#2 - 16 November 2012

I sat by the window, alone, as the scenery outside changes from the suffocating bumper to bumper I have been seeing in the past few days to the quiet and dry countryside of Kanchanaburi. 

There are still development here; tar, concrete, buildings and all. The square road grid and Japanese cars, the men in suits on the billboard and bottles of Coca Cola and Sprite; somehow, these one-size-fits-all development template tend to make you feel like you have never left your city. 

But they are not why I'm here. It's the lush and green spinal mountains, standing tall at the backdrop of the city and forming its backbone, that I'm after. 

From inside the bus, as we inch nearer and the mountains rise above me - I couldn't contain my smile. 

I'm answering the call of the mountains and its water. I'm coming home. 

#3 - 15 November 2012

We were stepping out of the mall when I first saw it.

The crowd were bursting with music, beer and sweat in the Oktoberfest-like atmosphere, and I was getting dizzy from the craziness of it all.

I don't really like crowd. They make my heart race. 

But then I saw it from afar, shrouded in golden light, and my heart quickens - this time for a different reason.

My stride turned into a quick run. I didn't bother explaining my euphoria to my colleagues. I only turned briefly towards them, while pointing in frantic to the other direction. "Find me over there," I mouthed, and then I was off.

Knowing I only had little time in the city and confined to certain kilometre radius around where I stay, I didn't make any specific plans to visit generous temple and wats in Bangkok. I was contented to just roam around its streets and find what little signs of devotion I could in its people.

I don't quite understand my obsession with all things religious. It's just ever since the moment when I found out I have lost my faith (in God), I am always in search of a way to fill this gaping hole inside me. And no matter what I do, I can't seem to fill it.

It makes you wonder if you have some incurable disease no one else can't know what it feels like. It makes you feel as if you are forever missing out on something.

"Having faith is a gift",  I blurted out to my friend. We were standing on the sidewalk, watching the locals stop by and pay respect to the towering Lord Ganesha, the one I was so excited to spot not a moment ago.

To be honest, I envy all of them. For having such devotion, such belief. Some of them are on their way home from work, some of them are itinerant youth with their spiky hairs and low cut jeans, bottles of beer in hand - but they all stopped, knelt, and prayed.

I concentrated my stare on the golden statue - elephant heads, four arms and all - and waited to see if I feel something stir inside.

Nothing, yet again - and I feel like a failure.

"Having faith is a gift", I blurted out to my friend as he walks towards me. A cloud of understanding wash over his face, and he looks at me helplessly. How I wish he knows what I'm talking about.

#1 - 13 November 2012

It is Tuesday. This morning I went out running again. I am beginning to love this ability to move around people so seamlessly, so anonymously.

It's been more than ten years since I am back in Bangkok, and I'm not sure if this lack of fear of the city has a lot to do with my previous relationship to it years ago when I was small, or if it just means that I've grown up, that I've grown formidable and strong that nothing fazes me anymore.

I'd like to think it's the former that's true.

Roaming around the streets of Bangkok in the early morning is beginning to bring home a lot of meaning I've been searching for every time I feel like I don't have enough answers for every questions I keep building up inside myself - 

that I am fortunate, that I am insignificant, that I am big and small and I am capable of doing whatever I want to do and whatever it is I do, they actually don't really matter.

As I step out onto the street, everyone else is already ahead of me. The man who yesterday wore an orange t-shirt is pushing a cart filled with goods. He is probably heading towards the same spot in front of the tower where I saw him yesterday. I tried to outpace him (seeing as I don't have anything heavy to push), but he was faster.

Another man, older, one of his legs cut short by a stump. His skin dark, probably from days and hours under the sun, is washing himself with a small pail of water by his side. He is taking his time, slowly caressing dirt away from his body with a white cloth.

I wanted to look away, but I didn't. 'Feel this." I told myself. I'm not sure how long has he been on the street.

