“What’s your new year resolution for 2010?”
“It’s very simple. It’s ‘To Find Love’.”
“What if you don’t?”
“Now ask me what’s my new year resolution for 2011 then.”
“To Find Love.”
“And then to be Lost in Love?”
After all, what’s Life… if you take Passion out of it…
Birthdays become less and less of an affair each year as you grow older. And that’s because you have slowly come to learn more and more about life.
Birthdays become more like pitstops, markings which highlight each different juncture of your life at constant intervals and which tell you to stop for a while to have a rethink.
Birthdays become more like yardsticks; yardsticks to measure love, value, maturity, intelligence, wisdom, success, achievements, accomplishments, dreams, and importance of the people around you.
Yes, pitstops and yardsticks.
“Why are you driving in the middle of two lanes?”
“Because in my life, there are no lane markings.”
“I don’t need to be governed; I govern myself. With enough self-discipline. I don’t need lane markings to tell me where I should go. I travel my own path. Which is single-laned and one-way, and usually without U-turns. And knowing that the general correct direction is forward.”
And maybe that’s also why Tarzan failed his driving test 9 times.
birthdays are a strange thing
you’re pleasantly surprised by people whom you do not expect to hear from or who do not have to remember it’s your birthday but do so unfailingly
while those whom you expect or hope to hear from you do not hear from
each message received meant a lot to me and made me feel special
i went to the beach at night last year and this year i nearly went to the beach
maybe i shall do so later this 23rd night
I like this song:
“I gotta feeling…
That tonight’s gonna be a good night.
That tonight’s gonna be a good night.
That tonight’s gonna be a good good night.”
Haven’t felt so positive for a long time. Haven’t felt so positive for a long long time. This song makes me feel positive, full of hope, full of life, full of enthusiasm for what is to come. Be it I were to be surrounded by negativity, that it’s a general negative condition around me, or be it a more positive one, I think I have decided to be positive, I have learnt to be positive. No more outside in but inside out, no more letting the environment affect me but me affecting my world. For some time I have been feeling like this. Like come what may, I’m happy. For the past year, I think. I feel like I’ve grown a bit more than little. I’m surprised by myself too. And a part of it (at least for the second part of the year) would have to be the “Tarzan” character that I played in “Together”; the first part of the year perhaps growing out of adversity and learning to take things in stride, hence adding maturity to thought and attitude. Happier now. More balanced now. Older, that’s why, I think. I wish to think I’m a bit different now. Because I’m feeling a bit different now, it feels.
Recalling… I was really excited when I first got the role. Never mind the papers and magazines reinforcing and reinforcing the idea that it’s the second male lead; never mind the posters later too. Tarzan is a character in his very own right; and in his own right, first, second to none, simply because he is so full of life. I laughed at him and I laughed with him as I read the scripts; I felt for him, his ups then his downs. I knew this was a golden opportunity hard to come by. And I hoped to grab it with both hands. “Life is defined not only by opportunities taken, but opportunities missed.” I hoped and hope this time it’s taken, not missed.
Tarzan has made me a happier person, playing him. Brought me back to simplicity & innocence & truth & clarity & belief. Childhood memories. Child-like qualities of an yet untainted world. Running around in a yellowish tight singlet & big pyjama shorts & loud clogs. Music playing all over the place. People showing emotions, people squabbling, real people. Of the 60s. Naive. It was a happy though tough time for people of a young infant nation trying to establish its own footing, more a happy time. So my father and mother told me; they didn’t need to tell me. Because I could feel it from the way they recalled those memories, and I could feel it from the yellowish photographs they kept.
“Oyi-Oyi-O…”
“Bor… Bor…”
“Don’t call me stupid!” (A fist for you)
“I don’t want to be roasting coffee beans and carrying cups of coffee everyday! I want to fly! I want to see the world!”
To the flair and flamboyance of the 70s. Their love for life, reflected in the colourful and loud costumes, shirt tucked in and tight all the way downward to the extravagant and exaggerated celebration of the bell-bottom pants. Super-duper bell-bottom, super-duper cool and handsome. A-go-go. Celebration of life. Carnivalesque. Not without hardship though. Struggle & Toil. Strength & Character. To make sense of the world around. From small village to small town to big town to big city; from walking to cycling to automobile to railway to ship to aeroplanes. Wrestling times; “Tiger King”. Some things Gained & Some things Lost. Pride & Disappointment; Love & Pain. Hopes Achieved; Hopes Dashed.
80s to fight all over again. For love. For family. For friends. For better.
The very last day of filming… the very last shot as Tarzan… immediately after, I missed him already. I asked myself, “That’s it? I’m not going to be Tarzan anymore, ever again?”
