Been re-reading a few of my previous posts. I sometimes forget what I write, so when I read it again it's kind of like learning something new about myself. Quite odd.
Anyway, I've been reading The Great Gatsby. It's nothing like Siddhartha (thank God), but the beginning was (as most beginnings are) dreadfully long. I love the style of writing. How things are described so efficiently and poetically. Something I don't see in modern day literature anymore. It's all about the storyline nowadays. No one pays attention to style. That's why I find it such a pain to read essays written by my peers. Any fool with a thesaurus could write what most consider to be "well."
The inspiration for this post comes from the last few pages of chapter three. New York. I've always been fascinated with New York. Actually most major cities in the world, but in particular New York. For those who haven't yet located my bucket list, one of my dreams is to live in each of the major cities of the world for at least a few months. And the big apple has been a hot favourite. There's something about this brimming metropolis that draws me to it. A certain quality I can't quite describe (I haven't been there before, anyway). Something about the old and the new blending into a fusion that is outside time itself. Or maybe it's just me and my imagination.
For those of you not acquainted with my interests, I love shooting. My dream is to travel the world and shoot. I love street photography. It's like freezing the entire world and keeping it as such. It's different from capturing scenery: that'll likely be there for the foreseeable future. But when you shoot on the streets you capture a moment in time that is otherwise irrecoverable. It's a still of a play that only runs once. A fleeting beauty that literally lasts only a hundredth of a second. That moment when a stray eyes you from behind a wall. That warm glow that blankets the world in those delicate few minutes before dawn. Those nameless faces that pass you by, each one yearning to tell a story.
I don't want to stay in Singapore. I can't stand seeing the same thing all my life. There is more than this. I need adventure in my life. I want to walk the entire earth, not knowing whether to take this turn or that, and not ever needing to know. Because I don't want to be tied down. I want to go out there into the wilderness and find something.
I can speak like this because I am still in school. We have the biggest dreams while we're in school. But when reality catches up with you outside those gates you just hold on tight for dear life. I want to break out of this. What do I have here in Singapore, anyway? No substantial family. No friends worth staying for. I have nothing I need here that I can't find elsewhere. At the rate I'm going, they say, the world is my oyster. And maybe I shall, maybe I will grow up and wander the earth with nothing but myself and a few belongings.
During one of our school visits to a nursing home, I had the opportunity to converse with a nice English-speaking gentleman who told me about his life. Before we parted ways, he asked me, "what is most important in life: love, money, or freedom?" I considered his question and replied in the typical teenage fashion. "Love." I wasn't going to be a slave to money, nor was I in any particular need of freedom. "Love," he echoed with a slight chuckle, "not love."
Not love, indeed. Not romantic love, at any rate. When you're tied down, at varying degrees of literalness, neither love or money will satisfy. Or maybe it's just me. Maybe it's just my restlessness. Maybe it's the (relative) abundance of one thing and the acute lack of another that has led me to realise that what I really want is just to get out of here.
Or maybe, I'll become rich, get married, then travel the world.
-Jont
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