Living in Malaysia is an old dream come true. I had been planning to make this big leap to Asia for years, and when it finally happened back in 2008, I had no idea it was going to turn out like this. What is “like this”? “Like this” is a life so full of inspiration and excitement that I’m constantly pinching myself to check whether it’s all a dream.
Not that I do extraordinary things from day to day, and that the people here are super-beings capable of transforming metal into gold. There’s no alchemy in what I’m experiencing. A good example is yesterday: At the end of the workday, a dear colleague and I drove to a local printing shop to have the tickets for our charity dinner this coming Friday printed. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. We had in fact planned to visit a student’s sick mother at the hospital, but the plan fell through at the last minute. So there I was in the printing shop looking at strange, otherworldly stationery products, while my colleague was instructing the printer about size and format. This took close to an hour. When we’re done, my colleague suggested dinner and off we went to a great Chinese restaurant. I was home before eight. What to do with the rest of the evening? I turned on my laptop and looked at the chapter I’ve recently written for my second book. I’d spent a week writing it. It was complete save for a small inconsistency of logic at the end. I dislike having to deal with inconsistencies, as they often require me to throw out whole paragraphs, or worse, discontinue a whole project. But last night didn’t turn out badly. It took me about 30 minutes to fix the chapter to my satisfaction, and when I put the final full-stop to the chapter, I felt once again that the harmony of my world was restored.
Then I lay down on my bed and picked up the book about Immanuel Kant. Pure Reason, Categorical Imperative, Understanding, Reason, Imagination – Kantian language came flooding back. Poetry is the highest form of Beauty, says he. Ten years ago, when the well of my imagination was dry, I would’ve laughed. But today it’s a different world, and I grinned at the thought of poetry being called a beauty.
I slept for 8 hours that night.
This is then my idea of a life of excitement. The thrills lie in the richness of my days. The trip to the printing shop was out of the ordinary. The unplanned dinner with the colleague was enriching. What followed later at home was a continuation of the unexpected: a troubled key chapter was brought to a close. Then there was time left for an exploration into matters of the mind. These things could happen only because my life has a high degree of unpredictability. I’m inspired when pleasant things simply happen without my searching for them. When you are not chugging along like the rest of those clueless, close-minded souls out there, you feel privileged. You feel blessed. But I dislike the word “bless” for its religious shades. What’s happening to me is not divine intervention. It’s something I’ve willed into existence.
by Edward Ong
Article courtesy of www.thesciolistspupil.blogspot.com
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