Neverland

“I never get why parents control their children so much. They always think they need to protect their children so much. Do they really think we are so innocent?”

Someone said that to me recently.

Underneath that is basically a statement that after a certain age we, as children, no longer need (or want) our parents to constantly try and protect us from the corrupt ways of the world. It’s just a rewording of what we used to say when we were kids - that we are not a little boy/girl anymore. We can take care of ourselves.

Why did our parents try so hard to protect our innocence, especially when we were in our teens? Even they know that loosing that innocence is an inevitable part of growing into adulthood. It’s not like they don’t know any better themselves. They too were teenagers once upon a time. They too fought with their parents over the right to wear miniskirts, or get a tattoo, or stay out late at night. How come they behave (mostly) just like how their parents used to behave? Was the learning curve between the generations zero?

Somehow, I don’t think so. I don’t think they failed to learn from their past, hence becoming overprotective just like their parents. I think they DID learn something from their past, hence becoming overprotective just like their parents. I think parents try to protect their child’s innocence as much as they try to protect the child itself. And I think that it’s because when we eventually do grow into adulthood, we learn something else, something new, something we don’t know how to appreciate until its lost – and that is the beauty of innocence.

Most people enjoy reminiscing about old times, about all the silly, funny, crazy, whacked up thing we used to do as children and even teenagers. We laugh about how we used to be so naïve and silly, how we didn’t know any better, how life was simple, how the world was simple, how WE were simple. I remember when I was a kid and my parents brought us to a dinosaur exhibition. The monsters looked so real, I only dared watch from behind my father’s leg the entire hour we were inside the expo. Nevermind that I knew it wasn’t real. It still scared me. I remember when I was 6, how there were 2 boys in my class who got in trouble for entering the girls toilet during recess. They said they were trying to catch the ghost that was haunting the girl’s toilet. They even had self made hand drawn seals and plastic rulers as swords. The girls cried because they thought it was true. The teachers laugh because they knew. And the boys… well…. we want to go into the girls toilet too...

We laugh with a joyful heart, about how innocent we were once upon a time. Because we somehow recognize how beautiful it was. And we also realize how it’s only appreciated in hindsight. It seems that’s the most common way good things are appreciated. When it’s already gone.

How unique the story of Peter Pan and the lost boys is. They kept their innocence for as long as they stayed in Neverland. They never had to grow up. They were allowed to keep their innocence. Even the late Michael Jackson named his estate Neverland and tried to make it as child-like as possible, even as he was far from child like. I guess in our own different ways, we all want to be part of Neverland.

Where Home Is

I just came back from visiting a friend overseas recently. We were in Brisbane, Australia for about a week. The trip was mainly part of an annual holiday trip we do among four of us, whom we consider our closest friends. But it was also chance to visit another country, to observe another culture, another way of life.

So many people we know have chosen to migrate overseas. Some to Europe, others to the US, but most of them look towards Australia. It’s not too far away from Malaysia, it has a sizable Asian community, the country is fully developed, and seemingly immigrants aren’t so discriminated against. Perhaps I was missing out on something? Perhaps there was something that I didn’t know about? Perhaps I was ignorant towards the better things on offer in other countries. I wanted to see it for myself.

Most people I’ve spoken to who’ve chosen to migrate say that it’s the quality of life they’re after. They say the pace of life in a developing Asian society is unhealthy and taxing. Unhealthy foods, long work hours, consumer driven, money driven. They say it’s not the way life is supposed to be lived. They tell me Western society is more about living a balanced life. You sip coffee, you go to the beach, you read a book, you go on summer holidays, you eat salads, you take public transport you attend live musicals and you bring your own bag shopping for groceries. There’s this whole romantic idea that living in a developed country will always better than living in a just-growing-up land such as Malaysia. And in many ways, it’s true. There indeed are many things about living in a first world country that can never be matched by us for many more decades.

