bittersweet solitude of a fireflower

Yesterday was a day when I realized how existence was ever so fleeting.

No wait, re-discovered will be a more appropriate word.

Well, it’s not that I didn’t know how short-lived certain (no, most… no wait, in fact, all) existences are. It’s just that that cruel fact struck me even harder while I was at the Singapore Art Museum at 10:10PM viewing the exhibits during the Night Festival.

I was thinking, man, these beautiful exhibits will be gone soon. These beautiful moments which had been delicately captured on film, had come and gone, no longer existing at this very moment. Everything that’s happening, ceases happening the moment it happens.

I read this off one of those white slates describing the concept of TransportAsian, and it struck a chord within me:

We are all Pasajeros, travelers of life, a life whose fleeting nature causes us to feel despair. However, there is also depth and beauty to be found in this impermanence, when it is eventually discovered.

And then, I was reminded that this despair I had felt, about impermanence and fleeting existence, was redundant, and that if I were to take a step back and reflect, 只要曾经拥有，就足够了.

吴冠中的画展也在新加坡艺术馆呈现, and I especially loved this piece of his:

迹

多少事遗忘了，又非统统遗忘。寻找，捡拾，只是斑斑痕迹。我绘痕迹，朦胧的记忆。他们淡淡的褪色，但毕竟那是老人脸上的沉淀的印记，也许有人珍惜。

是真的吗？曾经拥有就足够了吗？

For someone who can be fiercely possessive, I once (well, given that my mind chooses to be idle many a time, maybe not once then) wondered if that statement was true. As time goes by (ever so slowly at times and ever so hastily at others), I would like to think that the above statement is not true always. I was busy searching through my cupboards of memories and then I realized that it was my sub-conscience that decided that some moments, those fleeting ones that made some impact in my life, they didn’t mean a thing anymore. Not to me, not to the others involved. There were a few times in my life (a few seems an understatement, maybe a lot then) that I had felt foolish for letting the sentimental me get the better of things, and as a result I was left standing in the middle of the memory lane, while others had already left a long time ago. And then I wondered, was I being too sentimental? Was I craving for more of those beautiful moments?

And then I jolted wide awake by the American concept of moving on, which scared me at first. It’s like, you mean they don’t mean a thing to you anymore? That even the “曾经拥有” is bull crap to you?

But I grew to understand that moving on is such an important notion, and that “塞翁失马，焉知非福”, what I had thought to be words of sacarsm said to me 3 years ago, was, instead, words of wisdom.

當失去了一些以為可以長久依靠的東西，
自然會有難過及割捨的痛苦，
但其中卻隱藏著無限的祝福和機會。
日後回首時，你才驚訝自己成長的痕跡，
是那麼清晰明顯，甚至是令人滿心。