Ageing

Hmm...I think I'm getting old. Was at the iSpark Night gathering thing at HC's auditorium. Basically it was an excuse for all the old people to get together again...the three iSpark classes from my batch, and most importantly, my own class. 4N.

I still miss those people, those times. And yet, there's a sort of shift in the relationship in the class. The old camaraderie is still there, to be sure, but there's something else now that tinges it with a measure of...unease. Sorrow, maybe? No, too strong. Sadness perhaps. It would seem that we are finally going to move out of our old orbits. University, examinations, army, all looming in front of us. I don't know how much of our bonds will actually survive the test of time and space.

To be sure, it's lasted longer than I expected already. And the people who sustain it are the unexpected ones. The delightful thing about these two years was that the people I least expected to stick together have proven to be the glue behind the continuing friendship of our class. I guess partly it's out of habit that these people stick together. And also because they expect nothing from each other except frankness and trust. The healthiest of all relationships, I think, and one that developed only in an all-boys environment in mid-teenage. That kind of attachment that we've enjoyed as old boys will not manifest itself in 1A, I think. Too little time, and too little frankness.

But to be sure, I expect that the 1A relationships will outlast most of the 4N ones. And yet, even there, the 4N relationships have the superior tinge of realisticness. In its transience, it is truthful. When our camaraderie is used up, we will drift apart and eventually only meet one another tangentially, I expect. 4N won't stay together any longer than its people want it to stay together. For 1A, the story's a bit different. Some people will oblige others to come for reunions every now and then, until the thing becomes a ritual, something that everyone goes through the motions of doing. 4N will let the class die a peaceful death when the time comes. 1A will put the thing on life-support.

Of course, part of me hopes that 4N will not die. Probably that's the old sentimental part of me, who's beginning to accumulate enough memory to start to feel nostalgia for the "old times". These two years, I've seen 4N as something that does not change, something constant to rely on as I readjusted to RJ life. But at iSpark Night, the hints of change have creeped in. I've changed. For all my gripes against the RJ lifestyle, I find that I am growing into what some people will call a "Rafflesian". And yet, I still want to stay among the "plebians". The Cheena people were my buddies before. Now I find myself stuck between the two camps, too rough around the edges, too optimistic, too simple to be a real intellectual Refflesian, and yet too highbrow, too formalised to really be one with my old peers either. Change is coming. It's time to find something else to hold on to.

Heh, and iSpark Night was as cobbled together this year as it was for all the years we were there. To be sure, they really tried hard. There was sincerity behind the really bad plays and songs and short pieces that every class put up onstage. Can sincerity make up for the lack of quality? Most of the time, I would think not, but that night, I couldn't bring myself to criticise them too harshly. All the old people there...parents, some old boys from the first ever iSpark batch 15 years ago, old classmates, and even our next generation, the 300-odd present iSparkians. What they lack in refinement they make up for in effort and camaraderie. And everyone knew that it was bad, onstage, but no one really cared. It was good-natured, for the most part.

Or maybe that's my sentimental side talking again. It was sad, in its way, that it was cobbled together. Heh, the whole shebang was undoubtedly forced upon each and every iSparkian, in the tradition of Chinese High. And yet, for all its fakeness and superficiality, I begin to appreciate the intention behind it. It's more or less an excuse for gathering, not a proper event in itself. When I was doing things for iSpark Night years ago, I thought that it was a big waste of time. But really, the night wasn't for the shows, it was for gathering everyone under one roof. I am beginning to see that, and then all the superficiality and lack of quality becomes just quaint, another figment of what it was like to be in iSpark.

Yes, I am getting old. Only with hindsight can one see things in this kind of light...

pondered by phoenican @ 28.5.05