But what about here? What about home? Isn’t there anything at all at home that would also prompt you to want to stay? Someone made a remark to me that all those people migrating over there, probably had something they were running away from over here. As oppose to the common thinking that migrating was more about running towards something that was over there. And in many ways I think this is true too. I’ve heard complaints from people living overseas that the cost of living is also rising, their economy is in recession, jobs aren’t that easy to find, and their dollar doesn’t quite go the mile it used to. Isn’t that what we complain about here too? Life ‘over there’ isn’t necessarily as rosy as it sounds.

Sitting over lunch with a colleague that spent 5 years in Sydney, I asked him why he came back while so many others were trying to get out. And he asked back “Don’t you think life in Malaysia is so much better?” I wouldn’t know. I haven’t spend enough time overseas to agree or disagree. A lot of people say they want their kids to have a better life overseas. But I look at them and say “Look at you. Didn’t YOU grow up here. You turned out fine. What makes you think you children will not?”

But to me, it isn’t so much a debate about which place is better than the other. Everyone, even myself, would go to a better place if it were that simple.

To me, the real question was – where is home to you?

I can never understand how someone can spend their whole lives living in one country and still feel like home is supposed to be somewhere else. No doubt things might be nicer or better elsewhere, but to me it isn’t home. If someone else’s mother or wife is so much pleasant than yours, do you then want theirs instead of the one you have? This country is yours. This home is yours. You are part of that home. It is your birthright. Is it something to give up just like that?

I ask myself if I could ever foresee myself leaving. And the honest answer, even for me is yes. Yes, I could leave this country. I wouldn’t want to. And I wouldn’t want to want to. But I could. If ever I’m no longer welcomed in my own home that is; if ever life here becomes unbearable to me or my family. Yet, even then, home will still be here. Everywhere else would always be something….. adopted.

Strolling by the long sandy beaches of the Gold Coast with my friend at night, we talked about these things. Why she decided to come. Why she didn’t want to stay. Why she wouldn’t go home. How much she enjoyed the beach, the relaxed life, the culture.

“You could come here easily you know. They’d take the two of you in a heartbeat.” she said.

“I know. I could…. But I won’t. For as long as I can help it, I want to stay in Malaysia. If there is still a chance to make a good living back in Malaysia, I will want to take that chance. I love life back home.” I replied.

“You see, that’s something I can’t say. I can’t say I love life back home. THAT’s why I’m here.”

I guess that’s the difference.

Where we love is home, Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Homesick in Heaven

How To Love

Love can be so complicated something doesn’t it?

It lifts you up like nothing else in this world. It makes your heart soar with the eagles. It makes you climb mountains. It makes you more than you ever thought you could be. And yet love seems to also be the very thing that makes us feel so vulnerable, so weak, so exposed, to silly.

We all start with such a simplistic and naïve belief system, that if I love you, and you love me, we’ll go through it all. We’ll fight the nay sayers, we’ll prove everybody wrong, we’ll show that we're different. We'll show them that love does conquer all...

And then we fail.

Relationships start to crumble, big rifts appear, feelings fade, fatigue comes in and your heart just doesn’t feel so invincible as it used to be. Love, the glue that was supposed to be holding everything together seems to melt apart. Things aren’t as simple as you first thought them to be. Perhaps, just feeling love for each other isn’t enough. Perhaps you aren’t right for one another. Perhaps the timing isn’t right. Perhaps I’m not ready. Perhaps he/she isn’t ready. Perhaps he/she isn’t good enough. Perhaps I am not good enough.

When doubts creep in, faith in love fades away. What I want, what I need becomes more important than what we want, what we need. Inevitably, one or both sides choose to call it quits. Our own happiness and welfare becomes more important than the relationship, which is seen as a hindrance. In essence, this is almost always why relationships seem to fail.

What do you do when the love you feel doesn’t translate into the relationship you want?

My brother, my sister,

If you love one another, you must be prepared to do what it takes to make it work. And that means you must love the other more than you love yourself, you must be prepared to make sacrifices, you must forgive plenty and expect little, you must give selflessly and submit humbly to one another.

