Magibon: her silence speaks volumes

There is a new phenomenon going on at YouTube. Head on over if you don't know.

It's called Magibon. or Mririan; she's the new lonelygirl15.
Except better. In my opinion, with far more substance.

In a society where the imperative is to gossip, the imperative is to talk, the imperative is to say something witty or funny, or else - be socially rejected, socially unpopular, socially "inept"... what her silence says to us, speaks volumes.

I love it.

She is the speaker for silence. Our representative.

Everyone is puzzling. Why does a video, with her staring at the camera, saying nothing, get 3 million views?

The answer is simple: silence.
Something everyone pretty much downplays, ignores, in this modern day and age; something they attribute, simply, to "losers" with no social skills. Something, quite undesirable as a trait, in this modern day and age of self-assertion and propulsion.

Yet: it hits these people right in the face when they see this video. RIGHT IN THEIR FACE.
SILENCE.

Perhaps for the first time in their lives, people can step back and contemplate.

Just relax away from the verbose barrage we receive everyday. Let it all fall.

That, in my view, is what really attracts people to her. They may say, it's her eyes, it's her cuteness, her "Japaneseness" or whatever. Sure they may play a part; but I believe the real reason is more subconscious, more deeper down. There really is, in modern Western & Westernised societies, that lack of silence. That social imperative that denies it. Yet... deep down... people seek it; but they don't know how, or where... until they see magibon. And her silence.

I remember a quote from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, along the lines of: "communicating does not simply constitute of constantly talking." Sometimes, silence, or what is not said, speaks far more than what is said. I remember this from a great English teacher that I once had - often, the greatest stories are marked not by their words, but words the author leaves out. What they don't say.

In light of that, please let magibon be a beacon of hope for those of us that are... silent; quiet. And help the rest of society to understand; to accept, to appreciate silence.

"Silence is a virtue" - oh, what a long lost adage, stamped as "irrelevant" by people of this modern day. Please, let us restore it.

To embrace solitude

What is true rebellion?

What is true innovation?

What is a truer life?

...

To embrace solitude.

To reject the dictation of society, on how we should live our lives... "socially".

Relationships. Social stuff. yeah, yeah, blah blah blah.

What if we don't want to?

Why should we? ...

Yes yes society labels us a loners, crazy people, people with mental illness, blah blah blah.

===

I believe, if anything is going to happen in the 21st century, it is the emancipation of THIS. That of the socially disillusioned. That of those that seek SOLITUDE. That of those who do not want to suck up to others socially, have meaningless conversations, etc. etc.

We have given the right of emancipation to slaves, to black people, to women, to homosexuals. I think it's about time, that they give that very intrinsic RIGHT to self-determination to US. WE are so excluded and finger-pointed that we don't even have a single label describing us. I"ll make up one. THOSE THAT SEEK SOLITUDE.

We live in such a socially oppressive world, a world that requires social conforming, a world that dictates us to have "relationships", a world that dictates us to play with others, a world that dictates us to blah blah blah socially.

Well I don't want to.

I don't want to participate in it. GO AWAY. Stop forcing me. Why should I?

It's no less illogical than describing homosexuals as mentally ill.
No less illogical than saying women were intrinsically born to serve men.
No less illogical than saying all black people are less human than others.
No less illogical than saying slavery is perfectly the way of nature.

Just think about it. Carefully.

It's called "socially prevalent attitude." Ultimately, behind it, there is little logic, no real meaning or anything. It's just customs, what we're used to. Once upon a time people simply acquiesced to the above tenets because THAT'S WHAT EVERYONE WAS THINKING AND THEY DIDN'T WANT TO BE LEFT OUT!!!

Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, people. Prejudice, prejudice, prejudice.

I wish not to partake in it. This cacophany of meaninglessness.

Laters, and please leave me alone.

What love is: in image of Him

Teacher Tony McClean, one of the seven to die in the Mangatepopo River tragedy, tied himself to one of the students, a disabled boy, in a bid to save him.

Braced on a ledge in the swollen Mangatepopo River, McClean tied himself to the last teenager left to enter the water and they let go.

The selfless bid to try to save the life of cerebral palsy sufferer Tom Hsu, 16, has prompted many to call the 29-year-old a hero.

The group of school students were on a canyoning trip down the Mangatepopo River when
rising flood waters caused by heavy rain swept six students and Mr McClean to their deaths.

