the picture of dorian gray

i just finished reading the picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde, and together with 3 others books (the beach, lord of the flies, clubland) it scares me. all 4 books touch on the ease of which humans degrade into immoral, then amoral people, and into murderers. and all start of as perfect, ideal, utopian communities in which people just want to have fun.

i am reminded that it is very easy for me and all my friends to fall into a trap, a trap of self worship, self idolation, hedonism and immorality. i see all around me people who i feel are immoral, who rate themselves too far up and others too far down. and i see clearly as the third party. but how about me? and those closest to me? i believe i know myself very well. i may know myself very well on the first layer, but how bout the second? and the third? self deceit is the most powerful form of deceit, because u hardly doubt the originator. so am i really better than those i look upon with scorn?

and with all my indulgences and hedonistic and materialistic pleasures, am i falling into this kind of trap? trying to be a gentleman in victorian polite society in today's terms? to be cultured to appreciate quality, luxury and class? all three come with a price, in monetary or oral terms. to live the good life doesn't come cheap. or to be a socialite? with influences in shadier dealings like parties? am i trying consciously or subconsciously to be the dorian grays and michael aligs of today? to keep out-doing myself like alig, and to enjoy pleasures like gray?

in this society filled with infinite number of temptations, will i, and my friends be able to withstand them, or will we decay together with society? there is just a thin line between fantasy and reality, between a feeling to kill, and premeditated murder. the thin red line. the position on the right side of it has never seemed so fragile. the gravity of evil, immorality, carnal pleasures and arrogance has always been strong, and today it revealled the strength of it to me, through this literature.

and many talk of the powerful influence of movies, theatre, music and friends, but nothing is more powerful than the power of literature. it has suggestion and mystery, leaving space for both the writer's imagination and slant and the reader's interpretation of what reality the literature describes. and literature has influenced me in a very great way, i may be living in puzo's world, the world he created for romantics like me, where i believe in a dream with my friends, la costra nostra, our world, and i will stop at nothing to get it.

and then there is just so much out there calling to young impressionable people to join in, gambling, drinking, smoking, sex, living the good material life, and socialising, being socially skillful, manouvring in and out of situations, between people, close to people, planting knives behind backs and thus being popular, the in crowd. that is so pathetic. it is so easy to succumb to the above and anyone can ruin your life without you trying too hard.

and with small steps come bigger ones. i cant answer many moral questions like will i harbour a murderer? will i condone it, or influence it, or even commission it? maybe that's thinking too far. but there is a rot in society, and many people are condoning it. the singapore government says it does hire gay, is that not condoning homosexuality? the power of the pink dollar has proven to us that the monetary worth and power of immorality and criminal is always more, because it is either more attractive or it is limited, thus a black market emerges.

so as i was reading the picture of dorian gray i was looking at gray's potrait, wondering if i saw myself there. the pursuit of pleasure, not happiness. wishing the potrait would bear all external signs of aging to retain youthful good looks and his facade forever. i didnt see myself in there, or anyone i knew, but i saw a warning, that things may not remain as we do.