iThink...thereFore, iAm

In my time in Imperial so far, i’ve had the priviledge of having a supervisor (albeit a secondary one) that is eager to go through each of my works with me. From data summary to poster making, he takes the time to sit down with each of the students he supervises and walks them through the parts to be corrected and the rationale behind it. I once offered for him to just leave comments on the document and i’ll get it done, without him having to spend so much time personally, but he replied “if i go through it properly with you then you’ll know what i’m thinking about it, and we can work it out together without having to do it so many times.”

Patience, and diligence.

It reminded me of a teacher not so long ago (hurhur) who took the time to take care of us, not just academically, but as individuals. As of now i’m not so sure if some of the things he did were calculated and intentional as they were subtle beyond imagination, but knowing him i find it hard to believe it was anything but. Even if it was, then that would mean it would have come naturally, which is even more commendable than the former option. It’s been over ten years, closer to fifteen, and still I remember his remarks of “being a man is not a thing of the brawn, the balls, or the brain, but of the heart” and how “I will address you as gentlemen because that is what i believe you will be, instead of boys”. He commanded respect, and on all fronts he earned it, much like my supervisor now.

This is not the first mention of him on my blog, and I think it will not be the last. But all the same, thank you Mr (or has your title changed since?) Alistair Chew, for teaching the class of 3.7 and 4.7 in the years 1998 and 1999, in ACS (I). You are part of the reason i still respect my school, and part of the reason why i still remember it and its Founders’ Day, along with your unmistakable shirt and tie combination and your perfectly illegible signature which we often joked about to you and you good-naturedly laughed along with us. You were a teacher back then, a gentleman once we knew you, a model thereafter, and now you are a friend - God bless you. :)

Again i think about the people who drifted out of my life.

Not the ones that did something against me, or i against them, which was effectively a step away from each other. Those i can understand, sad as some of them might be. More of the ones that we cared about each other platonically and then as life wore into our souls and got us busier, we drifted apart.

People whom we used to talk about everything together, we shared our problems and joys, we kept each other going and we hung out - we were there for each other. People whom i have had nothing but happy memories about (and it’s strange that they would suddenly hit me, as if a floodgate was opened in my brain. If only this could happen with the intellectual portion!) and i can even remember the last time we spoke, where it was and what it was about. Often times (as decorum dictates) it ended with us promising to catch up soon, once we could.

After a while it just died off and slowly we floated apart like two sailboats in a strange current. These are people whom we would think we’d grow old and our respective kids would play with each other, and we would be at each other’s weddings and share each other’s houses for fun and laughter. Right now I’m not able to picture any of these happening with those people, simply because we’ve grown so far apart.

Did we change? Who did? Who left? Was anyone left waiting or did we just find our own routes in life? Did we unknowingly (but realistically speaking) piss each other off one day and then we decided not to talk to each other for a while, but forgot to get back in touch? Were we really who we portrayed ourselves to be, or did the facade just grow tiring enough to stop and leave the company because we couldn’t be bothered anymore?

Sometimes i’m tempted to get back in touch with people, but then i wonder if they drifted out for a reason. Or if they even consider themselves drifted out. Or if they remember me - and i wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t. I’d like to know what happened though, because it can’t have just been a sudden loss of friendship without an event sparking it.

I guess that’s why they call it drifting apart.

Some people come into for a spell, but after a while they leave
Some people walk with you through hell, and they stick with you long as you breathe
Some people bring with them a chime, but the bell only tolls when they mourn
Some people stay only for a rhyme, and when you’re down they scorn
Some people look upon from afar, and protect you unappreciated
Some people stay close, keep their doors ajar, but to them you’re just a shield, bated
Some people keep hanging on to your feet, wanting you to pull them along
Some people tiptoe with you on their teeth, pushing you higher than some
Some people you’d like to have around, but they never seem free to be
Some people are always seen abound, but inwardly screaming “go away from me!”
Some people smile when they face you, but they sharpen a blade in the dark
Some people just stay aloof as they choose, yet they silently defend you masked
Some people enter your life for a lesson, yet it is not theirs to teach
Some people stay away for a very good reason, be thankful you’re not in their reach
Some people hold you close to them, but only because they benefit
Some people give to you unabashed, never asking for a receipt

Some people come, and some people go, and some people just hang around
But the ones that stay, through the highs and lows, are the ones you want to have now

“The ability of a material to absorb energy and plastically deform without fracturing. Material toughness is the amount of energy per volume that a material can absorb without rupturing. It is also defined as the resistance of fracture of a material when stressed.

