ambivalence

I take relief in agnostic views; I do not reject the existence of an almighty being nor support the notion of a God-less world, but neither can I vouch for such an existence. Certainly, religion provides an unshakable justification to the purpose and existence of mankind, injecting an undeniable meaning to life, but on the contrary, the concept of a being that arises out of nothingness is extremely confounding. Even the idea of how we even came up with the theory of God is equally overwhelming to me. I was rather amused to see a featured article in Time a few years ago that discusses the possibility of God being embedded in our genetic code because it seems to be answering one of the string of questions that intrigues me relentlessly. I once inquired a classmate in high school why and how is she so definite about an omnipotent presence in the Universe, and she nonchalantly replied that all you need is faith. I was taken aback and humbled by her answer, yet I couldn’t cultivate the same faith to believe without questioning. ( I was really expecting her to fumble at the question.) As much as I claim to be neutral in my views, I find myself thanking “God” for every blessings that occur in my life. The irony of it all!

In view of the recent book The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, in which he proposes that the rise of religious fundamentalism is dividing people around the world, I somehow believe that the many disparate religions all lead to the same God, differing only in the routes to arrive at the common destination. We share a generally mutual view in ethical and moral conduct, and as a global community we strive to uphold good as opposed to evil. I don’t understand why we should allow differing views in religion to divide and cause a disparaging gap among mankind.

I lean towards the teaching of humanism, which advocates “the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appeal to universal human qualities”, although I don’t fully embrace humanism’s “rejection of religion in favor of a belief in the advancement of humanity by its own efforts”.

It’s been exactly a year since the passing of my roommate of 3 years and friend of 15 years. We were never really close, but I felt her presence in major turning points of my life. We grew up in the same condominium grounds and entered the same primary and secondary school. I even followed her to Seattle just a few years after she enrolled in UW, and lived with her under the persuasion of her mother. She was like the elder sister I never had, and an academic role model who excelled in all areas, socially and everything else. She was an alluring beauty. She was close to perfection.

The phone call I received from my mother in October last year changed everything. My ears have never heard anything so foreign and my brains could not register the news. Until now, I don’t think I accepted the fact that she’s truly gone, because somehow I feel that she’s still alive out there somewhere. Or maybe I’m just in denial that someone who was here for as long as I can remember can suddenly vanish from the surface of this planet.

With the idea of death following me around, sometimes all problems become so frivolous and life too feels ever so insignificant. So what if I solve all my problems? I’ll never get out alive anyway. Maybe it is this harsh reality that instills in me a strong sense of belonging to life itself, makes me embrace living to the fullest and hold on to life like it is the last straw on earth. Because one day I’ll see my last sunrise.

When I was just a child, I used to think the world revolved around me, and that I was the lead character in that world. (But of course, now I know better.) Being the sheltered child I was, I guess it was inevitable that I grew ignorant to worldly things and started dwelling with the abstract, or perhaps one can easily pass that off as day-dreaming. And like any other inquisitive minds, I wondered about life and its purpose. And just like any other man that ever walked the earth, I am nowhere close to the answer.

A topic that intrigues me ceaselessly is ‘time’. Isn’t it amazing how “we can never step into the same river twice” (Plato), and that we can only experience one direction a moment at any one time? As intangible as it is orderly, time is just like any other remarkable product of nature, confounding us by the very necessity of its existence. It provides an additional depth to our 3-dimensional world and bestow us with a point of reference to our lives, acting as the marker to the beginning, the end, and everything in between. As time brings forth abundant opportunities to those who wait, it robs them off their lives and everything that they attained. Ever since I became aware of this cruel fact, I have always thought that time is a merciless creature that destroy mankind slowly but surely. And I cannot seem to get over the fact that our fleeting lives adds up to only an insignificant percentage of the present age of the planet, not to mention the whole baffling universe.

Sometimes I marvel at the orderliness of our universe. The sun and moon in their uninterrupted cycle of day and night assure us of a new dawn and providing us a closure for today. The seasonal changes endow us with an excitement of a new cycle of beginnings and ends. A cascade of stars that glisten in the heavens imbues us with the mystery of our existence. And then, there’s the Physics and Mathematical laws that govern the realms of reality, that is the very fundamental cause for our existence. Life might not even be possible without gravity to begin with. Nature signs on its creations with the Golden ratio , which permeates the foundations of our observable environment.

The orderliness of the universe fascinates me as much as when I observed the locals in Japan standing on the left side of the escalator, all cases without exceptions. The proof to that is I still recall it so vividly even after 5 years. Order in society…something we cannot do without, although I’d say that with the case of the escalator, that would make us quite a rigid and inflexible bunch.

Beneath this seemingly pristine facade lies an intricate web of complexity, woven into the very blueprint of our existence.

And of course , underneath it all is the orderliness of my own life, which I sometimes describe as mundane and routine, except with the unpredictable occasional changes which soon enough become inevitably prosaic. I crave for order, the safety net I can fall back to, especially when life gets a little too messy for my liking.

For the first time, I am encountering a broken water heater at my apartment. Before that is replaced, the apartment manager suggested we use Apt 411’s bathroom, since it’s still vacant. Now that is definitely not a common occurrence in my ordinal life, is it? Tomorrow morning I’ll feel a wave of freshness sweep over me as I waltz into the vacant Apt 411 just to use the shower.