Dare To Be Different

This past year, I was given a gap year. Not your ordinary gap year where students often take a break from their education to work or travel. Yet the purpose was the same - to find out who I am and who I want to be.

All my life, I was part of a 'group' of friends, and my identity, my beliefs, my actions were all as part of that group. Don't get me wrong. I did nothing that I did not want to do. Yet I did not do everything I did want to do.

So this past year, I ventured without the security of that 'group.' And I found my passions in tasks deemed uncool: Teaching, Debating, Reading and Writing. Being passionate about these is often beyond the comprehension of most people who strive everyday to conform to the norm. But it is only when you dare to be yourself, and take a look at the faces around you, will you see who your true friends are.

It takes an immense amount of courage, no doubt. But with it comes an immense amount of joy. A liberation. Strength.

Dare to be yourself. Dare to be different.

Listen

Listen or thy tongue will keep thee deaf.
--Indian Proverb

Pride & Prejudice

He's Indian and I'm a local and I can fuck him up.

Indeed, a deadly combination of pride and prejudice. They go hand in hand though don't they? It is our pride that causes us to raise boundaries, declare that one is better than the other. We fear that a failure on our part to instate this fact will make us weak and vulnerable. And the world and Life itself requires us to be tough.

Till the day I heard those words being said, I always believed that racial prejudice was a way of the old. I believed with the Civil Rights and independance from oppressors those barriers had been torn down. Perhaps in the far vestige of my mind I knew. Perhaps. I would like to believe I was not so naïve.

Pride will eternally be a human characteristic.

Prejudice, I am now coming to believe, may be equally eternal.

What possessed Jane Austen to title a love story with such malicious words will always be beyond my comprehension.

Dare To Move

You never know where life will take you. You don't know where you're going to end up living, or who you'll end up marrying or who you're friends are going to be.
A friend described all my future moves, such as going to university in a month, as taking a step forward into the dark. My life after I leave this city is like a big black hole. I've always been afraid of the dark.
It is in my strongest moments that I can think of leaving familiarity and not be shaken to my very core. Unfortunately, these moments are few and far between.
Yet it is at moments like this that I dare to move.

Between who you are and who you could be,
Between how it is and how it should be
I dare you to move.

[Lyrics from Dare You To Move by Switchfoot]

Saying Sorry

Never say sorry when you don't mean it.

Never say sorry when you don't know what you're saying it for.

Defining 'Lost'

'Emotion that's been captured in a maze.'

[From the lyrics of Stronger by Sugababes.]

I'm Getting Stronger

The chorus of Stronger by Sugababes:

I'm all alone,
And finally,
I'm getting Stronger.
You've come to see
Just what I can be
I'm getting Stronger.

Strength comes with self reliance.

Strength comes with loneliness.

Articulation

To articulate the emotions of the heart is often the most complicated of tasks.

So Damn Lost

Most days, I ride the high road, believing that I have most of my life and the world figured out. I believe I know where I'm headed, perhaps not down to the specifics, but as a person. I believe I have the whole 'principles of life' figured out, and that every day I strive to live according to those. And that living like this will take me to that 'heavenly' destination.

Yet there are days where the montony of life catches up with me. And I feel that I am drifting through each day like nothing matters. It is during these moments that I feel the uselessness of our lives here. What is the point of it all? What is the point of making friends when you're only going to lose touch eventually? What is the point of all those memories? What is the point of striving every day to live by those principles that Society dictates? What is the point of religion and prayer? What is the point of making a difference in someone's life? What is the point of a great education and a great job and a great life?

What is the point when we all face the same end - death.

And it is at moments like these that I feel so damn lost.

Ignorance... Bliss?

On an episode of Oprah, Mary J. Blige spoke of her encounter with drug abuse. And of her entire touching story, one part stands out vividly in my memory. She described her lowest low as being the point where there was no one around her, not even her family members, that questioned her for being so addicted to drugs. And the reason for this lack of questioning is seared forever in my mind. Ignorance. She said that the people in her environment were too ignorant to question the excessive use of drugs.

She went on to describe her life which had spiralled out of control owing to this drug abuse. Mary J. Blige is no isolated case in the story of Drug Abuse. There are millions out there fighting the same battles that she fought.

And a thought comes to my head, hilarious and saddening as it may be.

Who on earth came up with the phrase 'Ignorance is bliss'?!

The Object Of The Game

"The object of the game [of life] is to make a difference."
-- One Tree Hill.

Parallel Plots

She's on her cell phone and driving. She's upset. The signal turns red and she doesn't notice. She crosses the light only to just miss a passing vehicle. She screeches to a stop, breathing a sigh of relief. She's safe. She looks to her right to see the blaring headlights of a truck coming straight at her. And then it's all over.

A scene from The O.C.

Most often we are able to identify with plots in television soaps, dramas and movies because they are parallel to stories in our own life.

It's funny how reality hits you when you are finally able to visualise it.

What's In A Name?

I always believed that the reward will be the university I study in. The name. Wharton. Berkley. McGill. York. It was always that that I strived every single day for. And at the end of the line, I don't have that name. Not because of any inability on my part academically, but perhaps my inability to prepare for the unexpected.

Having to study in a less reputed institution and being fairly happy about it only makes me wonder what it really was that kept me going. In an episode of One Tree Hill that I watched, the insignificance of 'the name' arose. It's just a name. What you do with it is up to you.

At the end of the day, it is the person you are, the limits (by your defintion) of life that you push that matter. It becomes important therefore to put 'your all' into everything that you do. It doesn't matter if you are the most famous person in the world or if you have a mediocre job and a mediocre life in a city you've lived in your whole life. But if you have failed to make a difference in your own sphere of influence, however big, you have not lived!

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
-- William Shakespeare.

Resisting Peer Pressure

A very interesting thought came up on my choir group website. There was a discussion on Peer Pressure and the following comment was made:

Peer Pressure affects people who don't have strong values oftheir own!

Without a strong foundation or deep roots, we can easily be swept away by the winds of peer pressure. So true.

The Essentiality Of Being Concise

I work best with people who give clear and concise instructions.

Being vague and not knowing what you want will not allow me to put in my best in giving you what you want!

I Have Something To Say

Liberal Arts has always been a form of expression. To express your beliefs, your principles, your perception of the world, to express to the world who you are - the arts has been a great outlet. What I like most about this medium of expression that it is not defined in its form. It is vast enough to include dance, paintings, music, literature and even less traditional concepts such as comics and journalism.

Writing has been my forte. Yet only recently have I discovered the magnitude of its power to truly express myself. In Eminem's biography written by Anthony Bozza, he is quoted saying that he will continue to rap as long as he has something to say. My committment to writing lies along the same lines. As long as I have something to say, I will always write.

Fighting The Hardest Battle

"To be nobody but yourself, in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."

-- E. E. Cummings