Tell me what you want to hear
Something that will light those ears
Sick of all the insincere
I’m gonna give all my secrets away
This time, don’t need another perfect lie
Don’t care if critics ever jump in line
I’m gonna give all my secrets away

Secrets ~ One Republic

Secrets has to be truly one of my favourite songs of all time. I honestly don’t know why is that. Maybe it’s the violin backdrop which lends it an element of freshness a lot of songs didn’t have then and it stood out. The lyrical genius that is Ryan Tedder is also at his finest in this one.

The last line in the chorus, ‘I’m gonna give all my secrets away’ has to be one of the scariest things to say. How can one fully give all their secrets away?  Can we ever really? In an interview Stephen Colbert did with Charlie Rose, Charlie Rose started off by saying this:

“Lonely is nothing I’ve ever known. You could be alone but never lonely. When I’m alone, I find it a joyful time. At the same time, I’m anxious to be with people, with friends and sharing experiences,”

“You don’t want to just need ‘I need Charlie Rose time’?

“I do. That’s what I mean. I don’t mind being alone.”

“But you’re never lonely?”

“Never lonely.”

“Wow.”

After a slight interruption by the audience, Stephen proceeded with the following reply:

“I’m a very lonely person.”

“Are you really?”

“I do get lonely sometimes.”

“You feel depressed? You feel sad?”

“To be a human being is to be alone, I mean I have an awareness of my inability at times to connect with other people because I can’t say exactly what I mean. The inability to fully love another person is a form of loneliness”

“Are you incapable of fully loving another person?”

“I don’t know how to fully love another person because there’s always some part of me that I’m not sharing. There’s always some part of me I don’t know how to open up and give to another person. Even with the people I love the most.”

Just read over this again, ‘The inability to fully love another person is a form of loneliness,’. That’s some hard hitting stuff right there. The ‘some part of us’ can never share are our secrets. We know and feel it every time we talk to people. We can feel that we are not entirely there because only a part of us is connecting emotionally with the person. If our friends and family know our inner deepest stories, we feel more at ease to love the person. It is only when our hearts has revealed everything from its core and vice versa, only then can we fully love someone.

We have secrets because we are ashamed of our sins and mistakes. Some of us may have them because we are afraid of what will happen when other people know them. We are afraid of being judged and looked upon unkindly. I have them. You have them. The worst secrets though, are the ones that we keep from ourselves.

We don’t want to accept our past and our lingering questions. In a way, we are not fully capable of loving ourselves too because we are always running away from who we are. I think only when we accept ourselves for who we truly are, can we fully love other people too.

I should know because I struggle with that too.

The sharing of our secrets is a little like peeling of an onion. An onion consist of many layers and with each layer shed, we begin to see its true skin. With each layer shed, the tears may come along with it but so does the grace of healing.

Secrets. A conundrum, a mystery, a sense of intrigue, a sense of insincerity but more importantly, it is the very thing that stands between us and love.

Hello there. It’s been a while dear reader. I apologise sincerely for not posting any sooner. Since the turn of the year, I have felt creatively exhausted for some reason. Maybe it’s just a manifestation of my inner tiredness as well. Maybe I’ve just been lazy. Maybe, just maybe, I don’t know what else to write to you dear reader that I haven’t already written. But then again, that’s just a maybe.

I realised I haven’t updated you at all in regards to my life. I recently found a full time job! Well, it is more ‘four months’ recent. I’ve been working in the aviation industry and that has taken up a majority of my time. I go to work early in the morning and I come back from work feeling both physically and mentally fatigued, which I figure is what everyone goes through. My sister goes through it. My father went through it. My friends are living it. Nevertheless, four months on, I find it has been immensely fruitful despite the hectic schedules at times.

A few weeks ago, the schedule eased up and my boss wanted to appreciate our recent efforts at the office and invited us to a lovely barbecue at his house. As I was busy working the past few weeks and putting some overtime shifts, it felt good to have a relaxing Thursday. After the barbecue ended, I had a choice to go back to my home and sleep but instead I asked my colleague to drop me off near my former university. I don’t know why I did exactly that but I did it anyway. I decided to visit my old working place which was the Catholic Chaplaincy at university and secretly hoped that my former colleague was there. Indeed, she was! How happy was I to see her and we caught up with each other. Without realising, I started telling her my experiences with my engineering job and how I sometimes find myself not putting enough time aside for my faith and God.

