A Sense of Perspective

So many distressing people today, it's really quite unbearable. Practically haven't been able to relax in school, because I feel compelled to be on my guard against other people who seem only to want to dissect me and my work. How do I say this without sounding arrogant? I am proud of what I have done, I did not expect to do nearly as well, I am still trying to figure out what I did right, but seriously, this is a sad reason to get an aneurism over. It's only an exam, for crying out loud! It's not even the real thing! If you're not going to America no one will remember what you got.

I cannot deny that it feels good to have concrete rewards for my labour. But I have to keep it in perspective, and I don't think that I am licensed to say that I deserve all that I got. And everyone also should put things in perspective. Please, I will appreciate it if people stopped looking at me like a threat. It's unsettling, unwelcome, and wholly unnecessary. And so I find myself in the rather strange position of having to defend my private space against this horde of people who want to vivisect every essay I've written.

It does seem that people suddenly lose sight of their sense of perspective when the papers came back. To be fair, it was definitely not a good idea to pile all the papers on us at once. And of course, it is only proper to mourn and reflect as necessary. But to wallow in it? Today's most preposterous sentence, moaning about being doomed to go to NUS. People forget that thousands of others would give a lot to get into NUS.

But then again, I probably exaggerate for effect. Unease only applies to people who make a big deal about it, mainly the people who are really close to beating me anyway. To tell the truth, for the most part people have at least been discreet about it. And as for the adverse reactions, it's not like I didn't expect it. But to prepare for it and to have to deal with it are different things. It does feel partly like a barrier is descending between me and everyone else. Now I don't feel safe discussing the exams at all...it feels inappropriate, and it'd probably come off as insensitive, knowing my way with words...

But yeah...there will still be nice people around which I can start to relax. For them, I am deeply grateful, probably more grateful than I can tell them. It's only among them that I find that I can step back and take stock, reassess my position, maintain my sense of perspective. And that sense of perspective is exactly why I totally and unreservedly refuse to be placed on a pedestal and worshipped. If you must, go worship God instead, he can reward you better for it.

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But yes...rant aside, the last three days have been rather pleasant. Had Pui Man over on Tuesday to play the guitars. Heh rediscovered the delights of that instrument, and am now learning how to play Stairway to Heaven. Once again I'm rather surprised at how a really simple chord progression can be made to sound so nice. Of course, the singing and the guitar solos (which I can hardly begin to approach) probably have some part to play in it =P

After fiddling around with the guitars for a while we ended up playing Uno Attack with Marcus (which I kept winning, for some reason =P), and then he obligingly taught us how to play Beyblades, which is in fact rather an intriguing sport. Lots of physics and engineering principles hidden in the guise of a game of tops, actually. And then Marcus challeneged me to a game of Chess as she watched. Hehheh, he's so good at it that it's spooky. Or maybe it's just that I'm still a lousy player. But it must be some kind of gift for him to pick up the game so quickly, and practically badger me into fighting for my life. One of his weaknesses is that after half an hour he gets bored and starts making some strange moves. But beyond that I find it rather remarkable.

So it turns out that lazing around at home also has its merits. Heh, haven't had the chance to relax like that at home for a long time, usually because if no one's home I'd be playing on the comp. Good to have some human company to remind me that real life is still worth living =P I can't really describe here the peculiar quality of the comfortableness of sitting in the living room with a hand of Uno cards, and your brother on the one hand and a great friend on the other. Usually my visions of wellbeing include a fireplace and squashy armchairs, but this comes close enough =P

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Wednesday, being the last day of our hiatus, needed to be lived to the maximum, so I was out of the house at 0830 on the way to East Coast to meet up with the Guitar Exco. We were planning to spend a day at the beach, and in the end we adjourned to a bike rental shop, where Lixin convinced practically all of us to try out rollerblades. Heh, I discovered that I can actually move in those blades! And quite smoothly too, if I do say so myself. There is a certain rhythm that you have to find, a certain posture and pattern of precise body movements, to control your CG and propel you forward with the most economy of energy and grace. The amount of coordination and concentration is really quite a mental workout. The only thing is that I held my body so rigid throughout the thing that I started to get a backache after a while...

