Starry, starry night

One of the things I like to do when I was a kid was to climb out of the room window onto the roof just to sit down and look at the stars. Back then the are outside the back of the house was secondary forest of which some bit of the area were cleared to plant stuff. My parents and the neighbours spent their free time planting vegetables and fruits, most notably banana trees and yam.

The lack of artificial lighting would mean that the whole area would be in darkness as there were no buildings within view except for the medical lab located long the road - the area were not as developed then as now. Whenever the moon is high up in the skies of a clear night the area would be bathed in serene bluish-white lunar radiance.

My favourite though, is when the curtain of night is punctured with countless stars, their faint celestial lights blinking from the heavens. Being on the roof gave me a sweeping view of the sky, vaguely lid into a shade of dark blue.

I often ponder about life then - me myself and I, and the Universe. The stars in the skies got me thinking about my place in this thing called Creation. I am such a small thing, so minute that by comparison to everything out there I'm such an insignificant speck. Line us all up and I wouldn't even be microscopic - I'd be invisible. Have me terminated and it won't look any different.

 It's funny when you think that (existence of aliens non-withstanding), this little speck of fragile carbon-based life form is the most intelligent thing in the Universe, potentially (read that as many times as possible until you get my angle) the only living thing out there that is sentient. And if that much is true, then we're truly special indeed. I am special, you are special, he is special, she is special.

So special that sometimes one would gladly give up the world for the hope of achieving or to keep something as they were. The police put their lives in the line of fire to ensure that others don't have to. A mother would shield her children with her own back from the upcoming danger. A brother would gladly give up his food to feed a younger sister. A soldier would gladly run into the thick of battle in hope that what he does will keep his wife and family safe.

As I look up to ancient illuminations from globes of fire that might no longer be there anymore, there's a humbling feeling that as humans, we're not the mightiest - a single comet hurtling dirty ice to earth would annihilate most if not all of mankind - but we have the ability to try, because we can. A beaver would continue to build dams regardless of what CNN reports of incoming cataclysm, dung beetles would continue to do their part is breaking down compost, whales would continue to nurse their cow in the sea.

Pity I couldn't relive the habits of a childhood anymore of climbing out the window to the roof - an incident of burglary in our neighbour's house got everybody spooked that metal grills were installed to bar any kind of entrance (and exit) without keys.

Furthermore houses were now built in the are that used to be the secondary forest - so more lights now fill the night than before, making it all the harder to see anything so vague in the night sky.

"There was a complaint from next door about you standing on the roof".

We all dream

The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called "spannungsbogen" -- which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing. from "The Wisdom of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan.
-- (Dune, Frank Herbert)

It's true that ability to stop and think before doing something requires great discipline, especially if the end result would normally be something that is irreversible and a thing that you would need to live with. To those who 'live and let live' the above probably don't matter as life is one to paint and a painting to look back at, good or bad. At least one get to lived his life the way he wanted it.

For most people however, the need to do decide on whether a venture is worth the risk is often a dilemma of great proportions especially if it meant something very costly or one that would change how you live for a long time, if not forever. Take for instance the decision to buy a house - choose the wrong location or pricing and you'll end up financing a long term loan that will eat up your life's worth of worries. Abandoning it to make amends will eat up all that has been invested practically rendering it a waste.

Even a thing as natural as having children is not a bed of roses (though the process of making them are often decided in seconds... that's for another story) - the whole process of investing half of your life to make sure that this new bundle of life get to grow in a decent environment with the proper upbringing is not as simple as say, adding cheese to make a cheese cake. Unlike programs, the older they are they less they tell you and whether they end up like what you hoped to be will ultimately be out of your hands simply because they have free will.

'Without hope a man is but an animal', says the Koran and I agree.

A deer is happy enough to prance around the woods, eat berries and soft leaves off shrubs for the rest of its life without knowing if its defaecating will bring a richer growth in the future. They don't stop to feel the rain and think of all the greenery that will result from the downpour of heaven's waters, or the newer sweeter fruit that grew along the stream.

We all dream of better things in the future for without it there is no will to live.

There was an article I read many years ago regarding the causes of death amongst people on earth. It said 'one of the biggest killers of people are retirement'. When they stop working, they don't know what to do with the rest of their lives. The reason to wake up in the morning to get to work, to fix that pipe, to write the purchase order, to operate that forklift, to draw the design diagram - disappears.

Of course as morbid as it sounds, hope can be about many things. My dad is a retired civil servant whom had served his country loyally for 35 years. He has nothing much to do nowadays except to tend to his little garden at the extended porch of the house and the backyard. I hope to God that he lives a long and healthy life with my mother, I'd imagine he's hoping to see my brother and I establish a family of our own like when he did over four decades ago, to help guide us through the difficult learning curves of becoming the head of your own family.

That is his hope.

What about mine?