I told them that I haven’t attended any Catholic events recently and I feel I should be doing more. One of them said, “You don’t have to. You’ve been finding time for prayer. You’ve been going to daily mass. Sometimes, you go through periods where quiet and personal time is more needed than going to events. You’re growing in a different way.” I took that advice to heart.

After catching up with them, I visited a good friend of mine who is doing PhD at the moment. He’s one of the treasures in my life and I always tell him that he got me through uni because he actually did. He never hesitates to help me when I have questions and even when I don’t always do the same likewise, he still makes himself available. I went to see him and greeted him Happy Chinese New Year. We stayed outside his office and talked for a bit. We had a good time reminiscing about some of our years together and I also met a new friend of his. He told me that he wasn’t sure if he is able to do well in his PhD and that he needs help.  I told him, “Arthur is one of the best guys I know. You have him here. He will always help you. Don’t worry.”

After all of that, I went to say a little prayer at a church in the city and just spend some time there. I then called up my sister and asked her if she wanted to have dinner because we both haven’t eaten a meal together in a while. I told her it was my treat. She asked, “Why?” I said, “Why not?” We had a good dinner and managed to have very interesting and meaningful conversations. I don’t tell her often enough but I love her with all my heart.

You the dear reader must ponder why am I recapping this day in particular with you. To be honest, I could have picked any day to recap and I would have easily found so many things to be grateful for. I picked this day because I felt it was an epitome of what a priest said to me once as he quoted St. Mary McKillop, “Gratitude is the memory of the heart.”

He once asked me, “Why did you go back to your hometown during the holidays?” I didn’t really give him an answer and so he pushed on again, “You still haven’t told me why you went back,”

I said, “Well, it’s been a long time since I went back. I grew up there. It is the reason I am who I am. The people in my hometown shaped and influenced me to be a better person. I wanted to go back to see my friends, my parents’ friends and just to remember what it is like to be there again,”

He then responded, “People usually go back to their past to seek answers about their future. I can see that you are very thankful and that’s good for gratitude is the memory of the heart.”

On that Thursday, it was my heart that pointed me to where I needed to go. It pointed me to the advice from my former colleague. It pointed me to my friend who helped me through university. It pointed me towards my sister. It pointed me towards answers I didn’t even realise I needed. It pointed me towards remembering how great life is.

For everything that God has given to me, my heart cries with joy at the abundance of love He has showered upon me. For everything that my parents has sacrificed to raise me, my heart will always remember their love for it is because I am so loved by them that I am able to love others. For my sister who spoils me like no older sister ever would and is always there for me when I need her, no words can express how I feel. For my friends who has helped me through university, work and life, although you may not read this, know that you are the reason I am happy where I am at. For everyone that I have ever encountered, whether it’s on a bus, at a restaurant, at the clothing shop, through the music I listen to, through the shows that I watch, your acts of kindness offers me hope to live each day amidst the darkness.

Lastly, to you dear reader, thank you. You are the reason I’m able to write the stories of my heart and share its love with yours.

Thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At this moment, I’m sitting in my childhood room. Nothing much has changed. The soft toys are still there (I’m a human being. Of course I had soft toys.) I have this custom made bear that when you press a button, it says, “Hello, my name is Dōmoto Shun’ichi. I love to play Yoyo everyday. Bye bye.” Don’t ask me why I said that or what went through my mind. I was a child. Such was the young me. Looking around, my old bed and my studying desk remains here.

There is a specific moment in this room that I recalled to when I was around 9. I remembered praying really hard. I prayed that time will stop. I prayed that my parents, my grandparents, my friends, my loved ones and the friends of my loved ones will not age. I was hoping that we will live in a really big house and that we will live happily together. As I cried through the innocence of a child, I wanted all of us to live forever.

Little did I know that I was dreaming of Heaven.

Time passed and I grew up, ‘accepting’ that permanence is an illusion of grandeur. I started imagining a different scenario that would play out in the future. I dreamt that I would be very successful in my career. I would have graduated top of my class, got promoted at work really quickly and able to afford two houses side by side (one for my family and one for my parents). The houses will have a game room, music room, cineplex, swimming pool and all that jazz that you can think of. I would live at luxurious hotels and wear branded clothes. It was going to be spectacularly awesome.

