Friends.
They are meant to be there for you when you need them.
They are there to make the effort to try make things work.
Friends try to take a little time off their hectic schedules to breathe with you.
They realise that the phone works both ways.
They remember back in the days when all we had were each other.
They remember the better times that should always overshadow the rare or minuscule knots along the strings that link each to the other. Are not the knots there too to make the links all the tighter, even making distance possible?

Friends.

But then again, we are in the 21st century.
Friendship has got to be redefined, I guess.

Friends: The green dinosaur named ChooChoo you converse with when no one else is looking.

Thank god for dogs, then.

They say that the human will can do wonders.
Are you a believer?

Suffice to say, the human will can only bring you so far.
As far as the next obstacle.


You can see your path looming ahead of you like at the highest point of the roller-coaster ride, just a moment before going down that tremendous dip.

The will allows you to travel your chosen path. It gives you drive to put one step in front of the other. It is grit, it is determination. It is love. It is dream. It is ordinary. It is like the earth.


The will is nothing spectacular. In my opinion, every single one of us are born with a will to achieve. The vagabonds of the most treacherous lands, the addicts in the darkest alleys. They are all born with it.

What happens after is a whole different story.


The human will...can only bring you so far. Along a smooth path when the goal is in sight. Then loom ahead the obstacles. Massive, ugly, frightening obstacles. Sends chills so cold down your spine that you freeze in your tracks. Freeze!!

And then a pebble hits you, and your frozen will breaks down into pretty shards at the foot of the obstacle. Every person's will will falter. No will can be that great to withstand a sudden cessation of momentum after a smooth, high-velocity route!


Earth on its own is mundane, common. Worthless. With the right conditions, it can produce life. A sappling that one day will grow into the biggest of angsana trees.

Like the earth, the will alone is worthless. When lay in rubbles, it cannot rebuild itself.


What makes it something of a miracle, a wonder even, is the fate of the rubble. It is what you do with it.

I say that the will is ordinary. Ordinary flirts with the realm of mediocrity and dreams. Do you want that? I do not want that for myself...nor for you, most definitely.


I want you to be extraordinary. I do not want you to survive in front of your obstacle when your will crashes! I want you to pick the pieces up, along with the chipped pieces of the obstacle in the initial collision, and build an even stronger will. Then overcome it 'til you happen upon your dream.

THAT...is what separates the ordinary from the extraordinary. That is what makes it possible for realisation of dreams..not mere flirts.


I have failed.

But not again.

Something AdriannaTan posted on her blog. I found it utterly amusing!

What is it about, this whole deal?

It isn't about the lost of courage.
Nor the lost of will.
Is it for passion and longing to a sense of its own?
Or pushing an egotistical stand for non-conformity?
No.

It's about finding one's self, in one's own way.
To find the unraveling of dreams; to meet them with my eyes open.

It was a mere romantic notion, that initial dream.
THAT dream, was from an egotistical point of view.
It was to prove that I was made of the best, for the best; that I could reach it, and that I will just because I can.
I was more romanticised by the mere idea of it than by its actual implications.

It would have been as if I were to marry Genevieve, just because I can. Because she was the epitome of the highest accolades accorded to any female specimen. To have married her, I would be, by relation, the epitome of male greatness. Even if it means that beneath the still and beautiful reflective surface, I was caught in a whirl so great I have not the time to comprehand it...but to just swim, swim, tread, tread. Stay alive, keep moving. Breathe, breathe. Rinse and repeat until I die.

It scares me.
It scares me to a point that I had to just stop for that one moment and reboot that circuit of nerve signals jamming my neuronal cells deep within the matters of my brain.

But, of all times, why now?
Because I have reached the goal of my high school years, and having done so, I became directionless.I have proven that I can reach here. So now what? This isn't for me, but look at me, I'm here!!

And it didn't feel that much fun anymore. Fun being a very loosely used word here..
This isn't a dream that my heart really bought into. My heart just flirted with it, toyed with it...without realising how grave the repercussions such games hold. Over the years, practicality and societal pressure dug deep into my rationale and blinded me from the world that very happily revolved (and still do) around my little, planned ideal world.

No. I can't go on living like this, I had decided.
I may be devastatingly wrong in so many things right this very moment in my life, but like the last blog entry, I'm putting it all in this hand.
You only live this life once, whatever your religious background.
If people intend for me to be successful, I at least want to do something I enjoy doing for the rest of my life. To combine passion with interest (yes, they are two extremely distinct entities); that's the true recipe to success.

Hence, here I am. Back where I started, in Malaysia.
I had quit my Medicine program at UNSW, Sydney.
The new set of dice has been cast...

The lone light over our round table was gloomy, as if it were a dying sun.
Cigar smoke suffused the air; it weighed down on my lungs.
The three of them were staring intently at me from their respective positions around the table, smirking.
I looked at my hand again. The ace of spades, and the five of diamonds. Disgusting.

There was now only one card lying open in front of the dealer. A three of clubs.
The stakes had been raised to way beyond the pile I had in front of me.
Beyond what my life was worth in monetary terms.

I could fold now, and walk away with the pile. And live a happy, contented life. Like you.
When the time comes, there- sitting on my laps- will be my granddaughter and grandson. I can tell them how one dreary night I had the wits to fold and walk away with what was to become the precursor of my little fortune, and had married their grandmother. Had led a happy life, with a contented smile etched on my face every morning I woke. How I knew my actions were driven by practicality, a will to guarantee a good future. A route taken in accordance with the map.

For we all love the map. It keeps us from getting lost. It tells us how far away we are from our destination. It tells us where we might have ended up if we had taken the turning on the left; for that was also in the map, part of it. It is the vision of the land viewed from the eyes of another man or satellites, and then printed the way they had deciphered it to be. It is a constant, it is a guarantee. It is fate. Fate is life. Life's a map.

I smiled.
And pushed the pile in front of me into the pool.

"All in."