You might say you already know these things. They sound so cliché, so generic, so simple. But you can even do these simple things? Have you kept these simple things in mind at that moment before you lose your anger or utter a hurtful remark?

The primary skill you learn in a relationship isn’t about learning how to accommodate one another in each other’s lives. It’s not about learning how to juggle your work, social life, personal time and relationship. Those things are important. You will learn those things along the way as the relationship progresses. But painful and difficult as they seem, they are only incidental. The true skill you learn is how to relate to one another. As mutual love and respect as your foundation, you must realize that tuning into each other’s heart and feelings are your first and most important steps towards becoming one mind, body and flesh.

When fighting, resist taking the higher ground. Resist trying to win or be proven right if it means hurting the one you love. Please learn that many problems and disagreements between you will take years and months to work themselves out. Learn to disagree without compromising your love and tenderness for one another. Problems are not a reason to stop showing kindness and care.

What if you feel like you’ve done all these things and it’s still not working? What if you feel like you’re putting all the hard work and the other is taking it all for granted? What if you feel like the relationship is lopsided and you aren’t treated fairly? What do you do then?

If you love one another, continue doing it. The pattern of love is similar to the pattern of madness. It makes no sense to put another person’s welfare above your own. But that’s precisely what love is. It goes against the grain of what we are naturally good at – taking care of ourselves.

The art of loving someone is something you learn through tears and heartache. There is no shortcut. There is no way around it. You will find yourself having to ask for forgiveness many times, and you will find yourself having to forgive many times. You will find yourself having to make sacrifice over sacrifice. It’s painful and it’s hard. But it is a labour of love. Both of you must uphold your duty to love the other. Don’t wait for each other. Start with yourself. You are both one half of the pillar that holds up your relationship. Please let this sink in.

Do not doubt if it will ever be worth the sacrifice. Do not ask if you will get back as much as you have given. There is no place for an emotional balance sheet when it comes to love. The fruits of love will grow in both the hearts that give and receive it.

I asked “What do you do when the love you feel doesn’t translate into the relationship you want….”

I couldn’t find an answer. But God did.

God found Himself the impossible task of loving a race of people who were sinful, unrepentant and totally estranged from him. But out love love, He wanted to save and repair his relationship with this race of human beings. His love led to Him taking action that was costly to Himself. He sent his son. That was when Christ was born. It was costly. He didn’t care. It was underserved. He didn’t care. It was unasked for. He didn’t care.

If this is how we have been loved, then this is how we must love one another. That’s what you do.

Of Late

I feel a lot less compelled to write in recent months.

I used to make it a point to blog consistently. I used to participate actively in Facebook. But I haven’t done either of these things of late. I used to let my thoughts flow freely from my mind, through my heart, off my fingertips and into cyberspace. It felt good to have a piece of my thought sitting out there for someone like minded out there to read. One of the main reasons I love blogging so much was because it felt like there was always someone there to listen to my most personal and intimate thoughts. It made me feel vulnerable, but connected at the same time.

But I stopped. Or rather, I’ve slowed down. Most of the nights and hours I used to spend pouring my heart out here have been spent around reality… as opposed to this virtual reality.

One of my greatest happiness in life has always been in establishing personal bond s and friendships with the people around me. It’s the thing in life I find to be most rewarding. And when I look at this blog and the way I’ve been attached to it, I realize that I’ve been spending all my time talking to ‘invisible’ people who neither knew me, nor necessarily care about what’s going on in life. A comment or two felt nice, but it does not give me a sense of connection that I needed most. More than that, writing so much with so little comment or response from anyone began to make me feel more and more like I was actually talking to myself. The image in my mind was that of a person standing in front of a mirror, pouring his heart out to his own reflection. And that person was me.

Deep in my heart, the biggest thing I wanted to be in this life… was a difference. I wanted to make a difference, not to the world, not to society, not to my company… just to the people I cared about. Just to the people that come in contact with, just the people I happily label as my dear friends. And not en masse, just one person at a time, one heart at a time.

