"No, I won't go away. I won't leave you in this state."
"What state, this isn't a state, this is how I am, I want to be alone, don't you understand? Alone, alone, alone, alone, alone!"
"To do what, then?"
"Nothing! To do nothing, nothing at all!"
"Then write! Or make a collage, a movie, a song, do something with all that, at least it'll have been some use."
"You're driving me crazy with your enthusiasm, you always see the good side of things, I don't have a good side, that's what you can't seem to grasp. I want to be alone, to wait for nothing, hope for nothing, sleep eat hibernate, not to think, not to reflect, play Super Mario world on my computer, read old Elle magazines, novels I know by heart, keep underlining the same sentences, watch tv, drink milk, eat bread dipped in tea, and dance, dance by myself because I can't in front of others, not to cry, not to laugh, to get massaged, to be carressed, without reciprocating, inert, as inert as possible under the fngers of the masseuse who I pay for the luxury, snore, fall asleep!"
- An excerpt from "Nothing Serious" by Justine Levy
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Taken at Ann Siang Hill, Singapore
Today was one of those near-perfect days.
Brina (although she hates being called that ;)) and I decided to get up early on a Saturday morning and spend the day out and about with our DSLRs.
After breakfast at the famous Ah Tong coffeeshop on Keong Saik Road, we wandered from Chinatown to Ann Siang Hill to Amoy Street to Boat Quay to Esplanade to City Hall. We just kept walking and walking, armed with a printed map and a spirit of adventure, and thank God for the great weather!
My highlight of the day was discovering Books Actually, the kind of bookstore where you want to buy everything that on the shelves and wished you worked in or ran a place like this. We must have spend at least an hour inside, and I succumbed and bought the deluxe edition of Kafka's The Metamorphosis and Other Stories.
The funniest thing happened today- we were heading towards Cavenegh Bridge along the Singapore River when his well-dressed Indian guy comes up to us and starts nattering away. Turned out he wanted a video with us on his mobile, and asked that we each say a few lines about Singapore. He was on holiday from Bangalore, and amused, we complied.
He started by saying something like, "Hey guys, right now I'm really tired but I'm here with two beautiful local girls, I've never seen anyone like them before. You know my name, I'm popular, and here is T like the Indian star, and Brina..." and he went on for ages like he was filming his own chatshow! I had a flashback of the time we found instant stardom in Mahabalipuram. ;)
View the slideshow of photos taken today here.
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If you are thinking of making some adjustments in your life to allow you to help change the world, my heartfelt recommendation is not to spend too much time thinking about it. Just dive in.
I know that all kinds of practical considerations make this advice difficult to embrace. There might be student loans to be repaid, the need for advice from friends and family, and the desire to write a serious business plan. I am not saying that you should not do any of these things- just that you should not spend too much time on them or you will lose momentum.
The biggest risk is that a lot of people will try to talk you out of pursuing your dream. The world has too many people who are happy to discuss why something might not work, and too few people who will cheer you on and say, "I'm there for you." The moretime you spend navel-gazing, the longer time you give those negative gravitational forces to keep you in their tether.
...
Sometimes,it's really important to move with all deliberate speed. If there is something out there that you want to do to make the world a better place, don't focus on the obstacles. Don't ask for permission. Just dive in. Don't let the naysayers get you down.
My mum tells me that I was born a bookworm.
While other kids played with action figures, trading cards and dolls, I used to sit in a corner with my head buried in a book. My favourites as a child were Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl. I would ask my mum for permission to go out with the girl who lived above us, and our trips involved spending the afternoon at the library picking out new books and then grabbing an ice-cream cone before heading home.
I know the amazing opportunities I have had thus far are a result of the education I have received, and who I am today is largely shaped by the hundreds of books I have read in my life.
When we were travelling around Southeast Asia, E and I picked up copies of Stay Another Day, a booklet that informs tourists about organizations that give back to the local communities and we made it a point to visit some of them, so that we could make a small difference when we were there.
So we went to orphanages that ran schools, dined at cafes that gave youngsters a chance to gain some practical skills, bought fair-trade products, went on a eco-tourism trek and visited hilltribe villages. But the place that impressed me the most was Big Brother Mouse, a non-profit organization that aimed at promoting literacy in Laos, and for kids to enjoy reading. More than just having people donate random used books that were irrelevant to the Lao culture, they began to write and publish stories in their native tongue and hired local artists to illustrate.
