The Conspiracy of the Hungry Ghost Festival

The inexplicable accepts all manner of excuses - rational or otherwise. And by inexplicable, I mean any kind of tragic heartbreak, sudden death or really bad hair day.

For the Chinese in Singapore, at least, hungry ghosts may be blamed for the world gone askew this time of year. The less superstitious view askance the annual opening of the gates of hell to allow the spirits therein to wander among the living in search of a bite to eat. But the belief is enough to stop some from moving into new homes, send others steering clear of swimming pools and indoors after dark, in case, well, you bump into someone. Or something. Or whatever.

Mathematically, if the paranormal is to be believed, then logic resides with caution.

You really don't want to toy with these beings, should they exist, especially because they a) outnumber the living, b) have among their ranks as many vengeful beings as those who are just plain peckish, c) are quite likely to have musical tastes that defy living comprehension, going by the supremely tuneless performances staged that ostensibly soothe them, but whose pitch is to the non-undead nothing short of incendiary.

Recent encounters with several beings (living) have left me wondering if hungry ghosts (undead) are choosing their feasts from a buffet of emotional turmoil instead of their usual rice-topped-with-joss sticks.

In just the last four weeks of unaccountable freakishness, I count one philandering husband, two heartbroken soulmates, one derailed career, one cancer scare (benign), one cancer scare (malignant), three irrational tantrums, two eroded friendships, one business fallout (big time). In fact, all that's missing is a patridge in a pear tree to turn this festival into another.

So pervasive has been their effect on the lives around me that I am, in fact, starting to think undead festivities are not so much as a break for spirits from brimstone, sulphur and eternal damnation. Rather, a more global (and plausible) explanation is that there is in fact no such thing as hell.

Going by a more universal calendar, it appears that spirits roam free - horrors! - year round.

By the time the Hungry Ghost Festival ends its two-month run (extra month this year) in Singapore and Malaysia, they seem to head up north to the US in October for Halloween. In November they cross the border to Mexico, for the Festival of the Dead (of course, if you happen to be Catholic, then the spirits are benevolent and to be celebrated on All Saints Day).

The rest of the year, there are two other routes they ply that are obvious to those who, like Fox Mulder, want to believe. They follow, hidden among long tresses of hippie hair, the Grateful Dead, on their year-round, long, strange trips. The clues are all there: deadheads, not fade away, et cetera, et cetera. Otherwise, it is quite likely they spend the rest of the year chilling out in India's holy city Varanasi, having chai with the Dom Rajas and saluting newcomers into their fold - totally reasonable if you know the likes of ex-Beatle George Harrison were about to join your touring party, I suppose.

With all the travelling they do, there is little time to actually spend in hell. Even if hell does exist, we all know it is just a matter of time before everyone gets hungry, and is bound to go seeking a session of mastication anyway. Once they see what the choice offerings there are among the living, it is highly doubtful anyone would want to go back...

... yes, they are among us.

Work Any Way You See It

I've decided that no matter how noble the professions are towards the act of doing something in exchange for a pay packet, it is work.

They call it work because one must perform certain acts -- liked, lewd or otherwise -- in order to obtain the currency that affords the perception of a better life. That might work out to a better roof over the head than a corrugated sheet, a better bed than one of sand and straw, a better perception of oneself as that of an economically viable individual, whatever floats your proverbial boat.

It is, ever was, and ever will be the biggest corporate lie, most likely invented by secret company satanists, for employees to tell themselves that what they do under the auspices of a larger profit-seeking organism is a deed done for the love of it, and that they would do so also and only for a vague notion of fresh air, sunshine, beer and corresponding burp in the face.

If such passion did indeed rule the world, there would be no need for unions; no point to creating beauty for its own sake; no rationale for a vacation. So I resent anyone who perpetuates the lie, I resent the lie, I wholly reject it. I wish I didn't have to give up time to work. If time stood still while I worked, and I could somehow obtain the means to enjoy time in a vacuum so that in its free-running state I could use it for other activities, I would do it, as would any sane person.

The harsh, uncut and E! True Hollywood story is this: We work because we need to feel better about our situation in life. We work because we fear the alternatives of a life without motivation -- and therefore pay offs. We work because we would otherwise languish in abject misery about not being able to afford our next object of desire, whether that be a Blackberry or a cup of something caffeine free.

So we toil, and we tell ourselves that if at least our paid responsibilities feel less like a pain in the derriere, then we are somehow less denied of time we would otherwise put towards more pleasurable pursuits; such as, say, luxuriating in an over-abundance of unaccounted-for time.

But time is the depleted resource that can never find its equal in bonuses, benefits and BMWs. Time is the thing neither art nor science nor anything in all the myriad planets in our solar system can replace. Time defies commodification, so therefore cannot be truly be sold for any kind of humanly generated price. At best we can attempt to barter it for a better set of possessions of a near-enough value.

To confuse what we do for money as a qualitative use of an irreplaceable resource is nothing short of sin. But enough whinging. I have work tomorrow...