When we were 16, we use to sit together as a group in class to talk about our future. The question as simple as it is, could be a very important question to think about.
‘ How do you see yourself 10 years from now?’
We have dreams, we imagined about our roads, we wondered where we’ll end up, we wondered about the time we’ll get married, the days when we grow old, college life, career life, or maybe a twisted journey or an uncharted road.
That was 16. Now I’m 19.
I still had not gave up on that 4 year old, nor that 11 year old, or that 16 year old. Those of my art friends had also chartered the road close to mine, choosing architecture, fashion design or graphic design. I remembered one of them said, ” What if one day we end up as a Creative Director?”
‘Waaaa…that sounds so cool!!’ I don’t even know what a Creative Director is.
I talk a lot about Pixar back then. But the more expose I am to various companies. My inclination keeps on shifting. Who knows, I might even trash all my ambitions and do something else.
I remembered Ian, Chin and I said before we want to become pastors!
But pastors can’t reach out personally to people in companies and the workforce.
A mother has not slept for three days and nights watching over her sick child. When she closes her eyes for just a moment, Death comes and takes her child. The mother rushes into the street and asks a woman, who is Night, which way Death went.
“Death walks faster than the wind and never returns what he has taken.”
“Tell me which way he went and I will find him!”
Night tells her to go into the forest, but first the mother must sing every lullaby that she has ever sung for her child. In the forest a thorn bush tells her which way to continue, but only after she has warmed the bush by pressing it to her chest, causing her to bleed. The mother then reaches a lake that carries her across in exchange for her eyes, which she cries out.
The now blind mother reaches the greenhouse where Death cares for the flowers and trees, each one a human life. Here the mother finds the little sick plant that is her child, recognizing it by the sound of its heartbeat. The old woman who helps care for the greenhouse tells her, in exchange for her hair, that when Death comes, she must threaten to rip up the other flowers. Death will then be afraid for he must answer to God; Only God decides when the plants are pulled up and planted in the garden of Paradise, where we do not know what happens.
Death comes carrying the child and when he asks the mother how she could have gotten there before him, she answers, “I am a mother.” She threatens to rip out two of the flowers, but when Death asks her if she would make two other mothers as unhappy as she is, she immediately lets go.
Death gives her back her eyes and asks her to look into a well. Here she sees two futures of two children, one full of happiness and love, the other full of misery and despair. He says that one of these futures would be the future of her child, were it to live.
Then the mother screams in fear, “Which is my child! Rather carry my child into God’s kingdom than allow it to suffer such a life.”
Death says, “I do not understand. Do you want your child back or should I carry it away into the unknown?”
And the mother wrings her hands, gets down on her knees, and prays to God:
“Do not listen to me when I ask against your will! Do not listen to me, do not listen to me, do not listen to me!”
And Death leaves, carrying her child into the unknown land.
My dad shown me something that I wished he shown me a long time ago.
For the past few years, he had been setting some time apart to search for his long lost relatives in China. For more than 50 years, he had never made contact with anyone of them. He did not know where they live, who they are, or had any way to get in contact with them. It was by sheer luck that our relatives got in contact with us through someone else. Luck, as in, one in a million. Like fate, destiny, or path. Long story.
The ‘温’ family lineage would be long gone in Malaysia, thanks to our family. No sons to carry the name. My dad shown me an old document of names of our past ancestors in China. It was seriously on a big wower for me. I didn’t know the family has actually kept a historical documentation of our lineage that was, pretty precise. Suddenly I feel so, uh, Chinese? Like a revelation of my father’s past.
If I’m really lazy to find out the meaning myself, I’m gonna get someone to do the translation for me. I never thought there was actually real proof of documentation of the whole family tree. All I heard on my ancestors was through word of mouth. Whether truth or half truth, I wouldn’t know. The documents even list down the centuries, dating back to, I don’t know, the 5th century? 500 BC? Nuts. Xiao. But yes. From what my dad told me was that our ancestors were scholars in service to the king. Not warriors or traders. Thats why we are more, studious? There is a story to it. Legend or truth, I don’t know. But nice to hear. haha.
There’s also tons of old letters my dad kept that my late grandmother wrote back to China. She didn’t exactly wrote it. There was a letterman who helps lliterate immigrants write to their families back in China. Now to think of it, our high school sejarah textbooks makes facts so cold. You forget that these people have a family, they have a home, they have ties, they have to detach from it to find a better living. Both sides were in poverty. Both sides had to work their way out of poverty…
By the next generation our kids might be oblivious about the past. The lineage is dying. The only thing I can do is to keep the documents in tact and tell the future generation of their ancestors and roots. I usually tell myself, I’m not the most Chinese person in the world. But today, I found I had a proper root back in China, where else another lies in Sawarak.
It was either the cats milk we bought him or the tuna or whatever. My dad say the cat would probably be 2 weeks old. Without it’s mother it would not had survived.
But the mother didn’t want him. Thanks to the kids who touch the kitten. That’s what happens when the cat doesn’t recognize the kitten’s smell anymore.
It SUCKS watching him grasp for his last breath at the morning.
A lot of times I question on how people lead their lives. I find it very contradictory that people say they believe in this, but also belief in something else. I think it’s wrong to say that you believe in Christ, yet you practice Feng Shui, your read and believe in astrology, and you learn face reading. A lot of my uncle and aunties does that. And I was influence by a few of them during my early teens. I learn and study many things in detailed – astrology, both Western and Chinese, Palmistry, Siang Mien, numerology, a little bit of Feng Shui. And thankfully, I learned so much about it that I realize that it’s not accurate, hard to depend on, contradictory, and basically – partial truths which makes them a lie.