This was my second iteration of Heaven.

There were probably a few more iterations along the way but I can’t remember anymore and they don’t matter anyway.

On the 15th of November 2008, I got word that my grandmother was extremely ill and the doctors said that she won’t make it through the day. I shut the door of my room and started praying. This was the hardest I ever did in my entire life and I begged that my grandmother would have at least one more day.

She did have one more day and that was the first miracle I can remember taking place in my life.

This was my first call to Heaven. 

Her death wouldn’t have been the first death I have experienced but it would be the first one that affected me profoundly because I remembered more things at 15 and I was close to her.

Two days later, she passed away. Following that, in a span of 5 years, my grandfather and uncle followed suit and went up to the Lord. Strangely enough, I accepted all of their deaths and took it in rather well because since the age of 9, I knew nothing was permanent and that eventually, everyone has to go. No one gets a free pass.

As I grew older, I realized how shallow my second iteration of heaven is for all the riches and success in this world will eventually give you nothing. Your happiness today can be shattered in a matter of seconds admits life’s fragile state akin to Shakespeare’s brief candle. Your materialism lulls you into a false sense of security and enlightenment but at what cost and for how long?

I feel I was almost right on the money with the first iteration. Isn’t that what heaven is, a place where you live forever?

I wish I can empirically tell you yes! Yes! Heaven is a glorious place. It is crazily insanely amazing. I wish I can but no one knows for sure. No one is a hundred percent sure. I know I am not but hear Pascal (who was a physicist and mathematician) out, “It is not our shallow intellect that can grasp God, we meet him in our heart, in our spirit – that is where faith is.”

I can’t tell you what heaven is but my faith can.

I have a dream. A dream where one day I’ll go to this place called Heaven. I’ll meet Jesus there and will walk with him in the garden. I’ll tell him everything and all the stories of my life. I’ll tell him I tripped and fell when I was 5, hitting my head in the process. I’ll tell him about my other fall where my forehead got swollen when my head hit the goalpost. I’ll tell him how I proud I was when I didn’t cry when I scraped my knees on the road at 13. 

He’ll say, “I know. I was there. I was there every single step of the way. I was there when you fall. When you laugh, I laugh. When you cry, I cry. When you were sad, I poured out all my tears for you. I was there with you every single step of the way, Augustine.”

Heaven is where I return home and finally, able to rest in the arms of God. Heaven is the beginning of the end. Heaven is the ethereal reality. Our lives on earth is no longer the end and permanence is no longer an illusion.

There has to be something more than this. There will be something greater than this.

When I was a kid, I believed in the impossible. I thought I could fly and I could fight dragons. I could reach for the stars and never grow old.

What if I tell you that it was never impossible and that the innocence and purity of a child gives light to the greater truth? 

That’s for you to find out. That’s for your heart to learn. Maybe one day, we will realise that our little selves were right all along.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​There is a season for everything, a time for every occupation under heaven.

Such is the opening line to the chapter of Ecclesiastes in the Bible.

Pause. Breathe.

Read the line again.

There is a season for everything.

It is impossible to grasp the whole meaning of that for it is in time that your past is kept. It is in the future that your hopes are fulfilled. It is in the present that you are living. It is in time that you are acting. It is in time that you are searching. It is in time that you are being. It is through your time intersecting with other peoples’ times that you are hurt and hurting. However, it is also through this that you are loved and loving.

When someone experiences a setback to life, the advice that one often gives is, “Don’t worry, with time, you will get better.” Due to the frequency of that advice given out, it has now become a cliche and one that wears people out. Here’s the thing about this cliche. It is still true. Repeated sayings does not diminish the profundity of that statement and one just needs to remember how important it is to let things take its place.

I’ve written a lot of my own experiences since the inception of this blog. It’s almost as if I’ve taken snapshots of my life and placed them on a timeline for you to see. Some of you may feel like you know me, because you’ve read what I’ve written. Some of you may feel otherwise.

The thing is if you do think you know me, I don’t find that offensive at all. I try to be as honest as possible in my words and I hope my words actually represent who I am and where I am at in reality.

In most days, I often write about my struggles in life and how circumstances and time led me to that situation. Some struggles are still ongoing. Some, not so much anymore. Overtime, I’ve realised something.