Moments like these are why I go out every day, pushing my body, my emotions and my mind to the limit. This is how I connect myself to the physical world, to the outer world, to make sure I am still somehow anchored, grounded to the roots of what is making my being possible. 

Otherwise I will forever feel as if I am floating, drowning inside myself. As if I am not real, that I need to ascertain - I can feel something.

You are part of a beautiful story

As you fall, remember that you are part of a beautiful story that did not start when you were born.

- I Wrote This For You 

It's November and rain is pounding on our soil like a long-lost lover. One evening I was out running when suddenly the wind shifted and torrential rain mercilessly poured down on me like missiles.

There were thunders and lightning too, and I was forced to take shelter under the small booth by the bridge, laughing and praying to God to keep me safe.

It's been a long time since I felt so alive, vulnerable, strong, thrilled and at peace all at the same time.

I don't know if I qualify to be defined as a believer. But I'm beginning to think whatever happened to me in the past years, they cannot simply be random, disconnected series of events bouncing off each other like gaseous molecules in a closed jar.

One thing is always a cause to another, and had I not the littlest faith to take so many unknown paths - I don't think I would have made it so far.

Which is why, as I stood there in the rain - feeling afraid and exhilarated at my own helplessness and the possibilities of surviving and life and living, I look up at the sky and found myself saying, I'm all yours, God, do with me what you will. 

Like acid spilling out of a bottle

"...Emotional hurt is the price a person has to pay in order to be independent.

That's what I basically believe, and I've lived my life accordingly. In certain areas of my life, I actively seek out solitude. Especially for someone in my line of work, solitude is, more or less, an inevitable circumstance. Sometimes, however, this sense of isolation, like acid spilling out of a bottle, can unconsciously eat away at a person's heart and dissolve it. You could see it, too, as a kind of double-edged sword. It protects me, but at the same time steadily cuts away at me from the inside. I think in my own way I'm aware of this danger - probably through experience - and that's why I've had to constantly keep my body in motion, in some cases pushing myself to the limit, in order to heal the loneliness I feel inside and to put it in perspective. Not so much as an intentional act, but as an instinctive reaction. 

Let me be more specific.

When I'm criticised unjustly (from my viewpoint, at least), or when someone I'm sure will understand me doesn't, I go running for a little longer than usual. By running longer it's like I can physically exhaust that portion of my discontent. It also makes me realise again how weak I am, how limited my abilities are. I become aware, physically, of these low points. And one of the results of running a little farther than usual is that I become that much stronger. If I'm angry, I direct that anger toward myself. If I have s frustrating experience, I use that to improve myself. That's the way I've always lived. I quietly absorb the things I'm able to, releasing them later, and in as changed a form as possible, as part of the story in a novel."

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

It feels like death

No one ever tells you it feels like death.

The tight constriction on the left side of your chest, like your lung getting smaller and smaller. The bitter saltiness in your tongue, when you are chewing your food it takes forever going down. 

The panic rush in your head when you close your eyes, because you know in darkness and in sleep is when you lose control over your mind, when your heart starts to manifest itself. 

You feel like you want to put something in your mouth. A cloth, your palm, a block of wood - because you're afraid a scream, a wail might escape from it, betraying your shame, your fear and your anger to the world. 

You want everyone to see you as being strong, because if they know you are heartbroken - the world will win, and you will lose. 

How to deal with losing

Life happens.

For every possession there is loss. For every meeting will end in separation. For every new thing flowering to life, an old thing passed on.

We all know it. Such turn of events happen to us every second of every day and we plug along. Like they are tiny little insignificant things.

Life happens, and death happens too.

How do you deal with loss?

Do you smile at it like a generous tipper? Do you snap its head off like a strong and indifferent warrior?

You opened yourself, you expanded yourself to fill with love - when love deserts you, how do you unfill yourself?

Does love turns into hatred? Does love turn into forgiveness? Strength? Weakness? Insecurities? Freedom?

What? What? What are you supposed to do with love bent and broken?

You walk on. That's what you do.