Little Memories

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I think young, carefree, childhood innocence is such a precious thing.

At 19 going 20, there are so many things I've experienced and learnt that are enough to make me feel all the negativity usually associated with being all grown up - and there are still many more years of new experiences to go.

I close my eyes and try to recollect the memories as a child.

The world was much bigger then (and still is, but less surprising than it was before), and because we had no sense of limits, we did everything without having to worry about performance. We thoroughly enjoyed activities we related closely with - being able to play a certain sport, to draw art we proudly showed our parents, to relish the friendships we had so much so we couldn't bear to return home after school each day. To adore an older sister or brother, or a teacher and aspire to be like them. To happily proclaim who we wanted to be in future, and imagine ourselves then living a life full of hope and joy. Death and loss was something we felt no sense of gravity with, because we were all very much loved and protected by the adults around us. We could smile and laugh easily - cry and get mad as honestly.

And then we grew up.

We met people who are better at the sport we love, who drew pictures that were more beautiful, who were somehow more popular and attractive - and we learnt envy and shame, holding back and trying to fit in. We learnt how to deceive, and developed different sides of ourselves to protect that child within. Later on, we start to desire solitude because we are afraid of losing ourselves with people. Maybe that older sister or brother or teacher had disappointed our expectations along the way, and we learnt how to be upset and pessimistic. Instead of that simple yet strong ambition we used to have as a child, we are now lost because we have learnt our limits, and have to consider the more realistic details like income, security etc. (Try explaining this to your younger self and they'd probably yawn and ignore you). Having experienced death and loss, we become depressed and start to wonder about the meaning of living and learn fear. Now, we look at ourselves in the mirror or in pictures, and start to scrutinize our smiles because we care about appearances, and we start to vent our emotions in unhealthy ways like gossip and social media, getting nothing solved.

But we also learnt how precious our childhood was, and strive to protect our children's now.

I thought of this as I looked at pictures from the past on Facebook - how I used to love drawing so much my mom would buy sketchbook after sketchbook for me because I filled up all the pages so quickly (and I still have them now), and how I was not only happy from admiration my friends had for this hobby of mine, but also the fact that I had something to be absorbed in. I look at pictures of myself with friends in school, most of whom I had already lost contact with, and remember the fun we had. I adored several adults in my life, some of whom I became disappointed with as I grew. I remember having said I wanted to be a pediatrician, and talked about being doctors with a friend who also wanted to be a doctor (Berlin - in fact, he has gone on to fulfill his dream and is studying medicine now!), drawing little stickman comics in my diary about becoming one. Then I realized I didn't have an aptitude for science and went on to study humanities instead. I think back on depressing entries I wrote about life. I laughed at the way I used to smile - from a carefree, but funny honest smile to one that was obviously an attempt to minimize any unflattering shots.

I want my child if I do have one in future, and all children, to live the best they can not in terms of academics or performance, but with fearless experimenting and exploration, and honest pride and hope. At least when they grow up and start to learn negativity, they have memories to look back at and no regrets for their childhood.

Restart

http://www.zerochan.net/322605  

It's been ages since I last wrote!

And I expect I'll probably write less from now. Writing, as I've mentioned time and time again, is - or was - my way of coping with reality. It was my oxygen mask, my drug...it was what I clung onto. To grab a hold of the ideas and thoughts swimming around in my consciousness and immortalize them in words for an imaginary audience. An eager audience who would receive my words of so-called wisdom and be drawn into my world, attracted to my mind with a voracious appetite for more clues that would unravel the complicated mystery of my own self. But it was mostly me humoring myself prancing about a lit stage in the midst of an empty theatre, pretending to feel at ease with the world. I was someone confident, deadly, sentimental, practical...different...special. I was having the time of my life being all of those in this universe of little tidy black characters sitting neatly in horizontal bunches.

But recently I've found something that could be much more.

I made the decision last week to commit myself to God. I had never imagined that I would, at least that soon. At this moment the flashing indicator on my draft pauses as I hesitate to think what to type next. I start to have flashbacks to the times where I was being cynical, questioning the purpose of religious faith in a higher being whom I cannot perceive with my senses. I think about the times when I was being unnecessarily anal about telling others how "I was born into a Christian family - but technically I'm not one because I'm not saved yet" whenever I was asked about my religious views. I recall moments when I silently scoffed at the people who were being all "holy" and overly-immersed in the whole spiritual affair, doubting their credibility. And at the end, I was just trying to find my way to the light. The light which I felt was a surrender of my own self-absorbed pride to Christianity.

