My Version of Enlightenment.

Hello.

Update, update. TGIF.

It is said that how long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you’re on.

True, true. Very true. Everyday, I wake up at six in the morning with the eagerness of removing the morning stars on my eyes, with the eagerness of filling my empty stomach, and with the anticipation of an empty, available shower room which I share with Niko, John, Bradian, and Christopher. No, it’s not what you think of. We don’t bathe together. Okay maybe you didn’t think of it. Now you are.

Never mind.

It is almost impossible for me to get ahead of the toilet since Bradian wakes up unbelievably early in the wee hours of morning, when the security guards are sleeping in the middle of their night duties, the poor nurses tending to dextrosed patients, the prostitutes covered under the littlest amount of clothing possible, on the loose in the streets of Geylang and somewhere else who knows where. Waiting for someone to get out of the toilet somehow makes you feel that he’s taking too long and you’re running out of time. It also makes you feel like you’re going to shit on your pants before you even reach the depository. Okay, that was gross.

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photos taken during our thursday run

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Anyway, that’s not really the main idea. I was just wondering how time has been so slow this week, how it has made my June holidays feel like a second instead of a lifetime; how it has made me tired and yet happy at the same time, that upon the gradual slowing of time, I have begun to realise that to live in haste is not a requirement to live a life. I have noticed that for the past few months I’ve been stressing myself to do this and do that, finish up work and stuff asap, as if they are a bunch of popcorn that you must consume immediately, or the crunchiness will fade away along with the sweetness and the warmness when it was still served fresh. But, no, I think I have learnt something new. I think I have learnt to slow myself down, to take time to reflect and think, to wait, to lengthen the ephemeral days through slow breathing paces and unhurried strolls along the sidewalk, contemplating about life, the future that lies ahead, people, love, peace, war, even thoughts unconscionable and short of moral scruples, to immerse myself in the chlorinated blue of the swimming pool when I feel stressed, to play my favourite songs over and over to give myself a sense of consistency in life.

Life has been simple this week, amidst the complexity of life itself.

I’ve learnt it from the woods. From the quiet, unhurried life of the trees and the rocks and the soil and the fallen leaves on the ground.

This sounds like Siddhartha.

I have been gradually realising that there is no need to rush to the shower every morning. Time is not selfish; it’s not it’s fault that it can neither reverse nor stop itself.