To have a taste

"And when the hourglass has run out, the hourglass of temporality, when the noise of secular life has grown silent and its restless or ineffectual activism has come to an end, when everything around you is still, as it is in eternity, then eternity asks you and every individual in these millions and millions about only one thing: whether you have lived in despair or not." - Soren Kierkegaard, "The Sickness Unto Death"

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Well. This year started out verrrrry 'happening'-ly to say this least, where I was meeting people every weekend and during the weekdays as well. For the past few weeks however, I suddenly find myself stranded in my room by myself and writing blog posts at god knows what hour of the day. Thanks, knee injury.

Normally, I don't really mind be alone. I am accustomed to living by myself during my days studying overseas. Comes with being antisocial. I lived as a very shut in kind of guy. To be fair though, I was pretty depressed back in those days.

This time around feels different. Maybe it's the huge contrast from how the year started. But normally during my shut in days I'd use computer entertainment (read 'games') to keep myself busy. Heck, the games were what kept me sane during those bad times. But I don't enjoy computer games in the same way I used to. Heck, I spend a lot of time on facebook more than anything else. I guess I can attribute that to my 'social' side starting to develop. Huh... took me 28 years of my life to get my 'social' brain running? That's kind of retarded, actually.

I've been really enjoying my life recently. Maybe, again, it's the contrast. What my life is now compared to those bad times, as I keep mentioning. But really, I'm quite contented with life in spite of being bored to tears of being shut in for the past week. I miss seeing everyone and going out, but yearning is an okay thing. It's a good sort of yearning; the kind where you've had a chance to taste something good. Things which one had lost hope of every having a chance to taste, yet was given the opportunity to do so.

Like a how one may view a relationship after the breakup ; it was sweet while it lasted. Only you're glad that you had the opportunity to have a relationship at all, and one that was sweet. Thankful that you had been so blessed, even if temporarily.

The other odd thing is that I don't really fear tragedy or loss... or death. It's quite similar I suppose; it's as if you've had a chance to taste the goodness that life has to offer you and you can pass on with no regrets. And if it was taken away from you, that's not all that bad. Only, that moment in now, and death and loss is not yet near. Or is it?

Things are looking good.

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"I remember one morning getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there will always be more. It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then." - Clarissa Vaughan, The Hours


The quote from Clarissa Vaughan above (played by Meryl Streep) is at the 3:33 mark of this video. Music is "Morning Passages" by Phillip Glass.