Toughness requires a balance of strength and ductility.”

- Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toughness)

Being sick has its advantages. For example, if the illness incapacitates the body, the mind is often free to obsess about a great deal of other things like how much work there is to be done, the fact that things are not working well but one has no idea how to proceed, how miserable one’s situation is, and all the nonsense that has occurred in one’s past. Unfortunately, none of these are extremely productive.

Or so one would think.

I posted about a week ago about hardships and tough life - it came back to me today that even though there may not be a concrete lesson in each of them, other than the fact that some Marvel Heroes are more real than we think, there is something that we can glean about ourselves having looked back on it. I know this because today I found myself thinking that I would never had thought I would go through all the nonsense I did/do or maybe even will be.

And this just means one thing to me: I am both stronger and also more fragile than I think I am.

Paradoxical? Bear with me as I explain myself.

As I never thought I would have to experience being cheated on/being deceived and backstabbed by all the people I thought were friends/having to remove myself from my social circle and reconstruct a new one/being down and out at times/majorly f**king up some things and having to deal with the consequences (which was my own fault really, and I can’t complain about it except that I could have been smarter), I never quite prepared myself for that eventuality. At that time I naively thought that being in the situations that I would allow myself to be in I could have avoided such things, but unfortunately my hope in mankind at its peak had to be pushed back down to reality. I’ve had the experience of hitting rock bottom - academically, financially, emotionally, and to a much smaller extent physically (if being in a wheelchair counts). But I made it through, jaded as I might be, to be alive and well today. Yes there are scars, and yes some things will forever be embedded in my heart and mind, but I took all that shit, unprepared, and I’m alive.

I’m stronger than I thought I was.

At the same time I realize that it made me crash and burn pretty hard. At my lowest I was pretty much out of whack for a year - nothing could be done. Work stopped, play stopped, everything just hung there in stasis because the very thing I put my faith into collapsed completely, leaving me at the bottom of the Temple of Doom with no whip, no knife, no trusty sidekick and most importantly no brown fedora. Indiana Jones would have at least had his fedora. I was weaker than I thought because I was naive and lacked a safety net - I could have ended up like The Flying Graysons.

Toughness is built up in a material in many ways - forging, creating dislocations in the crystal to a small extent, alloying, subjected internal stresses on it, and so on. I may be wrong because I don’t quite remember my Materials modules anymore. But my point is that these little chinks in your life can be a weak point, or when used successfully and wisely, they can also make you way tougher.

But I’d still like my healing factor.

Sometimes we can’t quite explain what we’re feeling.

Take me for example. I may be a pessimist to say so, but generally I feel like I’ve had a rough track, though people may or may not agree. Then again, only I know what I’ve been through and what goes on behind the smile. Most of my friends find that I’m unbelievably jaded and some even think I was ignorant and silly to have gone through what I did. At one point of time I believed them. To quote a song, “I’ve been lonely, I’ve been cheated and I’ve been misunderstood. I’ve been washed up, I’ve been put down, and told I’m no good.” No shit, this all has happened to me, and more. I’m not going to list out exact instances and examples because firstly I don’t feel they deserve the focus of our energy, secondly I don’t want to start a trolling nitpicking session, and thirdly it’s my blog and I do what I want with it (I just had to add that in there). Now, looking back with a clearer vision, I see that it wasn’t my fault, which isn’t to say it was always someone else’s - sometimes crap just happens.

(Unfortunately, both situations happen frequently enough to me.)

I’ve had quite enough bullshit from people telling me to count my blessings and compare to the homeless and starving. The relative misery of another fellow human being should not make you feel better - only to do something about their situation if you can. I am partly skeptical and partly envious of people who can be happy just because of their faith - envious because I crave that joy and I know it exists, but skeptical because I also know the reality of life is that it is tough; it can even be a crock of shit at times. Or worse.

(Trust me you don’t really want to know what’s worse)

I don’t believe that life is meant to be smooth all the time - I just don’t understand why some of us have to have it feeling tougher than others. To the people who think I’m weak (or any others who feel the same way I do), up yours. Live our lives, and then we’ll talk.