Those moments were exactly where I needed to be. If they didn’t exist, I wouldn’t have come to experience all these memories and lessons that I encounter.

St. Augustine says, “so it is with our speaking as it proceeds by audible signs, it will not be a whole utterance unless one word dies away after making its syllables heard, and gives place to another.”

What he means is that our life is a symphony. We will never be able to grasp the entire meaning until the end of time. Each second that passes leads to another second, but each second is also a place in itself. I guess what I’m trying to say is in the business of our lives, we search, we fall, we cry and we laugh. In the midst of all that, remember that we are human beings first and foremost.

When we constantly try to look towards the future as our the ultimate solution to our problems, we live in a temporary state and always think tomorrow will be better and today is just a means to get there. Then, you are never truly living for you were never truly present to begin with.

Every time you meet someone, every time you you have a conversation, every time you breathe, nothing will ever replicate that exact moment and its circumstances. Each moment is unique. Each second is, once in a lifetime.

St. Augustine also said, “you would long for whatever exists only in the present to pass away, so that you might find greater joy in the totality.” I don’t think he’s saying that the present is obsolete but rather just exactly how important it is to take things in its context. The things that happen to you today will always, in most cases, make better sense in the time to come.

Just realise that today will always lend greater relevance and significance to tomorrow. Whatever it is, in the current bar you are composing, try your best and be all there. Even when your best is not enough and all else doesn’t make sense, stay with it and peservere. After all, a symphony is best when it’s played from beginning till end. 
 

“So, what are you doing now?”

“Ah, I have been working with the Catholic Chaplaincy at university.”

“I see, are you looking for a full time job?”

“Yes, yes I am. I am keeping an eye out for things. I guess I’m slowly learning to embrace my future and not rush into it.”

“Yeah man. Doing work for religious groups is great, but you don’t want to end up doing that all the way. Working with religious groups , that sort of work is more suited to the end of one’s working life man.”

“Hahaha.”

“Like being a church custodian or something.”

* * *

For almost my entire life, I’ve been a student of primary, secondary and tertiary education. There was never any break in between because there wasn’t an opportunity to do so and certainly, my parents would never agree to such a thing. The idea of pausing is irrelevant as we are always moving, acting, fretting and searching. The problem with that is that we are never just being.

By fate or by provision, however you want to call it, this year, I had that opportunity. After completing my degree, the question was what now?. I took a break of two weeks and during then, I went to see some of my friends at my alma mater and visited the Catholic chaplaincy. One of those days, I had a very early dinner with the priest there and in the most casual of conversations, I mentioned that I had some time now and that maybe I can help out at the chaplaincy. The very next day, I was told that they were keen on hiring me.

As I was in Australia on a tourist visa, I told them I would volunteer until my working visa came through. I volunteered for the first few months and then I became a part-time staff after. The work that I did varied from time to time. Sometimes, I would set up BBQs or make ice blended drinks to give out to people. Some days, I designed prayer cards and posters. At other times, it was just me talking to students. Having been a student myself, I know what the struggles are and I used that experience to help me along the way.

Can you imagine? I designed flyers and posters to promote events. This is completely on the opposite spectrum of what I studied which was aerospace engineering. I’ve never studied design or did a BBQ in my life but I done all of it in one go. It’s beautifully amazing where life takes you to when you allow it to happen. So during this time, I was of the impression that the chaplaincy did good work in bringing others to their faith.

Upon time, I grew into my role and got better at my job. Something felt missing. What’s the purpose all this? Do students even respond to us?

It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that this postgraduate student came up to me and asked what does works of mercy mean. I started explaining to her and as we converse, she begin to delve into her worries about her studies and research. At the end of it, she said something really striking,

“If I have any troubles or need someone to talk to, can I just come here and talk to you or father?”

I replied, “Definitely, that’s what we’re here for,”

That’s when I realise the work the Chaplaincy have been doing is great work. It didn’t come down to how many posters we design. Neither did it come down to how many BBQs we organised. It came down to being the steadfast presence of the Catholic faith in the secular world. It came down to just being there.

I remember a friend telling me when I was doubting myself in this line of work, “That’s true. You talk to so many people and they don’t respond at times. It’s always the little things that makes a difference though. Maybe it’s you saying hi. Maybe it’s you asking them how they’re doing. Maybe it’s you offering them a drink. It’s amazing what people are thirsty for.”

