F E L I N E R S

hey.. apparently kitty can't log on to this website.. (due to its name..??) *shrugs* so she had her blog e-mailed to me to post.. for ya all to read.. =) here it goes:-

The best decision I have ever made in my life so far was to leave Malaysia to see more of the big, big world out there; it feels like leaving a society that was at least a hundred years behind the times I have in mind. Yes, I am a little snobby about it. To me, everyone needs to find their place within a certain society and if that society has no place for you and doesn't seem to offer you much, what exactly is the point of staying?

Leaving taught me real courage; I learnt to embrace change with arms wide open and I realized that in turn, the world welcomes me into its cradle of unthinkable, not to mention endless possibilities.First you have to learn the art of letting go - of fear, doubts, attachments. Taking that first step into the unknown becomes easier once you've crossed the border and this border is usually your own imaginary border anyway. At least for most of the people I know. It isn't true what people seem to say all the time - that they've got no choice; a lot of people I know do have choices but it is easy to get fooled into thinking we do not, or we choose not to recognize them. With letting go comes freedom - for me I think it is the closest feeling to flying; I think about my life before and feel that so many things are completely irrelevant now, in fact almost silly; I watch the drowning of my former reality, at times with feelings of ambiguity. Yes, I admit that it could be daunting.

Most people talk about freedom but never walk the talk. Freedom is knowing what you want, not drifting, and trusting the wind with your sail. It has nothing to do with the ability to afford a 7-star boutique hotel room in Prague or being a Hilton hotel connoiseur, nor has it got anything to do with jetsetting from New York to Paris to Sydney. Some people would say that money is a pre-requisite to freedom but in reality too many people with money haven't got the understanding that money only ever buy you freedom if you buy time with that money. An employer pays an employee for the time invested in a certain task and naturally we dedicate our time to work because we need to 'work to live'. Of course the more common but unnatural phenomena today is 'live to work' and more and more people around the world have become so tangled in that nasty 'selfish capitalism' that they haven't the slightest idea what to do with their time if they're not working. So most of us dedicate a big chunk of our lives to something or someone else's benefits besides our own, particularly if the jobs we hold are missing intrinsic values. So it makes perfect sense for us to use money to free up our time instead of investing in things that would add real manacles to our lives on top of the mind-forged ones we already have to constantly fight. Then again I suppose there is no way to introduce or impose the idea of freedom on someone for everyone has the right to live as according to their own values. I guess for me, in the words of Ben the 28-year-old poet from Warren, Australia that I had the pleasure of meeting recently, "If life is so ordinary, why not make it extraordinary?"

I feel that my life would be such a waste if all I ever did was go to school, graduate, make money, buy house + car, plan a big white wedding, consummate, work more to pay off my loans, grow old, get sick, die. I have no problems with people who's got life all worked out like that as I understand now that we are all different and have various expectations and interpretations of how life should be. Actually reality is the other way around - it is usually people on the other side of the sphere that usually has got a somewhat patronizing attitude towards people who want to do things a little differently. I can't even remember the amount of times I've been accused of 'trying too hard to be different' or 'irresponsible' just because I don't do things the way 'they are usually done'; the idea is not to ruffle any feathers really. Some males I know back home even go as far as saying that it is fine for me not to follow the rules because I am a female therefore inevitably a damsel-in-distress regardless of what I'm capable of, and eventually will be married and taken care of by my husband anyway. It is interesting to know what some men say to themselves in order to make-believe that they're really vital to the well-being of us women, and that they've got it harder in life. They ought to come to Vietnam so they are forced to acknowledge that that idea is bullshit. Furthermore, in alot of places in the world women are constantly being short-changed by men and the society they live in; they are not getting the respect they ought to receive regardless of how much they rise up to life's occasions.

Going back to the idea of freedom - I think the best feeling in the world besides being in love is probably feeling like you're holding your life in your hands. Is that possible? The cynics on the sidelines can laugh but I believe. I work on building and sustaining my faith everyday; I protect it dearly and I go along, trying to eliminate each fear that comes my way. Fear is the monster that stands in the way of one's dreams. Sometimes I think of death and wonder if I fear it. I have been blessed by love, I'm riding the waves of freedom and when I look inside myself I have peace. The world may be chaos but I know where to go to find the calm water of serenity. I'm living!

"The question of death is also the question of life,

and the question of how to live is also the question of love.

That is the question you have to go on answering,

to which there is no answer except in the going on."

-Salman Rushdie