Month: April 2006

ngga jelas

A Contract With God

Chic

Written & drawn by the late Will Eisner.

A Contract With God is a book that I admittedly would buy if there’s no other graphic novel in theContract_with_god  book store. The characters are roughly sketched. It’s printed in sepia which I find plain (the introduction, however, explains the purpose of such a colour–it’s a colour of dreams or memories). In addition, there are too many words to my liking. Granted it’s a graphic novel where stories are supposed to play more significant role. Still I’d have expected more drawings than words. But, I bought the book – in the end – at one of the book store in Kemang. Always keep an open mind, right? No other graphic novel to be picked, anyway. First of all, just because I was really curious about the title “A Contract With God”. Read it yesterday & no regret.

There are four stories in the novel. A Contract With God is one of them. The most memorable one as it deals with a humane expectation concerning religions. Or God. Do good & you’ll be rewarded. Do bad? Be punished. The foundation of all religions.

The story features one old Jewish man who since he’s young has done good things to others & in return, blessed by good things. He’s sent to America with the money donated by people of his village (one of the blessing as he has a chance to survive as the village is under constant attack during a war. He writes that contract with God on a stone on his journey). He adopts a baby girl abandoned in front of his doorstep (another blessing as he now has a family). But later on, the girl, who has been growing up as a loving daughter, suddenly dies. The father angrily accuses God of not respecting the contract. He throws away the stone. And he decides to stop honoring the contract.

He uses the bonds entrusted to him as a collateral to buy an apartment building. He raises the rental fee. Mercilessly. He’s rich within 1 year. He acquires more buildings & as the story suggests, Luck has been kind to him. His return of investment is impressive. His timing? Superb. He becomes very rich. Has a mistress. Luxury. Everything!

Yet he feels empty. And one day, he returns the bonds (once used as a collateral for his first purchase of property) to the rightful owners: the synagogue leaders. The bonds plus the interest. What he asks is the leaders to draft a new contract between him & God. The leaders eventually agrees. Not without a lengthy discussion among them. But yes, a new contract is meticulously drafted.

The old Jewish man is glad as he feels he has made peace with his God. He has accepted the possibility that the breach of the first contract (the one in the stone) is due to him writing it as a kid and thus, the contract is not properly written. He wants to do good things in life. He wants to be back to how he is before. Doing good things & be happy. As simple as that.

Guess what happens next? When he’s still joyful reading the contract–all smiles, knowing God will honour this new contract, a heart attack hits him. He dies.

Life and its unique sense of humour. Huh?

Can you find the moral story guys…

Anyway… That story was really hit me in the first place…

tukar pikiran

Mirror, mirror of eternal time, where does the solution lie?

Chic

I have a lot of question right in my mind that I couldn’t answer…

And… there’re some questions that just don’t have any answer at all…

For every single question that has been asked on the face of this planet, the answer has always sprouted out of a surprisingly simple logic. Well, not necessarily the simplest, but there could have been more complicated solutions to it. However, the most complicated solution has never turned out to be the perfect one. At least that’s what we have been made to believe.

One begins to wonder about this claims credibility. Do the laws of physics put any constraint on how the solutions have to be? Theories suggestive of this have been around for a long time.

For most people, the 14th century English logician, William Ockham’s claim is worth their life’s exploration:

“entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem”

which translates to Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity,
more popularly interpreted as The simplest answer is usually the correct answer.

This argument is one of the most favorite claims for the evolutionists to disprove the existence of the ultimate being. As much as this THEORY can be appreciated, the ramifications will almost always turn out to be grave. Not just in science, but in all walks of life.

Defectors of this theory can bring in a million examples to disprove this claim. What is the one question that perpetually persists in every single cerebral being’s mind, the one question that makes them contemplate, and the one question that has been chasing every curious mind? Why is the universe the way it is? Well, and a few more too, but if the former were to be answered, the rest would fall in place.

Even for these profound questions, there is a ludicrously simple theory. The universe is the way it is, because we are. The universe is the way it is because, if it weren’t, we wouldn’t be here to question about it. There might be millions of other possible universes, but only this is real, because we are here. The anthropic principle! It can be equated to: Why is it raining today? Because if it doesn’t, human race wouldn’t persist and we won’t be here. So did we get an answer for the question? The supposed answer might have made some sense, but the relevance factor was absolute naught.

In our pursuit in life, we are all settling in for such pedestrian solutions. There would have been no apparent solution, nevertheless, we settle for that! Striving towards the ultimate reality is far too difficult. People just cannot be taught to do it. Neither does their thought process propel them. However, the fruit once borne will be worth the struggle. Few realize this and strive for what is absolute, rather than to settle for what might be apparent. Fewer attain the peaks.

But if one is anywhere near the vicinity of being close to the solution, if there is awareness that one is in the right path, and if there is someway of finding out at least a morsel of what is meant to be, it is worth the risk. It is worth the struggle. For, it is in this struggle that one realizes that the absolute panacea was far too near than assumed.


We dance ’round in a ring and suppose

But the secret sits in the middle and knows

~ Robert Frost

Curhat Colongan, Music

What Am I To You?

Chic

What am I to you

Tell me darling true

To me you are the sea

Fast as you can be

And deep the shade of blue

When you’re feeling low

To whom else do you go

See I cry if you hurt

I’d give you my last shirt

Because I love you so

Yeah well if my sky should fall

Would you even call

Opened up my heart

Never wanna part

I’m giving you the ball


When I look in your eyes

I can feel the butterflies

Could you find a love in me

Could you carve me in a tree

Don’t fill my heart with lies

I will you love when you’re blue

Tell me darlin’ true

What am I to you