Category: Thoughts uncut

Moments to memorise

Our most beautiful moments come when we least expect it. Sometimes, we may spend all our lives searching for happiness and contentment when all the while it’s just round the corner without us realising it.

The reason: we pursue. Our society always taught us to chase life, and to strive to make our own path. To create our own luck, and to forge ourselves the future we dream of. And so we do. We toil day in and out, focussing on the one thing that we think matters the most to us, while we miss out on the small everyday, ever-present, pleasures coexisting with us.

Aiming only for the destination, we fail to appreciate the journey. Serene experiences stem from absolute lack of preparedness. Spontaneous actions, unplanned adventures, bring us serendipitous memories. We don’t always have to create a path—it’s okay once a while to let an unknown path lead us where it may. It’s the unexpected joys of spotting a squirrel or running into a friend that makes any journey worth taking.

When we begin to notice, and let nature influence our course of action, we grow. We learn from the people we meet, the conversations we have, and the coffee we share. And all these occur by allowing things to happen as they do, and not jumping to rash conclusions. For when we are open-minded, devoid of judgement, and fearless to embrace unfamiliarity, we find meaning in this trip called life.

Jobs

I walk to work every morning. It’s a short, yet painful, trudging along uneven paths alongside heavy vehicles and motorbikes that zap by on full throttle.

But I shouldn’t complain. Because every day I see someone who deserves to spend an entire day nestled in a well-furnished, air-conditioned, room pitying himself.

He’s a family man in his late fifties, by the looks of him. I see him quite early in the morning—about 7:30 am—so judging by his eyes, he works all night. His job is to stand in front of a restaurant, wave a baton, and usher ongoing vehicles to stop by for a meal. The restaurant pays him to be their traffic generator.

This hotel is on the national highway (or freeway), and so there are thousands of vehicles—lorries, private cars, motorbikes—passing by every night. And because it’s dark, his baton lights up like Luke Skywalker’s Lightsaber.

It’s his job. It’s fine. It’s tiring, but he gets paid. He stands all night, but he gets paid. It’s a menial job, but it’s only one in many such jobs.

I understand, and so does everyone else who walks or whizzes past him every day. But I don’t understand why he waves to passing vehicles on broad daylight, trying to usher the most unlikeliest of drivers.

Often thinking about him, I’ve concluded he does it out of practice. He’s so used to trying to attract motorists that he doesn’t even realise the futility of waving at bicyclists at 8 in the morning. Sometimes he stands there, swaying half-asleep, yet waving his baton hoping someone would pull over.

No one would pull over.

As I pass him everyday, I see quivering within him a soul that triggers on the border of giving up. It’s as if there’s no longer hope and liveliness left in his bereft life.

I hate my work sometimes, but I don’t hate my job. Though on some days I don’t even feel like going to work, I know there’s always a reason for me to go. Something pulls me forward, encouraging me to keep one foot in front of the other. It’s hard to find motivated days at times, but I know they’re there. Because on a deeper level, I still find meaning in what I do.

He doesn’t.

And seeing him live such a mechanical life, waving his arms like a madman, sleepless, lifeless, and soul-less, puts so many things in perspective. Not everyone has the luxury to do what they’d like. Life thrusts on some of us a fate they wouldn’t even wish on their vilest enemy. It’s the reality of our world, a harsh undesirable reality.

If we realise that, perhaps we’d be more thankful for what we do have.

Be still

Stillness is the absence of an external force driving our physical being. It’s a state of quality not everyone possesses.

Though in many ways stillness is a natural trait, we as humans have distanced ourselves from it. In the fast-paced world we call home, we no longer have the time or the energy to sit down in complete stillness and observe what happens around us. We’re working towards achieving big goals and high potentials that we seldom take a break from it all to focus on our inner selves. Our society and work culture has taught us to believe that being still equates being unproductive.

And so, to seek the meaning of our lives, we run along in the rat race. Along with so many others, we search and hope, for the one thing that comes only when we stop and reflect. Ironical.

For when we pause in our race and reflect our actions, everything becomes clear. Our life becomes more transparent, even for ourselves. When we no longer push ourselves forward with a vague goal in mind, we look within us. And then we see our life’s choices, our decisions, and our options—as another person does.

This is the most profound moment of reality: seeing our lives from an external perspective, without judgements, without bias, but with complete curiosity. That’s when we realise our true potential. Looking back at our life from a detached point of view, we identify not only our mistakes and missed opportunities, but we also see the little successes, the triumph that we often walk past without noticing.

We see those things that make our lives more meaningful, like holding a child for the first time, achieving the personal goal of eating well, receiving a word of advice from a wise old family member. It’s the everyday occurrences that complete our existence on earth. And by being still and channelling calmness through the mind, we become more holistic. Profound learnedness doesn’t come from seeing god, it comes from seeing our own selves.

Intent: Creepiness

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.

— Stephen Hawking

One of my blogger friends shared this as a tribute to the now-late Steven Hawking. And it got me thinking. The truth of those words clenched deep, and I cringed to call myself a part of a community ingrained with such destructive mentalities that it prides itself in creating something as creepy as a computer virus.

Not only are viruses vile creatures that creep through our systems and violate everything we cherish and hold dear, but they exist because of us. I did a little digging about the most evil of viruses and came upon a few chilling names. What’s more startling is their uses.

We’ve created viruses to attack and disable other nations’ systems. (Sure, they were nuclear systems—but still, is a virus the right way to go?) Some of them sneak up on our children while they play innocent games, gaining unauthorised access and control over their lives and computers. They can corrupt unwitting minds and souls, and turn them into abusive, power-hungry youngsters. Pity. We could’ve used the same technology to offer remote customer support, instead.

As for the adults, we’ve tempted them with the promise of beautiful women and sometimes porn only to attempt a convoluted goal. We’ve created worms that go knocking on computers during holidays paralysing our contacts and spirits in the guise of wishing a Merry Christmas.

Some of our programmes have crippled governments and defaced other unassuming nations.

Oh, and just the hell of it, we’ve even created viruses that run through emails, sending itself to our contacts over and over again until the internet once broke with the load. All for no reason.

As if all that isn’t enough, we’ve also peeked into our fellow humans’ deepest desire for love, planting viruses as admiration letters only to break down millions of worth of assets.

The specialty knowledge that it takes to build such malware is so vast that it’s a testament to humanity’s skills. If only we use that for good things, instead.

The hacking culture and the cinema-influenced stereotypepes associated with computer geeks—the nerdy glasses, the shady hoody, the dark corner, the millions of lines of undecodeable scripts—has opened up our brains to wrong ideas and ideals.

We’ve created a culture of sad, pathetic humans driven by malicious desires. For a prideful, educated community such as ourselves, it’s shameful.

Shame that we don’t even realise it.

Catching up

“No.”

“Oh, you’ll love it. Everyone’s on Facebook. We can chat with each other on Messenger.”

I see you in school all day. Why would I chat with you afterwards, too? I’ll call you up if I need to.

“But—”

“Give me a valid reason and I’ll think about it then.”

Same response for Twitter. Snapchat, Instagram, and WhatsApp, too.

“Tell me why, though.”

“I think it’s such a waste of time. And to be honest, it’s confusing. Why d’you need to be on so many channels?

“It’s called socialising,” declares Gina, the captive of the fear of mission out.