One of my favorite novels is Tobias Wolff's "Old School", which captures the yearning of a young man to meet his literary idols - particularly Ernest Hemingway, the author's own boyhood hero. Wolff told me that his appreciation of Hemingway has grown over the years. "As you get older you understand how complicated were the lives of people you looked up to, and imagined were living untroubled and confident lives. So my feelings for Hemingway increased over the years because I no longer see him as just a legend or an icon, but as deeply flawed, struggling human being. And I'm all the more in awe of what he managed to do with his talent, considering what he needed to get through every day to give it full rein."
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Fallen Idols
Friday, July 26, 2013
Colour Pencils
When I was three years old, my mum bought me a box of colour pencils. They came in all shades of loudness; their wonders a dazzle to my three-year-old imagination. When I opened the lid and slid the entire row out, I saw a rainbow-- a beautiful rainbow-- one that did not only come after the rain. With it I was going to make beautiful pictures, I said. I thought I was going to be an artist. So I took out my colouring book, flipped to the first page and there I saw a constellation of little dots, each with a number right beside it. And I took the black colour pencil because boundaries were supposed to be drawn in black-- only then would the picture come out right, just like the other colouring books I had. Then I started from dot number one, to number two, three, four, five, six, all the way to dot number forty nine, each stroke drawn with a determination, excitement and curiosity: what beautiful picture this one turn out like? The constellation of forty nine dots morphed into a jagged outline of a small boy walking his dog. He had a smile framing his face, and so had I. I started to take out the other colour pencils: red for the shirt, blue for the pants, yellow for shoes (but green for the shoelaces), and purple for the watch. I wanted to use all the colours I had in the box that my mum gave me to bring life into the happy boy who was walking his dog, teeth revealed through a wide smile-- oh, white for the teeth! And of course, black for the hair-- it should be black, only then that it would be just right, just like those pictures in the other colouring books I had.
When I was thirteen, I found the box of colour pencils my mum had bought for me. What was once a clean row of rainbow, neon in its splendour, was then a rolling set of muted colours, a rainbow out of order. What was once a neat line of soldiers-- impressive arrows!-- sharp, long, ready for a mission, was then a refuge of war veterans, greying and browning has-beens: some marred with teeth marks from my habit of biting the blunt end of the colour pencils, some dwarves of their statuesque past, and some hollow, missing their tips here and there like the smile of an old man. Some though were still standing tall and mighty. However, even with all the wealth of imagination of a thirteen-year-old, I still couldn't decide whether they were actually green or yellow, whether they were pink or purple, whether they were black or blue. They were not the right shade of green for the leaves, not the right shade of brown for the earth, not the right shade of black for the hair, not the right shade of white for the teeth. That was why even though I wanted to use all the colours I had in the box that my mum gave me to make beautiful pictures-- even though I thought I was going to be an artist-- I couldn't use them. And I didn't use them. I wanted to be the right artist.
When I was twenty three, I forgot about my six-year-old imagination to make beautiful pictures. The box of colour pencils that my mum bought for me was stashed somewhere-- I couldn't really remember exactly-- probably among the piles of junk and bygone memories, a purgatory where childhood wonderment was choked by pragmatism and not-good-enoughs and that's-too-late-for-thats, a place where my twenty-three-year-old imagination dared not venture.
When I was twenty three, I picked up a black pen to substitute the beautiful pictures I wanted to make with words milked clumsily from the wealth (and dearth) of my twenty-three-year-old imagination. There were no more constellations of little dots to connect, just rows of blank spaces, each neatly stacked on top of the other. It was like a wall, white-washed, pristine in its vacuum. So I began to write about the rainbow that slid out of the box of colour pencils my mum gave me, about the constellation of numbered dots that stirred my determination, excitement and curiosity, about the small boy walking his dog with a smile framing his face-- his red shirt, his blue pants, his white teeth, his black hair-- about the overcast ten years later that tarnished the rainbow and messed it all up; all these, one word at a time, neatly stacked in each row, just how they should be. However, by the end of this story-- when I appended my last full stop-- the smile that once mirrored the one framing the face of the boy walking his dog was not there. The constellations of little dots that marked the end of each sentence did not make a beautiful picture, no matter however way I tried to connect them. The words were broken wires, jagged in their strokes. It was an outline of confused, discombobulated picture of thingamajiggy. I turned my head left and right; there was no colour pencil to make it beautiful.
