losing the cool

plato vs aristotle...

descartes vs hume...

patriarchy and the catholic church...

singapore's realist foreign policy...

america's surreal relations with saddam...

decency of dress and masculine fear of feminine sexuality...

interchangeability of gender roles...

black and white rights and wrongs...

vatican expenditure...

the reality of the family...

that last topic was unfortunately discussed when i was most weary and mistrusting of the social fabric i've been woven into - and with my poor unsuspecting mother. imagine her astonishment when her son whom she misses so much questions her about the validity of her rudimentary notions of 'family' and 'sonship'.

"why don't you call back? everytime i call you you're busy..."
"you didn't expect me to be doing nothing in school right?"
"then don't need to call back? don't need to see your family?"
"what is family?"
"your own parents and your own brother in your own home... don't you miss them?"
"when i was home two weeks back i didn't get to see most of you anyway."
"but we saw you for a while..."
"a while only, then what's the difference!"
"doesn't it mean anything to you?"
"if family is seeing some person for a while once in a week, then you better think again."
"why... call you for a chat and end up talking like this..."
"that's family. gotta go, keep praying."

and i just wrote a philo essay supporting plato's proposal to take children away from their parents before they get to know each other. how much less critical would i be of the family? once again, the cool is lost at the most crucial of moments. poor mum.