Category Archives: Introspections

The Place I Long To Be

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It has been like 10 years since I last heard Kingston Town by UB40. I heard it again yesterday night after little J called it in early. The song did not bring back a lot of memories. But somehow it captivated me again. Like a little boy that is certain he has met the love of his life.

I was in anticipation of a difficult Monday morning. Skeletons in the closet from predecessors came back to haunt us at work. And Monday morning was another round of showdown after lots of threatening and taunting. And I now need to face them. Perhaps that is why the reggae was calming. I was on the maroon rug, my back against the sofa, feeling blank, with the song on repeat.

I decided it was about time I give myself time to think and contemplate again. I moved myself back into the bedroom. Work has taken me so far away from myself that it is about time I reeled myself back in again. I need this. I need this with S asleep recovering from her bout of flu, J asleep perpendicular between S and I, the humidifier humming away in the background, the electric blanket keeping winter away. I need this moment of silence after many months of drifting.

I could hear myself thinking after I put on the earphones with Kingston Town on repeat like before, but thinking no more about work. I went off in many different directions like two horses pulling at different directions without the charioteer. I reeled myself back in again many times but the horses persevered. I gave up.

I adjusted little J and I tried to sleep with Kingston Town still playing through the earphones. The night eventually took over and I dozed off. But I remember two further thoughts before I fell asleep.

I thought about getting a retreat. It need not be up a mountain or deep in the jungle. I will just try to spend nights alone in a separate room trying to pick fragments of myself up during the long break of Chinese New Year. I should.

I thought about myself, walking into a dark temple. In the middle of the temple was a candle, or an oil lamp. I walked towards it and lighted it. The temple was still dim from that small source of light, but it will be a start. Perhaps the small little flame will stoke a fire bright enough to light the journey ahead.

I fell asleep with UB40 still singing the catchy reggae tune through the earphones. Funny how certain songs at the right place and right time can throw us off on a tangent into a reverie, looking for a place I long to be, where the moonlight lingers on.

 

A Fool Waiting For Fools

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The rain won’t be coming again anymore. Not today. Maybe tomorrow, but probably not today. It has been a wet couple of days. It even rained three times in a single day a couple of days back – morning, afternoon, evening.

He stood at the balcony observing that the rain had cleared the sky. Lights on buildings seem to be clearer. The rain may have cleared his thoughts too. Or perhaps it is because he could not hold his thoughts. There were too many to concentrate on a particular one.

Problems seem to be trivial on a night like this. They seem to be like specks of light in the dark sky. They are like stars – bright and trying to catch his attention – but it won’t even fill a small corner of the universe when grouped together.

He realized his thoughts are like the stars, and he just stared into the horizon, beyond the outline of the concrete towers littering the skyline. He breathed a heavy sigh and wondered when will it all be over. And then he remembered the story of a wise, wise man told to him long, long ago.

There was this wise, wise man and he sat, and sat, and sat under a tree thinking, and thinking, and thinking. It doesn’t matter whether it rained or snowed, or day turned to night, he sat, and sat, and sat under that tree thinking, and thinking, and thinking. After many, many years, he suddenly found the answer to his problems. It is at that very moment that he felt as if the doors of heaven opened to him, like liberation before him, like chains unbound, like a big, big sweet chocolate cake waiting only to be consumed. But he is a kind, kind man. He wanted to wait for every single being to come to the same realization as him before he enters the door, experiences the liberation, drop the chains and taste the big, big sweet chocolate cake. He is a compassionate man.

He smiled a bit, still standing at the balcony, because he believes that man is a plain, old stupid fool to wait, because we are plain and simply incorrigible. He recalled that day when he burst out laughing on a particular evening at Costa Coffee near his workplace. He had just left work, bought a coffee and sat down outdoors. There were all kinds of people – kids skating with their parents around, evening drawing old aunts and uncles out, songs making people dance in a crowd, dogs taking their owners out on a stroll.

With minimal outdoor seating, people just walked up and took the Costa Coffee outdoor chairs away from his table without asking and sat down without buying a coffee even if it is meant only for paying customers. He saw dogs peeing everywhere and their owners thinking that is just fine because it is not their home. Parents were telling their kids to skate better because they had bought the gears and paid for the classes. He saw a man parked his motorcycle right next to the main entrance of the mall even though parking was not allowed. For a split second, he realized the people around him were like stars – loud and trying to catch the attention of others around – but they won’t even fill a star in the vast expanse of the universe when grouped together.

He laughed. He realized he is one of the people there – one of the fools. Suddenly, he laughed harder. He realized there is a bigger fool – and he is waiting for him.