You know, I’ve had multiple drafts of this post. I’ve always wanted to write about my experiences at the chaplaincy but in my mind, there was always this thought, ‘Who would want to read about this?’ It’s nothing special or neither is it emotionally powerful. Then, I remembered that it is to me.

Having now found a full time job and the fact that I have left the chaplaincy, I’m in a better position to write about the totality of this experience. I don’t regret ever taking up the part-time job. I know I have some friends who tell me that the chaplaincy job is not something you do for life. I have some friends who tell me that as long as I am happy, that’s all that matters.

The truth is the chaplaincy job, the caring for people aspect, the talking to people, the little things you do for people, that should be our lives and not just a job. It’s not only towards the end of one’s working life that one does these things. We are all called to be church custodians.

When I wrote my goodbye letters to my bosses at the Chaplaincy, my eyes welled up because I remembered what it was like to be a student. It was stressful and hectic. Some days were overwhelming and others were insane. Over the years especially in my last year, I started going to daily mass more often. When I have time, I will always drop by the office and I will see the people working there. There will be these great smiles on their faces and I would smile too. The staff, the priest and especially the mass was my oasis. It was my oasis of joy. I can’t believe that I could be part of that experience to others as well.

One day, I hope I will return to this post. Maybe in 10 years. Maybe in 15 years. I hope to recall this experience of mine and wherever I am at in my life then, I pray I am still in love with the Church. If I am not, I hope this post serves as a reminder to never lose faith in the things that are good and to fight for it for the rest of our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“My dad says that the government is the best this country has ever had.”

“You muppet, what are you talking about? My dad says they ain’t bloody good at all.”

Pardon my poor attempt at trying to portray a ‘My dad is better than your dad’ in an English setting. I really just wanted to put ‘You muppet’ somewhere in there as I find it absolutely hilarious that you would call someone a muppet.

Anyway, I imagine it’s not too far off from when we were children in schools. In an attempt to win an argument in a discussion, we will make use of all resources available. We will start with the casual statement, argue with someone about it when challenged, bring our parents in, start swearing, and when all those things don’t give you the upper hand, we somehow end up in a brawl of fisticuffs.

The reason why we used arguments or stances from our parents is because as we were growing up, that was the main viewpoint inhabiting our mindset. Back then, social media and internet weren’t as prevalent to our arguments as either they didn’t exist or that we didn’t quite know how to use it to our advantage. I certainly didn’t.

However, now that we are armed with our smartphones and immersed in the stream of tweets, things have changed and we are far more capable of forming better arguments. Well, yes and no. Let’s look at the example again in this age, shall we?

“Everyone says that the government is the best this country has ever had.”

“You muppet, what are you talking about? Everyone says they ain’t bloody good at all.”

Haha. Muppet.

With global information at our fingertips, our mindset now has another resident other than our parents, which is that of the whole world. After scrolling through our newsfeed for an hour everyday, some of us feel we have a firm grasp on the perspective of the global nation and we couldn’t be any further from the truth.

What social and mainstream media offers you are pieces of truths and never quite the whole puzzle. There will always be a few jigsaw pieces missing without us realising it. There are an estimated 7 billion people in the world but there are only 313 million active users on Twitter and 1.71 billion active users on Facebook. We should also bear in mind that we barely come close to be in touch with all of those users.

Just because some people are louder and more noticeable than others on the social streams, it does not mean their perspective echoes those of the whole world.

Another interesting point to note is that some of us might be guilty of perpetuating deception based on the limited information we see. It is possible that when we read the ideas and opinions of our friends and popular idols, we think they ought to be true which leads us to retweet or share it with others. Our own friends see our own post and do likewise, creating a knock on effect. At the end, this creates a large pool of people that seem to be ingrained with a specific opinion.

Another phenomenon that could be affecting us is the Asch Paradigm which studies power of situations to influence of behaviour and attitudes. For example, if people don’t usually line up for the bus, suddenly there’s a large group of people started lining up one by one, would you line up or just hang around? Although the Asch experiments are still being debated, it suggests that many people will change at least the public expression of their beliefs when confronted with a group that disagrees with them (I took this right out of my Psychology textbook).  Not entirely about Asch Paradigm, this video by Studio C does take a hilarious take on it.

