Sepia-tinged with melancholy

It is truly ironic, that when I started this blog, I wanted more thoughts and feelings and less events and narrations. But yet, descriptions after descriptions load the recent pages I penned on.

Perhaps. Maybe things have changed. And why not. Things change. Some don't, and be grateful for it. Yet you wish some do.

All changes are sepia-tinged with melancholy, for what we are leaving behind is part of ourselves.










Melancholy can be so beautiful. Tragic beauty. But to be able to write it all down with an heavy heart, is really putting feelings into words. To be able to feel the sediments of depression, and reflect upon things that used to pain.

And tonight, while my buddy Tinkie told me how glad she was that somethings, like our friendship, don't change; I was wondering why don't some other stuff change. Emotions. Can you hate love?

K: There was once a type of candy you loved. Craved and desired. But one day it was discovered that the candy was bad, really bad, harmful in fact. But yet you know, you can't change your love into hatred, just like that.
T: it doesn't change the fact that u used to like it.
K: What if u still like it?
T: then u have to learn to live with yourself, your choices isn't it?
T: and learning to live with the fact that you're not as perfect as you'd like yourself to be

Can you reason infatuation?

~~~~~

self-styled obligations

On the first night of Bintan, we sat by the beach and looked at stars. Looking into the unknown made us question the unknown. On life and on purpose. On regrets and on dreams.





Empty chairs..
Memories of intriguing conversations
under the Bintan stars







As much as I would like to make a name for myself, I know I am one of little ambitions. Man, being man, would love to be great. Man create dreams and goals for themselves to achieve. And isn't it strange, that such self-styled obligations are the very ones that lead to regrets? Regrets stem from discontentment, from unachieved goals.

If I had only...
forgotten future greatness
and looked at the green trees and the buildings
and reached out to those around me
and smelled the air
and ignored the many forms and self-styled obligations
and heard the rain on the window-pane
and saw the sun setting into the sea
and felt the fire warm my hands
and put my arms around those I love
... and it's not too late.

Yet I believe it's good to have goals, small short-term ones along the way, to make a life more purposeful. I never had any grand general scheme or plan for my life, maybe I just like to tag along and see what life has for me, to continue discovering. It's hard for me to even think 2 years down the road.

I really believe, that "the road is always better than the inn" (Cervantes). The greatest fun comes from the journey, because it is where we display our creative effort and live our lives. Like I know, I enjoy creating a picture from photoshop more than the posting of it online or anywhere for the world to view, and in fact, many of my "creations" had only taken up space on my hard disk. I love hiking, because of the sights and the stress I had to endure during the process.

The short-term goal achieved is like the inn, a checkpoint, a temporary resting place along the road of endless self-fulfillment, and a starting place for another new adventure.

Yet along the path to the next inn, I've always expected the best effort from myself. To go as far as possible, to excel. Well, Man are egoistic, I would love to hang a glowing resume at every inn I stopped.

Focus on the journey, have fun and be creative! And not just set your eye too firmly on the ultimate goal or the self-styled obligations. Maybe life would have less regrets.

~~~~~

To thine own self be true

And when asked what's the biggest regret in my life, I gave it a thought, and answered simply that I haven't always been true to myself.

Somehow, I've always wanted to stick to a set of unwavering principles, and sought to live an upright life. To have courage. To put in my best and to try to help, even if it means getting bullied. To serve. To be all that I could in order to live with a clear conscience; being able to lay around freely and ponder without a worry.









And sometimes I fantasized. Thinking what it would be like, to live a life like my idols 赵云 (Zhao Yun) and 郭靖 (Guo Jing), honest, upright, loyal and courageous. And I wondered if this is being true to myself even. You know the questions that follow: am I who I am, or am I trying to be someone else.

And how far can we be true to ourselves and to our set of principles?

Changes. Our image, opinions of ourselves, view of things, and even the road map of where we're going in life are never static, with everything set in motion. Everyday we must rethink who we are, and how these principles are guiding us. And how others are affected by us.

Sometimes, I found, that being true to yourself might hurt others, and thus people might avoid being totally true. And for me, the greatest flaw of mine is sometimes to be too concerned of others' opinion of me, such that it becomes an additional burden of an expectation to carry out. And worse, my own paranoid opinion of myself.

I've said things and asked questions that I now regret, for they have probably lowered my image, but yet, at that very moment when the words were spoken, weren't we all just being true?

Do not judge on the 1 wrong thing a person has done, but the 9 good ones he has done prior to this.

~~~~~

Pardon my random thoughts, and poor articulation. My ideas jumped to and fro, left and right, in english and in chinese, and it was getting increasingly difficult to note everything down.

Life is like a can of coke.
Bubbles escape, and it fizzles out.
Things fizzle out too, like passion and energy.
Like love and friendship.
But life, like coke
can still be sweet.