A Walk Around Graves

There's always this proverbial saying, "The cycle of life"... But walking and reading the old epitaphs all around, life seemed more like a terminal illness than a cycle. In time to come, there is no cycle in our life, but only a small stone slab that summarizes our entire itinerary. That is death...

"Rest In Peace", "Taken Too Soon", "Misunderstood"... These are some of the many summaries... All these words made me ponder about that person's life and the way they passed on to another world, especially the last one. Ruminating over such words has made me wonder about a whole lot. - About the increasing fatalities on the road. About unrequited love; a lover waiting for an eternity in vain and all alone. About the imperfection of memories, for after a hundred years of wear even the tombstone forgets your name...

I'm not as morbid as this entry sounds to be, it's just that cemeteries reminds me as much about life as they do about death. They're as much about keeping our memories alive and dealing with grief, as they are about holding the physical remains of a love one lost.

They are a reminder of how transience life is, how one day we will also be under these stones. The blessings of life itself and the need for action so as to not let others summarize our entire motif in such few words.

Death

I've been thinking about death a lot recently. From the movies to the friends whom once were, death seemed to be the theme at this point in time... Withered flowers lay upon the threshold of death, burnt incense delivering the thoughts of our prayers to another realm. We abide by the traditional rites of communicating to the departed; in ways science can never explain...

One day you'll be dead... so will I... and so will everyone you and I both know. It's just a matter of time. By then what will be left of us?

Our memories may linger on in the people who once knew us - the good and the bad. People we never met may someday gaze upon our works and accomplishments and wonder who we were and how it feels like to be us at that time. Our children’s, children’s, children might still carry a diluted set of our genes and perhaps know our names and the few statistics of our lives. A record will be kept somewhere of our death and the circumstances involved.

But eventually down the great tunnel of time - we will disappear. Our genes dispersed in the generational winds, all memory and records expunged under the weight of swollen history.

We will be nothing then - It is then will we be finally, truly, utterly dead. Nameless and forgotten?

By then will we finally be free?

Climbing

It’s been sometime since I last did this, so long that the calluses built up over the last training have long worn off… I don’t know what inspired me to just do it again, nor do I know where this strength and resolve came from… I just wanted to climb…

Away from ground level, away from the earth that we humans have encroached… I scaled the rocky limestone, clipping each bolt as I ascend up the horizon. My arms grew weary with each passing move. My legs struggling to keep up against the laws of gravity. With each leap and grab, my mind has transcended beyond the threshold of pain. Searing through my palms are the cause and effect of friction… As I painted the rocks with the colours of my resolve, all my earthly emotions flows through my hand back to this land that spawned me, and I realized… Pain is my only salvation…

Pain is a reminder to the soul of the bonds it shares with the flesh. Failure is just another reminder that not everything is within my grasp… Perhaps I’ve never done enough, or maybe I’ve never done anything… Retreat and I will age, hesitate and I will die, my only notion is not to stand still. What is there to fear, when I have nothing more to lose.

Climbing is all about failure. Ask anyone who has worked on a project for days, weeks, months, years… There are no conquerors of mountains and king of this land; only the rabid desire to surpass what the climber was only a moment ago. 1 more moment, 1 more breath, 1 more move closer to fruition. When, if ever, is he satisfied?

Me…

Never…

Money Friends

How long has it been since we made mistakes, volunteered for something even when we don’t know what we are expecting. How long has it been since we last believe what someone says to be everything; that words are pure truth with no hidden agendas... Just how long...

We seemed to have lost this innocence in life as we grow, surrogated by the realities of people and the expectations within. As we grow, we make friends in a more cynical manner. Afraid of what hidden intentions people harbour, afraid of being used and be used. At the same time we also lost friends we used to know, friends that we used to hang out over with just a few cents of coffee. Just what changed us, or rather, the people around us... Is it the realization of monetary needs and the need to be more selfish than giving?

As I see my friends change, I can’t help but ponder the human revolution, the doctrine of “Survival of the fittest” and the incorporation of the sins into our once pure fortitude. I’m amazed by what money can do as well as the evil it’s capable... Somehow, I have yet to drift to the dark side, and I just want it to remain this way...

Hope

How long has it been since I last hope for something... Fragmented memories, crossed between the space of remembrance and the appetence of convalescing mentally. Piecing me together is the daily work and schedules... But now, I’m free from the mundane life again...

As I see people come together and fall apart, much hits me... Like how fragile love can be, like how ever after is never a fact but an illusionary facade. I begin to see stories unfold... In a friend’s point of view, in a third party point of view, and I am starting to admire the will of humanity. Like how people moved on even after a close one passed on, like how failure only makes another more successful, I’m beginning to see it in a more frequent interval. We stumble and fall, we fell and halt... Life just hits us like an avalanche, burying all that we’ve ever cherished and lived for. But in this barrenness of solitude, is a chance to start all over again...

I guess what’s left of this loveless world is hope... Though I’ve lost much of it, though I only adhere to the “Hope for the best and expect the worst” doctrine. I still hope... Hoping that one day, I will meet someone who will love me as much as I love her, someone who could understand me in every way possible... I just hope...

A balmy breeze from the west is said to bring prosperity. The other name of wind is "Hope"... People forgot long ago that they hold the power to renew the dried up earth. People's heart can change the world, but if we would to change the world, we must first let hope change our heart…

Darkness

Distant days spent in that beautiful paradise are an illusion to me now. My dream now is not in the future, but the distant past... How long have I been here, banished into the realm of nothingness? It is only by relying on my anger and sorrow that I have been able to retain my sense of self here – In this darkness where all existence is nullified, in this realm, where all love has been disintegrated. I have just barely managed to preserve my sense of self by continuing to think and to write.

This is a place where even time has lost all meaning. Eternity is but a moment here.

My heart is finally being overcome with repulsion towards her, possessed by the darkness, and with the anger I felt for stupidly allowing myself to fell in love with her.

When the soul leaves the body, its vessel, life gives way to death, but what about when the heart leaves? A being does not perish when the heart leaves its gelatinous cage. My heart is already a captive of the darkness eroding at every dreams and thought of her... When will I ever truly become heartless? Loveless?

A Wedding Night

The unification of two becomes one... The vows of an eternal love, crossed between the junction of hope and faith, tolerance and acceptance. They are revered to as the pinnacle of happiness, a state of contentment filled to the brim by bliss. Many experienced this for a while, some for some while, some never in their brief moments ever...

I capture these times of joy and celebration. The congregation brought about by the marriage of two individuals. They brought laughter, joy and many other emotions that are beyond words, - Emotions that could only be captured by light and light alone. I try to freeze them in pixels and resolutions, to capture what is left of a night abrogated by the laws of age and time.

Whenever I see such pure happiness, such confessions of love, such brief beautiful moments, I can’t help myself but continue shooting these portraits of perfection. I went on all night, until the lights are out, until the guests have left... I went on...

In my own futile attempt to keep happiness, I seek solace in the pictures of others. Even if it does not belong to me, I keep shooting... For it reminds me of how human I am, of how love should be and how it should not end. In the end only to realize how much I miss her, how long I have last saw her...

When two people meet, there are six present... There is a man as he sees himself, each man as the other woman sees him, and the man he really is. If only three of her had fallen in love with all the three man I really am...