virtually here

we probably don’t realise it much, but the past decades have been a time of great advancement in communicational technology. people speak of how we have moved from a period of snail mail and postal services to the age of instantaneous contact and boundless communication.

but some fundamental issues don’t change. people search the internet daily for something they need: a product, information, reviews, replies, a vestige of themselves or those they love somewhere. searching the internet becomes a search that never ends, because the intertextuality leads to incessant clicking from one link to another. the search will not end, because when we seem to have found what we thought we were trying to find, we realise there is something else that we also want to find, and we go on and on.

the search also doesn’t end, because the more fundamental and personal search also gets displaced onto the virtual world. too many people stay satisfied within the confines of the indoors, and traverse avidly through gigabytes to try and find something or someone familiar. when we twitter, blog, chat, blog-surf, facebook, we are really trying to make contact with the unknown “you” who might possibly make some sort of reply, some response to let us know we are not alone.

when we get home and find ourselves missing someone or something, we surf, trying to find anything that reminds us of him/her, of a presence that is almost immediately accessible. somewhere in that great out there of google.com, anyone can be found, and is virtually here. we are comforted when we experience that.

makes one wonder how people used to cope with missing people and the yearning for contact. things have definitely become more complicated, but as with reading, the imagination of a few has probably thwarted the imagination of many. no longer are we satisfied with memories, with the daydreaming of a hopeful future; we hang around in virtual space, waiting for waves in that wide web of a world we have no grasp of. having it all in the confines of a computer screen helps, and the only way we stay in control is by our ability to walk away from it, and click to select “shut down”.

and perhaps that is the way to go, once this post is properly published. where else would we find company?

into the untravelled world

 

I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

-Tennyson, “Ulysses”

twenty four

last night we had a make-up birthday celebration for me, and my 3 friends did a great job at helping me pretend it was my birthday all over again. this year’s birthday has indeed been marked by many small cosy meals, and it’s nice.

but in between wood-fired pizzas and live band songs last night, one perceptive friend asked, so py, what do you look forward to doing now that you’re 24? another perceptive friend then said, well why not start with telling us what you’ve done since you turned 24?

i didn’t know what to say.

it’s either that i’m not thinking, or i’m not doing. one of these friends has her career path pretty much planned out for her, and i know that in between there is this whole host of things she wants to do, and will likely achieve. another is absolutely enjoying what she’s doing now, and is looking forward to further studies, and has taken steps in that direction. the last will probably stay on with her current job for a while, and she does a really job at that too, while loving it.

i think of the various strands there are in my life, and it seems like there are so many fuzzy parts. between what i really want to do, what i think i ought to do, what i think people might expect me to do, what i think people might want me to do, who i think i should please first, there are infinite possibilities but also no fixed path. then there is that annoying bit of wanting to be ready for anything because complete commitment to something is mildly petrifying. at the same time, wanting to be committed to something because not being committed to anything is deeply damaging.

for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

my crazy friends

today we went back to NIE, and it was very surreal, because it felt like we never left. when we were thinking about going for practicum about 12 weeks ago, i was really looking forward to coming back then, and i thought how long 10 weeks was and how much we’d have to talk about when we got back. sure we had lots to talk about…especially poor k who had nobody to talk to all 10 weeks and couldn’t stop talking today, even if he was just rattling off nonsense that had no point and was getting nowhere. but i haven’t laughed so much in a day for quite a while. it’s good to be back, even though it’s so short.

when we were gathering in our first class, a commented that everyone looks shrunken, like tp had caused most of us to shed some weight, drop some hair, or lose some sleep. and indeed many of us have changed. in that 11 weeks we didn’t meet, i’ve had 2 people closest to me critically ill, mr found 3 lumps that await surgery, mi suffered the loss of her grandma, ad is fighting alongside his sister who battles lymphoma…and that’s only the few i know of. i’m sure the rest of us have had other fires to put out, other wars to wage, other fights to win too. maybe different issues, but tough ones too, things that would only strengthen us, even if they shrink us.

these people are quite special to me. it’s real nice to be with them, and there is something about the composition of people that is quite amazing. the things they do that make me laugh, the things they say that make me think, the things they mean that make me want to cry.

i still don’t have a nice enough photograph of us that shows what i remember of them.