Tuesday, June 20, 2006

From Dust You Were Borne, And To Dust You Will Return.

Today while reading Today (hee.), I came across another one of those "I-just-realised-how-fragile-and-uncertain-life-is" kinda article. This time it was by a middle aged guy whose daughter's friend died in a motorcycle accident.

Well.

This blog entry's unusually long, and its intentions are crystal clear at the end. Should it ultimately fail, then someday I'll write it again, better and clearer. Should it offend you due to references to certain practices by certain parties, I offer my sincerest apologies. Should I misrepresent or if my facts are wrong, I am open to correction.

When we're young, everyone's invincible. Parents always there for us, friends always behind us. We can do crazy things, get into trouble, and run away with it. Young's the time to try new things, they say. Go crazy. Live life to the fullest, sans obligation, responsibility and consequence. Young's the time when we are the most accepting of people around us, regardless of their habits and beliefs.

Teach the child in the way he should go, and when he is older, he shall not stray.

But everything we do has an impact on the future. Parents, especially Asian ones, believe strongly in education. Go to a good school, get a good job, life is a bed of roses. Is that really true?

Say someone leads the ideal life - born to a middle class family, goes to RJC, on to NUS, then on to Masters at Harvard via a government scholarship... what if somewhere along the way... One snowy winter day in the USA, sleet ice on a road drives a car off a mountain road leading to a ski resort. The bodies of 4 were found, all in their late 20's. One of them was a Singaporean scholar.

How will that scholar be remembered? By what he's done in his years, of course. In his funeral, everyone will come forward with glowing praise. Oh. what a filial son he was. Oh, I remember how he used to help me tirelessly in my homework. Oh, what a great student and sportsman he was. Oh, what a waste. What a waste.

Must life be led such that we cannot be productive before our education is complete? Life begins at 0 years old and has a limit. On our tombstones, those years will be represented with a simple '-', e.g., Tan Wa Wa, 1970 - 2030. What will we do during that dash?

We often live our lives with no consideration for its end. Yes, we may give it some thought, but life still goes on. Yet, cancer patients see it differently. The day they are given mere months to live, life takes on a new meaning. No more 9 to 5 jobs, or schedules and appointments to make. In fact, this cycle of continuous work is broken and they become seperate from the rat race...

A CEO in the USA. Personal net worth, uncountable millions. Chairman of one of the most successful accounting companies to date. Listed on Forbes Fortune 500. A man at the top of his game, with a loving wife and even children to boot. A dream come true, many will say.

But a man with cancer. Terminal. The day he was given three months to live was the day his life changed. No more work weeks with 'golf breaks' just to ease his soul and convince him that he was not another robot in a large souless city. What did one of America's richest men do?

He reconciled with his past. With people. With family. "As a leader I have always encouraged my employees to spend time with their family and have positive relationships, but I myself have neglected this." He realised that people were the only ones worth giving time to, and spent as much time as he could with his children, with his beloved wife. He visited personally all those whom he had something to say to, to all his old classmates and friends. He apologised to all he hurt, and realised that time may stop the bleeding from a broken heart, but only words would have a chance at healing the wound. And he wrote a book about it. Not to make money, but to send his message out to the world. Would that not be a book worth reading?

What then might be the goal of life? I shall try to define it here. Its goal would be to affect other people, in a positive way. Because whatever religion or belief you have, no matter what you think or believe about the afterlife, nothing you own on earth's going to go with you once the sands of time run out. No, even if you had people offer a paper Mercedes up to you, do you, according to all human emotions of desire, want to be stuck with a Mercedes (and a paper one, at that) from 19XX A.D.? Would Heaven have a Heavenly Mercedes-Benz that makes nice new cars for its rich residents, cars that the poor-but-kind-hearted can't afford, just like the Earth one? Who's gonna work there? Heavenly Engineers too?

Things on earth are here to help you along the way. The only thing you started with are your mind and body, and those are the only things you'll leave here with.

With your mind you can create, because humans were made with the ability to be creators. And creating does not always mean making a new tool or machine. Creating can mean creating happiness for someone else, helping someone along the way. Your body can help. Hands that produce and work, hands that comfort and heal.

Because if there is indeed a Heaven, the people you affected will all be there with you. Not your possessions. Once you pass 20, it is inevitable that the people around you will start going without a trace. Should you wait till then to be awoken to the hard facts of mortality?


"Built or unbuilt, no matter what building I design, it shall be conceived so that if I were to die the next day, any one single building can represent a lifetime's effort to return, and add to this world what it gave to me." -Me. Again.

jOhn thought at 4:45 PM