That being said, I’m not unaware of what I have. I’ve got a good head on my shoulders, a good family, enough money to survive (though not enough to not worry about it, and of any one of you is generous enough to care please give it to someone who really needs it instead of me), and I’m healthy. I’ve got skills, smiles, songs and silliness. I have more than some people could dream. I have a Significant Other who has stuck with me even though I’m not the most romantic person.

Chances are, some of you people who are sad are like me; feeling like we have the short end of the stick, but no reason to feel so.

I’m not going to go into some existential quandary about how we were meant to have a greater glory - that’s for John Eldredge to tell you, bless his soul. I will, however, say that today I was reminded that I have reason to believe I am blessed in so many ways. Sure I have a tough time. I have things to worry about, and believe me there’s a lot. I have a great deal of important concerns to take care of, but each person has his or her worries and sometimes it’s good to look back at what we should treasure before you lose it from not watching over it.

I guess sometimes we really don’t have a reason to be upset about our lives. Stuff happens, and sometimes there’s no one to blame. But it takes strength of its own kind to admit that life is treating you like shit and grit our teeth and move on.

Just look at Wolverine. The dude’s got this nailed smack down.

These are your child(ren) speaking, or at least some of us.

We want you to know that we love you very very much, and we know the lengths you have gone to take care of us. Shuttling us around, sending us for classes (even the ones we didn’t want to take - hey, after a while we have to admit that they did us some good, even if it wasn’t the good that either of us intended to happen), seeing us through school, taking us on holidays, and basically seeing us grow up.

That’s the hard part isn’t it - seeing us grow up. Because then you have to admit that there comes a time where what you think and what you say and what you feel isn’t law anymore. We think for ourselves and we decide for ourselves, when we’re grown up enough. And i’m sorry to say this but sometimes none of us, not even ourselves, decide when we grow up. It just happens. Sure, it happens over a period of time, but it just happens all the same.

So there comes a time where you cannot hope to shove your opinions down our throat as if that is the way things are supposed to be, you cannot hope to use “i’m your mother/father” as a logical end and irrefutable argument to a debate, you cannot tell us what we want to be, and you simply cannot dictate our lives. We have to grow on our own.

We say this partly out of frustration, because we know we will always be your little girls and boys and you will want to take care of us, but it simply doesn’t work that way anymore. The things your parents did to keep you in line (which we all deeply appreciate) may not be applicable anymore - society has changed and we have changed along with it, whether we or you like it or not. How things happen now is going to be vastly different from how things happened in the past.

Which isn’t to say we don’t respect you or honour you - you deserve more than just that out of a commandment. We do, or at least most of us do, with all our hearts. But all we ask is to live our own lives, make our own decisions. You can give us your input, but it’s nice also to hear a concluding reminder that we make the final choice. It’s even better to hear that you will support us in whatever way you can, no matter which choice we make. We know sometimes that will be hard, especially when you don’t approve. We know saying this might one day come back to bite us in our asses when we have our own children, but the principle is clear - the children one day have to grow up and live their/our own lives. One day we will have to decide on our own, and we need to live the life we were meant to live, not one that you fashion for us.

It sucks to hear that you feel disrepected because we want to be independent. It sucks for you to call us ungrateful when what we want, when being able to make decisions for ourselves, isn’t what you want for us. It sucks to be called a prodigal when all we wanted was some unconditional help within your means. It sucks the most to know that if we fall while we make our own choices you will leave us to get up on our own even when we need help - please don’t ever do that to us, and as we learn and have children of our own, we will never do that to our children.

Being a parent is a thankless job. We know. If we don’t know it now then we will, eventually. Forgive us - remember that you have a good 20-plus years of life ahead of us, and don’t expect us to operate in your generation, at your capabilities and at your level. Each generation has its own, just as you had yours.

Love us for what we are, what we hope to be. Discipline us and mold us if you will, but do it lovingly so that we don’t hate you and we learn the lessons properly. Yes, being a parent is a thankless job, but we ask you to be a parent to us - also so that we know how to be parents to our children and perhaps experience the same thanklessness you do now.

For that, we will be thankful.

We love you mom and dad. Don’t give up on us.

Sincerely,
Your children

Because we don’t notice it when it’s there, but only when it’s gone.