Unpredictability and Elastic Time

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Shanghai, China.

The weather has been unpredictable lately. It was only last week when Super Typhoon Muifa was suppose to hit Shanghai directly. I bought a Medio Coffee Cooler from Costa Coffee when the Shop Manager told me that they had kept all the outdoor tables and chairs in anticipation of the typhoon, predicted to reach Shanghai in a couple of hours. Heaven must have favoured Shanghai (and most of China) as the super typhoon was downgraded to typhoon, before eventually ending up a tropical storm as it bypassed Shanghai altogether and headed northwards into Shangdong Province.

Shanghai, China. Again.

Situations at home have been unpredictable lately. It was only more than a month ago that I was bitten by an unknown, but highly venomous, bug. I was downstairs with my Dad when I realized the sting. It was a sharp sting. But born and bred in the tropics, I assumed that no insect was as dangerous as those found there. At the very least, we have the commonly found Aedes mosquito and such, which can really kill. The itch and rash started spreading and I tried to relieve the itch with a warm shower only to find that it had gotten worse. Within half an hour of the bite, I collapsed at the porch waiting for the taxi to take me to the hospital. But fate must have favoured me as I found the rash slowly subsiding as the corticosteroid dripped slowly into my blood stream.

Shanghai, China. Where else?

J’s health has been unpredictable lately. It was slightly more than a month ago when her cousin was here and they were happily being kids. And both being kids, they played together, ate together and did almost everything together. And both got sick together too. And it all started with J playing doctor with her cousin. She insisted in using her toy stethoscope, bug him, play diagnosis and medicate him. She was eventually so sick that it became one of those rare occasions we took her to a hospital. She resisted so strongly that it was more painful for us to see her struggling than it was for her to be sick. But nature must favour her genes as she recovered soon enough and returned to her usual self although it took a while for her ulcer to recover and one more trip to the hospital after that..

Didn’t wiser people say that time waits for no one?

I have only 168 hours a week, with more than a quarter of it (45 hours) official working hours. Left with only 123, the time needed to prepare myself in the morning (say, about an hour) and extra hours put in at the office (on average about 2 hours per day) leave me with only 108 hours. I’ll be left with 52 hours if I put in decent 8 hours of sleep per day. Since I need to take dinner and shower at night (1.5 hours, if I’m efficient), I will still have 41.5 hours. Giving S and J 1.5 hours each per day, I’ll have 20.5 hours remaining. If I take 1.5 hours a day for some personal time, there are 10 hours remaining in a week, and that’s less than 1.5 hours a day. But I guess time must favour us for I seem to still have time to deal with the unpredictability in life.

Time, it seems (physicist will assure you), is elastic. And I guess I can safely say I have experienced that elasticity myself. All I need to do now is stretch it longer and make time wait for me whilst I deal with the unpredictability in life.

Half Empty or Half Full?

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It is so overstated that even kids can quote it. The fact is that the phrase “half full or half empty” does not really mean much. For most of my life, I thought I saw this like a beacon of wisdom. It is as if it is the epitome of Zen.

It is not.

You see, life is never a balance. Most of the time (almost an infinite portion of it), it is not half full or half empty. Half is just one point in the infinite scale between empty and full. And life never rests on that one point. So it doesn’t matter whether it is half full or half empty.

If I continue to find ways and means to prepare myself to face issues in life, then I guess it will always be trying to lie to myself that life is half full, even when it is not.

Life is full of issues, yes, but they are actually challenges. Not problems. Not headaches. They are challenges.

And then it comes full circle. Again.

Life is half full.

Journey to the End and Back

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Everything has an end. It doesn’t really matter what, but everything has its lifespan. When I collapsed and didn’t really know what to expect or what would happen next, that’s when the most important thing surfaced.

I was bitten by an unknown bug, started to have this reaction all over that started to itch, and got worse after I tried to shower the itch away. Within half an hour I was at the porch, waiting for the taxi to arrive and collapsed.

The most important person was next to me, and when I was travelling to the emergency ward of Huashan Hospital with her next to me, it was all I wanted. I gave her a few instructions, told her to make the decisions on my behalf if I’m not longer capable of it. My breathing was getting heavier, and I perhaps went in and out of consciousness. I thought of only two persons during the ride to the hospital – S and J.

It has been almost a month since that freak incident.  But something seems to have changed me. If it is the allergen left inside me, I hope I’ll overcome it soon so that I may go back to normal before the end arrives.

Or perhaps it is only now that I’ve become normal.