journal/

on-going mostly unedited stream of thoughts

Distance and darkness

It has been almost a year since I was last back in Singapore, or any part of Asia. If left to my own devices, I might have never consciously chosen to leave San Francisco. As much as I love San Francisco, I have to honestly admit, any type of comfort is poisonous.

The more we love something, the tighter we hold on to it, the easier it becomes to lose it. Ironically, being in love with San Francisco has made me gradually lose touch with the adventurous risk-taker spirit which has brought me there in the first place.

How do I learn to love something only in the now, understanding in order for love to truly flourish I will need to love it as an independent entity myself, that if I start to lose myself in anything, I will lose my capacity to love? The best love I can give to any place or anyone, is to love fully as my true self, that I will seek to add to it rather than to merge into it.

They say a whole is greater than a sum of its parts, I am slowly learning to see this statement holds true when the parts are unique pieces with their own strengths and weaknesses, not when they are all made to be the same. When we never leave places or people we lose the ability to look in from the outside. To gain other perspectives from another viewpoint, another vantage.

Being away from things that I love allows me to understand the true quality of my love for these things. Do I love something out of habit, out of some subconscious need, or out of some psychological blackhole? Do I want to be part of something because I need to feel a sense of belonging, or do I believe I have something to contribute?

Am I your friend because I am lonely and need company, or because I truly value our connection for the combined dynamic it brings to both of us?

The world is full of blurred lines and it is exceedingly easy to live in auto-pilot mode, never to question our own true motives or agenda for pursuing certain things. I find myself in a true state of joy when I deeply understand why I do what I do, why I love what I love, and why I am who I am.

These moments are rare. Most of the time I get confused with the person I think people expect me to be and the person I really want to be. Then it gets more confusing when I really want to be my own person and yet be malleable enough to evolve.

These are times when I need to remember to quieten down, tap into my inner-reserves and ask myself, is whatever I am doing, in line with my inner purpose and values?

Being back brings out a shadow side of me that makes me extremely uncomfortable. For too much of a long while I had been used to living in a space only full of unbridled positivity and light. Over here, it is difficult for me to retain such a state of mind when I can’t be blinded to what I observe and feel.

The natural instinct is to disown that shadow side, to be in denial of everything that represents the dark, to be overwhelmingly positive despite my true feelings. I have grown to a point where I find it extremely hypocritical to display a positive attitude when I simply do not feel that way. As I age I am slowly understanding that there has to be a natural balance between the yin and the yang, the dark and the light.

This trip home has given me the time and space to reflect. To truly miss what I have had, to understand what is important to me, to have an even higher sense of urgency than before. Yet I do not wish to mistake urgency with relentless, mindless acts of doing, that sometimes there needs to be nothing in order to have something, that we forget our minds need time to do background processing.

I am slowly learning, I take one step forward and three steps backwards, but I hope what will make a difference is my willingness to introspect and to be painfully aware of my own mortality, that true beauty exists in the transience of everything.

Trying to prolong a moment that only wants to pass, trying to outlive an expiry date, not embracing the natural evolution of life, will only bring unneccessary pain and disappointment; but if we can embrace the transient quality of life, perhaps one day we can finally experience the pure, undiluted joy of what it means to be alive.

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