for the lightless

slideshow

trickster's theory to everything

a fresh new perspective
"humour is the body, asserting itself against the head"

inner core

life worlds

like it or not, we often relate to our 'reality' through the life experiences of those around us - those who reside within the same cultural and social circles of our everyday. i remember being a young girl, influenced by the concept of 'wanting'. wanting certain things, to experience them just because the other girls had them. freedom. being able to get a haircut from a salon and not mom's brutal bowl-shaped 'bob' style. Polly Pockets. small girly worlds encapsulated within cute, colorful pocket-sized compact cases that, well, fitted our pockets, but not without the existence of a huge bulge on the side of the pinafore. an intrusion to the girlish figure.

the teenage years are harder. association. belonging. peer pressure. we begin to form ideas about friendships, boy-girl relationships (BGR, as they termed it). we begin to develop ideals of who we are in relation or in constrast to others. we create fads to differentiate ourselves from the masses. black bracelet bands. short socks. never tucking in our blouses. solidarity in defiance. in juxtaposition, or in agreement to one another. the teenage years, filled with carefree moments of fun and play, indented by major examinations that bring about misery. solidarity in misery. great milestones of the education system. all hail.

leaving the teenage years. university. everyone seems motivated. some are motivated to play. others, motivated to work and work. get on the dean's list. get that perfect CAP score. score. and then there are those motivated to cause impact. impact. looking at the motivated ones keeps one in check. am i doing enough? should i do more? should i care? what can i do? it shapes the way we begin to make choices. choices about what we want to experience, and how we choose to experience them.

and then comes the mid-20s. for those who go on to become 'real adults', they move into the working world. but for some of my friends and i, we chose the postgraduate path. resisting reality for a little while more. looking at our friends who are working and earning, we are reminded of the need, the want for money. savings. zilch. postgraduates are usually financially-challenged (FC) people. yes they have a lot of free time, but they're FC. to a certain extent. the mid-20s also introduce another 'necessary' step to ones social evolution to adulthood - serious relationships and marriage. being a single 25-year-old (soon to be 26) woman in Singapore, who also happens to belong to an ethnic community that prides the value of a woman on her being married, is agitating. i repeat. agitating. looking at friends and cousins who are married, some with a child, reminds us that they're either going too fast, or we, too slow. and so, this period of mid-20s has lately been alot about marriage. when. who. where. how does the dress look like. why are you still single!? SPG. single. picky/petty. girl. hmm.

i'm not sure what the patterns will be as we progress into our 30s and 40s. perhaps it'll be about job security. are you earning your first million? or about the family. are you pregnant yet? are you getting your own place? divorce? or maybe about achievements. nobel prize!? who knows. but i'm very sure that we will all reach a phase in our lives when we start conversations with Death. that person we went to primary school with, passed away last week. recognizing familiar faces on the orbituary page. people we've grown up with, now gone, reminding us of our mortality in this world. reminding us of our regrets of the younger days. the good moments. the bad ones. reflections. the past summed up in stories told over casual dinners. the 'future' embedded in that present day, in and of itself. of life, and living.

dreaming of reality

often, one wakes up astounded or mystified by their dreams. crocodiles under the bed. large snakes that envelope. doors that lead nowhere. making love to a man with no face. biting down on metal fingernails. getting eaten by a wild boar. what do these dreams mean? these convoluted concoction of metaphors and imageries, mixed and intertwined across content and context to cohere within this level of the subconscious that intrudes into reality through our dreams. heavy-laden symbolisms to be deciphered. dream dictionaries can be found on the www. they offer pretty interesting interpretations to the symbolisms in our dreams, encompassing a nice mix of the good and bad connotations of each object or situation dreamt about. but perhaps, we can also turn to self-reflection in aiding the deciphering of our dreams.