Because we don’t motivate and reinforce positive behaviour, and wish we did after it’s been taken from us.

Because it happens so often we think it’s going to happen anyway, until it doesn’t.

Because we’ve gotten used to it being there that it no longer catches out attention, until it’s gone.

Because we don’t thank others for the small things, but feel negatively when the small things are absent.

Because we think about our cost when it’s gone, but don’t appreciate the cost of another when it’s constantly there.

Because we can only see what we see and feel, and often miss out what goes on in another’s life or mind.

Because we assume or expect that’s the way things are supposed to be, until we realize that it takes an effort to get them done or it came at someone else’s cost.

How to not take things for granted? For every thing that was given to you, give one right back. Understand the giver’s position. Reciprocate. Make things clear - what you expect, what you want, what you need, what you desire. Talk things out. Try to never forget the small things - it was just a straw that broke the camel’s back. Use the thought “that’s the way it’s supposed to be” to alert you to something that you might be missing out giving thanks for. Use your expectations to warn you of something that you might just be taking for granted. Remember that what you think is supposed to be the right thing isn’t necessarily always right - you and I aren’t always right, and it can only benefit us to hear another opinion to refine our own.

Remember we are all imperfect.

“…I try to be my best.”

Echo, Dollhouse

…think about that special someone else.

Just for that moment, put aside all of your own thoughts. You may see things one way, but you must also remember that a lot of your information is based on your own experience and another person’s information on your experience and processes are limited because they don’t share the same life or the same brain. 80% of your information comes from simply being there and having done that - and very very very few people will share that amount of knowledge. What seems logical to you may not seem very logical to another person - and what is illogical to you could make perfect sense to another, no matter how close you two are.

Think about his or her feelings, thoughts, perspectives and preferences. Put yourself squarely in their shoes, as much as you can - you’ll never be 100% there, but try nonetheless. Remember what they like or what they don’t, regardless of whether it’s logical or not. Dig up not just what you know about the person but what other people know about him or her as well - friends are important observers to have when you need this info. Don’t just think about how you think that person should feel about something - think about how he or she really feels about something. Once again, detatch yourself from yourself and put yourself as much as you can in the other persons’ shoes; ask, if you need to; communication is by far the most important and the most neglected feature in any relationship.

To top that off, don’t just think about what happens when you do something - run through your day and think what didn’t I do? Sometimes the things we miss out are the things that hold the importance.

Don’t wait for the person to ask you - the most important things simply lose their value when they are asked for. Sometimes it’s the smallest things like making yourself available at a certain time, or waking up to answer messages, or staying up late to call, or even simply telling what’s going on or what will be going on. Regardless whether you’re a guy or girl, your special someone will always want to made felt important - and it’s not what matters to you that makes them feel important, it’s what matters to them. Yes, what matters to you is and should also be important to them, but without catering what matters to them, one person is going to be starved.

In order for a relationship between two people to be calm and strong and peaceful, you both must provide the basis for that. It does not automatically reach that stage where both of you understand each other inside out and can be secure about each other inside out - you have to build that security in the other person. “Love is hard work” - and it has always meant to be hard work, which doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it.

Something that doesn’t matter to you or you don’t think it seems important isn’t always unimportant. It’s not up to you to decide what should and shouldn’t make them happy - they have been made in a certain way, brought up a certain way, and are a certain way and you can’t change that. But you can decide whether you want to make them happy by paying attention to what you think is just small stuff - if it really doesn’t matter then why not just do it (or don’t do it, as the case may be) anyway? Something simple to you might be something so important to the other person. You may find it at best an unreasonable inconvenience but the other person might find it a heartbreak.

And if it does matter and things clash, then talk it out. Everything can be resolved between two mature parties.

They always say don’t sweat the small stuff - but at the end of the day it’s always the small stuff that you’ll fight over; because it may have been small to you, but it wasn’t small to someone else.

…never making the other person feel threatened.

…never taking lightly what the other person takes seriously.

…does not use another’s words for own selfish advantages.

…gives a reason to trust.

…always makes one care, even if one didn’t before.

…bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, but never makes another endure.

…never imposes these things on another but only on self.

…not blind, but knows what to see.

…thinks little of itself, and always more of another.

“And now these three remain - faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love.”