Dum Spiro Spero

I am so stupendously bored.

Just the other day I was sitting on the beach dipped in dirty Sentosa water and I was looking out at the horizon of imported Indonesian sands and hand-planted Malaysian coconut trees. An undescribeable feeling of hopelessness wash over me.

It feels totally wrong. I wasn't looking forward to anything at all. There was nothing I wanted to do or see, nowhere I wanted to go and no one I rather talk to. I suddenly wish that I could go into a deep slumber for a looong time - just total shut-down. Maybe when I wake up, I would feel differently.

I was reminded of a seminar I atteneded on behalf of my firm a couple of years back. It was organised by a local college. There was a varsity fresh law-graduate giving the opening speech. He was all bright-eyed and bushy tail and he chirped very cheerily that he truly believes in the Latin maxim: "Dum Spiro Spero". In English, it means "As long as I breathe, I hope".

I used to be like him.

In the past, everytime there is a reading of 1 Corinthian 13, I would shake my head at the last verse bcause I believe that when all three abides (faith, hope and love), the greatest of them should be hope, not love. Because to be without hope is to be a prisoner in an empty space, to be locked up in time that does not move ahead. Where there is no hope, your life does not make sense. When there is no hope, there is no life.

Which explains why I am feeling like this.

Last night I watched a movie, "The Pursuit of Happyness". In this movie, Will Smith was a determined and hopeful man who was repeatedly thrown into life's deep end. He had $6 to his name, a son to care for and he was pursuing a stockbroking internship which pays no salary but a slim chance of a bright future. Again and again, things will go wrong but he stuck it out relentlessly. I was cringing under my blanket. I wish I could throw him some money through my TV screen to tide him over.

But life will not throw you money whenever you need it. It would instead throw you more shit when you don't need it.

Alamak, this is getting depressing.

On a happier note, of course Will Smith got his Hollywood ending. He became a conglomerate owner and his life got better three thousand folds.

Maybe that's the way life operates: you have to go through a series of challenges and adversities in order to appreciate the pot of gold when you reach the end of the rainbow. Thos who give up halfway through the journey will always be stuck in hopelessness and disbelief that the pot of gold exists. Those who didn't give up, will swim in riches and happiness.

But then again,

What if the pessismist is right? That hope is really the worst of all evils; for it prolongs the torment of men in REALLY futile situations! Even at the last second before the jaws of the crocodile drops, ditzy Jane is still hoping that Tarzan will reach her in time....

Is there hope yet?