One of my favourite quotes, because it so easily captures just how I feel about so many things. Captain America is a supersoldier, he was a soldier in World War 2 who was given superhuman strength & agility, and is one of the most brilliant military tacticians. He has 1940’s values, and believes in good and evil. Things are very black and white to him.
But in this story, he gets a second lease of life in the twenty first century, and the black and white between good and evil has turned to grey. To make matters worse, earth is on the verge of an alien invasion that seeks to destroy all human life as we know it. For once, the things that make Captain America, one of the greatest superheros the good guys has seen, is at a loss.
He is completely impotent.
His mind, strength, agility and values do not come into play, when you’re trying to fight off a planet-sized threat. And that is the conundrum I face tonight.
I come home, read the news about Yong Vui Kong, who is on death row, yet his family is fighting every second of the day, to appeal for clemency from the president. They are not giving up despite the odds, overwhelmingly stacked against them. I read about the control our current government tries to impose on us, I read of a lot of disgruntled complaints about the world that we live in.
And I’ve stood up for a few causes, I’ve tried to be involved and make it my fight too. But the thorn in my side, is that we can never truly be the people who always stand up for justice, or what’s right. Sometimes we also just want to bury our faces in the sand, and pretend that the world’s great and all. I just got my paycheck, and I just blew $40 on Grand Theft Auto 4. I’m thinking of playing it as soon as it gets downloaded. I’m thinking of all the marketing I want to do for my band(s), and even how I’m going to reorganise my life in preparation for my new job in September.
It’s a constant struggle to tow the line, between what’s right for you, and what’s right for society. There are personal and public battles to be fought, and sometimes, I just don’t see the distinction anymore. It taxes me out emotionally more than anything else. It drains me to care. And yes, sometimes, I just feel so impotent.
So weak and powerless, that there are actually so little things I can change, with my two hands, mind, heart and soul. There is a limit, to how much of a fuck I can give. Sometimes I’m near the limit, sometimes I have too much to give.
I don’t have all the answers, but one thing’s for sure, something ain’t right with this world, and when you put your finger on it, it really is an evil too big to hit.
I will write in here until my eyes bleed out, that much I can promise.
A lot has changed in the past year, that’s all I can think of. Soul searching here and there, finding out where my strengths and weaknesses are, what I wanted to change, and changing some, stagnating in others.
That’s life. It’s not really the success story of perfection that the world constantly tells us to achieve, even if they’d like to admit that we are all masters of our own fates. The reality is that society expects various things of us, and maybe I’m not really that brave with regard to the unknown. For starters, the need for a job and a source of income. Support our families and loved ones. Even if I’m not married or have a partner, my family is a responsibility, one that I’ve grown to accept, and appreciate. There will always be things that I hate about them, but there’s also so much more that I could love. Though it’s not a matter of having more loves than hates, but learning what family is during this last year, and the things we do in the name of family. I can appreciate, and I’ve been blessed to be allowed to appreciate.
A vengeful spirit that counts the cost, leads us to be conservative in how much we want to give. But I’ve learned that you can give you all and still not receive, yet.. the less you give, the more you fade from existence. You disappear from the hearts of people when you seek solitude. Sometimes, I liked that solitude, other times, I scream at the walls. My neurosis means that I tell myself that I have to pick one. My growth tells me that they each exist as two sides of the same coin.
Duality is the main idea I’ve picked up this past year. How one person can be two different things, and not be fake. It’s not about wearing two different masks, but accepting the good and the bad that exists in all of us, and in all situations. To keep walking even when you’re not fully healed, to stop walking so you can heal yourself. It’s like walking forwards and backwards at the same time, or walking two different paths at the same time. Life.. simply isn’t a linear phenomena.
I just signed a teaching contract with MOE, and there are still doubts in my head, as there is sureness as well. It can be both the best and worst decision I’ve made my entire life. But there’s something about Singapore’s meritocratic culture that tells us we have to make only the best decisions, as if it were a multiple choice answer. I reject that. The best choice is also the worst choice. There will always be something down the road that will ask for our sacrifice, or make it seem like we made a bad choice. But that is the reality.. we have to experience the bad, as much as we experience the good. We cannot go through life experiencing only good things. Even though we crave for comfort instead of struggle, life itself is a struggle just to stay on the path.
So, it might sound like I’ve gone no where in my quest for an answer, but I think that my thinking has matured, and can finally accept both the good things and the bad, and not just seem them as singular concepts, but a holistic concept affects the human condition. That’s a good thing, it’s a step forward. It might be a bad thing, because I’ll end up over-thinking and paralyzing myself again. But hey, life’s a ride.
