It's good to stay in the Y! M! C! A!

Obviously another ‘happening’ wedding, heh.

A relative’s wedding this time round but under The Parents (and miscellaneous Relatives) watchful eyes coupled with the duties as designated driver, the consumption of free alcohol was impossibility. Oh how my heart bled at the sight of all that alcohol passing through the lips of less worthy people. Damn them all!

Hm. This story could probably end here as nothing of any interest happened at all i.e. No Alcohol = No Fun for Jackie.

(“Do I need you because I love you or do I love you because I need you?”)

Just a couple of observations:

If there’s a dance floor, when a love song starts playing (“Wonderful Tonight” is always a sure bet) and your lady gets that wistful, longing, dreamy look in her eyes, gently take her hand and ask her to dance. Trust me, she won’t even notice your two left feet because she will be floating on air. And that sparkle in her eyes? Priceless.

Attending weddings unaccompanied when you’re single and unattached is a curse, as we all know so well. Attending weddings ‘partner-less’ when you’re single and attached is almost equally torturous. The overdose of sappy romanticism, public declarations of love and all things ‘couply’ serve only to fuel the longing to have that someone’s hand in yours and his smiling eyes looking back at you.

I suspect the only reason that’ll be left for me to keep going to weddings (other than being duty bound) is the alcohol.

Experience (or lack of it) and Perception

I’m learning not to underestimate the strength of personal experience. New experiences and the insight they bring are the reason some days I’m almost completely convinced I know nothing at all. It is a singularly powerful motivating factor in the way we perceive, behave, and react to our surroundings. The same event can happen to a multitude of people at the same time and yet every observer’s reaction to it differs depending on each one’s internal makeup up till that point of time: a direct result of years upon years of ingrained experience.

The simplest experiment to test out this fact (I would say ‘theory’ but it’s so straightforward that I’m sure millions have thought of it way before your truly) is to try and re-watch movies after an extended period of time, a few years being ideal. Yes, it’s that simple. I’ve tried it and a previously harmless movie is set to give me nightmares tonight.

This personal experience thing is kind of funny actually. On the one hand it’s a tool that forces us to ‘grow up’, whatever that might be. We also tend to regard ‘experienced’ individuals with a respect afforded to the wise. However I think experience should also be digested with a certain sense of wariness because it’s a sure and easy path to cynicism. And while there’s nothing wrong with cynicism (only the very naïve are devoid of it), a person who puts too much store in past experience, using it to shoot down or dismiss new possibilities is in danger of ending up bitter and angry at a world that she thinks has let her down and is determined to continue to do so. Often times bad experiences especially, shrivels our courage. Making us fearful of taking risks, always expecting the same outcome.

I’ve never really needed experience before except for the purpose of cultivating empathy. Instead, what I lack in experience I more than make up for with an over active imagination as some unfortunately have been made painfully aware of. And yes, this imagination or in most cases the ‘looking ahead and imagining the worst’ is a fear just as paralyzing as experience can be.

Time

I’ve been thinking a lot about time these days.

About how futile it is to wish you could fast forward time, because eventually the time you were waiting for will come round and when it does, it has the gall to go ahead and pass you by!

It is just as similarly futile to try and hold back time, to try and make it slow down in order to keep the unpleasant at bay because whatever it is you dread will be over soon enough regardless of what you do.

The one constant about time? It passes. There’s absolutely no point trying to exercise control over it.

I know this isn’t any big revelation, everyone knows this implicitly, but if that is so, why then do we struggle so much against the passage of time? Wouldn’t it save us a whole lot of trouble to just learn to accept things as and when they come?

But you know the funny thing about ‘knowing’ things is that it has no relation whatsoever to what we actually do about it.

I really must focus on directing my smiles at the person who brought it on instead of absentmindedly glancing away at other people while I do it, which has eeriely brought many a returning smile from strangers. Yikes!

That which remains a Mystery

He’s tall, dark and bald. She’s shorter, plump. They look like 2 good friends or colleagues sitting down after work having a personal animated conversation over coffee. But before they leave they hug each other tightly, fondly, and as she turns away a huge smile is etched on her face and lingers there just a little too long, and I wonder…

There are couples everywhere, a sheer proliferation of them. I suppose they’ve always been around but I never quite bothered or noticed before, considering them unnecessary nuisances. Now, they are all I see. I notice everything, observe their minutest gestures, am thoroughly fascinated. The way he holds her arm, the glances she sneaks at him, the way they laugh, and off I go wondering….

I wonder what their stories are, how they met, how long they’ve been together, if she loves him, if he’s thinking of someone else. I wonder if they’re anything like us, what makes us different or if we all share similarities. I’m searching for that thing that makes us all tick. Trying to deconstruct the elusive makeup of that which stubbornly defies definition. Looking for the answer to “Why?”.

Thunderstorm in KL

Quote of the day:
"Don't be a hero(ine), it's a Kelisa not a submarine"

(hur! hur!)