze problem", as if it is as common as Christmas.

So coming back to the plight of the children of the world, which I am sure I will be lambasted for what I am about to say. Perhaps it would be more humane and "natural" to let them die. And I don't mean just the poor and unfortunate living in third world countries, I am referring to the whole of humanity itself. Rich and powerful, ordinary or nobody, why should anyone be exempted from death? Of course, economically speaking it would have been impossible, but logically if the whole world is willing to put aside borders, there would have been no such thing as poverty if every country is willing to share resources. It's just a silly Utopian dream but it really is a very simple thing to do if we just think about it. Perhaps the most stupid thing humans ever invented are religions, governments and money. So the world turns, as governments wage war on other countries in the name of protecting their citizens whom probaby didn't need protecting if there were no borders to stunt our mentality, the rich spend millions on trinkets and frivolities which could have fed millions of hungry mouths and wannabe martyrs adopting poor children with the excuse of giving them homes when they instead could have shared their fortunes without separating them from their families (yes I am referring to Madonna).

Much Ado About Nothing

Pinky: Oh my God... you've lost so much weight!
Me: I know. No thanks to BODYPUMP®.
Pinky: You look so thin... You look like a model.
*Swells with pride*
Me: Wait... male or female model?
Pinky: Female.

My first reaction to that? Proceed to the nearest KFC and ordered a three piece chicken set. Of course I don't really look like a stick-thin-anorexic female model now. That's just Pinky trying to be mean to me. And despite the fact my body is currently looking its best in all 26 years of my life and I could fit into size 29 pants again, I am still easily affected by comments on my weight. I practice a couldn't-care-less attitude when it comes to other physical appearances (I would be arrested by the gay fashion police if there was one) but a passing remark on the weight which doesn't agree with me and I will be bothered by it for at least a duration of time, although Pinky is way more obsessive on that compared to me.

Vanity doesn't really have much to do with the pyschological obsession. I blame being fat through my teenage years, and the endless jibes about it coming, not from my friends, but my FAMILY of all people. It got so bad that one day I saw myself in some photos taken during the high school's anniversary parade and I totally hated it. So came the diet which saw me lose 10kgs at least, and two years ago I finally went beyond my stingy self and paid to join the most superficial gym ever in KL, *censored* and a year later became one of their own. From there onwards I no longer had to worry about being fat. Unfortunately, now I have to worry about being too thin. It seems that I can never be truly free of the whole weight issue. Well at least I can eat KFC with no guilty thoughts now.

Anyway aside from that, thanks to Jay's rants, I went and got myself this:



I am so seriously hooked, well with the book anyway. Mine doesn't have this boring cover of course, but the one with the poster from the musical which looks exactly like this:

(Picture extracted from Jay's blog)

Don't think I will ever have a chance to catch the musical here in dowdy old KL, the city where you get plays like Sam & Jet 2 in the Panggung Bandaraya, with tawdry male-to-male sex scenes. Who says we're not a liberal society.