In this day and age, we sometimes are guilty of conforming our opinion to that of the ‘public’ because well, it is the ‘public’. Is it wrong to conform? After all, everyone is allowed to have their opinion in this free world. It certainly isn’t but at the same time, we should learn to discern the information we consume better and actually think through it. When there’s someone that disagrees with us, we don’t need to rain hail and fire (rain fire, that doesn’t even make sense. Thanks Adele.) upon them.

It’s good to be principled and stand up for what you believe it. However, allow yourself the humility to accept the possibility that others may be right. That allows for a far more fruitful discussion. I’m guilty of abiding by my opinion too much at times but upon further reflection, I always find that what the other person says holds some truth in it and it should never be discounted.

After all, do you and I ever hold the whole truth?

 

 

 

 

 

Hello everyone! It’s been a while. I know I promised to post one every week, and a month has passed since the last one. I actually do have several drafts in my backlog somewhere but thought they weren’t blog worthy or even profound enough if I could put it as such. Fret not, here I am!

Do you remember a while back where I reflected upon the creation of this blog? I wrote that this blog initially started as a story blog and that it was only much later I came out with more opinionated columns. It turns out that I was wrong and that I’ve had opinionated pieces a long time ago.

I was talking to some of my friends about how we used to have Friendster back in the day. (The site where you have your own custom layout and songs playing in the background. Only three of your friends post a testimony on your profile and upon further introspection, you realise you have a very miserable and sad profile. Sorry, that wasn’t you. That was me.) Well, think Facebook but colourful and for hippies. Then, I remembered I used to have this blog in high school. So, I decided to browse for it and it was still there!

Forget about this current blog people. This high school blog is really where it’s at. (I do recommend proceeding with caution for the sake of your sanity. If possible , try reading it with a Malaysian accent because that’s how I wrote them. You think I’m making this up. I’m dead on serious.)

I read out some of my posts out to my sister and my brother-in-law. There’s one segment that I particularly enjoyed. It read, “Green can also be referred as colour of zombies. haha. green zombies. i don’t know why can’t there be red zombies. maybe our vomit colour is green that’s why. if our vomit colour is red, that is not good news.” It turns out that I didn’t know how to capitalise my sentences and that my randomness level was at an all time peak.

So, my sister decided to take a picture of me laughing and send it to my parents. She captioned the photo saying, “He was reading something he wrote when he was a lot younger. And they were both laughing uncontrollably.” My dad then asked, “What were you reading to them?”  Oh, sis, why? WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DO THAT? NOW, THEY ARE GOING TO KNOW ABOUT MY EMBARRASSING BLOG. GOOD ONE SIS.

So, I told them about it. Both my parents binge read it in an hour. To be fair, they both actually know the existence of this current one but they have completely forgotten about it since my very first post. It is quite interesting when I look back on what I’ve written. They were raw, unfiltered and straightforward. It was almost as if I didn’t abide to any rules or protocol of writing which made it more imaginative and chaotic but simple and grounded as well. I also referenced God far more often than I do now.

Do I wish to write like that again? Probably not because I arrange my thoughts and discern information much better. It’s only natural that my writing evolve and not plateau. The university travails and our current information age has challenged us to be more critical in our thinking and to reflect on our lives on a deeper level. It’s what I try to impart in my blog anyway but in the midst of that, I forgot about the beauty of the childlike innocence.

When I was in my teenage years, I used to go to dinners with family friends. One of my dad’s friends will bring their son who was 6 years younger than me. As he was so much younger, he always wanted to move around and can’t sit still at the dinner table. I’ll go outside and play some games with him. Looking back at it, it wasn’t so much of me accompanying him but rather him giving me a chance to be a child again.

In search of the profundity, I place great emphasis on my writing to be of the best possible quality in accordance with my capability. However, life does not always offer us great new moments to be put into writing and searching for those moments only means we’re missing out on what is already good. There is always something so beautiful about thinking like a child and just learning to have fun wherever you are at.

I don’t even find my high school blog embarrassing anymore, which is why I’m sharing it with you all. What I had was good and will always be a treasured memory of mine.

 

 

 

 

It was 11:00 am and I sat on my couch, wondering what I should do. My parents were still asleep. I didn’t have work today. So, I decided to go this little infamous bakery called Bourke Street Bakery, which was located 10 minutes from my house.

