Being and Becoming

We often seek to be more than what we can be, to reach for the limits of our imagination, a place where space and time collapse in an ecstasy of the fantastic, a place we truly feel we have achieved and become who we were meant to be.

It sounds cliche and certainly so especially after the emphasis on fulfilling one's destiny in "The Return of The King" (Elrond's emphatic imperative still rings in my head - "Become who you were born to be.").

But how many of us fulfills that which we call 'destiny'? How many still believe that there is something called 'destiny'?

I had a wonderful dinner with good friends earlier today - Mrs Lau, Phil, Faye, Bliss and Winnie - and we spoke, among a great deal of many trivia - how existence has become a paperchase for more, incessant, unlimited wants. It is a race to find a job to ensure survival in modernity moved by the engines of commodity fetishism and capitalism. How many of us still dream ... ?

I look at my own kids - my beloved class - and I wonder too. I wonder how many of them dream; to dream of the impossible instead of the pragmatic, the beautiful instead of the stoic, the extraordinary instead of the mundane. Each and every day I try to spur them on to see that the world is bigger than what they currently perceive but with each passing day I feel I'm fighting a losing battle. I begin to wonder if dreams are accessed through language and perhaps it is the mastery of the language and its adjunctival culture that has permitted me to see the world as I view.

I hope some day they would see nonetheless - as they grow and mature. And I begin slowly to comprehend the term "generation gap". I never thought I'd begin to see the logic and truth in it but I am beginning to - slowly but surely.

They say you never really get to know a person till you've travelled or lived with them. Think it applies to all kinds of relationship even the superficial.

I was glad to have spent time with the class - whatever little time there was but the 3 days showed me truths that I perhaps had long wanted to erase and re-script. Why should I have been the one that was more enthusiastic than almost every other of them? Why was I the one that willingly and enthusiastically stayed for the complete duration when most chose to return home, do their own task and return back only to gather food and be entertained? Why should I have been the one to help buy the food, check-in, and even clean up after them? I began to wonder if these kids had any initiative, if they would do anything more than just to 'take' and receive? It frustrated me. I felt taken for granted in many ways but more importantly disappointed that these kids were like many others - they merely wanted to receive; they lacked initiative, and they often take things for granted.

I spent the better part of the first day with merely a handful, the second afternoon with Barney, and the third day with yet another handful ... what was the purpose of gathering everyone together then? Why am I trying so hard to 'elevate' the class's identity? Am I trying to fulfill my own selfish agenda - is this my way of reliving what I never had in my JC years? Is this act of brewing what was never there fair and even purposeful?

Perhaps Betty was right - I am expecting too much from ... a class ... Perhaps I am expecting too much from myself as well. Perhaps sparrows can never be eagles. Perhaps I should just leave it be. We live in an ungrateful world where the only the self matters most ...