There you were. It was as if God temporarily took you out of this dimension, only to insert you back today and just for today.
It made the day so much sweeter; a smile would have edged it into memory, but it was sufficient nonetheless. Enough to cause a momentary flashback, with your laughter echoing in the distance and the bittersweet longings tugging against the strings of my heart. Even your scent danced around for too short a period, and my arm tingled nostalgically in sudden reflection of a loneliness thought to have disappeared with time. For the brief period of half a lecture, amidst a jolly white man's enthusiastic assertions of deviant religions and collective effervescence, I entertained wishful thoughts of you approaching me just to talk: about how you have been all this while, your plans for the future, the changes in your life, and briefly, just ever so briefly, I toyed with the fantasy of you returning to my arms.
It was then that I realized that the hope within me still flickers, but hasn't died yet. Ironic, given that I don't believe in true love anymore.
I returned home, sat down, and watched 500 Days of Summer for the second time in my life. After all, it was a movie about us. "This is not a love story. It is a story about love." God, how I love that line. And I love the indie music behind the film, the urban landscape, the meaningfully meaningless conversations, the Tom Handson's heartbreaking agony, his awfully goofy friends, the little sister-cum-love-advisor that I never had. I love how Summer Finn reminds me so much of you, the way she scrunched her nose in bed, the unbroken eye contact when she talked, the drawl in her voice, the way she noticed and loved the insignificant things, how she was so mysterious, sang whenever and wherever, and most of all the way she just walked out of the ambiguous relationship into another more stable one without explaining why, or being able to, for that matter.
The only noticeable difference to me at least was that she was a Caucasian, had blue eyes and could sing perfectly in pitch.
And as I relished the film dialogue in greater details, savored the British rock-influenced indie music, I began to realize that ever since that day you left, ice has begun to form around my heart, slowly but surely. You know it's happening to you when romantic love becomes seen as nothing but a huge waste of time and you internalize the notion that you're better off alone because it's simply more efficient and easily maintained. And it's movies like that which can melt the ice temporarily, for an evening, at most a few days, but that's all. But isn't it through the melting that we realize the presence of ice?
Tom's friend quoted Henry Miller in the movie: The best way to get over a woman is to turn her into literature. I concur. And, of all people I should be able to testify to that, given the extravagance of literature produced from the tips of my fingers through the sordid inspiration from just a few breakups.
But who needs to write a book, when someone else has already made a movie about us? And how was I to recall that Patrick Swayze's "She's Like The Wind" song, one that I posted on my blog some time back because it reminded me of you, was the same song that reminded Tom about Summer?
Upon hearing it on the bus after Summer disappeared, he shouted, "I hate that song!"
I dunno if I can do that.
Did you ever do this, you think back on all the times you've had with someone and you just replay it in your head over and over again and you look for those first signs of trouble? -Tom Hansen, 500 Days of Summer
Tom: What happened, why didn't they work out? Summer: What always happens. Life.
Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning, but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, Sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat. -George Eliot
Lest it should ever slip my mind, I must publicly give thanks to God for putting me on the Dean's List for the first time ever last semester!
+)))))
That's not all. I must also give thanks that He has continued to humble me, for this is also the first time (from what I know) that the names of the Dean's List students have not been displayed on the website, only their matriculation numbers. In addition, I was only informed about the award after sending our my resume to the different companies, so there was no chance to include it along with the rest of the information.
Isn't God great? +))))
The LORD Almighty planned it, to bring low the pride of all glory and to humble all who are renowned on the earth. -Isaiah (Isa 23:9)
All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. -Paul (2 Cor 4:15)
Pain hides from platitudes and advice. Wounds recoil from the wind of unschooled words. Brokenness longs for a tender touch, an understanding hand, a Savior with scars. Dear hurting one, reach out for the nail-pierced hand.
-Susan Lenzkes (Taken from EDWY Mar/Apr Edition)
Pain forces even the innocent to lie. -Publilius Syrus
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. -Voice from the Throne (Rev 21:4)
It is true that we are all unique and special in God's eyes. Each of us have our own special abilities, voice quality, quirks and ugly spots. Like fingerprints, there are no two similar ones.
However, if I may emphasize again, we are all unique and special in God's eyes. Why do I say that? Because the very limited wisdom of man pushes us to classify all things into categories, which means that there are standards, benchmarks, for everything. This life that we live is filled with two types of people, those who are pursuing for greatness in one or more of the standards that the world has set in terms of intelligence, beauty etc., and those who have utterly given up.
Let me illustrate by using the example of beauty in history. We cannot, in our finite imagination, conceive of someone with a cleft lip as beautiful at any point in time in history. The very fact that only a small percentage of babies are born with cleft lips, and especially given the limited technologies of the past, the standard of beauty is forever unavailable for the baby both a thousand years ago and today. However, in modern society, that has changed.
In the past, biological deviance is mostly measured in terms of minority/majority, i.e. having a sixth finger is ugly because most people are not known to have it. The concept of perfect beauty is simply having everything that the majority has. One can conceive of an African village where a female baby with fair skin is born amongst the majority ash-black skin members. It would then be impossible for the baby, in the closed context of the village, to be considered beautiful. We would find it strange, because the concept of "fairness" in modern society today is normally linked with beauty.
