Wednesday, July 19, 2006

We stop learning how to feel (or maybe we have never really learned). We stop knowing what to feel. Life for me now has taken a jarring jagged turn of ambivalence, where everything turns simply, far too simply, into anger and fear and tiredness. These three emotions alternates as whimsically as the erratic moods of the weather. Three is enough to juggle with. The pain these three gives will not kill a person. One commonly hears the relatively hackneyed saying, "What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger." Surely, it must apply in a situation such as this, if the validity of it is not contested. They're not the three nasty witches with warnings and bewitching spells. They're not the three blind mice. Haha. Maybe they should be. It's easier to blame and strangle with your two bare hands something that is very visible and tangible.

Everything begins, and everything ends, in dust. The only thing we can change, is the process. The process is what we are in, always spinning in changing directions, in such a state of turbulence, within the gush of the temperamental sea. We could lose our minds, our spirits, before we lose our bodies to some helpless tortuous contortion. But do have hope. Have hope. When you hit rock bottom of a sea of such a nature, the only direction you can go, is up, up into the azure blue colour of the eternal sky, soaring as high and as free as the birds we watch with such enviable eyes.

"Love; I hope we get old,
I hope we can find a way of seeing it all.
Love; I hope we can be,
I hope I can find a way of letting you see
That I'm so easy to please, so easy
."


- Easy To Please by Coldplay.

It's true you know. I don't think people realize this- the fact that people, being people, are generally very easy to please. Everybody just wants a little more kindness, concern, love, support, affection, and praise. Actually I think I might have said this before. But honestly, what harm is there in giving a little bit more? What exactly do you stand to lose in giving that little bit more? How much effort do you really have to take? A diminutive second of your life? The ounce of strength it'll take for your tongue to roll out an effortlessly positive word? The light enforcement of the muscles in your hand to give a gentle pat on the back? I think the effort it is required of you to be nice is precisely the same effort you release to be disagreeable.

Life in Singapore is too frenetic, selfish and pragmatic. As the Great and Cute singer John Mayer once sang in the song, 'Something's Missing', "How come everything I think I need always comes with batteries?" We're becoming a bit like Hong Kong now. The streets are always jam-packed with people, like sardines in a can, moving in the same direction, looking busy and distracted, ears and mouths and brains connected to the black and white wires of their mp3 players and handphones. You will always get in their way. You will always be moving against the current of busy no-nonsense people. You will always get stares that glares and screams, "Whacha looking at huh? Get a life!" We know this. We complain about it, day in, day out. We say "Life sucks", "This sucks", "That really sucks", "Shit lar", "What the hell". Even nice and friendly 'Reader's Digest' tells us, "Wake up people. You're one of the most impolite countries in the world." But we're not really doing anything about it, are we?

Maybe if we took a that tiny second to do something meaningful for someone else, maybe if we took that tiny second to realize that our world doesn't just consist of us and us alone, but a whole entire civilisation, we will not only make life more lovely for that person, but we will make life more lovely for ourselves as well. I know this whole thing sounds absolutely cheesy and idealistic, but people have feelings. I daresay most people appreciate those who love them and actually show it. After all, meanings without actions are rendered into useless insignificant nothingness. But if this is really common sense and basic knowledge, why do we withold the things we truly feel and really want to say? Why do those who mean so much to us get neglected and pushed aside? Surely we can spare enough time for a quick sms or even a little chat on the internet? Do these people really mean so little to us that even pride, shyness or work obtains a far greater level of importance?

I'm not just talking about your closest friends or family members. I'm talking about the people you socialize and interact with on a daily basis. Yes, they might not mean much to you or mean anything to you at all, but surely they deserve more tact and good will than what you have been dishing out to them without considerable thought? For example, the act of messaging somebody or talking on the phone with somebody while engaging in minor chit chat with your friends. It makes them feel like you don't really care about them. It makes them feel like they're not worth your time. Or being very warm and caring to one individual and then abruptly switching your tone to a more distant and detached one when talking to another individual within the same circle. You immediately draw the line between who's in and who's out. Wrong? Right? Harmless? Whatever it is, I think that in this world that we live in, where people are always hungry for something bigger and better, we would all appreciate just a little crumb more of sincerity and love.

The biggest irony of all is that most people would find it easier to utter an insult rather than a compliment.

I'm tired and I don't really know if I'm sounding coherent at all, but pictures should be coming your way soon if all goes well on Racial Harmony day. Tehehe... :D

5 comments:

Damon said...

I hope Racial Harmony day has nothing to do with wearing saris and colourful costumes. It'd be too happy looking for a depressive maniac like me.

siti* said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
siti* said...

you know, it's sad but what you've just written is just so heart-wrenchingly true. God. we human beings are really funny things. so heartless at times and yet so full of emotion at others. we want others to feel what we're feeling instead of actually relaying clearly what's in our hearts- hoping, praying, wishing that others would read our minds instead. i dunno. maybe there's the possibility of embarrassment or shame or some form of our own dignity being lost when we reveal our true emotions. perhaps it's how most of us were being taught growing up, that it is better to be 'strong' than to lose yourself in a blubber of emotions and tears- but what if at some point of time you can't? that you just can't help but share this little part of yourself, hoping to lift this burden, to not be afraid anymore, to know that you're not alone? it seems so damn simple but God-knows-why, it's so damn hard for so many of us to do.

perhaps only the strongest of us would be the ones who are brave enough to reveal our own weaknesses.



+
"We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something"

-said by Don Cheadle's character in Crash

Phoenix said...

Do you actually sound like a lecturer or is it just me?:P

kiddin..i love what u write, and quite agree...love is so fast disappearing it is becoming hard to blieve i am humans till

Faith said...

Siti, I love that quote from 'Crash'!