Tuesday, June 13, 2006
... Who are we now?...
Who are we now? How have we changed?
Are we still the same?
If I had half the answers to the questions that plague my mind, I would be so so so happy.
But alas, I don't.
What a fickle breed we, homosapiens, are. We changed and evolve constantly, we make friends and we lose friends, we make decisions and regret them ultimately. Life changes us, for some, it embitters them. For others, it makes them stronger.
I wish I could say that I was the latter of the two, but like many around me, I can only say that I am the former. Yet, despite it all, I find myself persevering till the end, always looking forward to a new day and just hoping that it may be better.
But better than what exactly? Better than a meaningless life? Better than a non-existant existance? I once believed that fools were the happiest people alive, but now, I start to doubt. Afterall, are we not all fools? Do we know everything that should be happening or do we make mistakes, too?
Happiness is such a fickle friend. One moment, it's laughing and smiling with you, the next, it's turned its back on you. I guess maybe that's why we always tend to focus more on the single black dot in the sea of white; because at least sadness is always constant. As depressing as that may sound. But again, I digress.
Maybe the single, biggest human flaw is that we tend to focus too much on the 'dark', 'dank' side of life, and not enough on the happier, brighter aspect of it.
In Shanghai, it's so so so much bigger than in Singapore, thus allowing us to feel and be whoever it is that we truly are inside. There are no social rules tying us down, there are no stuffy musts or must-nots.
Here, I can be myself and just pause and sniff the flowers by the roadside (which of course I won't, cause the air here is really really really polluted, but I digress).
"Do fairytales exist?"
How many cynics will reply with a "No! Of course not!"
Yet here, with it's beautiful landscapes and towering buildings, it's almost impossible not to imagine what it must've been like as Cinderella, or Aurora, or Ariel... It's almost hard not to imagine what it must feel like to be swept off your feet, because this city is almost magical.
In a place where no one ever sleeps, one can just be whoever it is that we want to be inside, yet still, in this almost overpopulated place, surprisingly, it's also the loneliest.
I must confess, I like Shanghai. Almost too much.
I like being able to be myself; Shanghai has never failed to ignite the spark of life in me that I know will invariably be extinguished the moment the plane touches back down in Singapore, but for those stolen moments of "me-ness", I'm satisfied, and yet at the same time, inevitably depressed.
But that just brings us back to our greatest flaw; we just tend to focus so so so much on the aftermath of things, worrying about this and that. We never just live for the moment.
Maybe it's time we start "living". Doing things on impulse without thinking of the consequences, like just jumping into a bus and going down to Orchard to watch a movie, or just get into a cab and buy tickets to go to another country or something. Live a little, laugh a lot...
But we just never ever learn, do we?
Posted by Char at 7:49 PM