ambivalence

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.

I’ve always lamented on how vulnerable we are and how dreadful of the human condition to be entirely at the mercy of the environment. An unfortunate cut slicing deep into my skin while making dinner that is now a healing scar has always served as a reminder about the fragility of humankind. Although a minute scar now, I can remember distinctly the swift infliction of the knife, and how the blood gushed out of the 1cmx1cm v-shaped wedge, as if threatening to drain the life out of me. At that moment, I was even deluded into thinking that I was going to lose the portion of my flesh. And as I stared at my blood blending with the tap water, how I panicked and agonized over whether I’d need stitches or whether the wound would be infected if I didn’t get them; and to think that it didn’t even hurt.
Often while watching movie trailers, I catch myself commenting on how I dislike certain movies because they amplify our vulnerability (mostly slasher flicks and sci-fi ones that revolve around the extinction of mankind) and I hate to be reminded of this fact since I mull over it now and then.
The last time I found myself making such a comment, my sister shared her insight with me. But it’s rather strange for someone like her whose flavor in movies is of guns and violence to be saying this. “If we are not vulnerable at all, then we wouldn’t think that our lives are at the least precious” - which reminds me of another similar concept…if we’re never sick, we wouldn’t know what it’s like to be healthy…

I’m confined in a state of uncertainty, hence the blog name “Ambivalence”, which is an inevitable outcome from being in an inert state of ambiguity. Doubt is my loyal companion, cruising along with me along the dim highway. Voltaire claims that “doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd”, and how I embrace that piece of his mind. Indeed I’m not alone in my doubtful journey, as I found many quotes on doubt uttered by great figures of the past.

Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them. -Peter Ustinov (1921-2004)

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. -Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.-Robert Browning (1812-1889)

To believe with certainty we must begin with doubting.-Stanislaw Leszczynski (1677-1766)

I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education. -Wilson Mizner (1876-1933)

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. -Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

I find it wearisome to believe in a faith because of my doubtful nature and insatiable thirst to seek out a truth that is nothing but elusive. Yes, I agree that “the believer is happy; [but] the doubter is wise.” (Hungarian Proverb) But it is in uncertainty I seek refuge in and found assurance in, and it is doubt that drives me forward in life filling me with hope and anticipation.