i once had a dream about this large crocodile that was discovered somewhere - dreams are usually either very specific about sites, or not. and so, in this dream, this enormous crocodile was dug out, preserved in its semi-alive state, and kept frozen in time. it was placed in a garden, surrounded by bushes of roses, as if it was a Greek statue, posed. everybody loved it. a spectacle. when night came, they all went home. somehow, the crocodile 'thawed' back to life and it was on a prowl. it swallowed up buses of people, eating everything and everyone in its path. i was sleeping in my bed and suddenly it came in. i saw myself asleep. the crocodile coming into my room. i was still sleeping. it crawled under my bed and stayed there. it just stayed there. and then i woke up.

heart racing.

i'm not a believer of dream dictionaries but this time around, i thought i'd check it out, for fun (and curiousity)

To see a crocodile in your dream, symbolizes freedom, hidden strength and power. It forewarns of hidden danger. Someone near you is giving you bad advice and is trying to sway you into poor decisions. Because crocodiles can live in water and on land, they also represent your conscious and unconscious and the emotional and the rational. Perhaps something is coming to the surface and you are on the verge of some new awareness.
Alternatively, the crocodile may be an aspect of yourself and your aggressive and "snappy" attitude. Or it may reveal that are being insincere, displaying false emotions and shedding "crocodile tears".
To dream that you are chased or bitten by a crocodile, denotes disappointments in love and in business.

i also refered to an Islamic interpretation of dreams and 'crocodile' churned out:

represents a cunning enemy without compassion

hmmm.

and so, i did my own assessment of this dream. why a crocodile? i recalled my obsession with the Sarcosuchus or 'Supercroc' that was unearthed a few years back. the massive reconstruction of a dino-croc that swam the deep waters of what is now Africa. (it's both fascinating and scary how much our earth has evolved) i followed the excavation documentary on the National Geographic Channel and when it was on 'tour', i remember heading to some mall here in Singapore to witness the 'Supercroc', in its 'real' form. the majestic reconstruction of its bones. how small we humans are. i have been secretly in love with crocodiles since then. in love and yet fearful of it. i never did manage to decipher the dream. didn't care to. i got caught up with the 'Supercroc' and started reading up on it once again. the crocodile under my bed. i've left it in my journal for a possible story, someday.

the most recent dream that inspired this post is one that disturbed me the most, because it was so real. in fact, it IS still real. i dreamt that i kept missing my thesis submission deadline. this is in fact, true. it is very much real. and so i woke up that night thinking, hmm. ok. so what else is new? my reality has infiltrated my dreams, in absolute terms. no masked symbolisms. no picturesque metaphors. no room for deconstruction. damn.

dusk

it is too dark, not enough light
but that is the point
oh alright

Henry Darger | in the realms of the unreal

he was sent to a school for feeble-minded children. a simpleton of a boy who grew up into a man, ousted by normalcy. he didn't talk to anyone, moving around the world, awkwardly. his neighbors remember seeing him rummage through waste, thinking him weird. unknown to them, he was actually turning it into art. upon his death, they found what could perhaps be the world's longest illustrated novel. stories of children warriors, fighting those against the ways of the Christian world, as he believed it to be. conceptualized in juxtaposition to his life, he creates another world where he belongs, encapsulating within the many other imageries muted in light of this 'real' world. an artist extraordinaire, weaving art within his fingers and mind. moved by feelings and colored by the reality that he deemed real. through his art, we are given a glimpse into the world of a man nobody really knew. In the Realms of the Unreal. perhaps a most realistic world of worlds.


trailer

what makes a woman, a self?

i acknowledge that a person is the sum of all her attributes, her beliefs, her causes, her ideas. but i also strongly believe that in essence, we are all humans and in being human, we are all equal. or at least, should be. regardless. this is especially so in relation to who we help. who we include and exclude from our circle reflects greatly on who we are as a person. as an individual, i am not only a woman, but also a Muslim, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a postgraduate, a photographer, inclined towards activism, human. if the argument pertains to the question of the 'secular', all, except for one of the above-mentioned identities is secular in nature. if it pertains to that of gender, only three of them are gendered identities. and yet, we constantly embed gendered stereotypes onto those other traits. woman. feminized. bodily. roles within private and public spheres. perspectives. decisions. Muslim women are repressed. Mothers are mothers, not full-time professionals. Women are weak. an age old discourse that has been debated over and over again. a new discourse should be encouraged with regards to women & society, women in society. one that reflects a humanistic perspective. one that includes, not demarcating boundaries. one that enables us to dispel judgment and stereotypes. all sisters. all humans.


