Living in a Truer World

Living in a Truer World

I'm already in the fourth year of studying medicine. It really felt like it wasn't too long ago I was a naive medical student, with simple goals and unadulterated optimism. Everything was so much simpler back then, or so it seemed to me. It was as if the world had less shades of grey - one could step on one tone of grey and manage not to touch other kinds of tone painted just beside.


The medicine I see now - more accurately the world that I see now through my eyes - is so much richer of greyness. Like a grey-scale photo of a sunset by a beach, there are all sorts of whiteness and blackness. In the far distance, the brilliant white sun is slowly gliding down its arc and the sky enveloping it has a beautiful gradient of grey, becoming darker as it is closer to you. Specks of the sun's reflection on the calm distant sea ceaselessly surface and sink out of sight, creating a wonderful spectacle that could be stared for hours until they all disappear together with the day's eye. The rocks closest to the observer has the darkest of black - their delicate bumps and lines absolutely hidden by the shadow of their own bodies - leaving only an odd collection of silhouette.


It is now nearly impossible to touch on a single shade of grey. Life is increasingly "colourful" but at the same time also increasingly complex.


You will see the world as closer to the truth, but it is not always pretty. Truth can be sweet, and it can be bitter. Hell, it can be anything. There aren't a lot of things existing in binary; you realise pairs of two are difficult to find. There is no such thing as "male" and "female" only, because there are people who sit in between, either biologically born as such or otherwise. Sexual orientation is never either "heterosexuality" or "homosexuality". The universe is never simply divided into "heaven" and "earth". Darkness and lightness are a spectrum, as are highs and lows, and hot and cold. Most anything are created as a continuum.


The natural law dictates that this world that we live in can never be as simple as a world of binary - either one or the other. The sooner we all realise binary rarely exist, the better. But this is difficult as many people cling tightly to the illusion of the 'either-or' world due to its simplicity. It makes things somehow easier to comprehend. However, illusion is but an illusion, and no amount of denial can change that fact.


I have shattered the illusion and I am happy to live in this difficult world.


Medicine is one of the many tools I came across in my life that would eventually be used to break the glass. It is a great instrument, but wielding it also changes you. Many who crossed to the other side into the truth shed layers of optimism. Breaking the glass makes shards of cynicism pierce deep into their flesh, and they burrow deeper as if trying to integrate themselves with the body.


I am still struggling to pick up the pieces off the floor and remove the sharp fragments from my flesh. It's hard but I will become the person I sought out to be when I first started medical training. I will get there.

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(credits to Chibss @ deviantART)

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Home II

Home II

I reached home. Mama was there to greet me first. Her face was filled with a thousand emotions that magically resonated within me as well. It wasn't simply "happy" or "relieved". The concoction of emotions splashed into a unique colour that is rarely ever seen.


She stood there as if waiting to be hugged. I embraced her and closed my eyes. I could feel the rest of the world didn't exist as I was locked. It was just... us.


Then there was my dad together with my brothers all rejoicing in the reunion. I hugged each one of them.


I gave one of my best hugs to my dearest younger sister. I can see how she have grown into a mature woman.


But one was missing. And I missed him dearly.


Then they told me he died. From their faces, I could tell it was a truth. My brother was really gone.


Slowly I kneeled and I cried.


I cried very hard. And it was very hard to control.


My sister sat beside me later that night. She said three years ago, I was supposed to die. I didn't wake up for a year and my dead brother made a selfless deal so that he could trade places with me. Ever since then he was slowly dying, but he never showed it to anyone.


The worst part was that I never realised any of this ever happened. I didn't even know I was out cold for a year. With this newfound knowledge, again I cried. My sister hugged me differently this time. It was as if she was trying to embrace my broken heart to prevent it from chipping away. I think I felt her tears on my shoulder.


Days later, I found myself staring out the window into the dark midnight sky. There were strands of stars dangling in the moonless dark blue canvas. It was indeed a beautiful sight but I failed to appreciate it. I might be looking at the stars, but my eyes truly staring into a lifeless void.


Then he came into my room. I looked to him and felt a gush of tears wanting to stream down my cheeks again. To see him again after all the years, after all the news, after all the tears, after all the guilt, was an overwhelming experience that I could not describe in existing terms. He approached me slowly and stroked my right cheek. He never said a word, but I could understand him. His gentle eyes and bittersweet smile said it all. He wanted me to know that it is alright. "Everything is going to be alright..."


At this point too much tears had streamed that I could not feel them anymore. I had never cried so much in my entire life.

Then I woke up - eyes opened first - but I was still lying on my bed. I wasn't sure if my eyes were wet, as I was too engrossed in the emotions I felt at that moment, and it didn't matter to me. Strangely (or not?), I knew it was just a dream within seconds of waking up.


Sometimes I have incredibly vivid dreams such as this, and I could retain the memories of the emotions that I felt within the dream. They all felt exactly like the real thing; the emotions were not blunted in any way at all. As horrible as the dream I had last night was, I was glad to live in that dream. The experience of such intense emotions I have never encountered before in my real life. I was given the opportunity to go through it before a real scenario hits me. Maybe this will prepare me. But then, maybe you can never prepare.


With that said, I felt a strong longing to be at home with my mum and dad, my brothers and my only sister. I really wished I was at home where I don't feel alone.


When a person misses his family, meeting them, seeing them with his own eyes, kissing them and hugging them are not the only things that matter - it goes so much further than that. In essence, it is their mere presence around him that his heart asks for.


In other words, when you are with your family, you don't even have to say anything. It is enough to just sit quietly beside any of them and look softly at the faces. They might be puzzled at your rare gaze, but keep on looking and just give a slight smile. They might then understand.