E and I went down to their centre in Luang Prabang and bought 4 sets of bilingual books, and on our trek to the villages we donated 1 set to each school that we were visiting. Some schools had empty bookshelves made of rotting wood, and if they did have books, the titles and contents were pathetically outdated. It was a very small gesture from us, but you should have seen the way the children's eyes lit up at the bundle of 10 books that were presented to their teachers. It made me wish we had bought a lot more.
I have talked about going to teach in Thailand, Cambodia or Laos for the longest time. But I keep shelving my plans because I've been thinking only about myself, but I know in my heart that I will have to go back someday and contribute in a more tangible way and for a longer period of time.
Who knows, after I finish my post-graduate in Education, I might find some way to give back to the world what has been given me.
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I'm not understanding.
"Like Herb and herb," says Douglas, "or Polish and polish."
"I never knew that," my father says.
"Good for you, Douglas," says Grandpa.
It's true. That's a damn good fact. I decide I better try to match my eleven year-old cousin. I search my mental file for some English language trivia.
"Did you know, in Old English, the gh in the word 'light' was not silent? And in some areas of Scotland, they still pronounce it licht."
No one seems particularly blown away by my brichtness.
"Also, there's something called miranyms," continues Douglas, unfazed "That's the word in between two opposites."
The adults around the table are confused.
"Like when you have 'convex' and 'concave', the miranym is 'flat'," says Douglas patiently.
"Or with 'hot' and 'cold', the miranym is 'room temperature'," continues Douglas.
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- An excerpt from "Life is Elsewhere" by Milan Kundera
It's not that I don't miss you. To the contrary.
From the hand-me-down Canon 300D we've taken thousands of photos with, to the mini wooden statues we received as omiyage (souvenir) in Hokkaido, to the silk shawl from the Landmine museum in Cambodia, to the propaganda art prints we got in Ho Chi Minh city, to the sunnies we bought in that dingy Sungei Wang mall in KL, to the stack of books we handpicked in India, to the sleek external hard disk you fixed up for me in Singapore, to the bumble bee on the header of my blog from our favourite Bollywood film - you're everything and everywhere I see.
There is part of me that wants an answer
A part of me that doesn't wanna know
A part of you that I am in love with
And the part that I'm willing to let go
There is a delicate unravelling
Now and then I find pieces on the floor
Tiny little bits that tell me
Well, maybe I shouldn't take this
Or love you anymore
But the right thing to do is to move on and keep looking forward, even though every iota of my heart tells me to hold on and believe in us.
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- An excerpt from "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert
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She looked at it, shocked, eyeing me with such gratitude that I was ashamed. She bowed. Voice trembling, she mumbled, "Thank-you-very-much-Uncle, thank-you-very-much."
And she seemed to want to say something else but didn't. And I wanted to say something, but couldn't. In that moment, she seemed awfully old. I felt terribly young. She jammed the bills into a pocket on her shirt where she held the baby. She hurried away, a lightness in her step. From acros the street, she turned, waved bye, and smiled.
Abruptly, the easing of tension I had felt as I gave her the money vanished. It was only my selfish conscience. I stood there sickened for her, gasping at her tragedy and my part in it. Oh, child. What have they done to you? What have I done? Her parents will send her back here again and again on the off chance of a windfall like today's. Oh, God. Why is she here? This beautiful child. What is her birth-fortune?"
Where do you go when life takes you nowhere?
You pack your bags and travel to half a dozen cities, not quite sure what you're looking for. The constant moving around, the constant adapting to new environments leave you worn out. But still you keep a keen eye on your surroundings, trying as much as you can to soak up the sights, sounds and smell of the strange places you find yourself in. In the end, you learn so much more about people, about the world beyond your own, about a separate reality in which you could be living in but am not, and the incongruity of society often leaves you feeling powerless and overwhelmed.
And now to figure out what I should do with the rest of my life.
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- An excerpt from "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri
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"There was a gradual reconquering of the self, new habits were created and a Chloe-less identity built up. My identity had for so long been forged around 'us' that to return to the 'I' involved an almost complete reinvention of myself.
