Out At Sea

Read in my lit text today abhout how "when disenchantment becomes so pervasive that it undermines all convictions, it saps the moral energy on which we function". The writer goes on to describe a man who was "so focused on the ultmate emptiness of existence, so mistrustful of his own feelings, that he finds himself unable to sustain any personal or public commitment."

And a tingle went down my spine as I read that. A tingle because I happen to like what he said, and concur with the idea... but today I met up with Andrew Wang who seemed to embody the antithesis of that.

Met him for lunch, where he was telling me about the conflict Eric and Mel is having with Robin. Then he opened up to how he himself is choosing to run from the church, disenchanted with the segregation that he experiences, and that he identifie with the church. Yet he turns to his passion in Nature Conservation as an outlet, devoting much time and his ideals into that alternative. Despite the apparent pessimism that seeps through his exterior, he's managed to find a means of channeling his ideals into an alternative instead of embracing disilusionment.

And only yesterday morning, Susan Ang was commenting abt the 2 most common images used in literature across the centuries - the sea and the dessert. And she talks abt how the sea originates as an image of uncertainty, where man is unable to stand still and anchor himself in a single spot. Where he has absolutely no control whatsoever over his own fate. Yet by the age of the romantics, they've turned the paradigm around, embracing the sea as an adventure, a quest to discover new and uncharted territories.

And I guess at 3 in the morning, if I were to undertake a crass reduction of the two ideas, I'd say it boiled down to the idea of looking at the half-full or half-empty cup. Amazing how it can boil down to a cliche that I learnt in Pri 1.

Was sharing with Andrew that sometimes I really feel I'm losing control. That I don't even dare to sleep, since in those moments between lying down and being alseep, I have to be alone by myself. And I don't think I dare to face up to a lot of things in myself. When I take retreats, I think abt myself in relation to pple/things/events/plans. On a bus or when I'm walking ard in a park alone, I never do dare to think of nothing else except take stock of myself. Who I am, what kind of man I've become, what's going on with and in me.

Think he was absolutely right. My concern for people seems to be more a reaction to my own subconcious awareness that its time take a good hard look at myself. What some pple mistake as compassion on my part turns out to be no more than a deception and escape aimed at running away from myself.

Guess its time I do that soon.

Face up to myself.

Real Soon.