Lovefoolosophy
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
a wormhole in the apple of existence
5th January 2005...total death toll: 150, 000...and counting.
Just over a week ago, on the day after Christmas, Death rampaged through the seabed of the Indian Ocean and tore up the beaches of several Asian countries with life-devouring tidal waves. The media has been broadcasting gruesome clips on the milieu of pillage that lingers - fishing ports and resorts reduced to warzones within a matter of minutes; lifeless bodies scattered amidst mounds of wreckage, like bloody meat on a colossal piece of butcher's cutting board; mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, and daugthers cry tears of blood for their loved ones - many have been found dead, while thousands others missing, and probably have been landed the same fate.
I lost a good friend not too long ago. He was lost to the emotionless sea waves, trying to save a drowning colleague in Phuket, while on a vacation. Just a couple of days before he left for Phuket, we had dinner together at Kampung Chai Chee Restaurant, Tampines...the four of us, after a game of pool (one of the simplest joys in life we always found solace in...). Did he say anything out of the ordinary? Did he act like a person who knew he was going to die at a ripe age of 25? Nothing quite as theatrical. It was just another day.
For all the hardwork we put into our education, family, love life and social life, it is natural for anyone to expect a little token of gratitude from Life itself by granting us at least a warning of death to come. We would like to be the given the chance to plant our last kisses on our loved ones; we would like to cease all global wars and embrace our fellow human beings for one last time; we would like to reach out to God and beg for his pardon for all our sins and hope that heaven's door will be left ajar for some of us who will be running a little late.
But Life doesn't work that way. Life doesn't owe us a living. As Mark Twain had said, "It was here first." Perhaps, it is one of God's inscrutable ways of making us understand that true living is really about living each day as if it is going to be our last.
Why do we wait to tell someone that he or she means a lot to us? Why do we wait to express our gratitude to our parents and tell them that we love them? Why do we wait to ask God to brighten up the beacon that leads us on our journey through the labyrinth of Life? Why? Why do we wait as if we know for sure that we will live to see the next sunrise?
Because deep down, at the very pits of our soul and beyond the layers of prayer we have accumulated to conceal our darkest thoughts and sins, lies our skepticism about the end of life...well, at least, the end of our lives. Sure, many of us may adamantly insist that we believe in the end of days...only that it couldn't be anytime soon, could it?
While global superpowers had been preoccupied with countering terrorism in a self-glorifying fashion, Mother Nature had unleashed a wrath of its own in the form of the earthquakes and the subsequent tsunami in Southeast Asia. It is a stark reminder to us that we are, but merely a wormhole in the apple of existence.
Lovefoolosopher
¶ 2:27 PM 4 Comments
Just over a week ago, on the day after Christmas, Death rampaged through the seabed of the Indian Ocean and tore up the beaches of several Asian countries with life-devouring tidal waves. The media has been broadcasting gruesome clips on the milieu of pillage that lingers - fishing ports and resorts reduced to warzones within a matter of minutes; lifeless bodies scattered amidst mounds of wreckage, like bloody meat on a colossal piece of butcher's cutting board; mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, and daugthers cry tears of blood for their loved ones - many have been found dead, while thousands others missing, and probably have been landed the same fate.
I lost a good friend not too long ago. He was lost to the emotionless sea waves, trying to save a drowning colleague in Phuket, while on a vacation. Just a couple of days before he left for Phuket, we had dinner together at Kampung Chai Chee Restaurant, Tampines...the four of us, after a game of pool (one of the simplest joys in life we always found solace in...). Did he say anything out of the ordinary? Did he act like a person who knew he was going to die at a ripe age of 25? Nothing quite as theatrical. It was just another day.
For all the hardwork we put into our education, family, love life and social life, it is natural for anyone to expect a little token of gratitude from Life itself by granting us at least a warning of death to come. We would like to be the given the chance to plant our last kisses on our loved ones; we would like to cease all global wars and embrace our fellow human beings for one last time; we would like to reach out to God and beg for his pardon for all our sins and hope that heaven's door will be left ajar for some of us who will be running a little late.
But Life doesn't work that way. Life doesn't owe us a living. As Mark Twain had said, "It was here first." Perhaps, it is one of God's inscrutable ways of making us understand that true living is really about living each day as if it is going to be our last.
Why do we wait to tell someone that he or she means a lot to us? Why do we wait to express our gratitude to our parents and tell them that we love them? Why do we wait to ask God to brighten up the beacon that leads us on our journey through the labyrinth of Life? Why? Why do we wait as if we know for sure that we will live to see the next sunrise?
Because deep down, at the very pits of our soul and beyond the layers of prayer we have accumulated to conceal our darkest thoughts and sins, lies our skepticism about the end of life...well, at least, the end of our lives. Sure, many of us may adamantly insist that we believe in the end of days...only that it couldn't be anytime soon, could it?
While global superpowers had been preoccupied with countering terrorism in a self-glorifying fashion, Mother Nature had unleashed a wrath of its own in the form of the earthquakes and the subsequent tsunami in Southeast Asia. It is a stark reminder to us that we are, but merely a wormhole in the apple of existence.
Lovefoolosopher
¶ 2:27 PM 4 Comments
