Positive pain begets productive progress.

In the physical realm, pain is the indicator growth is happening within you. Take bodybuilding for example: when there is pain, the good kind, it tells you that one’s muscles are being built as cells are being destroyed and reformed into the requisite building blocks for muscular growth. Likewise in the mental realm, tackling complex mathematical sums or confounding theoretical abstracts induce a kind of pain in our heads (which is quite distinctive from headaches), and that tells us that our minds are being stretched and compressed in new ways to accommodate novel changes in our understanding of the topic and of the world at large.

Most importantly, pain invites focus. It sounds out an alarm in your head that there is something missing or wrong, and changes need to be made to address it.

Floating in these soothing waters of intoxicating hope and happiness, pain is the powerful force that forges a road out of the red sea and directs you toward it. You hesitantly take a step forward and almost draw your feet back as the waters around you react violently in their struggle against invisible chains to get at you. You look ahead, and see the brilliant dazzling light that signals hope and you know that this arduous journey has to be made. You take a deep breath. You take another step forward on the forbidding road. Your left hand clenches to stop yourself from trembling. And just as you are about to take another step, a small hand slips into your right hand and holds you tight and keeps you warm.

You look ahead…
And the path doesn’t seem so dark and ominous anymore.

If you were to take a snapshot of my life right now, it would probably look something like this: Me sitting on a tiny boat, raising a paddle that is midway into the motion of plunging into still waters while staring ahead with a tiny, hopeful smile, as the skies bleed that unique mix of serendipitous colours – of heartwarming orange, passionate red and unpredictable purple -  in the wake of the sleepy, setting sun.

Somewhere along this eyeopening, eclectic episode of my life, I have grown to become comfortable with the state of unknowing. The little boy who has always been chasing after the elusive myth of pseudo-omniscience stumbled, fell, got up, and started walking slowly, but surely, into the less-trodden paths, with the mischievous pixie of curiosity still alive and flitting around in his heart.

Life feels like a story of stories: we undergo myriad heterogeneous experiences which extend, stretch, crop, and minimise the lenses through which we perceive reality. Like attract like, and thus similar experiences congregate to form chapters of our lives which underscore particular themes. Each new story of a similar theme then invites new questions and ruminations, creating depth and adding nuances into our collective narrative. And that’s how, I guess, we grow to enjoy the thoughtful and scintillating lives we lead right now – our lives turning into these captivating whirlpools that draw possibilities and like-minded friends closer to us.

In many ways, I am grateful for the chaos that Law school has injected into my life. I tell my friends that I have never experienced anything more academically intense in my life, and it is true – multiply the rigours of studying for A Levels by at least sevenfold and one might understand the sacrifices we have to make as students. Yet, it is also this very intensity which accentuates one’s appreciation for the little things in life and which transforms difficult times into opportunities for personal narratives to intertwine – like the 4am heart-to-heart or foosball sessions, the unexpected visits from unexpected friends, the spontaneous Skype catch-ups, the deep conversations shared on bus trips, the surreptitious birthday preparations and surprises, the climb over the parapet, the hilarious and heartwarming Whatsapp conversations, the ‘five’ liu sha baos delivery, the accommodating visits to uTown, the retardedly awesome activities like catching-on-wheels, the many, MANY camwhoring sessions, the sharing of notes and knowledge, and the thousand other moments that have brought such colour and vividness to the mosaic of my life :)

Life is a bundle of awesomeness – I think most of us never stopped believing in that. But the rigours and vicissitudes of life often lead us to replace this romantic belief in possibilities with its realistic cousin who subscribes to the pragmatic eventualities of existence. There is nothing particularly good about either romanticism or pragmatism, but just like the adage that goes, “It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all”, it certainly feels better to stay hopeful than to remain hopeless.

Most people celebrate the wonders of love in our lives on Valentine’s but love doesn’t always have to be about romantic love. And so, with Valentine’s approaching, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my awesome friends at LOL@Tembusu for the amazing experience in Law school so far; and my close friends for knowing the right things to do and say when things didn’t feel so right as well as for sharing the highlights of my life. Happy Valentine’s! :D

Fireflies have a short lifespan – in the moments before they lapse into oblivion, they gather every ounce of energy within and let it all loose in a blazing theatre of lights.

Happiness is like that too. It takes time to build up – friends coming together, sharing secret smiles and speaking in self-invented semaphore – and before you know it, you are enveloped in a film of warmth and contentment that makes you feel lighter and bouncier.

Just like the fireflies, however, happiness expires. But while it does, it leaves behind a tingling spark that dances around in your heart, warming you up whenever those seasons of sepulchre invite the chills into the landscape within.

And just like fireflies, we are living in the moment :)

and the flames that draw you close -

they burn you too.

escape from the maelstrom of disappointment -

and run into the fields of serenity.

and the poetic soul sunders -

into meaningless letters and punctuations.

Inside our heads is a place where we write stories about ourselves. We write stories of who we think we are and who we think we should be, and we pretend that everything in the world revolves around us. We feel that we are the main characters of our lives. Perhaps, we truly are.

In the stories that we write, we are always the brave and the wise, the strong and the athletic. Sometimes, we impose these beliefs on ourselves, and, in those brief moments where circumstances and coincidences collide, we become one with our fantastical vision of ourselves. We experience resonance.

Most of the time though, the air remains stale and the mind remains silent, and nothing – absolutely nothing – happens.

Thoughts alone are unable to get ourselves to the destination we have in mind. We need to move. We need action. But action unto alien territories inevitably invites fears and uncertainties to unceremoniously dump themselves onto our hearts and create makeshift refuges. Every time we pause and let uncertainty arrest us, we allow more and more of these illegal refugees to migrate over and integrate themselves into the exclusive part of our personal culture, personal identity. And every time, the heart grows wearier. Every time, the heart grows quieter.

Uncertainty shadows every step we take into the future. Sometimes – or perhaps most of the time – we let ourselves become so absorbed by the false narrative of perpetual success that we struggle against progression, struggle to stay at the status quo. We understand the beauty of the imperfect perfection, but we are simply too afraid to step forward and make that reality ours.

And so, time passes. Seasons drift, and return again. Moments elapse, and revisit once more.

The message is clear: “Be not afraid.”

The only issue is… will I take the leap and write the next chapter of this story?

Beneath the steel, there lies fragility.

Beneath the fire, there lies ashes.

Beneath the light, there lies shadows.

Beneath the heart, there lies uncertainty.