Woman to Woman from nuruL H. on Vimeo.

breathing with colors

breathing with colors from nuruL H. on Vimeo.

a life
pacing in and out of
a moment
instances of a past
recollected
living still
amidst it all
breathing with colors

making magic moments

a friend told me she finds magic in the moments when she is alone. moments of the mundane, which she transforms into magic. making them as she is living within each moment. skipping to a soundless tune. the breathe of color from the wind. an orchestra of leaves tapping to the beat of the forest. plunging into civilizations of the alternate through uneven surfaces of a puddle. playing narrator to lives of the bodies that float around. people. beings. she is thinking of getting plastic surgery but her husband actually prefers her 'flat'. he goes home each day at exactly 7.08pm to polish his furniture whilst tuning in to songs from the 80s. they have sex every single night. and so, the lives of the mass of meaningless faces become a little more interesting, a little more magical within each concocted moment. the narrator is pleased. imagination is magick!

storytelling inc.

in 2008, the 10th of May was devoted to Pangea Day. a day devoted to film, to be shared by people from all over, watching the same films, at the same time. it was broadcasted via the www and hosted across the globe, forstering a shared community of people experiencing the same stories that created laughter, evoked awareness, saddened hearts, and enlightened spirits.

Pangea day was born out of a wish of a TED Prize winner, Jehane Noujaim. her wish was simply, to have "a day, when the world comes together, through film." featuring the contributions of a diverse pool of creative filmmakers across boundaries, Pangea day was indeed a success and it brought out, once again, the ability of stories to unite people, despite differences. unfortunately, Pangea Day was not set to become an annual event, for there are currently no plans for a Pangea Day 2009. that is indeed sad news. however, not all is lost for from it, we are once again reminded of the importance of storytelling.

STORYTELLING



i have always believed in the power of stories, in its ability to do more than just tell. but also to affect. a story is never just a story. and so i've lived my life surrounded by them. from Enid Blyton, to the cinema, onto the news, documentaries, reality shows, ghost stories, stories through songs, music, art, photography, interviews, conversations, gossip, people. continuously exploring a diverse range of media that i have begun to recognize as stories, for they become reflective of deeper concerns, issues, innuendos, symbolisms, realities, and nuances that would otherwise go unrealized.

every society has storytellers. for most of us, it comes in the form of digital media, for that is the medium through which we create and channel our packaged expressions and thoughts. in Jeffrey Snodgrass' study on Rajasthan, there exists a group of people known as bhats (akin to the bards). they are storytellers, historians, and poets who spend their days telling. they collect and tell. they retain history and help disseminate and perpetuate it within the community. they embody all cultural, social, and political information and transmit it, person to person. generation to generation. they become the stories.

and so, i believe that each person is a storyteller. all he or she requires is a platform to tell.

i have been thinking about this for a while now, and have discussed it with a few friends. i also recently came across a most interesting read by a friend on facebook. Shao Han. his thesis thoughts on stories and mythmaking. a highly intriguing piece. i myself have been working on stories, as a narrative medium and method to how we - within our culturally-created canon of symbols and ideas - experience the inscribed meanings and realities of our everyday.

why do we tell these stories? and how do we do it?

and then i realized that to merely answer those questions would not suffice. what become more important to me was the telling of stories, as the more we tell, the more we share, the more we are made aware, the more we understand, and hopefully, the better we act.

and so, the project. it is not a TED Prize, but a personal undertaking i wish to share and include anyone who might be interested in it. anyone who wants to tell a story. their stories. any story.

visit STORYTELLING INC.