Natsu Matsuri, Cemetery visit, and reflections
Yesterday night (or to be more precise, August 25) was the annual Summer Festival organised by the Japanese Association in Singapore. I went, of course (with my school fellows), and we generally had a good time. It wasn’t a time without much reflection, an activity which also occupied me as I toured the grounds of the Japanese Cemetery at Serangoon.
As I walked among the mostly-forgotten gravestones of my forebears, I felt a crippling sense of emptiness, no doubt amplified by the deadly silence of the place. The weathered engraving is but all too a stark a reminder of how fleeting human existence is - and how the proof of a life once lived - and all to much, suffered - could be erased by time, unfeeling and ignorant as it flows by. They have proven to be more endurable than other measures, but even gravestones fade - and eventually topple, and crumble.
I’ll be returning. It’s just a question of when.
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On the subject of reflections, I probably have more to say.
I mentioned this before, and somehow or other, a cascading sequence of events have left me questioning some of the most ‘certain’ things I have known thus far. I always thought I loved science. Or specifically, research for that matter. But now I realize that that might not be perfectly true after all. Thinking seriously about it now, I cannot quite understand the great fuss (or passion) about it. As it turns out, whatever I’ve done thus far in that field might have at least some part to do with testimonial building.
Do I feel guilty about that? Yes, and no. Why yes, if everyone does at least some things to some extent for the sake of their testimonials and records? I don’t exactly have a very good response to that. Perhaps its because I somehow feel it’s dishonest? That it’s just ‘wrong’? I don’t know for sure. But I would daresay that the answer is something along those lines.
I’ll be perfectly honest here. I fear for my testimonial right now (though there’s seldom been a moment when I actually stopped fearing for it, at most forgetting about the issue for brief periods of time). I fear that I’ll leave school having contributed nothing, gained nothing, and worse of all, DONE nothing.
What am I doing? One way of looking at it is that I’m doing practically half a dozen big things (external to basic academics). Another way is that I am not doing anything, because I’m either stalling or just wasting time. Both are probably correct. Is light a wave or a stream of particles? If you say that it’s vibration in the 11th dimension then tell me what describes my activities? (I just don’t agree with string theory - but then again I no longer fancy myself all that much as a physics enthusiast).
What do I really want to do? Which college do I really want to go to? What should I be doing? What do I want? What don’t I want? What shouldn’t I be doing?
Must I really go to school?