I am afraid of departing from something I've relied so heavily on for years. Of course, I'm not swearing off writing for good, but I expect that with a new purpose and outlook on my life now I would have no particular need to use my blog and my diary as platforms to vent on mercilessly. In many ways I'm still the same, but I feel different too. It's sort of exciting to be able to restart and try to live my life differently now. I feel a sense of calm, yet a sort of silent happiness as I walk a winding path with autumn colors towards an end point.

Fernweh

http://cloudfront.zekkei-japan.jp/images/spots/aflo_JLIA003099.jpg

Fernweh - a German word referring to the feeling of homesickness for a place you have never been to.

How does one feel homesick for a place they have never been to? It could be that they've spent a considerable amount of time second-handedly experiencing the place through pictures, narratives etc...and start to build a personal sanctum inside fashioned in the likeness of that place to retreat to when times get tough. When that place becomes increasingly ingrained in your consciousness, you begin to long for it in reality as well. To actually be there, to experience it with your own senses, and to most importantly assure yourself that dreams and reality aren't that separate after all. After a while, longing becomes a sort of desperation as if you're struggling for air. You start to absorb pictures and other materials almost feverishly as attempts to stave off the desire to reach that place. And in the process, it mistakenly becomes home since going to that place seems more like returning to it, more like giving yourself relief.

My personal sanctum is not a single place, but a world all to myself. A world sewn together with different places that I would travel to easily.

In one place, I walk a golden yellow-carpeted wide road between rows of trees with light filtering through the autumn leaves alone almost like the one above in Showa Kinen Koen. At the end of the road would be a little wooden lodgehouse with a cosy fireplace, wooden shelves filled with books, a tidy  kitchen and pantry with fresh groceries, a cupboard with a collection of all sorts of tea in neat little jars, fresh flowers in a vase on a side table, blue curtains flapping in the wind...

In another, I'm walking along green mountain ridges overlooking a vast ocean with azure skies overhead. I'll sit at the edge and watch the horizon where the waters stretch endlessly towards as I feel the breeze on my face. This looks like Matengai in Shimane, and like Gran Pulse in FFXIII!

http://res.cloudinary.com/pashadelic/image/upload/cs_srgb,c_limit,h_1550,w_1550/f9lwenxvlgle2hz8pprn.jpg

And in yet another place in this world, I'll be treading through snow piling as high as above my ankles, watching as my breath forms cloudy wisps as I exhale. The world here would be pristine white all over and the skies would be a clear blue. I'll walk on and on alone, drinking in the quiet yet majestic view around me. Then it would start to snow and I'd stop and stare at the white bits floating down for a while, before slowly making my way back to my little wooden house where I'll sit near the window with a cup of hot tea and a book, keeping warm by the cosy fireplace.

http://img.travel.rakuten.co.jp/m17n/com/campaign/hokkaido/201412/img/top/8.jpg

This is how part of my sanctum would look like, if I could create it in reality. A world where I am the only person enjoying the beauty of nature exclusively. It won't be mine, still, but it doesn't belong to anybody else too.

However in reality, home is still where your loved ones are, beyond just places and locations.

Idle Minds

Echoes rent the air sharply with every step I took as I approached the corridor. I stopped. Before me were numerous identical doors - I had to pass through one of them.

But which? I may not be able to retreat immediately, should I enter the wrong one. With every passing second, the doors seemed to blend and merge into a continuous wall.

There is no time, choose. I could feel someone's gaze on my back, but tempted as I was, I do not turn.

I willed my feet to move again, towards the door my instincts singled out. Reaching out, I place my trembling palms on its wooden surface, and inhaled deeply with shaking breath.

This is it. I could hear throbbing in my ears from the palpitations of my heart. The door gave an extended creak as it revealed a glimpse of what was lying in wait for me, and I took a step forward.

There it was - unmoving, filling up almost half of the space.

I sighed with relief and smiled. This cubicle is clean. :)


Haha it's post semester 1! And now that all the projects and exams are over, I've quite a bit of time to just slack and waste my life away...for this month, that is.