How I wish I could sit at my usual spot at home with my mum and sister right now. With the sound of scissors and sewing machine and baby and trivial chat filling my ears. Ridiculously noisy at times but I can always escape to the kitchen.

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(credits to desertman @ deviantART)

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Home I

Home I

Where the doors are moaning all day long,
Where the stairs are leaning dusk till dawn,


Where the windows are breathing in the light,
Where the rooms are a collection of our lives,


This is a place where I don't feel alone,
This is a place that I call my home...

(Cinematic Orchestra - That Home)

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I swear if this song was what I hear first thing when I woke up this morning, I'd cry.

Dreams can feel so real.

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(credits to ariadnezenit @ deviantART)

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Silent emotions

Silent emotions

Imagine this and imagine it vividly in your mind as best as you can:

You sitting in your chair in front of your computer and books.

You stopping whatever you were doing and turning your head towards the large window to your side, while one arm supporting your chin as your gaze drifting softly at the scene beyond the window.

You watching the continuous stream of traffic on the road across your vision field, hearing the muffled sound of vehicles zooming pass as people move on with their lives and realising you with yours.

You noticing the distant sky scattered with clouds and the sun shying away behind the thick still clouds.

You barely knowing what is in your mind at the mundanity of the moment and being oblivious that you are caught in a tranquillising trance.

You holding in this position in the physical and mental sense for minutes and minutes that when you snap out of it you realise perhaps 10 minutes has gone pass.

This is how I lost presence in this world. This is the melancholy in me emerging spontaneously at random times. This is one of the moments in life that I feel most calm and become deadly quiet - almost everything seems so crystal to me as I observe a snapshot of the world outside my window moving with time while my body is held in time stasis.

Speaking of time, I realise it is a waste, but I simply cannot help it.While in this trance, a great concoction of feelings comes splashing in an overwhelming force and these feelings are often the most difficult things for me to describe. Is is sadness? Longing? Helplessness? Frustration? Or is this what melancholy really is?

Perhaps I will never know the answer. But the answer does not matter to me. The whole experience means so much more to me. I consider it one the pleasures of life, actually.

You might raise an eyebrow to that last sentence, but I consider experiences and savouring emotions as ways to live your life fully. I thinks I would miss out on a lot if I didn't get to experience as many different kinds of emotion. It's just a waste to live without tasting them. (Okay, I think I'm starting to not make any sense, so I'll stop talking about it. But if somehow I do make sense to any of you, maybe you have found a mate!)

Although my melancholy can be brought about deliberately (which isn't very common of me), it is oft most triggered. By music. (Not again)

Here's one:

Just click on it. Three minutes of audio data is hardly a permanent damage to your monthly internet quota.

Out in the garden where we planted the seeds
There is a tree as old as me
Branches were sewn by the color of green
Ground had arose and passed its knees

By the cracks of the skin I climbed to the top
I climbed the tree to see the world
When the gusts came around to blow me down
I held on as tightly as you held onto me
I held on as tightly as you held onto me...

Cause, I built a home
for you
for me

Until it disappeared
from me
from you

And now, it's time to leave and turn to dust...

Rarely you come across such powerful lyrics. Good songs are truly difficult to come by nowadays.

P.S. I may be misinterpreted by you as being "emotional" (the term as defined by people to describe certain difficult-to-handle people, as in "You're soooooo freakin' emotional!!!"). Those who truly know me would know better than to say I'm that kind of emotional.

P.P.S. Maybe I just simply miss home.

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Less a human

Less a human

Today I heard that someone left this earth,
that someone disappeared left no mark here.
Today I heard that someone just got up and left himself,
lying on the ground.

Today is quiet in my town.

Today two boys disappeared without noise,
and I wish that I was them flying somewhere overhead.
And tonight in silence, two lovers hate and find,
one is bored and one is angry,
but neither one of them is right.

Today is quiet in my town.

Today I heard the sound of birds,
and I wish that I was anywhere but here.

Today is too quiet in my town.

(Modified from the lyrics of "Quiet in My Town")

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I came across an emotional song by Civil Twilight called "Quiet in My Town". The song reminded me of death to a certain deep level. Perhaps enough to silence me for the rest of the day while my heart was submerged in - for lack of better word - sorrow. I haven't had that many experiences of having people I came to love dying. Perhaps it was the very reason -  the lack of experience that birth the fear of loss - that drove me into mutism.

I remember a time when I was unadulterated with the immunity of death that I learn to develop over the years leading to the present. It was a time when even the thought of strangers dying sends a pulsation of grief to my soul, regardless of the magnitude. It was also a time when I had the realisation that whatever I was feeling must be magnified to a grand scale in the hearts of the stranger's loved ones. Sympathy and empathy, hand-in-hand.

It was partly the forces that got me into med school in the first place.

Looking back, it's simply amazing how one could evolve so much in a couple of years. The news of a stranger's death no longer shook my heart the way it used to be. They seep into my brain after entering my ears, then almost mechanically  the information is digested and transformed into words like "That's unfortunate - I feel sorry for the loss..." that is expelled from my mouth.

Am I less a human now? I'd like to think not. Humans develop immunity to things that they are exposed to ever so frequently. Being immune to the knowledge of death may help doctors to move on and concentrate on the living, so they would continue to save. Saying that they are less of a human doesn't seem very correct now.

However, it's also important to remember that there are levels of immunity. Some would agree that being completely immune and indifferent to death WOULD make you less of a human. I believe there is a delicate balance between preserving the acquired immunity and being susceptible to the grief of death at times. Unfortunately, the scale favours the immunity as doctors are ceaselessly exposed to death throughout their career. Perhaps having silent moments like I just had may help tip the scale back into equilibrium. At least it works for me.

Maybe it's a good idea to stop every so often and ask yourself: "Am I less of a human now?" Mirrors can do wonders to yourself.

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