The Weekend Herald has learned that rescuers believe Mr McClean's chance of survival would have been "huge" if he had gone alone.

They say Tom would have been like an anchor for Mr McClean.

Being a stronger swimmer than his pupils, Mr McClean would have had a much greater chance of reaching the side of the river before being hurtled over the Genesis Energy dam.

Mr McClean and Tom were the last pair found, floating feet first more than 3km downstream from the plunge over the dam that probably took their lives.

Mr McClean's father, John McClean, said police told him his son and Tom were still bound together.

He said Tom's disability made him the "natural one" for his teacher son to have tried to help.
"When the police lady told me that I thought, 'That's him'," Mr McClean snr said of his eldest child.

Five other Elim Christian College students died on the gorging trip. Four students and Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre instructor Jodie Sullivan survived.

Tony McClean, a surfer and musician who was a youth pastor and tried to live the words of Gandhi, was committed to loving and serving other people in his life - and in his death.

A bond had already formed between Mr McClean's mother Jeanette and Tom, an international student from Taiwan.

As "camp mum" to Elim's overseas students, Mrs McClean had pushed Tom's case to the school, despite uncertain arrangements for funding of the care he would need.

Mr McClean snr said Tom, the only son of two Taiwanese teachers, flourished in the nurturing environment. "He can't speak properly and his hands are no good, but his legs go all right," said Mr McClean snr.

So when the family heard that Tony McClean had been found with Tom tied to him, "we were quite glad".

"In the most traumatic moment of his life, in fact the last moment of his life, he's still doing and saying exactly what he was doing and saying the previous Saturday and the previous week."

Mr McClean snr said his son's body was witness to his struggle to save his own life and Tom's.
"After I had seen him I texted my kids ... I said he wasn't disfigured but he looked like he had been through a pretty tough rugby match.

"I was proud of him. I looked at him and I knew he had struggled _ he would have struggled for those kids, struggled for his own life."

While on the ledge, Mr McClean encouraged the students with prayers and talk of hot showers before sending them off to swim downstream to the waiting instructor.

Miss Sullivan went first with a student, followed by 15-year-old Kish Proctor, who also survived.

Mr McClean and Tom were the last to leave the rocky ledge, and were washed over the dam and down the flooded river.

In a heartfelt letter to the McClean family, survivor Ashley Smith wrote of how Mr McClean "understood us students sooo well" and gave comfort during the ordeal.

"Being terrified of water, I was freaking out but he held me and said, `Don't worry, Ash, you can do this. I know you can because I will be praying for you'," she wrote.

"And right then everyone gathered around me, hugged me and prayed.

"I want you to know Mr McClean was such a special and unique person. I will never forget him."

It is one of the hundreds of tributes the family received this week.

Older brother to Paul, 26, Daniel, 23, and Hannah, 15, Tony McClean went to Auckland Grammar and was a prefect in his final year. He completed bachelor of arts and bachelor of theology degrees from Auckland University and trained as a teacher.

After graduating, he worked at St Thomas School in Kohimarama, Farm Cove Intermediate in Pakuranga and this year joined Elim Christian College.

Interspersed between the work was a season snowboarding in Canada in 2006 and travel last year to work with needy in Nepal and India.

Mr McClean snr, a pastor at Eastview Baptist Church in Howick, said travel crystallised his son's view of the need to live Christianity rather than just talking about it.

Mr McClean said he was immensely proud of his son, but he believed a few heroes had emerged, including Miss Sullivan.

Tony McClean was supposed to be in Christchurch today to be a part of his girlfriend's special day as bridesmaid to her sister.

Instead, Ruth Nixon will brave the ceremony, supported by family, friends and members of the Eastview Baptist Church.

Mr McClean snr said Ruth had decided to continue with her role in the bridal party, and two friends from the church had flown to be with her.

"That's the practical love that comes out of Christianity," said Mr McClean snr. "Too often people don't see that side."
- 19/4/08 New Zealand Herald.

Selfless love; what can I say, words fail to illustrate, for sometimes actions are so powerful.

Yet as I read this story, I just could not resist the evident parallels with Jesus Christ.

He did not have to die. In fact, as he did that very act, he knew that he drastically lowered his own chances of survival.

This is love. Love isn't game theory, where we assume that a being in this modern day and age act in their interests only.

Give up yourself, take up the cross, and follow me. The words of Jesus Christ.