The tyranny for standards in the modern world is then this: The concept of beauty is no longer in the realm of the majority's (achievable) standard. Blame it on the mass media, on colonialism, on the capitalist, whatever. That is not the goal of this post. We could go on endlessly by pushing the blame around. What is important is that most people no longer can be considered beautiful. Where in the past, beauty was ruled by the tyranny of the majority, today, beauty is ruled by the tyranny of the minority (if any at all). The same goes for intelligence. And wealth. Rule by tyranny of the majority wasn't too bad, at least most people would be considered relatively beautiful in the past; rule of the majority is terrible, most people are playing catch-up with the minority, who themselves have an imagined minority to catch-up with (if they themselves even exist at all).
Yes, we are all unique. But we also have to admit that uniqueness doesn't play a big role in either traditional society or modern society. No man is truly unable to view his neighbor as wonderfully unique, unless he himself abandons the standards of the world that have been edged in stone and carved permanently into his heart as a child, and that is, as I write, being carved into the heart of children all over the world in the socializing process of "growing up".
Maturity can thus be defined as the degree of knowledge in making judgments of one's own behavior and standards, as well as that of his neighbor's, in comparison with the widely accepted standards of the world. A high level of maturity would imply the inclusion of a sensitive understanding of context, and a reasonable self-drive and initiative towards improving oneself as much as possible towards attaining these very high standards that he/her knows exist.
But in so doing, we apply symbolic violence to everyone, including ourselves. We destroy the "uniqueness" perspective, relegating it to little more than counseling strategies and "feel-good" religious doctrines that are meant for the despondent, depressed and hopeless to find a way to continue living. Everyone is simply starting from various distances to the ideal and driving towards one point of perfection, but finding they never get there. And upon giving up, one tends to create yet another standard to adhere to, most commonly one that he/she can perform well in compared to others. And the vicious cycle continues.
So let me throw in a perspective in the opposite direction. Regardless of one's structural position in society, true maturity is defined as the abandonment of all worldly standards of beauty, intelligence etc. except the one standard of morality, and truly looking at oneself and one other as truly unique, playing a role in this huge canvas God has painted and is still painting.
That is why being a Christian is so hard. If true maturity is the reverse of everything we have been taught since we were young, it is almost impossible for any of us to imagine this world functioning without these worldly standards that we have come to so intimately know, and even to hold on to as our mantras.
But is it not the expending of our resources and talents into achieving these worldly standards that at times, we neglect the Race of Life that God desires for us to run, the only measuring rod that He values, the standard of moral truth and living?
You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile. -Tyler Durden, Fight Club
What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men - each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature - are shot down wholesale. -Hermann Hesse
Some of you know, I did give myself the nickname "Desperado" before. Of course, upon first hearing it, most people assumed it was because I was desperate or something, and to top it off, majority of people don't know that it was the title of one of the most beautiful Country songs ever written by the Eagles. For those who don't have a clue, do take a few minutes to listen to the music and the lyrics.
As time went by, I forgot this song, and even dropped the nickname because of the numerous misinterpretations by people. But these few weeks at my workplace, the song was repeatedly played over and over again as part of the "atmosphere music", albeit the milder unplugged version by an unknown female jazz singer.
As I retreated to the kitchen everyday to wash the hundreds of plates and cutlery towards the end of my working hours, the lyrics of the song came back to me again, this time, in a strange way.
Don't you draw the queen of diamonds, boy She'll beat you if she's able The queen of hearts is always your best bet Now it seems to me, some fine things Have been laid upon your table But you only want the ones that you can't get
You better let somebody love you, Let somebody love you, You better let somebody love you, Before it's too late.
I never really understood that section of the lyrics, till recently. Funny how I've always constantly made the silly mistake of running after the Queen of Diamonds instead of the Queen of Hearts. It made no sense to a Primary 4 kid, but it brought a helluva meaning to me now, after all the negative experiences. And I won't say I have a lot on my "table", but the second verse jolted me by blatantly pointing out to me why it seems that I don't have a lot on my table in the first place.
In an attempt to eliminate all weaknesses, I've even gone so far as to quantify anyone's love for me. I only allowed them to love me at most to the extent that I can afford to love them in return, in whatever measurement I saw fit. God is an exception, because His love cannot be even compared to. My parents are another exception, because the love they shower on me is too complex to be measured or converted specifically. However, I make it certain that it is limited to the largest extent by little actions such as taking as little money as I can from them to survive, accepting as few favors as possible, and doing everything possible that I know pleases them.
Upon further reflection, when it comes to a human relationship with someone of the opposite gender, notably a romantic one, I have constantly refused all gestures of love possible unless I myself am attracted to that person. And even in the scenario where attraction is present, I would ensure that (even regrettably through the occasional deception) she cannot love me more than I could possibly love her! Could it then be that one of the reasons that every relationship I've had failed was a result of the lady not being able to love me as much as she wanted to?
How sad it would be if it were the truth! That I should be dumped time and time again in exchange for another man who could not love them as much as I, but who yet savored every bit of the love they could offer!
Then again, it only goes to show that I am impossible to love or I loved too much, if they could ever believe that they could love someone else more than they could me.
How often does one find a song that speaks so specifically to oneself and to hardly anyone else?
It was the men I deceived the most that I loved the most. -Marguerite Duras
We all have one common weakness: we find ourselves latched on emotionally to a partner if we could and did loved him/her more than he/she loved us. True love, then, can only be achieved if both partners keep trying to out-love the other without desiring anything in return. -Valentino Casanova