When my mind is not fixated on a task, or worrying about the pains of reality like work performance, future plans, etc.,  it tends to wander into escapades in my imagination, or come up with trash such as the brief passage you just read above. And it isn't too difficult, or doesn't take much for my mind to do all that - most of my thoughts and ideas are stimulated by what my senses pick from around me.

For example, I was in the public toilet at Jems yesterday and became conscious of the actions and mind process that would probably be experienced by a female (I'm sorry to say I'm not well-versed in the affairs of the opposite gender) when she pays a timely visit to the loo. If the toilet is not crowded, females have the leisure of going through and picking the cubicle she fancies most to rest her derriere on. However the real horror comes when there is a line in the toilet and you're waiting for your turn. As you wait, you try to guess which cubicle fate assigns you to, and perhaps you cross your fingers hoping the person before you using the same cubicle doesn't leave behind some bizarre artwork as a warped gesture of welcome, or parting gift...whichever you interpret it to be. On the other hand, the relief from "getting" a cubicle that is clean while seemingly insignificant is one of the best things that could happen to make your day. (Okay I may have exaggerated a little.) Hence, inspired by the public toilet at Jems yesterday, I wrote the passage above!

Idle minds are the devil's workshop. I wonder if this constitutes being idle in the mind.

Fleeting, Flickering

How often does an average human think about death?

To wonder about when and how it will come, inevitably. To ponder about whether things like souls, heaven, hell or reincarnation exist. To worry about whether in your absence would the world be any different, even in the slightest. And finally, to realise how very much alive we are in the present, and many other discoveries that would haunt you for a long time before life pulls you back into its distracting frenzy and makes you forget about how very insignificant and temporary our existence is in this grand scheme of the universe and time.

These past three days as I sat among tables of relatives both close and distant watching my cousins perform funeral rituals at my uncle's funeral, I've been thinking about death. One of the first things I do after arriving at a funeral is to go and spend a few minutes looking at the deceased lying in his coffin. It's a little difficult for many to approach the coffin and look down into that glass window upon the face of someone whom they've seen moving around, talking, breathing and being very much alive. As you gaze upon his face, you start to think about how he'd never open those eyes again, and become conscious of his absence from this world, from now on. And then you find that there's this queer lump forming in your throat, because the reality that he has already departed and can no longer be in contact in any way possible starts to sink in rather painfully.

I watched as the faces of family members, nephews, nieces, grandchildren become contorted with grief, and become overwhelmed with sorrow and loss. The face that affected me most of all was my grandmother. For which mother would want to see her own son depart before she does? To see her own flesh and blood grow from a crying infant into a fully grown man with his own family until his shrivelled, sickly state on his deathbed?

Death is a subject that chills me to the core. It seems so final, and relentless. It feels like a great, heavy door that shuts tightly between those left behind on this world and those who have departed. It's even more unsettling that no one knows or even has a vague clue about what is beyond that door - we only have our assumptions. Some day too, my turn would come where my life would be extinguished quietly, and all that would be left is nothing more but a shell.

This Time of the Year, Again.

Lately I've been writing a lot more frequently than before, which is evidence that there's been a lot going through my mind. Apart from a couple of close friends I hold dear and my family members, I don't really talk much about my feelings or initiate a discussion unless it's about something my own perception is inadequate to make sense of. Other than that, I find a quiet and passive sense of comfort in putting my feelings into words on a new draft or on the blank pages of my diary. I am able to make the intangible, insecure and formless ideas and thoughts in my mind into something visible and real, as if I've broken a sort of spell that binds me in an internal chaos.

It's close approaching my favourite time of the year. It's the onset of autumn, and the nearing of Christmas. My eyes linger on pictures of the autumn scenery elsewhere as I scroll through Instagram, fervently wishing I could see them for myself soon. Streets in town and shopping malls start to put out those Christmas lights and decorations that illuminate the night, creating such a gentle and warm atmosphere. I like to gaze at the golden-yellow lights that line the roofs of a mall my family car often drives past. I've always looked forward to this time of the year - it's such a fitting way to decelerate and end another year's worth of experiences both good and bad.

Even though these are festive periods I always look forward to, it's this time of the year that melancholy hits me hardest as I reflect on what has happened in the passing year. As I admire the red, orange and yellow of autumn landscapes, there is a bittersweet pain inside as I give a long empty sigh at the fleeting beauty. When I walk past Christmas lights and decorations in the midst of crowds of friends, families, couples enjoying and immersing themselves in the mood, I smile to myself and think "How nice" and realise that I'm looking at a scene I secretly long to belong to.