Poor Shuching kept falling off her skates. Was staying back to keep her moving towards the pier that was our final destination, but she ran out of time before she could reach it. On the way back we discovered her problem: not a coordination fault, not a balance problem, but a wheel missing from her right skate =P

After that, because the weather was looking worrisome, we adjourned to Marina Square for a movie. They went to watch A Sound of Thunder, while I parted ways with them to go catch Be With Me at PS. What a haunting movie. It must be Eric Khoo's best work to date, and by far the best Singaporean film I've ever seen, though it was a ripoff of the concept from Love Actually, just as Home Run ripped off Children of Heaven. The film's strong point was its use of a specifically Singaporean lexicon of images and metaphors, specially intended for a Singaporean audience. Like the contrast between an old provision shop and the skyscrapers in the distance. A security guard ogling a sleek businesswoman through the security cameras. The prolific use of MSN and SMS to communicate between two lovers (I think Singapore's the only place where text messages can be used as a viable communication medium like this believably). Chinese food from a can, high-rise apartment blocks in which people sleep on mattresses on the floor.

But what was particularly haunting was its examination of communcation. It's not really a film about love, I think. In the whole film, there must've been less than thirty seconds of speech, and none of it in dialogue. There were the two lovers communicating by SMS, and then there was this deaf-blind woman, living in an antiseptically bare apartment, speaking in a high-pitched voice, and having speech palmed into her hands and fingertips. Can you imagine that sort of isolation, communicating only through touch? But even for her the isolation was broken, through taste. Food plays a big part in the movie. And the remarkable thing about that woman was that she types out perfect English on her Braille writer, a whole autobiography, which is used as the inspiration for the movie, and appears in subtitles during the many poignant silences.

Most jerking moment - one of the girls committing suicide. Or attempting to do so. I thought that was a really stupid reason to die for, but what really made me cringe was the familiar settings. In fact, the movie's setting makes it really much more remarkable than it would have been, I think. Because it's set here, and uses the Singaporean lexicon, you really do get the feeling that the love stories really did happen, or if they did not, then they probably can happen. It's this credibility that made me cringe when she jumped, because she seemed so much like a believable, real person.

The most moving moment was the end. I shall not spoil it, I shall only say that I empathised with it most painfully. It was one of those things that I never expected would happen to me, and yet that type of moment of connection, I believe I have experienced before. And the fact that it is so close to home...this was one of the very very few movies that actually jerked tears. Perhaps partly it's also because I haven't had a cathartic cry in more than a year, but I thought that I was perfectly capable of dissolving into sobs right in that cinema.

Heh I bet Chern was rather bemused. After that I was not really in the mood to talk, frankly. It sparked off a lot of questions about our Singaporean life. Pointed out quite a few things that I must admit are actually screen-worthy. Things that are worth recording, expanding on artistically, communicated to the rest of the world. Maybe now's the time when we develop a culture worth preserving.

After that was a jump down to Adam Road for dinner with Andre and gang, the people who were at Kats's house all day. Heh I can only repeat that being with these people has a particular grounding effect that I find really reassuring. There is an assurance that real life goes on, there's only so much that can be ruined by you, thaqt after all the reminiscing and reflection people will still be there waiting for you. Seeing them again was really good for the spirit, if nothing else. One must remember what the important things are.

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Again today I am struck by what good friends I really have. People I sincerely feel comfortable with, people that I trust. People that I can approach in total frankness, who do not expect the world in return. Seriously, faced with such people, why do people still look for this elusive and slippery thing called "love"? I have yet to see a loving relationship outside of marriage that surpasses some of my friendships.

I will not say more, it'll probably nauseate you if it doesn't bore your pants off. But I continually see reassurance that people are what matter most, and that Eliot is right: the divine is approached through the human.

pondered by phoenican @ 29.9.05