To be a better man

I was speaking to a 20-year-old boy today, and I was surprised at how very mature beyond his years he is! He was speaking of his personal near-death experience. When he was about 6 years old, a virus attacked his nervious system, leaving him bereft of speech, hearing and all his vocabulary within a couple of months. The doctor didn’t know how and why and what, and they didn’t expect him to live beyond 8 years of age. But he survived, and had to re-learn everything that he had lost. His entire school life was a constant struggle, but when he graduated from high school recently, it was a tremendous achievement and a major milestone in his life, that normal people with normal lives would not have understood. Normal people would have scoffed at is finishing school late, and at his lack of academic achievements, but to him, ‘normal’ was an achievement! And at 20, he had something which no other 20-year-old, how matter how rich or how smart could rival; he was un-touchable!

Imagine two people. One has the ability to coat what he has with voluminous words to make it appear all nice and prettily packaged and impressive and appealing; the other is more reticent and lets his talents show for itself. At the end of the day, both persons’ “packages” are the same size. The different is, one’s more fluff than substance, while the other is substance with very little sugar coating. Interestingly, society values the candy floss more. They call it the ability to “communicate” one’s talent, and to market and sell oneself. It’s strange don’t you think, what the world actually prefers. I would prefer to be more substance than fluff, but I do occasionally wish I could speak better, write better, entertain better, present better, because hey, the "rewards" are better!

When I meet people like that who have gone through certain life crises, I invariably feel humbled. Because I think if it were me, I couldn't have survived surviving the accident, the life-threatening disease, the being cheated on by a partner and other crises. I'm pathetic that way. The mere thought of it scares me, and I kick it out of my head and go into denial in a farway place in my head. I only wish Alice's Wonderland was a real place where I can go and hide; where only I can go and hide, because if everybody could seek refuge there, it wouldn't be much of a sanctuary would it?

So I must admit, I am a cowardly whiney pathetic girl who has her head up in the clouds. Of course I've always wished I was stronger and harder and more than capable to deal with the crap of life, but I'm not. And I wish I was different sometimes, or rather, almost all the time. Because it's really the strong people, the people with character who can make a difference in this world isn't it, to do things that other people dare not or aren't willing to risk doing, like climb Mount Everest and quite their high-paying job to teach English in the world's backwaters, or give up a professional university to go to baking school!

On the other hand are people like me who don't do anything but merely indulge in feeling angry and angsty about childish wars and about people losing their homes because of the Olympics, and fantasizing about a better world, and a different world. People like me will probably just die dreaming.

Unless.... Before I explain what that 'unless' entails, let me elaborate on a little theory on mine.

For some reason, all the people I’ve met who’ve gone through some dramatic happening in their lives, whether it be surving a terminal illness or going through a hard life etc, they’ve somehow turned out better and stronger people, just by dint of their experiences. Which leads me to think, while we may not like the idea, but suffering may be a better teacher than anything can ever be, that is, assuming we all want to be a “better man” according to the Robbie William song. (I’ve learnt not to assume that other people have these same objectives.)

I was contemplating this observation of mine, and asking myself, would I be willing to go through that baptism of fire so to speak, to emerge as a phoenix out of the ashes? In other words, if given a choice to go through life uneventfully and leaving no mark in the hearts and minds of people, as opposed to leading an eventful but worthwhile life, which would I choose? After much contemplation, I daren’t answer that question still, because much as I like to choose the latter, it requires much to be able to consciously choose the latter life. (I daresay I may not mind so much if it creeps up up on me, but really, it’s the very deliberateness of making such a conscious decision that is so unnerving!)

Now why am I so philosophical today? I think my brain is starting to hurt from all that thinking! Ouch! I think I'll go and soak my head in a tub of ice now.