It took a long time for the hundreds of associations that Chloe and I had accumulated together to fade. I had to live with my sofa for months before the image of her lying on it in her dressing-gown was replaced by another image, the image of a friend reading a book on it, or of my coat lying across it. I had to walk through Islington on numberless occasions before I could forget that Islington was not simply Chloe's district, but a useful place to shop or have dinner.
I had to revisit almost every physical location, rewrite over every topic of conversation, replay every song and every activity that she and I had shared in order to reconquer them for the present, in order to defuse their associations. But gradually I forgot."
- An excerpt from "Essays in Love" by Alain De Botton
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"Very simple," Bibe answered."A novel. About the world as I see it."
"A novel?" asked Banaka disapprovingly.
Bibi corrected herself evasively: "It won't necessarily be a novel."
"Just think about what a novel is, " said Banaka. "About the multitude of different characters. Are you trying to make us believe that you know all about them? That you know what they look like, what they think, how they're dressed, the kind of family they come from? Admit it, you're not interested in any of that!"
"That's right," Bibi acknowledged. "I'm not."
"You know," said Banaka, "the novel is the fruit of a human illusion. The illusion of the power to understand others. But what do we know of one another?"
"Nothing," said Bibi.
"All anyone can do," said Banaka "is give a report on oneself. Anything else is an abuse of power. Anything else is a lie."
Bibi agreed enthusiastically: "That's true! That's absolutely true! I don't really want to write a novel! I didn't make myself clear. I want to do just what you said, write about myself. Give a report on my life. But I don't want to hide that my life is absolutely ordinary, normal, and that I've never experienced anything special."
Banaka smiled: "That's not important! Looked at from the outside, I've never experienced anything special either."
"Yes," cried Bibi, "that's right! Looked at from the outside, I haven't experienced anything. Looked at from the outside! But I have a feeling that my experience inside is worth writing about and could be interesting to everybody."
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"First, I spoke in a monotone. I could not be excited and could not be upset. I was a visitor from elsewhere, Russia maybe, and found everything amusing, interesting, but only slightly and even then, solely from an anthropological standpoint. I was not sullen; I was predictable. I walked at a normal human pace. I rode my bicycle at an optimum speed, a practical speed, without standing up on the pedals, because to do so would imply urgency. At school events I would clap when others would clap but I would not cheer or yell. My phone calls were brief and to the point. I set the receiver down gently; I walked the stairs not quickly, not slowly; I brushed my teeth for fifteen minutes because that was what my dentist, who I admit now was not sane, suggested; I kept my head level because tilting seemed to imply too much interest; I did not pass gas or pick my nose; I washed myself thoroughly in the morning and at night. I thought of the least emotional walk I could engineer, and decided that it required minimal arm movement and long even strides."
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Having a baby made you pyschotic with exhaustion and self-doubt. Professional success could make you delirious with insomnia and anxiety. Living abroad rendered you lonely and infantilized. And no matter what road you took, you still had to brush your teeth every morning, pay your bills, do your damn laundry, worry about taxes, check your breasts for cancer, argue with your loved ones. Nobody, after all, it seemed, was exempt from banality.
"Those bastards," Desa and I laughed over the phone. "What happened to all those perfect 'happily every afters' they promised us?"
Moments of pure bliss were often accidental. Getting something you'd consciously worked toward, on the other hand, was often far more emotionally complicated. Fulfilling an ambition was an experience that could oscilliate wildly between terror and exhilaration, helplessness and fulfillment, anxiety and mind-numbing boredom.
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"Yeah, I know. It's a long way to come."
Komura nodded, then turned to survey his surroundings. "Funny," he said, "sitting here like this, it doesn't feel as if I've come all that far."
"Because you flew. Those planes are too damn fast. Your mind can't keep up with your body."
"You may be right."
"Did you want to make such a long trip?"
"I guess so," Komura said.
"Because your wife left?"
He nodded.
"No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself," Shimao said.
Komura was staring at the sugar bowl on the table as she spoke, but then he raised his eyes to hers.
"It's true," he said. "No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself. It's like your shadow. It follows you everywhere."
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