Friday, November 27, 2009

Au Revoir!

Back when I was a kid, I would secretly question the absence of my classmates. Occasionally, they were probably out with their family for a very special outing. Sometimes, something unfortunate. I would secretly envy their joyride and worry of their welfare due to the unfortunate events. Whatever the reason of their absence was, I'm sure some sort of justice had taken place.

To a larger scale, the absence of things may seem somewhat disturbing. It is a familiar feeling/search that most of us can relate to. A feeling where despite we are occupied with things, we still feel empty.

The absence of our catalysts.

We tend to question the absence of these catalysts and lose ourselves within the process. It is quite the irony where we are relatively fighting for our personal Freedom, but yet we know nothing of the ‘absolute’ cause – to be Happy and Fulfilled perhaps. Sure it may lead to Freedom, but what exactly is the Freedom that we’re looking for? Or rather, at what point would the fight be suffice? Where exactly is that point of being, Happy and Fulfilled?

People of the earlier times fought for bigger causes that would directly associate to our well-being (for better or worse), today. The people, for their crumbling kerajaan back in the ancient Malacca days; the Malayan Union and that entire conundrum. Today, Diversity fighting for rights; Melayu, Cina, India ‘dan lain-lain’. It would never be adequate, this fight for Freedom. (We’re just lucky by the way, there weren’t any cow heads directly involved today – considering the whole Shah Alam incident. There was makan-makan involving meat, however).

Just like when I was a kid, I wonder still; not of the absentees in class, but the absence of the absentees in life.

Maybe that’s just our problem right there. We think too much, even with the already filtered inputs to our (dys)functional heads. We look at the polarized ends, we have forgotten about the entity that is holding and bridging the two ends together - our dear selves.

There are no absolute catalysts of our lives. We make them as our catalysts. We do justice to the absence.

It isn’t about the occasional special outing, the ticket to joy that I envied or the unfortunate events that worried me. It’s the inability to embrace the absence of things, like the joy ride I don’t occasionally get.

We looked too far towards the end; we forgot that our catalysts of life are within the absence. Sometimes, the catalyst is the absence itself. Both the joy ride, and the unfortunate events.

Maybe what we really seek for is a state where we are cognitively Free.