aerasio

Real living

You know those times when you look around and wonder how you got where you are. When you look back over your shoulder and see everything you once looked forward to, once hoped and dreamed for, scurrying away in the dust of time. When you wonder where in the world all that time you had went off to, and wonder again, in your heart of hearts, where in the world you're headed.

The future is always uncertain it seems. Who would have dreamed that my Oldest Brother would work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? Or that my Father would have returned after 20 years to teach in St Paul? Who would have dreamed that I would be enrolled at a University before even taking the O'levels!? Joy, happiness, excitement, relief and overwhelming pride. Who wouldn't feel that way? Yet the novelty wears off, and as much as being a 16 year-old freshmen in college is extremely prestigious and exciting and 'all that', it gets tired. Everyone around me is older, larger, I feel small, out of place in this big fast-paced world. Its not that I can't handle the work, the lowest grade I've gotten on work I've handed in is A-, far better than I did in Singapore. I'm ahead of most of my fellows, and on good standing with all my professors. I have friends who I talk to, a band I play in, a Christian fellowship and biblestudy I attend regularly, most of them don't even know how much younger I am than they are. Yet I feel awkward at times, as if I don't deserve to be there.

In many ways I do deserve it. I grasp the concepts flying around in my Religion class. Think deeply about whats going on (or at least I like to think so). In English, its clear from the discussions that I'm one of the more cogent contributors. My grades thus far have outstripped anyone I've cared to compare them with. Yet I feel undeserving, like everything I've gained is a flood of unbelievably good luck. Maybe it is, and I am merely overrating myself. Regardless, all of it doesn't matter, because slowly, I'm beginning to hate living here. I don't know how my older brothers managed it, living away from home. I even have Dad here with me and plenty of warm and friendly faces. However, I still can't stop myself from hating it a little, from missing home a lot. I can't stop myself from being so damn unhappy! America isn't all it's made out to be, I'm frustrated with its un-Singaporeaness.

My Dad told me that I may not be able to go back to Singapore in the Summer because of Singapore's strict policy toward pre-NS males trying to get University degrees. As much as I understand his good intent in saying so and appreciate the effort he put in to get me into University in the first place; as much as I love my Dad, I can't help but hate him a little for that, for this whole mess of Singaporean NS law and University life. It isn't his fault I know; everything is for my own good; I know that too. It doesn't make me like it any better, and the prospect of not being able to go home and see everyone I love and miss, just makes it all depressingly bleak, a cesspool of anger and irritance.

I'm not terribly oppposed to National Service. I buy the PAP rhetoric on it being neccessary for Singapore and whatnot. But at times like this, principle is clouded by the emotional and practical detriments incurred by it. Serving my country is all very well and good, but why can't I get a degree abroad before coming back to do it? Why must I stay away from my own country so that I can avoid being stopped from studying and bettering myself even though I have no intention of avoiding National Service in the first place. There are reasons for this I know, not terribly good ones, but justifiable ones nonetheless. Yet I feel the need to rage against them, to decide them to be undeniably evil and unjust so I point my self-righteous finger and curse them and shift my attention away from my loss. A temporary loss to be sure, but a painful one nonetheless. I wan't to see the friends I left, the home I grew up in, is that so selfish?

A part of me wants to say "no, you're perfectly justified in feeling that way, and fie on any who would deny what you know to be true". Another part screams "yes", a muffled scream, smothered by the strong hand of emotion. I want to go home, ironically, its not mine anymore. We sold it and now my Oldest Brother lives in an apartment in Serangoon (I think, I'm not even sure of that). It brings to mind buddhist dogma, "void is existence, existence is void" all time is transient, all endeavor meaningless, the belief in the cycle of the ages, the wisdom of futility. But I don't want to believe that, time has to be headed somewhere, life has meaning, purpose! We were put on this Earth for a reason, right!? To improve the lot of our fellow man, to bring peace where there is war, to spread the word of God and worship him as our lord and savior! Are these not what we are called to do? Why then am I so unsure about it? What can I do, in the face of indomnitable reality? Quail and cower, and live a meaningless life in the knowledge that all existence is so? What point is there in this dark and terrible world of "giving it your best" and "reaching for the sky"? I can't reach it, and I'm tired of trying...

Maybe this is just a rut I'm in, a little pothole in the long and winding road of life. I shall try to clamber out, and walk the narrow path. I shall work my way and slog my guts into a half-way decent GPA. Maybe tomorrow, if the sun is shining and the wind is pleasant, I will feel better about this whole nasty business of living in the world. Maybe tomorrow. Right now, I just wanna curl up into a ball and dream of good things...

because real life is so much harder than the movies...

So said Aerasio at 18:49