Blogging is paramount because it creates an outlet to the world. And ironically I am now using not even my own connection, but someone else’s router, to the net. At least I still have a voice here.
I know most of you out there reading this column would hardly want to revisit my life and see the things I’ve done and whatnot. Sometimes it’s just a matter of me trying to remind myself about the good things that have happened. So here are some good dates. 16th February, Wednesday, was phenomenal, because of the presence of great music, tunes, and the ability to hear harmonics on the piano while playing some tune, namely ‘Fields of Gold’ the Eva Cassidy way. And then so Saturday 12th March 2005 was also rather brilliant. It started off with a hearing-in-the-mind of ‘Autumn’, accompanied by much prayer to get the delicate rhythm right. It was at such a languid tempo, slower than 60 bpm, that the verse is somehow too draggy. I still haven’t found a way of solving this mismatch. Hmm. Camp was fine. What was fun was the going-out-shopping cum dinner with tim, Jeremy and ben later on, meeting quek and joel after that. It was the usual heightened interaction coupled by my renewed sense of confidence in myself. I was finally able to actually communicate with tim for a while without all of us having ego problems. It could be me, or him, but anyway it was good. The band at indochine was lacklustre although the car ride home was pretty fun. Quiet time, though, was really good. I committed my life to God and said that I’ll serve Him foremost, and learning to have faith and believe strongly that things will be better in the future and He can do anything. I was focusing on John Bevere’s book ‘Undercover’, and the closing chapter included the parable of the mustard seed, and the power that faith could bring to our lives, manifested in obedience. I mean I’ve been down with cynicism for a very long time, being in the army and whatnot, and kept believing that my life had seen already its glory days back then in JC and Secondary School and this is now a preclude to the horrors of working life, but I realized that it’s not so. The ironic thing about Christianity is that it runs totally contrary to the world’s logic. I mean, as I grow in the Lord, things will be much better, I’m sure. And having seek God first, He also provided me that very day with music, and suddenly the delicate lilt and contouring melody of ‘Autumn’ surfaced again, once in the rush of prayer and later on while thinking back to it. And amazingly enough when I wanted to see what key it was in, the last note (so) was exactly the first note I played, which was the Eb (hence the key in my mind was Ab major). I mean I shouldn’t value songs so much but ‘Autumn’ had a special place in my collection of songs. There will definitely be better songs, there already have been, but ‘Autumn’ was the first real song.

Note: I write to amuse myself.

Back to the serious business.

On happiness

I find myself reeling between moments of euphoria and long drawn-out periods of stagnation and depression. For me I am scared of allowing happiness to last, maybe because I want to crystallize that moment in time, and freeze it, and label it as ‘happy’, and then afterward revert back to sadness, so that the period of happiness becomes even more magnified. What I don’t realize, of course, is that I’ll have to experience that sadness at the same time, which is quite a hefty price to pay for those moments. Perhaps I’m too scared of allowing myself to be happy all the time until the day comes when nothing will make me happy anymore. One has to fluctuate, one always does, because the mind is incapable of going beyond a certain limit, and no one knows where that limit is. Only God can provide that lush and abundant ‘more than life’ itself, and that’s what I yearn sometimes. It’s the only thing that can break the cycle.

On Experiences.

The trend of youth nowadays is to seek after experiences as though they were shopping for clothes. Buy, and then continue to shop, never to cease. Thus we chase high after high, not quite knowing when these highs will end, always needing something better than the current state of high for us to believe that it was a good night out. It is understandable that everyone wants to seek after pleasure, being the selfish people we are. I wonder, though, if there is anything concrete and lasting that we can take to the future from such chasing after pleasure. I wonder if the more sober ideals of love and hope will be more relevant. It is wonderful to have the bliss of pleasure in romantic love, less so, though, to love someone unrequitedly for a long long time, or to love someone who is decidedly ugly and unattractive. Who will do those things nowadays? Where are the movies that celebrate unrequited love as something noble, and not something to be laughed at? Gone, gone, gone. Everything is about instant gratification. But somehow, the more instant it is, the less cherished it is. No one cherishes a quick fling at a club. It’s too easy, almost too convenient. but the relationship that concretizes itself in marriage reaches a newer, deeper level of commitment, trust, and love, because it is a result of sacrifice. The movie ‘Closer’ emphasized it brilliantly. Those characters loved, but it was a selfish love based on physical intimacy. Was it just lust? Was it love? I wouldn’t know, but I didn’t think it was love. As far as I know, love doesn’t behave that way. I’ve seen my friends ‘platonically’ love other friends for a long long time without them actually responding in return, or even putting them in their hearts. But they continued anyway. Did their affections switch out of anger once their decision was made known? I doubt it.

I am still trying to think. It is rather difficult, some say almost impossible, in the army. But still I must carry on, if I am to prevent these raging hormones getting the better of me. It’s the army, after all.