When I was thirteen, I found the box of colour pencils my mum had bought for me. What was once a clean row of rainbow, neon in its splendour, was then a rolling set of muted colours, a rainbow out of order. What was once a neat line of soldiers-- impressive arrows!-- sharp, long, ready for a mission, was then a refuge of war veterans, greying and browning has-beens: some marred with teeth marks from my habit of biting the blunt end of the colour pencils, some dwarves of their statuesque past, and some hollow, missing their tips here and there like the smile of an old man. Some though were still standing tall and mighty. However, even with all the wealth of imagination of a thirteen-year-old, I still couldn't decide whether they were actually green or yellow, whether they were pink or purple, whether they were black or blue. They were not the right shade of green for the leaves, not the right shade of brown for the earth, not the right shade of black for the hair, not the right shade of white for the teeth. That was why even though I wanted to use all the colours I had in the box that my mum gave me to make beautiful pictures-- even though I thought I was going to be an artist-- I couldn't use them. And I didn't use them. I wanted to be the right artist.
When I was twenty three, I forgot about my six-year-old imagination to make beautiful pictures. The box of colour pencils that my mum bought for me was stashed somewhere-- I couldn't really remember exactly-- probably among the piles of junk and bygone memories, a purgatory where childhood wonderment was choked by pragmatism and not-good-enoughs and that's-too-late-for-thats, a place where my twenty-three-year-old imagination dared not venture.
When I was twenty three, I picked up a black pen to substitute the beautiful pictures I wanted to make with words milked clumsily from the wealth (and dearth) of my twenty-three-year-old imagination. There were no more constellations of little dots to connect, just rows of blank spaces, each neatly stacked on top of the other. It was like a wall, white-washed, pristine in its vacuum. So I began to write about the rainbow that slid out of the box of colour pencils my mum gave me, about the constellation of numbered dots that stirred my determination, excitement and curiosity, about the small boy walking his dog with a smile framing his face-- his red shirt, his blue pants, his white teeth, his black hair-- about the overcast ten years later that tarnished the rainbow and messed it all up; all these, one word at a time, neatly stacked in each row, just how they should be. However, by the end of this story-- when I appended my last full stop-- the smile that once mirrored the one framing the face of the boy walking his dog was not there. The constellations of little dots that marked the end of each sentence did not make a beautiful picture, no matter however way I tried to connect them. The words were broken wires, jagged in their strokes. It was an outline of confused, discombobulated picture of thingamajiggy. I turned my head left and right; there was no colour pencil to make it beautiful.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Monday, July 22, 2013
Authenticity
"Most people are really doing the best they can. And that's just reality. You have to give other people the credit for their humanity."
Monday, July 15, 2013
Grey Area
And you know what, I think it's right that Tony is out because you should not define people by their maddest edges. And what Tony is, is that he is a semi-psychopath. He's a grey area. And the world doesn't like grey areas.
But the grey areas are where you find the complexity, where you find the humanity-- it's where you find the truth.
And Tony said to me,"Jon, can I buy you a drink in a bar? I just want to thank you for everything you have done for me."
And I didn't go. What would you have done?
- Jon Ronson
But the grey areas are where you find the complexity, where you find the humanity-- it's where you find the truth.
And Tony said to me,"Jon, can I buy you a drink in a bar? I just want to thank you for everything you have done for me."
And I didn't go. What would you have done?
- Jon Ronson
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Brilliant
Knowing her has opened a lot of doors for me: from teaching me that the tiny rolls that she lits up every now and then are called 'ciggies' and not 'smoke' (my English was adorably bad), to putting up with my ranting on my new-found, non-air-conditioned existence when I first came to Singapore, to furiously correcting my grammar, to training me into being able to spar in harmless, venomous banters a.k.a every dining experience I had with her (the gorging on the food is always as important as the verbal mortal combat), to giving me a place to stay in when I had no place to go and was too young to sign my own contracts, to introducing me to 'character building', to treating me like a grown-up when I couldn't still distinguish my knee from my elbow, to saving my life once when I mindlessly jumped into the adult pool even though I didn't know how to swim (I was six or seven at the time), to taking me to Disneyland for the first time, and to believing that I could be anything and everything that I set my mind to-- and actually meaning it.
I do believe that once in a while, very rarely, we do meet people by whom we feel helplessly inspired. In her case, her extrovertedness always finds its way to make me come out of my shell a bit more-- actually, a lot more. Without saying a word she can make me speak up a lot more, make me articulate myself better and be mindful about what I think and say. Pacing her in a conversation is always a work-out; one after which I find myself mentally spent but a lesson I wouldn't trade for the world.
However, this breed of people do not come in abundance. They never do. They come in only for a snippet portion of our lives, and once they have done what the divine has set them out to do, they move on-- perhaps to share their gift with some other people some place else.
She is going back to Holland next month (after living here for over a decade), and perhaps we may only see each other once in a blue moon thereafter. Nonetheless, I am grateful that she has been a great influence on me growing up, and it felt amazing that she could be there to see me graduating from law school. She herself is a lawyer, and finally, she joked, we are in the same club. It feels really good that I can make her proud.
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