Modern Life is Rubbish

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage and kindness… The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” ~ Howard Zinn.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Untitled revisited

Every now and then, my memory keeps going back to the final moments before i learned of my father's death. i have to accept the reality that the loss can't be changed by comforting myself in the knowledge that if life is eternal, there is perhaps a meaning to his passing.

Since our lives in this world is characterized mostly by confusion and ignorance, Godel believed that our existence in this world is merely a preparation for something more meaningful.

Whether there is truth in that belief, the answer lies with him to find and is not for me to know. And i believed that there is also a meaning, for those who has to go on living in this world, to find for themselves when a loved one has moved on. The meaning may differ for each of us but if we search deep within ourselves, we will find it. If not now perhaps someday.

In this age of confusion, where much of the world still measure the value of a person's life by how much material possession he has or how high his/her social standing, my father is a "nobody".

He doesn't have much money or material possession. He doesn't have many friends at his old age, and only one friend came to his funeral. He did not leave any of his material possession for me to keep as a memento, or even a single word of advice or encouragement to keep as a lasting memory. He came to this world with nothing and he left with nothing, for his family nor the world. It is as if he did not came to this world at all. But he did came here, and he is real. To me and my family at least. And he will lived on as long as i lived on.

If eternity is a moment untouched by the hands of time, and fate has brought us together for this brief moment in our lives, i will forever remember and cherish our time together in this world.

May he be at peace with himself.

The Gifts of Grief

Dedicated to Wong Kok Seng (30.06.1942 ~ 28.10.2016), who has come and gone from this world and made a difference... to me.

Sunday, August 7, 2016

Untitled

Attributed to Paulo Coelho, "The Alchemist"
"Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal." ~ Eckhart Tolle.
"Adopting... an ontological point of view, we pose the question: where do we come from? (And where are we going?) That babies come from the womb is a familiar biological fact concerning our early bodies, but it is of no help with the present question. I thus lay down my... alarming proposition: We don't really know where we (as babies) came from.