I arrived at the store and I wasn’t actually sure what to order. I can tell you they have this thing called Bread. It is a bakery after all. After thinking for a bit, I decided to order a beef pie and coffee. I sat down and guess what was in front of me. It was a newspaper! Mind you, it wasn’t like a ‘tablet’ newspaper but an actual ‘newspaper’ newspaper if I could even use ‘newspaper’ as an adjective. So, here am I with a beef pie, a cup of coffee and a newspaper. The only thing missing from the picture is me having a Sherlock Holmes hat and a twirly moustahce.

I don’t actually feel old but this little bakery place had this 1960s vibe about it and its common colour scheme is dark brown. It’s actually been a long time since I held a physical newspaper in my hand, let alone read it. When I was younger, I used to only read three things. One was the sports (football) section, no surprise there. Another was the entertainment (it was about celebrities, I don’t know why I bothered reading about all the latest gossip, ew). Last but not the least, I read the comics section which was really the best bit out of the whole newspaper. Forget politics and current events guys, comics is where it’s really at.

Wind the clocks, the newspaper changed to a more fast paced, concise and ‘Flipboard’ format which means the content gets updated almost every other minute rather than the traditional format which gets a refresh daily. I wrote about appreciating the things of the old a while back but these new ways of reading news isn’t actually bad. The human experience is all about looking for new experiences. Basking in the glory of the old days will have you labelled as ‘old-fashioned’, ‘outdated’ and ‘trapped mentality’ because of the inability to usher in the current era.

Can I ask you this though, is what we do truly new?

The latest gaming craze (oh yes, I’m talking about it even though I hate it), the Pokemon Go is a perfect example of us adoring a new thing. Just look at the game! It has augmented reality, GPS detection features and all these other sweet features (by sweet, I mean feeding the Pokemons candy, I know, I’m hillarious). That was why it became popular, or so we thought. The augmented reality bit turned out to be quite a flash and bang gimmick. Soon, most people turned it off to conserve phone battery and concentrated on what the 20-year old original game was about, collecting all the Pokemon.

The latest Star Wars movie, ‘The Force Awakens’ became a pop culture phenomenon and citizens of the Resistance will tell you that it’s so much better than the prequels! No more Jar Jar Binks! No more overuse of flashy CGI! Finally, a sensible plot but wait, the Republic has something to say! It’s too much like the original move, ‘Star Wars: A New Hope’. As big a fan as I am of Star Wars, I can’t help but agree, yes there are lots of elements of ‘The Force Awakens’ borrowed from ‘A New Hope’ but people don’t care. It felt good to have the feeling of old Star Wars again.

Perhaps, you don’t know or really don’t care about Pokemon Go or Star Wars but think about it. Most things we do aren’t actually new but rather another form of escapism. The stories we love are most often a rehashed and repackaged story that is infused with a different perspective on telling it. The songs you hear (let’s not talk about the top 40 songs, yuck) are most often about love and sorrow with a different melody attached to it. The events that you see in the news: the wars, the social injustice, the polictical outrage, the corruption and the accidents, you can search the archives for a 1940s newspaper and I can assure you the same sentiment is there. The characters, tools and context may be different but there will be that sense of familiarity.

So, why the urge of the human race to search for new experiences when in essence, it all seems a bit familiar? I can tell you a little bit about how the brain works with secretion of neurotransmitters but really, we are all trying to get closer to the truth. That’s why we have different perspectives and melodies of telling our life experiences because with every passing second, they uncover a different facet of what we are seeking for; happiness. As Aristotle puts it, “Happiness is the meaning of and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

In the search for the truth and perhaps happiness, we are often tempted to do away with the old, ignore history and focus on the current tidings. Funnily enough, when we are stuck or in need of a different outlook on life, we go back to where we come from or what we are good at.

We go back to our roots because that’s where our memory is the strongest. The archives of news and billions of data is nothing in comparison to your memory because each and every single one of those memories is in relation to you. It’s where life’s  greatest lessons are stored. Just because it feels archaic, it doesn’t mean it’s not good. On the contrary, when we remember our past and reflect on it, little by little, I believe that’s when we truly create new experiences.

New not because it’s different but because it came as a result of us learning what matters.

Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colours. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.

Terry Pratchett

 

 

 

 

“Augie, you must have been busy organising retreat and hence have no time to write in your blog,” a friend teases me. How long has it been since the last one? More than a month. Do I even blog anymore? I do, I do. Fret not people! The blog is here to stay.

