Black

Black is depressing according to conventional philosophy. They call depression the black dog. I guess it wouldn't have sounded bleak if it was the blue dog of depression or the yellow dog of depression. God forbid the red dog of depression. Anyhow, black seems to associate itself with all things morbid, death, decay, the unending cycle of chaos, etc.

Most evil alignments, if you're into RPGs - role playing games for people not in the know - are coloured with black. Does it really matter though?

Is white really that pure that I can't call black beautiful? White speaks of brightness, of clarity, while black is just a haze of nothingness. But what if one was stuck in a room with nothing but white walls in isolation? Would not white be the colour of depression then? Perhaps madness?

Maybe in such a case the colour wouldn't really matter anymore.

But in black, one feels isolated, trapped, alone.

I'm just waiting for the fashion campaign where they one day go, Black, the new white.

Failure

Failure is not an option. That's a common line doled out in action movies where the hero or heroine or group of said heroes must overcome the odds to reach their goal. Maybe they'll die gory deaths. Maybe they'll lose whatever they hold dear. But along the way they have to sacrifice something precious and make hard decisions to reach their goal.

But what if failure is an option? That would be an interesting point to take.

Growing up, the only thing coined was, "You can't fail". If you fail, even once, you're labelled a failure for life, which probably led me to be totally disillusioned by the government's meritocratic picture of perfection. Of course, they could fail. After all, it's all covered up with alabaster and spin put on to cover the failure as nothing significant. It's easy to fail and then, hypocritically point the finger at others when they themselves could not reach their own high, nigh impossible standards.

But is failure really so bad? The critical parent would say yes. But frankly, failure is good only if one learns from it. I liked how Edison turned his 1000 or more attempts to making the lightbulb as 1000 steps to making a lightbulb. Tenacity and perseverance will win out eventually if we can tough it, and in the process build our own character and values up.

The world outside is harsh and being overprotected is not really the best way to go about many things. I wish I were more exposed when I was 15. I wished I had a year of choosing and wandering to decide what life was worth and what was worth doing. Too bad an insanely long conscription time and hopeless government family values put paid to that. So for that one year, I'm paying it back in 10 years of wandering.

Will I find my eventual destination? I don't know. But I do know it's not where I'm from and frankly that's now place I would want to return to.

But failure, is probably, in the course of life, a viable option. One that teaches people not to give up, to pick themselves up, start over and hope for the best again. I hope I just don't stay there permanently.

Black, Naturally

Been away from posting. Don't see a point in it, yet I've been teasing myself with starting a new blog.

But why? I've got a perfectly good one here at the moment, that's already been set up. Maybe I've gotten bored of it. I do tend to be flighty in my thoughts. Perhaps it needs a new template, a new "do" if you will.

But black is so nice. So calming, so serene. It envelops you, as it should. For those of you "Twilight" fans, there probably is nothing better than the night. Darkness breeds mystery. And nothing attracts someone else more than the lure of they mysterious.