the taxi driver's daughter

I normally travel to the city by cabbing as it saves me the hassle of getting my bearings right and finding parking close to my destination.

I met this taxi driver who was probably nearing 70 (or maybe he looked older than he actually was) on the way back from the city to the office. He spoke perfect English and he enquired about the company I was working with. Turns out he has a daughter who recently graduated from university and is currently looking for employment, and 3 other children, 1 of whom was handicapped and cannot walk. He doesn't know what his son is doing for a living (his son has a family of his own) and mentioned that his eldest daughter is also seeking for a job. It makes me a little sad, seeing this fragile man in his twilight years, still having to toil day after day, navigating the little alleys, streets and highways to earn a living.

On that same day, our Managing Director celebrated his 60th birthday in glamour and style with the presence of all his staff and family members. His only concerns were how to propel the Company to greater heights and grow in terms of size and revenue. He had a beautiful wife, a succesful daughter, wealth, health and a great life.

It makes me wonder, how unfair life trully is. Two men, almost the same age but entirely different destinies. As pessimistic as this sounds, I think sometimes, nothing is accidental and our fates have been pre-determined and our eventual outcomes on Earth are there - in the sky, written in the stars. The only way to accept pain, suffering and solitude is to embrace it and grow...in all of your loneliness and disappointments...and learn to acknowledge that certain things in life just are the way that they are.

...vast truths in the smallest of things

The thing that scares me most about getting married, child-birth and growing older is the loss of hope. When you are 25, single and free, you know that there is more to life than just this; you know that things can and will get better; you can still live in Tokyo, Africa, Prague; your ambitions of writing the Great Novel can still come true; you will eventually save the world and someday, you will find Love. People say that life isn't about waiting for something extraordinary to happen, but finding happiness in the insignificant details like the smell of roses and rain on a beautiful Sunday morning. But to me, it's the faith and belief that there is more to life than just this that gives me comfort when the monotony of daily grind seem to take over. There has to be.

I want to live life like a song from Peter Pan. Poetic, romantic, haunting and heart breakingly beautiful. I want to be able to converse in Japanese with a stranger in a train on the way to Narita. I want to read Murakami in a Parisian cafe; eat croissants, smoke a cigaratte (a herbal one that is) and drink lattes. I want to paint more walls in orphanages, work with United Nations, adopt a Maltese, run marathons, sit on a sandy beach in Penang and marvel in awe of the beauty of it all, meet an attractive guy in a stuffy club where soft, seductive jazz is being played and wonder with excitement, "Could this be Love? If we can't be together in this life, then I'll see you in the next one".

These are some of the things I used to dream about when I was younger. And I always had hope that next year will be the year. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I cannot seem to find peace and contentment within myself. Everybody I know is moving on, making plans, getting engaged, married, giving birth, buying houses, playing golf...and I'm just here, drifting like a floating device on a stormy ocean, sometimes lonely...mostly lost. I will go where the waves, wind and heart will take me, even if it leads me nowhere. Life is a series of unfortunate events, seemingly meaningless unless you discover for purpose on your own, always challenging but oh, so, so, worth it. To see a rainbow, to listen to a concerto, to smell a blooming rose, to taste a lover's kiss, to touch a child's hair...

"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour."

...to spock

Carrie Bradshaw once said "I'm looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love". Many realists would disagree with her. We can't all be passionately in love with our chosen partner 24 hours a day. Real life gets in the way. Most of the time, Love merely becomes a distraction, an aberration - so are our chosen partners when they become demanding of our attention, time and money (amongst other things), expecting more than what we are able to give. Resentments sets in and seperation looms ahead.