b.e.n.i.g.n._d.e.u.x.
Saturday was unaccompanied. I went for my usual morning yoga. Then lunch. After that the whole afternoon was spent in Borders. I could probably pass off as a statue. I had toby Young lastest release in my hand - The Sound of No Hands Clapping. A diminutive Brit testing the water for the third time, in the field of profound non-fictional writing, and nonetheless unravelled paradigm of journalism (I did say hypothetical, didn’t I). Time does move much rapidly, especially interest implies. A solitude measure in a congested population; something I’ve not done in more than a year. It does feel good.
I’ve been measuring my day-to-day lifestyle. And it hurts me to realize that two years has passed, with me in this big city, and everything so easily reprieves. Why did I choose to live here then? That got me remember of other countries I’ve visited thus far. Not that I’ve been to that many places, but sufficiently enough with respect to my minute earning. each location has its ’sexiness’ and being a non-license-no-driving person, I has to consider the x factor - conveniences of public transportations. Though I can’t really sat that KL offers that immediate x factor, but it does to some extend, provided getting use to some of its indistiguishable shortcomings. I was cursing the hell out of Hong Kong bus system, with its multiple bus-stops and complicated instruction. Then again I was a freaking tourist and the universal understanding of tourist is that they should never take other transports except taxi or train. One runs by direct command and and the latter operates in a timely fashion with comprehensible instruction; and if you ever got lost or stranded with these, then you ought to stay put at home. Well unless you happened to experience a cabbie that has no sense of location or direction what-so-ever, then you are screwed with the capital S.
Singapore and Japan are two places I would have no trouble staying and moving about. While Thailand and Cambodia might not necessary exhibit that x factor with its dangerously-driven trishaw, yet I wouldn’t mind nestle there, only for the hospitality and generosity of their people. So what is stopping me from getting onto the next plane to these countires and build myself a ‘life’. I don’t have a definate answer to that, but I do know being close to ‘home’ is a contributing factor. Why don’t I head home then, back to the island? And then what? Yes, will I find a ‘life’ there? It shouldn’t be that difficult. LOL I was born and raised there, and so were my parents, grandparents and probably ancestors too! I did turn out pretty alright, at least not a ’sampah masyrakat’ (useless bastard, sarcatically). So I should be able to make a reasonable living and get to do my annual vacation break in another country. I believed that if I travel at least one country per year, then I would be able to cover the globe before I reach retiring age. Nothing impressive really compares to ‘around the world in eighty days’ but it is a personal achievement, something I’ll be able to show my children later of the pictures I’ve taken in different places.
Wait a minute! I can’t believe my thought is running like a headless poulet like what Binh would refer. Anyway that is another story to tell on a later post. Please focus on the interest at hand! Where was I? Ah Yes, in a howling capital that has its diversity, people comes and goes without leaving any trace; a city like a house that roofs strangers, who breathe the same substance yet has nothing in relevance to one another. It is distinctively lonely. A word that hits a person even in unexpected manner, like often said alone is when I am with someone else, and that has a compromising effect on a person’ aging.
I long for ‘home’. Or I am shortage of friends (not the disposable ones). Or simply I am in the mid of searching for that spark; a thrill of affection. it is a lonesome affair, opposing to the existing camaraderie. Tête-à-têtei s only a promising language. What am I afraid of? The in-between feeling of compromising the little I have. Perhaps I was trying to prove a point by staying put. Like the time where I was the only student in my scool doing ad-maths with only minimal tutoring, and I passed. Like the time where I chose a field that many believed would only end up in misery or the fact that only a pure-science leaver could do ‘psychology’, and I prove them wrong, I graduated. Like the time where I graduated but has not locate a job, people has their doubt of me ever finding a job, but I secured a profession with a hospital within the same month. i’d challenged myself, meanwhile assuring my parents that I did do the right thing even though it does sometimes appear wrongly.
Sunday was no longer holy. Though the bell continues to caress my ears and the foundation is less than a distance away. I am afriad of getting out of bed, but not of the fact that loneliness would creep behind my footsteps. Octavio wrote ‘Solitude is the profoundaest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone.’
