How I wish that I have more motivation. Lately I have been slacking more and more. Don’t get me wrong, life as a graduate is very relaxing, almost seem like I have retired. But this this not a mindset a 23 year old graduate should have. I should be keen to find a job, contribute to society, earning money, becoming self sufficient.
After Japan, I know it will be time to pull myself together. You know, whenever I have to fill in a form, I get very stoned when I have to fill in the field “Occupation”. No longer can I put down “student”. I have to put down “unemployed”. Moreover, when people asks, what do you do. I tell them I am a “graduate” - what does that mean anyway? I use the term synonymic to “retire pensioner”.
Having said that, I have become less and less of a fan of society. I am not happy with people telling us what we ought to be rather than what we want to be. Not many people can say that they have lived out his childhood dream. Have a watch of this last lecture of Randy Paushe on youtube. He was a computer science teacher from the states and was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer and gave that final lecture.
After reading “Like the Flowing River” by Paulo Coehlo, I put up a new favourite quote on my facebook wall.
Death is always sitting by your side so that when you need to do something important, it will give you the strength and courage you need.
I know some people might regard this quote as somewhat morbid. However, I sense a great hint of optimism in this quote. The other day I was in hospital after the doctor showed me the x-ray I took of my lungs. He said that the lung was supposed to be dark on the x-ray, but 1 side of it was white. Even though I am sure it probably wasn’t anything not curable, but that night, I was thinking what if I did have a terminal disease - suddenly I didn’t feel trapped. I felt that I would be able to live life for myself, and not for anyone else. I agree, this is a very selfish mentality, but how many of us can say that we are living out our childhood dreams, ticking off the items in the Bucket List?
I remember when I was in kindergarten, I passed by “Cambridge Street” every day, and I told myself that one day I would go to Oxford. I know - but that is how my mind thinks. Without any idea of what to do, how to do it, I just knew I wanted to go to Oxford. From that day on, I was living that dream, getting that goal. To be honest, there were only ever 2 things on my bucket list: To go to Oxford and to go to Japan: Both I have “almost” completed - ok, didn’t go to Oxford, but I went to Imperial, which is just as good.
Today, sitting here, knowing that I am on track - I feel somewhat satisfied. However, it is not until now when I realised how naive I have been. I am starting to look at life from outside in rather from inside out. We, at least me, are brought up to think we must be the best if not we are not worth much. That was what and how I knew I could go about getting what I want to get in life. Because to be the best, and to be amongst the best, we can be what we want to be. I wanted to be a president back then. But yet, I have chosen a scientific path because I had been programmed to believe that science is better than humanities. However, it wasn’t until I studied that Jewish Enlightenment, and the European Enlightenment when I realised that science was nothing more than a substitute for God, and that science was an attempt of mankind to rule our lives.
Yet nowadays we live in the age of technology and science. But yet we become more addicted to work, addicted to money, addicted to the advancement of our economy. Its true that people live longer, but do we live happier? Today, I was walking in one of the villages up North of Hong Kong (the border of China). Watson asked me “What is this?” - pointing at a pig sty (where the villagers used to keep their pigs). I told him, “its for pigs.” Then he asked, “where are they now?”. I said, “supermarket”. Martin told me before graduating that he wanted to be a farmer. I was quite happy because that was his personal legend - that he should become a good farmer. However, society tells us that it is a waste to be a farmer with such high level of education. So instead of living our personal legend (borrowing the term from Paulo Coehlo), we choose to live according to the rules of society - those who studies a lot must work on good jobs. “Good” meaning jobs which will benefit the economical wellbeing of the society. We then spend heaps and heaps of the money we earn in high class restaurants and hotels so that the society can function properly. Instead of buying the milk from the farmer who milked the cow, there could be other people who helps package the milk etc. so that when it is bought, the price is marked up 200%. Lets not go into fair trade here! What is fair anyway.
I am still sitting here being an idealist because I know my personal legend is to be a traveler, to be the world’s local man. But how is that possible?
23:17
