It was Sunday, having just finished dinner with Anabel, her sister in law, I stepped out into the streets. Walking on foot from Marine Parade to Paya Lebar, I contemplated on what she said. It seems irregardless of the stations in life one occupies, rich or poor, successful or down , smart or dull, the central idea to happiness is always a challenge.
The concept of happiness it seems involves many if not infinite factors. Hence the coefficient of each factor contributing to the general level of happiness one experiences though in the short run is significant, fast becomes negligible due to the short saturation cycle.
Each of us has 24 hrs per day and only so much resources at hand. To fulfill each factor that contributes to happiness demands for time and resources. Scarity is a very real thing.
Alrity ,so it seems being constantly happy is a myth, we should pretty much forget about it. So what about being happy in the short run? That it seems is the norm around us. We have this today, we are happy. Soon we are not. We need next to find something else to fill the gap. Thus we did. We become happy again, until of course we hit the next cycle. Examined from a bird’s eye view level, It is a seemingly endless and meaningless cycle that stops only at the end of each of our life cycle.
Then Eureka! I suddenly recalled a monk’s invitation to enter into monkhood in a monastry in Thailand many years ago. Perhaps monks do lead a happy life… Perhaps I should really attempt to find sometime off these next few months to enter into monkhood. Hopefully, Alena will be patient with my absense during this phase of my life journey. If not AiYaiYAi!!! there goes my peace from life in monkhood. Once during a filming session, I met Kah Keong. He was a former monk for two years before returning back to Singapore. Truth is I got pretty fascinated with the whole idea after the conversation ended.
I finally arrived at Paya Lebar, and hopped onto bus 7 heading over to Glen Eagles Hospital to visit my Mom. All seems well I felt at peace. I could already imagine myself meditating in some Thai monastery, unit The bus stopped somewhere along Geylang Lorong 20plus. A lady in her 50s came on the bus. Interestingly off all the free seats available on the bus, she choose to squeeze in one of the most uncomfortable one, the inner seat beside mine. Just in case you had no idea, I am a big man, I occupy lots of space.
Then all of a sudden she struck a conversation, which took the most crazy of turns. So she has visions… she believes in God and Jesus, the Jewish branch. She wears the Star of David instead of the traditional cross. She condemns Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Catholicism and Islam-ism as Paganism and bullshit. After much conversation it seems she also made it her business to sell some obscure versions of the Bible through the internet. (Check out these URLS if you will http://goldendoves.com/, http://cgbconline.org/ , http://www.dpmchina.com/) Then she went on to commit an inverse logical error by attempting to link the cause of my moms health to her and dad’s religion.
An example of an inverse logical error : Given a 3 why assume it is a 1+ 2 when so many other combinations including 4 – 1 can fit the criteria?
So what can I do? Smile my most patronizing million dollar smile at her of course.
Hey I don’t mind, just the other day I was toying around with this sentence in my head “