After reading El's pensive entry about life in working singapore society, outside the comforts and familiarity of our circle of friends and what we're used to, I'm compelled to add in this entry. I was deliberating whether to mention this weird evening but Elvin's entry inspired me to. To me, a moment like this moment, when I'm holed up in my air-conned room seated on my swivel chair in my boxers and shirtless and translating my thoughts to text, is the quintessential rip in time between past and future - the present. The past came haunting me throughout this evening. I went out with 2 church buddies for dinner and pool. On the way to Carl's Junior, I bumped into an old family friend that became a bastard (I'll spare you the lengthy details) and had my dad renouncing friendship with him. He was a close friend who even went on vacation a few times with us and was one of those 'uncles' of mine so you can imagine the awkwardness. After pool, a damn irritating guy from my camp who seasonally hounds a few of us cos he doesn't have friends called me for perhaps the 10th time since I ORDed, but as usual I rejected his call. After that, something that I've been hoping since more than 2 yrs ago will not happen, happened - I bumped into the girl I bastarded. Luke and Mel would know whom I'm referring to. At least she's with her boyfriend who's this nice guy I know. It takes away the guilt but nevertheless, I was reminded of what it's like being a bastard all over again. Finally, on the train back, I shared the same carriage with this nice but dumb recce scout team leader who's from 4 SIR, the unit I was attached to for missions, and he was there side by side with me as part of the pre-ops forces in Taiwan for ATEC where we plunged ourselves into the Taiwan jungle with wild abandon. He's one of those guys you could depend on in the field but not as a regular friend cos he doesn't share the same wavelength as you; and this guy reminds me of the ironic and inequitable nature of army. As you can see, these separate events ganged up against me to deal me a quadruple whammy blast from the past. And El just gave us an insight of the frigid, foreign and pathetic working world and it's inhabitants. This is the future that most people land themselves into and my point is, don't let it happen. It's a quagmire out there which you get your soul sucked into and a cul-de-sac which stonewalls the progress of your very being, and thus, alternatives must be strategised along the way and subsequently adopted. So, this 'present' I'm living in now feels the most surreal I've been ever living in and I'm starting to wonder as I'm typing away what do we really define as the present - cos theoratically speaking, the present is continually moving on as time does, so what is really the present? And hence, is it just an intangible, infinitely minute unit in time when the electrons in our cranial nerves try to reconcile the very moment we're living in and recognizes it, but then again, it doesn't happen successfully cos no matter how quasi-instantaneously the electrons send their signals, it still takes a tangible unit of time to process that thought and by that time, the recognition of that particular present is delayed and you're no longer living in that same present. Hence, we are never living in the present but we're constantly living in the future. So, it's time to look forward, embrace what the future holds and most importantly live out our destinies though the future may attempt to detract, disrupt and destabilise. Live out your destinies, my fellow amigos.
Justin
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