I want it to stay; I hope it’s right.
“I gotta feeling…”
What if you could do it all over again?
What if you had a second chance?
What if we had known each other earlier?
What if another decision was made, another path taken?
What if everything did not turn out this way?
In life, I think, there are no “What Ifs”.
& that is why you want to be “In the Moment”.
It’s important to know what you’re doing, you’re doing right.”
“When was the last time we met?”
“Half a year ago? At Bugis?”
“No, that wasn’t a meeting. We bumped into each other.”
There are already some meetings which do not feel like meetings.
That where and when we were born already determines for us what we can and cannot do, what doors are opened and what doors are closed to us. That our birth determines for us through what lens we see the world already. The potential of our dreams.
What it means to be born rich or poor. What it means to be born a boy or a girl. What it means to be born Chinese, or Malay, or Caucasian; Asian, or African, or European; Singaporean, or Filipino, or Bangladeshi, or British , or American. What it means to be born impaired. What it means to be born in a third-world country.
Big Fish Small Fish
Big Pond Small Pond
Big Dreams Small Dreams
I’m not saying that we should not dare to dream but that we should be more realistic at the same time. First we learn to crawl then we walk then we run then we fly. That we should be more aware of our world and what it allows and does not allow us to do. To analyse, recognise, and then accept the situation we are in before we are ready to move on. Acceptance. Of our freedom, our boundaries; our possibilities, our limitations. To be “free in the captivity of freedom”. Or to have the “liberty of limitations”? I know “Slumdog Millionaire” is an inspiring movie and it still is. But how many “Slumdog Millionaires” are there?
So the next time you see me, don’t ask me why Singaporean actors cannot compete with Hongkong actors or cannot break into the Hongkong market, and why Hongkong actors cannot then easily break into Hollywood. Don’t ask why the S-League cannot compare to the English Premier League, nor why Singapore hosted the SEA Games and China hosted the Olympic Games. Don’t ask why we have different skin colours or eye colours. The answer is simple. It’s not whether we are necessarily better or worse in terms of quality but that we live in vastly different conditions, cater to different markets, some only so big and some only so small, some lines can be crossed and some lines not, that certain things are already predetermined for us.
I’m not saying though that doors closed to us will forever be closed to us. A few of them, some of them can still be opened along the way. With enough determination, with more effort, with spirit, with correct method. There is that possibility. Since they say “nothing is impossible”, right? Right. I hate this “nothing is impossible” cliche by the way.
Do you want to be a Small Fish in a Big Pond? Or a Big Fish in a Small Pond?
Does the Small Fish belong only to the Small Pond? And the Big Fish only to the Big Pond?
Can the Small Fish one day make it to the Big Sea? Or the Ocean? And can the Small Fish survive?
Are you a Big Fish or a Small Fish?
No, you’re not belittling yourself when you say you’re a Small Fish; it’s a matter of relativity. No, you’re not getting everything just because you’re the Big Fish. What the Big Pond offers, the Small Pond might lack; but what the Small Pond has, the Big Pond might not.
That’s my “Big Fish Small Fish” story. That’s my “Big Fish Small Fish” theory. Of Dreams. And of Life.
What kind of Fish are You?
I think it’s getting a little Fishy out here.
We must always maintain that core of innocence within us. Not to let what’s going on in the outside world get to us. Not to let people who do not matter get to us. To keep what’s with-out without and what’s with-in within. Because that’s the centre of our soul.
Good guys finish last.
But that’s because they last the longer distance.
Do we want to be the good guy or the bad guy?
One of the advantages of going out alone is that you do not have to accommodate others. You do not have to smile, you do not have to make small talk, you do not have to spare a thought for others. And that was what I experienced when I went to the movies myself, went to the night market myself, went to the pub to listen to the live band myself, went to eat chicken rice balls myself. All the time for yourself. All focus on yourself. Finding yourself. Almost an indulgence. It was a good feeling. Did it once. Did it again. Will continue to do so from time to time.
Why? Because sometimes you are so tired of smiling and trying to be nice to others when others do not try to smile or be nice to you. Not a saint but you know you have tried to be good to others but others do not seem to try to be good to you; in fact, they begin to think you are a pushover. When every good seems to be forgotten and each bad remembered. When a sheet of white paper with a black dot is noticed only for its black dot. When whatever credit you thought you might have built up counts for nothing really.
I really don’t want to be calculative. But I really don’t want to be too accommodating either. How many can you accommodate in your life? How many would you like to accommodate in your life? Seriously, people who matter. I don’t want to be too accommodating. I’ll keep this at the back of my head. And continue to be the same, the way I deem right.