Given to choose a position, I can be very against this new age ideology. I would rather encouraged people not to practise it. Because the more older I get, the more I realize that we are generally very hypocritical in how we conduct our daily dos in contrast of what we believe in.
Yes, throughout my time here in TOA I have been thinking a lot about the terminology of ’success’ itself. I could say that I was once heavily influenced by many of this ’success’ talks, the power of visualization, law of attraction, bla bla bla. Even philosophy itself can give us that tint of enlightment that makes us want to strive and achieve for the greater good. But it would never fulfill that empty heart that can only be filled by Jesus.
Success, to a Chinaman, in general, could mean prosperity, wealth, fortune, power and fame. Like I said before, I’m not the most chinese person on the planet. As Christians, were not meant to be tigers, dragons or lions. We’re meant to be sheep. HAHA!! imagine that! Sheep? Ok, maybe Christians would understand but I think everyone else would laugh. Yea, but God shames the wise with fools, correct?
Am I getting preachy here? Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. Perhaps it’s about time I told myself, it is better not to want so much. At one time, I wanted to become a concept artist so badly, I wanted to be able to start my own animation company, I wanted to do this and that. But when I think more and more about it, I was overly consumed by my own desires to decide on the course of my future. It was like a carrot dangling in front of a donkey. But now to think about it, perhaps it would be fine with me to throw away a dream, if God calls me to do something else – which, at times I really don’t know. It’s still better off to have affirmation from God rather than carry on doubt with myself throughout my lifetime.
Right now I’m still slowly pacing myself to learn something new everyday. We sang songs of worship in church – ‘not my will, but your will be done’. How much of difficulty do we go through to leave by it?
The neighbours had left it at their house to go back for Raya. Giving it solid biscuits that he can’t even bite or swallow. The kitty climb over to our fence to get towards Rocky. I think it thinks Rocky is his mother. aharhar…
It extremely tiny. And bony, and fragile, and stinky. Had to wipe him to get rid of some of the smell. We’ll take care of him until the neighbours get back.
It was only today that I finally took a torchlight to shine through my mouth to check the condition of my gums. ( I pull out my wisdom tooth last Wednesday). Man, the dentist really drill my gums apart! I could see the ripping flesh stitched together by black threads which looks like smashed up olives. Compared to the last time I took out my left wisdom tooth, this one really hurt badly when the anesthetic wore off.
I know many people despise dental surgeries or even visiting the dentist. But I think I’m one of those weird people. I like visiting the dentist because she’s extremely nice and motherly. ( What a lame reason!) But for that reason, she always makes me glad to see her. Some people just have that sorta aura in them. haha. And yea, I’m not afraid of surgeries. Thanks to anesthetics. And because I had a tumour surgery which made the doctor sliced open one long line of skin at the back of my ear, and sew it back with 36++ stitches. The experience was something. I enjoyed being around my schoolmates and friends in the hospital rather than being in class… But alas! I still hate hospitals.
So what have I been up to the whole week? Nothing unusual. Been using my brain a lot. Couldn’t sleep yesterday and I don’t know why. My brain just won’t shut. The more I tell it to rest the more it stimulates thoughts. Now my sleeping schedule has totally been haywired since I started taking evening naps again.
So I guess the question is, “what have I been thinking about?” or why does my brain keep on stimulating thoughts?
1. The human body. I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at it and understanding it. After so many months of figures and life drawing last year I realize I still fall short in understanding the fundamentals of the human form. Collected a collection of very strong photography of the human form which is visually, very breathtaking. I told myself last holiday that I’m not going to put so much so on my assignments but rather, focus on learning stuff on my own.
2. Disney. I wish there would be an Old Disney Renaissance. Quite shock when I heard Disney bought Marvel for 4 Billion. Given my decision today to whether or not I would want to work under Disney I would say no. Somehow entertainment has paint itself to just suit the demands of the audience, rather than go to the borders of being timeless.
3. Where to go, what to do, how much to dream, how far to run… I keep changing my mind every week on my likes and dislikes, a lot of times questioning myself about the road I’m taking, trying to be as honest to myself as possible. I don’t think a career should just be a career, nor a job is just a job. Everything we do is an involvement of our minds, hearts, spirit, body and soul. If one of it is not there chances are you feel there is something missing in you. I kinda ask God that question on certain weeks. Half the time I’ll be wondering what is missing in me, half the time I’m confuse, half the time I don’t know whether I’m going the right way, half the time I just loooovvvee to keep a lot of my personal reflections and thoughts to myself. Half the time my mind is always elsewhere, thinking of a million thoughts.
4. Observing people. Particularly old grandmas and grandpas. I was in Esquire Kitchen with my family today. Spending a lot of time stealing long glances at the senior staff, she should be around 60 -70. She caught me glancing at her and asked me whether I wanted tea. Er… took a while for me to reply. Am I suppose to say what I was thinking? “No maam, I was just observing every single line and crease and the wrinkle skin the falls and crinkles on your face. Oh don’t worry! I find it very beautiful.” aha.
In many ways, I really like to keep a lot of my thoughts to myself. Because in many ways, I don’t think people would understand so much and so what goes through my brain. (I don’t even understand myself). I might tell you something but I don’t tell you everything.
