Kenny G – Auld Lang Syne

Hello. It’s been awhile hasn’t it. I’m almost 2 days late of writing my new year resolution. Been awfully busy. But here i am! Finally, i shall pen.

2008 has been a really big year for me. Not big in the good sense – can’t really say that – , not big in the bad bad sense either, but defintely enriching and allowed time , along with moments for me to understand myself and my surroundings better. To be honest, 2008 has been a tough year for me. Even at the beginning, it started off already so badly with beautiful fireworks that could not pull me away from the blossoming hatred and sowed anger i had for my father. It was impossible then to put a finger on what could happen of our relationship later, but it is possible now to say it just went down and down, till – i feel-, it has sort of when to the core of the earth and melted for good. 

My relationship with my parents is still hot and cold, and sometimes i just cannot stand their erratic behaviour that i would chose solitary over having their love – many a times. I know one day, perhaps when i see them clothed in parchment skin and smelling like old people, i would have a pang of regret. But if that moment ever comes, i just have to tell myself, that either way, that forgiveness and regret would always be there  – like a cycle- a never ending one.

I know. I know. Sometimes i do think of myself as unfillial as well. Okay , all the times. My parents offer me almost everything that i asked for, and the past few days at work , has showed me how pamered and lucky i am. I feel grateful before, now i’m ever more thankful. But i’m a person who really do think through, i really do weigh my choices, and put forth the decision only when it’s the most rational one. I stood by my reasons, and today, i would not take back my words towards my parents. Granted, even if it was a moment of immaturity and i spilled a “I hate you”to them, could you not forgive me for being a child?

I’m still learning, and in the process of learning, i’ve discovered so much. Reflecting, brainstorming for what to do next, like a careful and precise chess player who has several locks for his door of his room, i am but only wanting to pitch my accuracy as accurately as i can pitch it to.
I don’t wish to make a blunder. I don’t wish to make a drama. I don’t want a story someone wrote for television or a bestseller book to land in the pages of my life. I do not wish to read something and discover i am but that character. That character with an ending that was suposedly avoidable, but due only to that innate human error, decieved him of a fairytale ending each is promised during our childhood.

I’ve sold almost everything in my hearth to make sure everything is according to plan; To finally fly out of this place, to secure my future, to concentrate the soup of happiness and drink it off upon death – and no dearth of love – all plain within reach. I know, it’s like a fairytale, and it impossible and selfish dream of mine. But as thoughts from what you might think run through my mind, and evaluate how much badly you might think of me now, a quote that i read from my tuition center comes to mind, “Do not give up your dreams, for they are the seeds of tomorrow”. And i wouldn’t either.  No matter how some might deem this as selfish, and perhaps arrogant of me to do so, it is only my pleasure and my guilt to live that dream, and those tomorrows to come.

2008 had also taught me about how my values are immediate red buoys at sea; Alarmingly noticeable, and perhaps to the many creatures that lurk in the waters, such colour is both unfathomable and unneccessary in the beauty and glory of it’s blue. I would think no less of you if you thought similar to them, that standing up to my values even if it’s means breaking a law is stupid and ridiculous – For there are plenty like you around.

2008 had really opened my eyes to what humanity has become. Perhaps to be more fairer, i would only shrink this basis of humanity to the shores of singapore and the people inhabiting this manifestation. I really do not know how humanity can be so apathetic, can be so willing for that mere success and wealth for which almost all decent Chinese know the saying of ” wealth and fortune can never be brought to the coffin with you”, that they could forgo their values. And even more ashamed i must admit, that i witnessed how foolish Chinese forgot their roots, and that values are what Chinese people had always stood by and put before anything even books and money. But then again, i daren’t say that the chinese here are truly chinese. The culture i speak off, the culture that the government stubbornly forced down the throats of ours, is nothing more than the country of the awaken Dragon. It was never ours to being with.

We are but a hybrid, a mud to be precise. The cultures of China, even the British for which had sparked our lust for a part of the world’s wealth, are nothing more than an ingredient in the rojak we make ourselves. Some say our rojak just tastes plain disgusting, others say they see a rojak but there’s no prominent taste to it, and others enquire what exactly is our main authentic dish?

 It really stinks badly for me. Many could live by their lives in Singapore pretending that having a culture or not is something miniscule and wouldn’t harm the progress of Singapore in that big a way, but it is clear a country without a culture is defintely not a country. It cannot even be counted as an island. Bluntly put it, Singapore is just a well-furnished, well-developed place with well-trained staff men ready to work and service. It’s not a home, it’s not a resting place. It could be a place for a temporary stayover fling, but like all one-night stands who can never truly fix their plugs into the hearts of their customers, Singapore can never  present itself as a truly well-meaned nest, even for those that hatched in it.