Over the years, far and in between, I’ve had people come across the thing I wrote that leave me comments or send me messages, thanking me for the words that seem to come straight for their own hearts. And when I get these, I feel a sense of joy and usefulness… that I’ve helped someone somewhere in some little way. But that’s all it has ever been, and perhaps that’s all its ever going to be. Not because of who I am, or who they are, but simply because this is as far as it goes on a platform like this.

Last Friday night, my own heart melted as I heard with my own ears words of appreciation and thanks from a friend to me for being a source of support and strength. I realized that the little time I’ve spent with the people around me, in the flesh, has had a far more significant impact that all the hours I’ve spend sharing my most intimate thoughts here. The things I have gained from this blog is perhaps a virtual place to rant, a small handful of acquaintances and a bigger handful of completely anonymous people dropping in and out. And in all honestly, that isn’t enough for me. I yearn for intimacy and connection that this blog, nor Facebook, nor any other kind of social networking media has been able to give me. Instead, I find it in the short coffee sessions, night out at the movies, the dinners… the places where the persons smile is in skin and flesh, warts and all….not an standardized smiley icon shields away a persons true heart.

A Birthday That Was

I celebrated my birthday last week. Yes, I'm a Leo baby.

Without wanting to overstate things, I have to say.. it was one of the nicest birthdays I've ever had.

Nevermind that I still had to work, nevermind that I had to rush 350kms from Singapore to KL for a 'suprise' birthyday party that I secretly already saw coming. Nevermind that the place was so fancy, and the food so expensive my eyes nearly popped out looking at the bill.

I've never been one to make a big deal about my birthday. I have certain in-built shyness about talking about it that I seem to have inherited from my mother. Most years, the only one to ever kick a fuss about it was my other half good enough... or so I tell myself. No matter how selfless and giving we are in our lives, even the best of us crave for acknowledgement and appreciation... and honestly, I'm no different.

When the blindfolds were taken off my eyes, and all those who had gathered yelled 'Surprise!'...
When they played that video clip with messeages from each on of them to me... When they whipped out the guitar and started singing....When they just sat around, chatting and drinking with a smile on their face... I felt...... loved... and celebrated... which felt really really great.. but also kinda weird. I've never actually experienced being 'celebrated' before. I can't shake off the notion that celebrating someone usually happens more after their dead.

But with all my heart, I felt really happy and touched that they'd all gather like that. It's so rare these days to have a group of the people you love most together with you in one room at one moment. We talked and we laughed, we drank and we sang....or at least some of them did.... and I openly told everyone that sometimes, when you cared so much for people, you do end up wandering if they feel the same towards you..... and the fact that they all showed up like this in this manner was answer that they do. We spent the rest of the night explaining the rather complicated way we all ended up being friends with one another... from a friend, to a friend's friend, to a friend's friend's friend... that sort of thing... 

That night, as we drove home, I reached out and held my other half's hand.. She was the one who organized everything...

"Yes dear... what is it?" she asked.

"Nothing....." I answered with a smile and squeezed her hands tighter.

"Tell me dear...." she prodded further.

"Well... only you would do such a thing dear. Only you would bother kicking up such a fuss for me. You know me...if it was just me, I'd just lay low and make sure no one knew..." I said.

"That's why you have ME! So that there IS someone who will fuss over you." she replied.

I just looked at her and smiled even more. That made me glad. She understood me so well.

I thought more about the friends that came. There were a few that were glaringly missing in the line up... but I didn't mind at all... it'd be too much to want EVERYONE there... But something one of them said that stuck with me..

"You friends treat you very well....." one friend said to me. She was a close friend too.. but not quite in the same group as the rest. The fact that she came anyway meant a lot to me. She was also the one who had the nicest things to say about me in the video presentation. 

"I guess I'm lucky... But yeah, they really are a great people.... and so are you." I said to her.

"I hope you had a good time dear..." my other half said to me as we reached the house.

"I did dear... I did..... The best birthday I've ever had." I told her.

And though it may not seem so great from the way I've just wrote it... but to me, it really was.