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methrowrockToday, I bumped into a schoolmate. I was on my way to Chinese Garden for a run when I saw him behind the traffic light. We had never spoken before, even though we both took the same bus and alighted at the same stop at times, so I was surprised when he responded to my small smile with a little wave. The friendly exchange was little awkward and very brief, but it made me think about how quickly and how readily we warm up to other schoolmates after we have graduated from school. It was quite funny when you think about it: not smiling at schoolmates you don't know, looking the other way after scanning the surroundings and identifying the people around, pretending to fiddle with something as you walk past another so that any eye contact is prevented, all these tended to happen when you were wearing the school uniform. But out of the regimented environment, running into a schoolmate is not a happening, it is an event. You would start to think about his/her name, his/her CCA, your friends that might have known his/her, general impression of his/her character and ecetera. You would want to make him/her acknowledge your presence, so that you two would be mentally in agreement of what an amazing coincidence this is: that in this vast vast world, you two happened to be in the same place at the very same time. And indeed, it is heck of a coincidence.
As we grow older, the world grows larger and the threads that bind you to people around you grow longer as well. In school, you could dismiss another stranger's existence, because you could be almost sure that you would bump into him/her again sooner or later; the thought of never seeing somebody again was quite inconceivable. But once the concrete walls of the school compound are removed, the possibility of seeing that same stranger grows exponentially smaller, to the percentage of near-zero. The world is not what we were used to either; unfamiliar faces with unfamiliar features and unfamiliar gaits flood our vision left right and centre. In this chaotic swarm of human faces, it is immensely comforting to see a pinprick of nostalgia- somebody who had undergone similar experiences as you had, in the same place as you had, at the same time as you had. You would know that this person has your back, on account of the similar backgrounds that you two have. This person would have been drilled with the notion of "Service of Honour", "Leadership With Integrity" and other bombastic slogans tossed around back in the day. Besides, if this person did not, you could always hunt them down via facebook and stuff, but that is not the point haha. There is a sense of kinship, and this sense grows especially strong when one did not expect to see familiar faces in the vicinity. So, hello there, bespectacled superfair guy. I don't know your name, you don't know mine either, but hey, it was pretty cool that we met there and then.
Man, this monologue sounded way more interesting inside my head. Perhaps, I don't quite have a gift of words. Whatever. Oh also today, I tried smiling at other people on the street. (Hence, the small smile, see above) Singaporeans... can be a friendlier lot, definitely. There were a few hesitant smiles, one real smile from a smiley auntie at the void deck, but most either flicked their gazes away abruptly or stared on in puzzlement. Ah, but I hope I did make them a teensy bit happier. I also helped an Indian couple take pictures at Chinese Garden. Hehehe after running, I put on my cheerful face and always hope that tourists/visitors will ask me to help them take pictures for them. I can't really explain what motivates me to do that.. Hmm well, sometimes I wonder how many photographs of others I have been in the background in, how our lives may have overlapped for a few seconds or minutes, how we may have been present in the beautiful memories of another person, and all of it just makes me go wow. I would like to be the Person of the Small Moments and the Tiny Actions that make another's day go more smoothly. Maybe that Indian couple will look over the pictures next time and mentally thank the person who had helped them take a sweet couple portrait. Maybe the little boy of another Indian family I had helped the other time will look through the photo albums in 2020, and wonder how they took a family shot together before the pagoda and the person that enabled it. Okay, these are pretty selfish examples, but it IS a selfish desire. I like to smile at others and help others out, because, simply put, it makes me happy. And in a sense, this allows me to keep my New Year's Resolutions because a) smiling and helping others requires one to take the first step and b) smiling at strangers requires the disregard of what the strangers might think of you. I guess that's why those actions make me happy: because I am trying hard to become the person whom I want to become. *selfishness radar beeping!* Hahaha. Human beings are self-centred creatures, after all.
But of course, I cannot always initiate smiles, conversations and ecetera. There is a daily boldness quota hahaha. Which is why the mouse hovers over that bar in Windows Live Messenger and doesn't do anything else but hover. I don't dare to strike up an online convo again! Ahhh. Maybe tomorrowww, till then!
As we grow older, the world grows larger and the threads that bind you to people around you grow longer as well. In school, you could dismiss another stranger's existence, because you could be almost sure that you would bump into him/her again sooner or later; the thought of never seeing somebody again was quite inconceivable. But once the concrete walls of the school compound are removed, the possibility of seeing that same stranger grows exponentially smaller, to the percentage of near-zero. The world is not what we were used to either; unfamiliar faces with unfamiliar features and unfamiliar gaits flood our vision left right and centre. In this chaotic swarm of human faces, it is immensely comforting to see a pinprick of nostalgia- somebody who had undergone similar experiences as you had, in the same place as you had, at the same time as you had. You would know that this person has your back, on account of the similar backgrounds that you two have. This person would have been drilled with the notion of "Service of Honour", "Leadership With Integrity" and other bombastic slogans tossed around back in the day. Besides, if this person did not, you could always hunt them down via facebook and stuff, but that is not the point haha. There is a sense of kinship, and this sense grows especially strong when one did not expect to see familiar faces in the vicinity. So, hello there, bespectacled superfair guy. I don't know your name, you don't know mine either, but hey, it was pretty cool that we met there and then.
Man, this monologue sounded way more interesting inside my head. Perhaps, I don't quite have a gift of words. Whatever. Oh also today, I tried smiling at other people on the street. (Hence, the small smile, see above) Singaporeans... can be a friendlier lot, definitely. There were a few hesitant smiles, one real smile from a smiley auntie at the void deck, but most either flicked their gazes away abruptly or stared on in puzzlement. Ah, but I hope I did make them a teensy bit happier. I also helped an Indian couple take pictures at Chinese Garden. Hehehe after running, I put on my cheerful face and always hope that tourists/visitors will ask me to help them take pictures for them. I can't really explain what motivates me to do that.. Hmm well, sometimes I wonder how many photographs of others I have been in the background in, how our lives may have overlapped for a few seconds or minutes, how we may have been present in the beautiful memories of another person, and all of it just makes me go wow. I would like to be the Person of the Small Moments and the Tiny Actions that make another's day go more smoothly. Maybe that Indian couple will look over the pictures next time and mentally thank the person who had helped them take a sweet couple portrait. Maybe the little boy of another Indian family I had helped the other time will look through the photo albums in 2020, and wonder how they took a family shot together before the pagoda and the person that enabled it. Okay, these are pretty selfish examples, but it IS a selfish desire. I like to smile at others and help others out, because, simply put, it makes me happy. And in a sense, this allows me to keep my New Year's Resolutions because a) smiling and helping others requires one to take the first step and b) smiling at strangers requires the disregard of what the strangers might think of you. I guess that's why those actions make me happy: because I am trying hard to become the person whom I want to become. *selfishness radar beeping!* Hahaha. Human beings are self-centred creatures, after all.
But of course, I cannot always initiate smiles, conversations and ecetera. There is a daily boldness quota hahaha. Which is why the mouse hovers over that bar in Windows Live Messenger and doesn't do anything else but hover. I don't dare to strike up an online convo again! Ahhh. Maybe tomorrowww, till then!