Rightfully to say, a country having a presence or not in the international limelight doesn’t really matter to it’s people. In the long run, such a presence will never build harmony and love between it’s inhabitants, neither will it make that country a more homely place. But Singapore’s hunger for that limelight, for that international recognition for whatever, has but sacrificed the chances of creating what could truly be it’s and not something else that could be found in the pages of Law.

 Truly, there’s nothing more to say about this. The fact is, it’s been already so long and we defintely have reaped the fruits of labour. It may taste great to some, but i know, it will never taste satisfiable to all; We would want more, and eventually even more. It never stops. Thats how humans go about. Sucess is but merely a long road to take. You never see the end, and you never can stop. You must go on, for if you don’t , you can never attain the next stop to pick the fruits. You sometimes forget that as humans, you are given the necessary senses and cognitive functions to admire beauty, to appreciate. You drive and drive, and drink caffeine in that suffocating car;

Watch whilst you hurriedly tie and untie you tie, iron and re-ironed your shirt, cursed and swear for the increasingly unsatisfiable speed limit that your car can reached. And even as you re-design, re – shaped, built in superbly new technology which probably can only amaze you but for a day, you ride on , thinking the ending is soon.

But life, most likely will never stop. In the book of destiny, if life stops, so does destiny. Destiny is only but artificial, and if human minds die, perhaps we never have another story to tell; No road to take, no car to fix. No deadlines to meet.

The world will never be in a hurry again. But ironically it’s in here where i find the strength needed for 2009, for the later years to come. I find comfort in knowing that life seemingly goes on and on and on. I strongly believe that if you don’t give up on life, it will never give up on you. And i know, deep down i do, that even if life ends, it’s but another challenge to face. Perhaps it just stops. Like the last page of the story, the full stop seemingly ending it all. And literally it does. But we know as readers, even as the words written tell us of that particular story, and even as we reached the final fullstop, our thoughts about that story still run. And if you pretend the universe as just but another reader, and our beliefs but the senses of it, our story, humanity’s story, goes on forever.

The questions of  ” What if? “, “Could be…” , “Maybe”, “Perhaps”and many more, live on like stars in the night sky; Twinkling for an answer, waiting for perhaps another creature who one day would look up and say, like we did, ” I can reach you one day.”

And for this , God would never blame it. For who should be punished to think of the world as only but a place where dreams exist. Isn’t this but the most allowing present from a most powerful?

It could only be in the minds, that such thoughts could persevere and flourish. Today we see the results of such pregnant minds in the beginning. And it would be in such minds, where we see our story always been preserved and even as time passed, for auld land syne, it would continue, a novel too long to even pen down in words, and a novel too sweet to bring to an end.

Who would do it?  No. Who could bear do it?

It is in the face 2009, where many know that the unforeseen and the unplanned would happen. It is a year where risks have to be taken, a year where a big difference could be make. A year when tides will change most likely for good. And reasons for which were always stood by on, would run amock amidst fields of newly created studies, and intelligence that becomes more and more beyond our reach and yet again, as time past and our progress flunctuates, such impossibilities could only poise as temptings offers of which we would buy up one day.

For me, 2009 will be a tremendously cherished affair. For it’s when every parent would see their child as becoming someone like them. In singapore, a boy who is becoming – finally- a man.

And it would be really ironical for someone, especially a singaporean male, to deny such a moment they claim to be a privilege, a much to talk about. For i will never be a man. I will always be that boy, climbing up the leader of Learning, trying my best to hold on to my beliefs- of which assures me that there’s defintely a Peter Pan in me, and a world not beyond reach.

I am but excited of what it is to come. My tummy is rumbling now, so i will end. I anticipate numerous challenges, some very unforgiving in their tests, and some willing to allow me to easily walk over and understand. And for every challenge, i am open to them. I am ready to be polished, to shed the skin that i was so unwilling to give up – My past, my loved, my pretence.

I try not to be too indulging in what had happened. I have to live for today now. I know that’s only way. In the book Letters To Sam, a book that a grandfather wrote for his autistic son, to pass on his knowledge and wisdom, i learned that i can not try to amend what had already been done, and i cannot try to save myself from hurting. I can never try to inject a medicine to stop that pain. That was a mistake that i never learnt off till i read that book. Time is the only way to heal the wound. And i do believe that. Memories will fade, turn fuzzy on the scenes which leaves us teary and wishful for the past, and mental wounds will patch up. It may never leave us, that i know. But like all warriors who walk into a battlefield, these wounds are what would identify them from a survivor and a hero to one who never walked out of that field.

And i hope that my scars, would prove to God i had a life to live for. And if i ever meet Death upon it’s curving scythe, i know i be proud of who i am, of what i done, of where i was hurt, and of my mental wounds of which i am sure he can see it. I be proud.

2009. I am going to live for everyday. No targets, no emotions to play from, no inventory of weapons to fight off unwanted people, just a plain hope and a huge want to live life as it is – Every single day.

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