It is what this brave, brave, man did. For to love takes courage.

To God, us humans are like that student, in fact even more disabled, even more of a burden for him to carry. Yet it is love that saved us. Love.

Hello, shallow, uninspiring, boring, meaningless world

I don't know what I'm doing here... I really don't

This ISN'T a place for me,

I can't find like-minded people

They're all so, oh so, oh terribly so, SHALLOW !...

All they care about is freaking vocation, the $$$, the comfort, the "prestige"

Oh empty honour! Oh empty prestige! Oh empty luxury! Oh empty effort! Oh empty ... life.

What is the meaning of such

SERIOUSLY

WTF is the meaning of that... that sucks... i hate it...

I REALLY SHOULDN'T HAVE COME HERE T.T

there is no point

Treading a path that has been treaded a million times before just isn't for me.

It sucks, it is uninspiring, it is boring, it is pointless, it is mindless, it is intellectually unstimulating, it is vacant, it is empty.

oh empty crows! Oh empty scavengers !

Is that what human life has become? Degenerated into this dreamless existence?

Oh what a sad reality !

PLEASE will something INSPIRE me? I have no will; no nothing... the everyday is but a sickening repetition of the commonplace, of trivialities, of meaninglessness. It is but a waste of time, waste of life, a waste of a place.

I really am saying this with all of my heart.

I am so utterly disgusted, and so thoroughly disappointed, with this shallow, shallow, shallow world.

People are but living spectres; they have no soul... obssessed with trivialities... they're UTTERLY MINDLESS. They might as well be simple automatons living the everyday.

How can the weight of a meager decision be so heavy?

Oh cruel world, why must we make the most important decisions when we ARE SO YOUNG? WHEN WE KNOW SO LITTLE? WHEN WE HAVEN'T HAD THE CHANCE TO BE INSPIRED? .......................... OH CRUEL WORLD....

sigh.

What am I doing here...

Is this what my heart REALLY desires ? ...

...

...

...

These people are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo shallow

You just can't have any sort of reasonable level of intellectual discourse with them, before matters turn back to MINDLESS, BORING, POINTLESS trivialities.

Please.

Anyone.

Anyone out there.

Please deny me.

PLEASE TELL ME THAT THERE IS SOMEONE OUT THERE who isn't so shallow, so obssessed with the everyday.. please... PLEASE.... please...please... please.....

The Excitement of Academia... and modern disillusionment

There just seem to be a disillusionment amidst young people
regarding the excitement of academia... of higher concepts..

They just seem obssessed with everyday trivialities,
when.. when... right before them... are these brilliant, beautiful,
enchanting things.

I think my excitement, and I guess, the excitement of those in
Academia (who are really passionate about their pursuits... you
know these people when you see them) is really well epitomised
in the song "A whole new world"... the lyrics really capture that excitement...

And of course, as "informed" people who know of such excitement, as "holders" of such inspiring knowledge, we want to share it with others... but of course accompanying that is, well, a sort of "lamentation" at the state of the everyday where the laypeople simply do not recognise the sheer wonder of these things... the sheer apathy... when all one needs to do is open one's mind...

Anyway... "A whole new world"... entering academia really is like entering a whole new world, it's truly exciting, the things that are revealed... (for once, please, let us take a break from the mundane everyday triviailities! The everyday bores me as much as "technicalities" do to the general populace!)

I can show you the world
Shining, shimmering, splendid
Tell me, princess, now when did
You last let your heart decide?

I can open your eyes
Take you wonder by wonder
Over, sideways and under
On a magic carpet ride

A whole new world
A new fantastic point of view
No one to tell us no
Or where to go
Or say we're only dreaming

A whole new world
A dazzling place I never knew
But when I'm way up here
It's crystal clear
That now I'm in a whole new world with you
Now I'm in a whole new world with you

Unbelievable sights
Indescribable feeling
Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling
Through an endless diamond sky

A whole new world
Don't you dare close your eyes
A hundred thousand things to see
Hold your breath - it gets better
I'm like a shooting star
I've come so far
I can't go back to where I used to be

A whole new world
Every turn a surprise
With new horizons to pursue
Every moment red-letter
I'll chase them anywhere
There's time to spare
Let me share this whole new world with you

A whole new world
a whole new world
That's where we'll be
That's where we'll be
A thrilling chase
A wondrous place
For you and me