Attention

“A man is what he has passion about. I’ve found that if you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you’ll just end up miserable.”

- Hero of Ages, Brandon Sanderson

While looking up a quote for this particular piece of writing (I don’t want to call it a blogpost - I don’t like to identify myself as a blogger - more on that later), I did go through several good ones on the Hero of Ages Goodreads page only to find myself picking a very early one. This itself made me realise why we fantasise first loves so much. It seemed to me that I may have used this one before elsewhere but what I want to write required addressing three aspects: desire, passion and beauty. The quote covers only two out of three if you don’t think that the quote itself is the beautiful and on that, I don’t know why you would want to read this further.

Through painful ignorance in my life, I have failed to identify beauty just like everyone else. Recently though, if you can believe it I have started seeing again. It is all about paying attention. So much in life is drop-dead gorgeous. Yet, with the instagram culture we define beauty in very strange boxes. That too in very rectangular boxes. We want to neatly package them and clear out the mess. Hide away everything that isn’t right. Except, there is so much beauty in the mess. Beauty in a simple tree. A comfort in its leaves providing you shade that nothing else does on a hot day. A comfort in a cold drink of water. Beauty in raw emotion when expressed on face. Beauty in joy.

Here’s the thing: I have recently started frequenting this spot in Hong Kong called the Instagram pier. You could only expect people who are paying attention to make this cargo dock filled with half empty containers make it the spot to be. I’ve seen couples taking wedding pictures there. Photographers lining up at sunset trying to find the best spot to capture one shot. Couples romancing behind the containers or sitting along the water. It is as though there is something for everybody there. As pretentious as it may sound, I downright abolish things that are popular from my hemisphere of interest. I don’t pay attention to things everyone pays attention to, because I feel that everyone else has already got it covered.

Though, being unique for the sake of being unique isn’t unique: that’s the oldest trick in the book. Isn’t it?

So, back to the pier and not my useless internal monologue. The thing about that spot is: I feel at peace there. It may be an often hash-tagged spot but it is so much more. It is real and there. With pellets stacked up and containers painted in drawings by some unknown artist, the smell of fish, the unbelievable view of Kowloon, the dogs and people running alike, the solid ground laid down years ago on which you can sit or lie down - each of these things are just real and there. Waiting for people to pay attention to it. From the ground to the sky, all of this beauty lies in our capacity to pay attention. There is a John Green podcast called The Anthropocene Reviewed and it has an episode reviewing Capacity for Wonder and Sunsets. Every single time I hear that, I tear up a little.

The reason for that is it challenges my own cynicism about the beauty of the world, my own capacity of wonder and most importantly it captures raw emotion of curiosity in a way that nothing ever really does. Each day, I try to become more me. That is a strange sentence but aren’t blogposts all about you. Urgh, I hate the term blogposts because it seems to put me into a category of people who want to daily share their unnecessary lives and thoughts and feelings. As I even write these ramblings, I am both shocked at my own ignorance because in the preceding sentence I imply as though I have a necessary life or that my thoughts or feelings are in any shape or form more important than someone else’s. Of course, to me they are painfully important but to another consciousness: why should they be?

So, having spent an awful lot of time at the pier being present and in the moment doesn’t make me anymore mindful during the rest of the day. It does do something else though. It restructures how I see beauty. It has completely brought me back to what is easy and always available. It has brought me back to basics. I have often a times over the last 3 years gotten lost in fancy; only to realise that even though there is something great about appreciating good wine.. there is something even better about drink shit wine directly by a bottle with someone. Being able to love yourself is what it is all about. Even on days when I won’t feel like getting out of bed, I want to tell: there will be no other time but now.

In the last few months, I have questioned what I want out of life (dating does that to you, all hail the insanity of other people). A little older, I have learned that I want to always be able to love. To never become cynical enough that I would forget what real joy feels like. The joy to be on top of a mountain, looking at the far water. The joy to appreciate a great bottle of wine, decanted and breathed a little poured slowly into a glass before you taste it. The joy in a freshly opened bottle of single malt and over time, changing flavour every time you drink. The joy of a simple grilled cheese sandwich breaking. The joy of smelling Maggi noodles in the house. The joy that maybe only knowing that you are home can bring.

I may exist in multiple worlds, in multiple dimensions even but the place I exist in the most is in the middle. Doubt, I have started to think will be the cornerstone of my existence. It is what I will hold onto. Doubt yourself while trusting yourself. There is a home in that doubt. In the joy of knowing the rest is still unwritten.

“To believe, it seemed, one had to want to believe.”

- Hero of Ages, Brandon Sanderson

P.S. I think this would be the last chapter of Strength. If you must know, it is because I am at peace with doubt. I am at peace with not knowing what happens next. I could be anything. It is time to live :)