Not many people read this site to be honest. That’s partially because of my lack of promotion and also my irregularity in writing. When there’s irregularity, then people do not have it as part of their routine. I’ll try to write one every week from today because writing has become my way of sharing my life but also allows other people to share in mine.

Where was I? Yes, the retreat. Every year, the society that I’m part of (Catholic Asian Students Society, CASS) has a retreat where we go to a place faraway from the city for 3 days, have reflections, enjoy the good company and be closer to God.

It was a Friday morning. I had stop start sleeping cycles throughout the night and woke up every 30 minutes or so. I was suppose to be an usher at the busstop and my job was to, well, usher students into the bus that was going to the retreat site in Stanwell Tops. As you all might know, ushers are meant to arrive early and when you’re the president of the society, you should be even earlier. So, the night before, I texted my friend, “Hey, let’s have breakfast at McDonalds at 7:00am and then go to the usher stop at 7:30am.” By the way, the bus was scheduled to leave at 8.

At 7:18am, I felt my phone buzzing. I answered the phone and I go, “Hello”. My friend said, “Bro, we still going to Maccas?” I looked around me and still in my pyjamas, I said, “Oh shit.”

First of all, that is very Malaysian of me to do so. Secondly, my phone alarm honestly didn’t ring! I tried to think why it didn’t when clearly, I set like 10 alarms to go off every 15 minutes. Then, I realised I didn’t switch them on.

So, anyway, off I huffed and puffed to the busstop. I thought I arrived at the stop but I didn’t see any of my friends there so I asked the dudes there, “Is this bus to Stanwell Tops?” The guy then replied, “No, this is to Canberra.” Canberra! That’s like 3 hours away from Sydney! What in the world of cows. Ok, wrong stop.

Long story short. I didn’t turn on my alarm. Woke up late. Almost went to Canberra. I did arrive at the right stop. Whew.

So, all of us got to the retreat site safe and sound. I have been attending this retreat for the past five years. Every year, I do look at it from an outsider’s perspective from time to time. It helps me to see everything that is going on. However, this year I had to because it’s the president’s job to see the bigger picture and overall outlook. Being in that role, it means my huffing and puffing wasn’t over and I had to organise everyone every few hours so that we remain on time.

Despite all the rushing, this retreat was different than the last one. I arrived at this one with a more relaxed state of mind. In spite of all the uncertainty in my future (as it is with anyone), I’ve learned to cope with stresses of life a lot better than before and instead, I go through an entire different set of emotions in this one. During the retreat, I was so close to fully breaking down because of the praise and worship sessions and adoration. I think it’s also because I know this will probably be my last retreat. For those that know me, my progress in university was moving in parallel with my progress in CASS. I think it’s normal for me to feel this deep sense of sadness.

With each passing hour, the rushing continued until Saturday evening and I could finally sit down quietly and have a chat with one of our spiritual directors/advisors. I said, “John, up till today, I’m still amazed how CASS started. It started from having no one at all to this society that has a branch at every major university in Sydney. From having no one. How did we get here?”

“Augie, look at this retreat that we organised. Look at how many people there are here. There are over 60 of us. Do you think they just appear out of nowhere? How did this come together? You and I didn’t do a lot. None of us did. We all just did our small bit and looked at what we have achieved.”

That deep sense of sadness now became a deep sense of gratitude and pride. I alongside everyone else put everything we have into organising this little retreat and it showed. We somehow managed to provide a platform to help people grow in their faith and discover themselves. Bit by bit, the blank page started having scribbles, ideas and sketches. Flip past a couple of pages, you have structure and paragraphs. A few more, you see pictures. Slowly without realising, you have a book.

The best things are often not loud, fast and noisy. They often happen quietly and slowly. Amazement doesn’t have to make you cry or blow your mind. Every little thing you do is amazing. The words you say can be profound. The actions you make can be impactful.

I’m so thankful for the blessings God has given me and the gifts he has nourished me with. I will always be grateful that I can be part of this experience.

As for myself, I have come a long way since the days of always huffing and puffing throughout everyday. I’m more assured of who I am. Although I haven’t quite discover my vocation yet and how to fill the next chapter of blank pages, I trust it will happen and that I’m in a good place.