Weights and Measures

As we move through life, we leave traces of ourselves behind. That's perhaps a simplification and bastardisation of what Derrida calls 'the trace' (but of course acontextualised and corrupted ontologically).

We leave traces in people's lives, in the places we've been, the sights we've visited, studied in, worked at, resided in and plainly toured. And like footprints in the sand, there is often a trail - a point of origin, a path, and a present focal point: the here and now. We look back at this trail sometimes with fondness; we reminisce the good times, we ache at the painful and through all of this - the trace we've left - we are here, now, for better or worse. But still 'surviving', still trudging on.

And so the end of a cyclical calendar is often the time we look back at that trail, the trace, in the hopes that the new year would be different, would be better - even though embedded somewhere beneath our willing consciousness we know that history has a way of repeating itself and life, if anything, is cyclical though it provides the illusion of linearity. But still we look forward in all earnesty and hope.

I look forward to the new year with all earnesty and hope ...

That it would be a better year for mankind, and for myself; that 2005 would just merely be forgotten history - my story.

If I could encapsulate the year in a single word it would most certainly be 'loss'. It's been a year of loss - for the world and for me. The world lost thousands of lives with the numerous natural and 'unnatural' disasters. We are losing gradually the planet we are living in. We have lost homes and infrastructure to war and calamity. We have lost lives to viruses be can find no cure to. We have lost hope when Science was exposed as fallacy and lies.

I have lost much too in this single solitary year. I have found the person that I loved only to lose again. I have lost the purpose and passion of my vocation. I have lost sight of why I do what I do everyday. I have 'lost' the reason and motivation for burning my weekends, working late into the night, and waking up early the next morning (which, incidentally, to my ex-students - you've been an amazing source of inspirtation for those two years I had you). I have lost in my professional development because I've tried to speak out against injustice and hold on to ethics that those in power have lost. I have lost a CCA that I discovered I have a natural talent and affinity for - though it was a voluntary loss. I have lost my opportunities to sing professionally outside, and conduct. I have lost those that were at some point in time close to me. But most frighteningly I have lost myself ...

Yet in losing myself, I have gained something invaluable - the knowledge that I need to find myself again; to find a renewed purpose not anchored on the validations that system awards. I have gained the knowledge that I need to chart a future where self-worth is found from within. I have gained the awareness that social success, wealth and fame, requires one to lose what is most important - integrity, honour, honesty. I have gained the realisation that there are people around who still care, and are inspired by what I believe in and how I stand firm to them.

I have lost materially ... but I have gained in ways that weights and measures cannot value.