when paths lead the way into the unknown

sometimes you just don't really know where you're heading
you don't know if you'll soar and fly
or you'll crash and burn

when the weight on your shoulders become too much to bear, just shrug

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood leads to fortune.
Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and miseries
On such a full sea are we now afloat.
And we must take the current when it serves.
Or lose our ventures.

for some reason, this rings in my head. and maybe i know why and maybe i know that somewhere somehow people do self serving things to serve their self interests without ever considering the repercussions. and me, i bear an atlas on my shoulders.

when there is no finale. just a dead awkward silence of solitude

sometimes in life you hit a stone wall and wonder where to turn to. you wonder if somehow you'll magically find a way. and you wonder if tomorrow will be that day. you wonder the what ifs.

i end tomorrow. but there's no cause for celebration.

i stare into the sky and wonder what if.

to you who mattered most.

i will keep the memories, and forget the pain.
and i pray you'll rise again and conquer the world.
that you will find your feet
and overcome all adversity.

i'm sorry i made you cry

in living what is not yours.

you know once upon a time, i believed that older and wiser went hand in hand. that if you were of age, you had a. more experience, b. more white hair = more experience and c. an inexplicable air of seniority which translated into people believing what you said. but does seniority/ or for that matter being simply older with a few more strands of white hair, and significantly less hair for that matter, make one right? i can't help but observe the pitholes that sit before my eyes. the ones that scream 'danger!' because you have trained these young eyes to be oblivous to the danger. and is that right? is the young supposed to be a replica of what we are, or are they supposed to be increasingly better?

is the old right? or are we simply too oblivious, stuck in the old, entrenched in the belief that what was once right, is right now? is the old increasingly aware of their surroundings, adapting to it to fine tune what was previously deemed 'perfect'? because 'perfect' today isn't 'perfect' tomorrow. but where are we?

are we capping the potential of others by limiting their capabilities because of our inadequacies? where are we?

so i say now, stand on your own two feet. brace up, look up, see till as far as your eyes can see. the horizon - the end, isnt the end because the world's YOUR limit. and your world's yours to define, because you don't want to be stuck here now, and because you want to be one of those, those that can call themselves 'older and wiser'. and because you don't want to be one of those scums that leech off the success of others, and call it your own in some fancy self-made term. because a leech will never see glory and respect in his heart, and will never be able to gladly receive it even if the world pours on him everything.

so where are you?

drop some crumbs that we might find our way home

fear and pain. and fear seems the lesser of two evils. i've been thinking about the effects of fear and how its repercussions advertently or inadvertently affect our lives.

that fear is found in a wide spectrum of degrees. 'the spine-chilling fear', the one that makes you tremble with uncertainty, the one that makes you cry. but more terrible are the ones which lurk beneath the surface. the ones that leave a small stinging permenant scar etched on your heart. and somehow that little scar never really heals, held by a thin membrane that gives that illusion of healing. but it never heals, and we all know it never heals, but we tell and proclaim and scream to the world that it is. and then there is always fear. a small unseen fear that is triggered at every opportune moment. and that's how i think most people do it. they leave the traces so they can always find their way back. and back strikes in the dark of night, alone. and that's when we tremble most in fear.

pain on the other hand, is inexplicably complicated. not the seemingly excruciating superficial pain which lasts for the moment, but the stinging one that jabs your heart and your mind, like one stabbing it mindlessly. i don't believe in simple pain. pain is always a cumulation of circumstances that robs one of joy. but pain it seems spins one in a blur. the pain that seems to tell you to cling onto the pain because attached to it, is the memories of old. 'the good and the bad' all mashed up into one giganormous lump. i've always been told to not keep pain in one's heart. that pain is meant for the open, to be discarded and trampled upon, forgotten, left aside, and never picked up. but is that how it works? can we truly dismember the pain from the good? is it simply by the words that say 'i do not remember the pain' or 'i choose not to hurt'? do these words necessarily bring emacipation from it? do the words make all the delicate memories of good and bad so intricately entwined fall nicely on a blade that seperates the two? i don't think i believe in forgetting. i believe in the storage of memories; good and bad. that in all things that happened, they have a place in my heart. but it is what is prioritized, what is boxed up and stored, or in the words of the apparent wise , 'what is swept right under the carpet and left there'. and i think that is what makes the difference. the ability to store it all but to choose what to focus on. that the pain and the memories will always be part of that long footage of your life, and snipping away at it isn't an option.

when the moon rose, there were no crumbs to be seen, for the little birds in the wood had eaten them all up.

to he who fights.

it happened. and just as expected, it came and hit everyone of us just the same - with a torrential wave of emotions that overwhelms each and everyone, no matter how prepared he/she is. i caught myself wondering before it happened, if i would feel that engulfing teary overload because i was never close. never close in a sense that i could hardly converse with my mediocre hokkien, save for the 'have-you-eatens' and the 'yes-no' questions. but sitting down here in the dead of the night, and thinking brings back memories. and like how i was told that you will never realize the closeness until you lose that person, i proved that that theory's right.

closeness, it seems, is more than just the physical proximity or the conversing. and as i have found out, the thoughts, the intentions, the little minute acts and attempted conversation attempts were ways of saying 'i care'. yet somehow it never occured to me that even through those non-conventional means they bring about the similar intentions.

and i must say, and proclaim to the world, that yes you were close. that you fought and clung on, to dreams that you wanted to fulfil. that you fought the demons to state your right in the world. that even on your last breath, you thought about family. and maybe that was how men of strength have always been - that the words would be few, but the intentions vast. that you would fight for years, and be that pillar upon which your kids' lives were propped upon, and eventually mine.

and i wanted you to know, that even though you exist only in a different realm, your memories stay with me. and i wish i knew you better, but that's how it always is with everyone that's a memory, that there is always the regret that there was never enough. but i realized too, that there will never be enough. so yes, we part but life goes on. and we will remember you for your strength and courage.

to the future. and to the life that will never be forgotten.