joie de vivre

posted : February 20, 2009

I was seated on a bench in my hometown as I nibbled on my favorite $1.70 snack. I had no agenda for that moment except to fill my stomach temporarily and as such the siew mai sure did; and I took in the sights and sounds as I people watched. My favorite time pass. Within a mere 4 to 5 minutes, I took to fill my stomach, I really saw various people who belonged to different stratum of society, if were to judge them based on what they adorned alone. But I tried to dwell deeper to find out where they all actually came from. And staring into some of them as my mind wandered away, I began to realise that they all had similar set of worries, agenda on their mind. It could have been a very short lived one for them, but it sure was similar to the guy walking past and the ten others. They all seemed to be satisfied with how they were feeling at that very moment. They seemed to be at peace with themselves or at least they tried. Their pace was varied nevertheless but no one seemed to be making 1000 internal decisions at the fraction of time I tried to blend myself with them. I saw two ladies probably in their late 30s having a conversation stood against the aisle of shops. Kids were nonchalantly tugging behind their parents who were off to either grab food at the hawker centre or purchase stuff from convenience stores there. Colleagues who just managed to pull themselves out of their offices gathered around deciding where to satisfy their cravings for a local delicacy. And of course amongst the entire myriad of people I saw, my count for ugly Singaporeans totaled TWO. Within just like 4 minutes! Both of whom decided to pick their nose in public. One of course just carried on walking as he fulfilled his itch. And of course the other had to pause the directions his feet went, to do just that. How interesting. And of course to end the whole picturesque postcard a group of ITE college mats walked past. Despite how their poor language and poseur caps seemed to ruin the image, they were also the only people who were actually happy even from a distance of 10m. They seemed to really have no worries on their mind and were really living for the moment. Something, I would like to experience very often actually. But all of these, just helped me achieve one thing for the period of time. It helped me slow down. And for a moment I seemed to have displaced myself out of the life I was stuck in. It did feel good.

Sometimes crystallizing your thoughts down into words reminds you of a certain part of yourself you may have forgotten and chose to leave behind somehow, as you re-read them a couple of months, even years later.

12:51 PM