2009 June–Uncanny Philosophy

Thoughts on Happiness – Part 1

June 28th, 2009 The author

I was just about to leave the main Yahoo site when something interesting caught my attention. The title read : Happiness – 3 amazing tips from the world’s oldest study

The article was an interesting read and the findings somewhat fascinated and reaffirmed my previous held beliefs on happiness (Don’t take life too seriously for example). I’ve always been interested in ‘the pursuit of happiness’ simply because I like being happy. I love the emotions and positive feelings that are associated with happiness. It’s a “duh!” statement I know, but I am still writing it down because that’s what I believe and like so much about happiness.

I guess maybe to a certain degree, the reason for this is simply because I grew up in a not-so-happy home where fights and arguments were cyclical and had their seasonal operation. It wasn’t that my parents were bad or anything, or that either one had developed a family-breaking habit. The problem was rather (as I adult I see this a little clearer now) that old problems that were raised in the past were just swept under the carpet. Forgive and move-on was my dad’s modus operandi when it came to fights and arguments.

However mum was the kind of person who needed to talk it out – something dad was crappy at. Dad didn’t like to hear things out and things would end up just being swept under the carpet rather than being dealt with in a healthy manner. So naturally over time, whenever a volcano would errupt, it would be more devastating than the previous, because the previous unsettled lava would come out with the current erruption.

Hence, that’s why the first tip this article recommends is to have a healthy outlet to let out your negative feelings. Pent-up feelings may be masochistic and manly, but its determining to the mind and body. Whenever I visit my local pastor to talk about mum’s death and how I’m coping with it, he will always encourage me to “cry it out” and just “let it out” and I would do so unbashfully in his room while he just sits there empathizing with my sorrow and struggle. But I feel better after that, I feel light and with his encouragement I’m able to carry on.

So yeah, having a healthy outlet is good for the soul.

The Resurrected Heart

June 8th, 2009 The author

Even though I wrote about the death of my prematured heart only yesterday, truth is, my heart died a while ago. That incident actually happened a few weeks ago.

Today though was a little strange. As I was pouring my angst heart toward my female work colleague on why women always prefer somebody else that they just ignore the interest express from the nice guy who is standing right in front of them.

The discussion was abrupt when I got an unexpected sms. An unexpected text message from her. I was so stunned I told my female work colleague ‘holy crap – she just texted me asking me whether we should do dinner?’

Now before you, my esteemed reader begin with these words… “Easy there buddy, nothing really is happening alright?” Let me assure you, I too thought nothing much of it. In fact I’m just glad she finally sorta ‘reciprocated’ by asking me out for dinner, cuz let me tell you it has been hard on me ever since I broke the news to her. I felt like a loser, a real loser, I kept asking the question “Am I not desrieable?”

Don’t I have a good career?

Am I not cultured and refined?

Am I not sensitive and at the same time funny?

Am I difficult to get along with?

Am I not strong in my faith?

Am I not strong in my desire to draw others closer to God?

I don’t mean to stroke my ego, but seriously, when I look back at my life, when I really ask ‘Who am I and what do I live for and what am I passionate about?’ I don’t see why anyone would not want to be with me. Again not stroking my ego, I do have my own skeletons in my closet, and I’m far far far from being perfect either.

But the fact she can even admit it means something.

Anyhoo the text message was the last thing I was expecting from her. Based on how we have been toward each other, part of me felt ‘did I just ruin my friendship with her as well?’. I had stopped initiating conversations with her after my confession as I did not want to be pushy. In fact, I just left her alone while I prayed whether this is God’s will for the two of us.

She too afterall said I need time to pray about it.

But alas I did not have dinner with her as I had already committed my time to someone else. The good thing is… I didn’t feel bad about it. Maybe it was because I knew I would see her later in bible class. Or maybe because, I just wanted God to take over this.

I did see her in bible class and I saved her a seat, so yay she got to sit beside me. Once again, my mind was more toward the lesson we were going through that day rather than thinking about her. Divine intervention? Perhaps…

Later after class, a few of my close friends went out for a late post-bible supper. It’s a trend I’ve kinda started with 2 of my good friends and I am hoping to build on it as it’s always fruitful to share with each other what we learnt for the day.

I didn’t get to say goodbye to her though, instead I just texted her asking her whether she would like to join us.

10 minutes later, she is once again sitting opposite me and yes God did bless the group with a fruitful discussion. Throughout the whole time I was just thinking and thanking God for just taking over this whole thing. I didn’t feel that arkwardness around her I felt a couple of days back. In fact, more than anything I was happy she joined us. My heart was sorta resurrected, but not so much in an eros way, but more so in a filio way.

While I still do like her, I am still able to see her a sister, as a friend ; something I have not felt before for anyone that I’ve been interested in. And I’m really happy she sent me that text message asking me out for dinner ; even though it didn’t work out, I’m glad, in fact thrilled she took a step in building our friendship/relationship.

I’m gonna see her on Wednesday again ; and I’m just going to surrender it to God. I guess maybe God is working in her, and God is speaking to her heart. And perhaps maybe God is speaking to me as well in all of this calamity – angst- confused period.

Perhaps what God is saying to me is this :

Take it easy buddy, she already said she’ll pray about it ; You gotta trust in Me… I know what’s best for you… oh and by the way, did you get around to reading what I said in Matthew 6:33? No? Well yeah why not you just meditate on that for a while…

I gotta say…sometimes I am just proud and thankful to have a God like that…

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The death of a prematured heart

June 7th, 2009 The author

So now you know who I am into, you gotta tell me yours! She quipped, finally breaking the silence that encapsulated us for a good 2-3 minutes. I gulped as I tried to regain my composure.

She’s always like that – blunt, straight to the point, no beating around the bush. So what do I tell her. I mean how was I to say ‘yes I am into someone too, and that person is you’.

I had no plans to tell her up until now. I felt I needed more time to analyze and gain perspective on this journey titled ‘Romance’. The last time I threaded down that road was more than a year ago. And this time, I was going to pursue a church gal, a catholic girl, a girl whom I have known for sometime as a wonderful friend.

After finally playin g the guessing game, (heh I think this was the first time she went around the bush!) she finally and reluctantly came to the conclusion that I was interested in her.

I guess the reluctancy in her face said it all. My dream of receiving a reciprocal feeling had taken a nosedive. She wasn’t interested. She was more interested in her Man, who knew very little of her existence, but she had physical attraction based feelings for me.

Throughout our shopping (yes, after hearing the Truth) we had to go and check something out. You could imagine the mood between the two of us – she confused but trying to bring normalcy into the conversation. Me – feeling like a total loser for being rejected by Love. Rejected love is painful and it dug deep into my heart as time went by

Finally after we had completed my task, I decided I could no longer hold this bleeding heart of mine. I had to let her know, we had to talk it out. I wasn’t going to give up on Beauty as I had done in, the past.

I finally poured out my heart to her over coffee at a Starbucks outlet. It was painful but I just didn’t want to hold it back. I had afterall nothing to lose. She listened attentively, occasionally nodding her head. Probably that’s the first time I saw her in such a contemplative state in a non religious background.

‘It feels like a death of the prematured heart’ , she said finally, adding to the fact that it was her who forced my love interest out of me and ended up rejecting it.

‘Let me think about it and pray about it”, she finally said. Exasperated and emotionally drained from the conversation, all I could say was 2 words

Thank you!

And so this is how my love life has been, in case you wanted to know whether I even had a romantic life!

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