i am now having an existentialist moment. ok that moment passed the moment i let out an earth-shattering fart. eh u know whats killing those birds in china, taiwan etc? clue: maybe its related to my 1st sentence, but you don't tell anyone hor? we keep it a secret ok? your name don't have to be Victoria to keep secret lah, although if you name Victoria and u reading this now, kindly tag me with your contact no and favourite (existential) position then we can have interactive discussion of my "essence" hor?


fuck i sound like a not-too-successful watermelon seller.


ok lah, i talk serious now, got plenty of time for watermelons, girls, and girls with watermelons later on (especially the last one), but now i talk serious ok because i'm a serious academic undergraduate. Existentialism is a philosophical movement that views human existence as having a set of underlying themes and characteristics, such as anxiety, dread, freedom, awareness of death, and consciousness of existing, that are primary. (sounds sibei cheem right? eh HELLO, i take that definition from wikipedia, sorry ah i dunno how to do footnote for blog, i make disclaimer firrst, later kena sue until i spend alot more existential moment in changi prison staring at chao bapok licking his lips at me)


if we are, using Heidegger's phrase, really "thrown" into the world we find ourselves in (macham doing jungle training without compass), how are we to find meaning (an "orientation" literally and metaphorically) in our lives? is there even a "meaning" to it beyond dreaming of girl selling (her) watermelons? happiness? anguish? ambivalence? are these not constructs of our emotional register? if our "meaning" in life is determined by a mosaic of such emotions intertwined together, and we create these emotions, do we not then create our own "meaning" to life as an independent entity?


existentialism appeals simply because it as an ideology offers a carte blanche for us to create our own fantasies (u want girl selling durian, also can), our own needs (watermelon can take and make watermelon cake, watermelon agar agar etc.) and fundamentally, our own destiny (eat too much watermelon wait u look like watermelon). basically, YOU create YOUR own life in the mould that YOU deem fit (u be called "king of watermelon" then everyone kowtow to you)


"existence precedes essence", quotes Sartre. think about it. it is the importance of living and not merely existing along the parameters of an "essence", (connoting a "pre-determinedness"). to me, watermelon si watermelon. beer si beer. and it is "pre-determined" that watermelon and beer cannot cham lest u lao sai bad bad. wah lao who want to lao sai bad bad i ask u? jessica alba got advertise watermelon tiger beer anot? don't have right? BUT BUT. . . if you want to be garang, defying the "rules" set in place by a pre-determined essence by mixing the 2, who's to say you're wrong? how can you be "wrong" against a not-explicit rule? not like must go 90km/h on singapore expressway because signboard say so


no one determines the "essence" of life for us. we construct it ourselves because we have the power to choose. We live. We breathe. We choose. the struggle is thus, not of high-order ideologies (like differentiation) that only people who got IQ above 140 can fathom, but a very basic one - in spite of the shackles of "essence", are you in control of your own destiny? you just dont be a muthafarker and skip NS can liao.