thoughts

Ok. Now that it's over, i feel i can finally speak. The Kinabalu tragedy hit many Singaporeans hard. For so many reasons. Of course, there's the fact that most of the Singaporean victims were schoolchildren -- barely 12 years old. They should have had so much life ahead of them. i guess the fact that it happened on a school trip left me quite shaken. i've taken students on overseas trips before; i understand the kind of responsibility that teachers bear on these trips. i can't imagine what the surviving teachers must be feeling right now. It must be unspeakably terrible. And then there was the unexpectedness of the whole thing -- climbing Kinabalu is a common-enough outdoor activity here, and lots of Singaporeans do it. It's known to be safe and do-able. Who would have thought ...
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This year has been one reminder after another that life is so unpredictable -- and often enough, not in a nice way. At times like this, it's almost inevitable that we try to seek some sort of meaning in what is really just meaningless. So we tell stories of heroism and bravery, of sacrifice; we make private resolutions to cherish our loved ones, to make the most of life. i don't know. i guess all these are necessary and legitimate ways of dealing with what would otherwise be overwhelming and debilitating. Life goes on. Is what i've learnt. Until it doesn't. And then it goes on for others.
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Reading The Snow Geese by William Fiennes has really been quite an experience for me. It's been quite some time since i've read a book that is not only an amazing work of art, but that also speaks to where i am in life at the moment of reading. And, whether for the better or the worse, it's reinforcing a prejudice i'm developing about writing and life -- the idea that it's the writers who go through the most whose writing has the most depth. Reading about William Fiennes's life is hard. He really hasn't had it easy at all. And yet you would not guess, from reading The Snow Geese, just how much he had gone through before the epic trip the book documents. i guess i do admire his spirit. And i think i might just be falling in love a little bit with his view of the world. Which he would never have developed to the full if not for the illness, if not for all his family has gone through. But i wouldn't ever want to be tested in the same way.
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i dunno. i think, at the end of the day, i just want to live a quietly meaningful life. i want the small joys -- love and friendship, being useful in ways that matter. Things like the Kinabalu disaster -- you can't help but feel that life really is so tenuous. That's what i'm feeling more and more the older i get. How tenuous everything is. i wish i could be a bit more celebratory in my outlook. But i don't think that's going to happen anytime soon.
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