I remember as a child, this time of the year signified something vastly different than what it is to me now. I had always looked forward to Christmas with innocent, simple yet overwhelming anticipation as every year I would run in my new dress with children my age during a game of catch, darting through the adults who would be standing around, eating and talking to one another. Sometimes I would be stopped by an aunt or uncle, older sister or brother midway through the chase to be presented with a small but neatly wrapped Christmas present and a pat on the head as I thanked them properly before running off again. Following that, us children would later be caught by our parents who brought us along from house to house as Christmas carols were sung, cake was served, and everyone had a great night.

When I look at how much my perception of this time of the year has changed, I realise how much time has passed, how much I've grown and how despite things seem different now, Christmas still retains its magical element for me inside. No matter how much I may change, or how much the world might change, there are still constants - and one of them would be this time of the year, every year.

About People

Humans.

They are social beings who interact. Through contact we make reality, which sometimes may not even be real or make sense at all as hours of a good time spent are swallowed up in an instant and all that's left is a memory. When we look someone in the eyes, or tap them on the shoulder, or call them by a name, our sense of belonging - or even existence is justified.

Sometimes people embrace each other; sometimes they fight one another. Sometimes we love someone or some place so badly we wish for certain death to rid us of the unbearable longing inside; sometimes loneliness makes the same death inviting as a form of escape. Sometimes we want to be able to cry tears of joy and hear hearty laughter that permeates the night sky; sometimes we squint our eyes tightly shut and cover our ears in a futile attempt to rid ourselves of even sensing human contact.

I'm not someone who is good with human contact.

I could feign a bright smile and make myself laugh in social situations. I don't have to, but there's an automatic switch in me that tells me the social world is like a stage and I ought to play my part. I know I don't like deceiving others, but that voice in me assures me it's just going to be temporary - that these people are soon going to make an exit out of my life anyway so why not just keep up the act without having to feel guilty? Besides, I'm sure almost everyone out there wears a facade as well and I can't be the only one. In fact, if one is too honest, that person would most likely be exploited or shunned.

This is how I view human contact. This is the truth. There is no need to paint an unnecessary picture of pleasantry and earnestness.

Even though my cheeks may hurt, even though my smile vanishes almost instantly after someone says goodbye and walks away from my sight, I still continue. I'll still put on a show for as long as I still see the same people. After gradually moving from one level to the next, I start on a new sheet of paper - the people from before has become history. I've been so used to such a mindset that I get uncomfortable and increasingly defensive when people don't leave my life when they should.

It gets tiring to have to be pleasant all the time because most of the time people don't really care enough to want to listen to your problems on top of their own. Probably because I seldom willingly tell others about my problems that many of the people in my life before tended to pour out theirs to me. And when I find myself thinking "Ah, how troublesome." or "There she goes again." I realise that maybe this is what others would think if I did the same, which makes me more determined than ever to find other ways to vent my frustration or think of a rational way to solve the problem on my own without having to rely on others.

I felt that this way of thinking could make me emotionally stronger and independent, that when others are lamenting and beating themselves down during tribulations I would emerge unscathed, undying and victorious in my own way. Yet I've also come to realise that this is part of the reason why I'm always so distant from human contact.

To be human is to experience joy, sorrow, pain, frustration. To be a social being is to share all of these emotions. If I keep them to myself on the pretext of being strong, that would mean I do not need others. And when there is no need for a listening ear, an encouraging pat on the back, a consoling hug, or someone to call your name to break your attention away from suffering by yourself, then you are essentially choosing to be by yourself. You cannot blame circumstances for this. You reap what you sow.

Sometimes I ask myself - what am I afraid of through just weakening my defences just a little to allow others into my life. Of being hurt, betrayed or cheated to the extent of never ever letting others in again? Of compromising supposed strength for exposing my weakness to others and being subject to their actions? Of possibly being too happy only to be hurt even more when such joy is taken away later? Or of losing my current state of mind at this very moment, of losing rationality, or even my warped sense of superiority that I'm in better control of my feelings than most other people?

People, who cleave onto one another for contact, for justification, for themselves. We sometimes seem quite a pathetic bunch don't we?