Meaningful reminder 10.7.11

Birthdays never seemed to mean anything much. Just a day that marks you are a year older according to the Gregorian calendar. Year by year, it separates you from other people who were born in a different year and date. It separates you from the sister who has had 3 more birthdays than you, who would be the next in line for a married life. It separates you from your other older sister, who has had 7 more birthdays than you, who has a 2-year-old daughter and a son just a few months old. It separates you from your eldest sister, who already has her son in the first year of primary school and a 4-year-old daughter. It separates you from your mother, who has had 24 more birthdays than you, now already retired just as your father, who has had 25 more birthdays than you and is often heard talking about politics.

I guess birthdays are no longer that simple now. It does mark that your age has increased one year older, but it could also make you question, what has changed since the last birthday you had. Have you learned something new in your life? Did you grow as a person? Have you done more in your life than you previously wished to, or did wishes remain simply as dreamy wishes? Are you still as dreamy but not someone who is a doer and a more determined person? Are you still confused? Are you more assured of who you are now? Do you have more questions than the answers?

Maybe I hoped that someone would remind me of this. That as a year progresses in my life, I have lost more than 520,000 minutes of my life. And I have always thought in my head, how 5 minutes can be precious; but this thought somehow always gets lost somewhere and I ended up wasting it often enough somehow. I do not need to be reminded by a birthday cake or a day out at a dining restaurant, the typical ways of birthday celebrations, though I still do this. I am simply hoping for some more meaning to it. With such meaningful reminders, I would go for another year, doing better things for myself and maybe for others, fulfil myself and become even better as a person. Maybe I need a nudge from another person other than myself. Though, this nudge did not come to me this year as previously. Maybe I was waiting for it somehow, but nothing came. It was pretty disappointing.

That sucks. But life goes on.

Continue, please. 11.6.11

The world of expressive writing. I missed it. I have ignored it, to my loss.

My thoughs have been disorganised and I thought simply putting out all the scattered thoughts with words probably will not be useful for me. But it feels different now (although my thoughts are still scattered around and appear randomly and probably will always be).

Reading my old posts, I felt like such a kid whining about nothing good on an online blog though I know at the time, I had my reasons for my every post. Indeed, I could agree that I was such a dreamy kid before and I do not know if I am still such, so much so. I will keep the old posts, because I can tell in the future what I was in the past by what I wrote back then.

From now on, even if it is just bit by bit, I will continue to write. To let the words flow. It will be a mark for me to know how I felt at a certain time, what happened that caused me to feel the need to write it in words, why it is so, when it happened and what I probably learned or thought about it. Because, I usually end up forgetting about something I thought of as a significant event, which may or may not resurface in my mind in the future and that will be a loss for me and my learning. I would like to understand myself better through what I write, and this actually works quite well sometimes if not all the time. Even if the writing does not go on here, it should somewhere on paper.

A wise man said, "The day I die is when people will find me with a pen and a paper as that's where my passion follows in journalism." Or something like that. Actually it was not the Gandhi kind of wise man either, he is just an ordinary man who seems very passionate in what he does, someone I met almost 4 weeks ago in PJ. The fact that he said what he said alone, made me think he was really not just any ordinary man, just simply because he kept on with his passion.

On 6th June 2011, "...because I just figured out that writing is one of my necessities in life...

...It also allows me to explore what's hidden inside my head, which only flows out when I am writing, as if my pen acts as the scavennger. Ideas, issues, problems, solutions, it can be anything. Leave it and it leaves me behind, or get stuck there, rotten forever.

I don't care what is thought of me as I keep the pen moving. It's a way to access my creativity and I'll keep doing it. I've left it unexplored for the longest time before. Then suddenly, several people start pointing out to me how good my language skills are. Should I let it pass me by? I don't think so. It would have been a waste. It should be kept on going...

...And what others think should not matter. Because they don't look at this the same way. It is my way of doing things..."

The Freedom Writers Diary movie caught my attention some years ago because the students, who each had their own story of problems but had nowhere to turn to, took to writing to let it all out, something that got initiated by their teacher. Lately, I have remembered that I too have always been writing to let it all  out, ever since I was 12, at least, although I have stopped somewhere in between that time till now. Why let it get away now?