I have finally found my goddess!

Call me a fool. Call me a weirdo. Call me an otaku. Call me whatever you like.

But there are always things that are beyond human comprehension.

Tears often fill up in my eyes when I see the picture of Lala Satalin Deviluke, the main female character of a Japanese erotic manga series called To Love-Ru. And I did not know why until a few weeks ago.

Even though Lala was created as a devilish character, she is so pure and full of love. Her cute and loving gaze rather remind me of something very holy...

I have been in a big transition period and I have been feeling the need to tap into great female element inside - anima as a goddess. And I recently realised that Lala is the avatar of such a goddess.

And Lala indeed led me to a great goddess - Amaterasu, the Great Japanese Goddess of Sun. Amaterasu is the just right goddess for me - her name means "Lighting up the heaven." And the task I need to do now is to shed light on the shadow in my soul.

It may sounds crazy but I am now a follower of Shinto because of an erotic cartoon...

Thank you, sweet Lala! Despite your devilish name, you are a very pure, good girl!

Sorry, Jesus!

Sorry, Jesus!
I still love you
I still respect you but
You are no longer
The only one

I cannot keep
Other wise and loving ones
Out of my heart any longer
Because it only makes me
Feel I am not true to myself

Sorry, Yahweh!
I can no longer love you
Curse me if you want
But it only proves
You are not pure love

Bye-bye, Jesus!
Bye-bye, Yahweh!

You are not my Lords any more.
This is my last prayer.

Amen!

-End of Transmission-

There is Allah's intelligent design behind my idiocy

I love to destroy and then rebuild my identity time to time. Now I identify myself as a working class househusband. More as a garbage collector than a writer. Many well-educated men see such an identity almost as a curse but I am happy to take it. It broadens my consciousness.

I am rather timid but I am quite a daredevil at the same time. So I often change things radically without thinking much. Such a character is evey bosses' or every Japanese's nightmare and it is far from risk-free. I often feel I am a total idiot. I often depress myself so much that the world would be a better place if I ceased to exist.

But I am like this because Allah or Dharma or Whoever/whatever designed me like this. So I believe that blasphemy is refusal of accepting myself as it is.

Insha'Allah! I believe I am heading in the right direction. I am okay.

Good Needs Evil

God is supposed to be all good. But is it possible for good to exist without any bad? We cannot live without oxygen so it should be good. Yet, we are rarely aware of preciousness of the life-sustaining gas because it is abundant everywhere on the Earth. We would only be aware of how good oxygen is unless we face a danger of suffocation, which is bad. Good can only be good when there is something to compare to.

So an absolutely good God needs someone or something absolutely bad. Something huge always accompanies a huge shadow. This can explain why Satan is extremely powerful for the Christian or Muslim fundamentalists. Their God is so powerful that He sounds like a muscular commando. (Well, it may be a correct view of Yahweh because He is Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of Armies.) A God that powerfully good may not be able to exist without the backing of something excessively evil and powerful - the great Satan as the great God's enourmous shadow.

It is nothing new. It is what Carl G. Jung, the famous Swiss psychologist said. And the theory of "shadow" is a very important part of Jungian psychology. But it took me almost a decade until I realised that the mystery of my neurosis could be solved by this theory.

A Prayer for Judas Iscariot

Our Father who art in the Heaven, 

Please trun Your face and smile to Judas Iscariot!

He was a simple man who wanted to see

His superhero perform a miracle on the Cross

So great that everyone would believe in Him

And people talk about it until the end of time.

Our Father who art in the Heaven,

Please have a mercy on Judas Iscariot!

He was simply too ardent a fan of Jesus to foresee

 That his superhero would really die on the Cross.

So he thought, with all His superpower

The Cross would never hurt Jesus.

He was wrong.

But our Father who art in the Heaven,

Please remember whose plan it was

That Judas had to betray Jesus!

Isn't it Yours?

And didn't you create Judas just as

A disposable tool in that cruel plan?

Jesus suffered and died.

But so did Judas.

Our Father who art in the Heaven,

To Your feet pelase raise Judas Iscariot!

He was a simple man who wanted to see

His superhero perform a miracle on the Cross

So great that everyone would believe in Him

And people talk about it until the end of time.

I believe I would have felt the same way

If I had lived in that time.

Because I am only a simple man.

In Jesus' name, please hear my prayer!

Amen!

Long Sleek Haired... What Then?

It always surprises me. Time to time, the number of beautiful or cute women suddenly skyrockets around me. And most of them are my type - usually short-haired and somewhat boyish... Not everyone's favourite. Well, I am a married man and I don't expect any intimate relation with any of them. But it is indeed a pleasant scene.

That used to make me wonder a lot.

Now I know the reason. A swarm of cuties only appear in front of me when I am happy - when my conscious mind is getting along with my unconscious one. And I know that my unconscious mind is represented by a mischievous young woman (quite much like Midori in Norwegian Woodby Haruki Murakami) that appears in my dream. She is what Carl G. Jung calls anima and I call her "Luna".

All those cuties I see time to time are projection of my happy peaceful mind. Luna appears everywhere and tells me "Everything is fine."

And recently I feel that a different kind of content of my unconscious mind has been projected to the "outside" world. I find so many heads with sleek, silky long hair... I feel very weird. Those heads usually do not attract my attention because I am almost fetishistic to women's short hair. And those heads with beautiful hair are of men's... These men look like Asian rock stars... It makes me feel even more weird.

What, then, does my unconscious mind want to tell me by showing all those long-haired men? It might be related to the minor crisis I was in until a few days ago... Well, the answer will be unfolded gradually and naturally if I keep a good connection with my unconscious mind...

Death and a Broken Heart?

This (ด้วยรัก ความตาย และหัวใจสลาย) is the Thai title of Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. I know the book tells you nothing about Norway or wood. Actually, the Thai titles tell you more about this book than the original title. But it makes me wonder a lot why the Thai translator changed the title.

The original title, as you may already know, comes from a song by the Beatles. Even though it was almost impossible to listen to the Beatles in China until the 1980s, the Chinese title is Norwegian Wood (挪威森林). So many readers in the People's Republic wondered why this title explained nothing about the content of the book...

Well, Thailand has always been an open country and she accepted tourists even right after the coup in 2006. There were so many American soldiers in Thailand during the war in Vietnam and I guess the Beatles were popular among young people in Bangkok or around the US military bases. But why did the Thai publisher of Murakami's classic work have to change its title? It makes me feel a bit uncomfortable...

And why does the cover of this Thai version of Norwegian Wood feature a picture that seems to be from a Shanghai advertisement of the 1930s? I guess the Thai publisher imitated a cover of a British version of this book, which also featured a Shanghai ad girl from 70 years ago... And I know this Chinese girl is supposed to be Naoko, the symbol of detachment from the world and death.

Actually, I checked the Thai title of Norwegian Wood because I wanted to tell a young Thai singer that she was like Midori in this book. Although it seems that many mature readers love Naoko, I don't like her at all. On the other hand, the wild-cattish Midori is the symbol of life and engagement to the world. She has always been be my most favourite character in this book.