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So close, to reaching that famous happy end,
Almost, believing, that this was not pretend
And now, beside you,
look how far we've gone
So close, and yet...
So far.
-So Close, Jon Mclaughlin (Enchanted soundtrack)

It's nearly the end of a period in which day and night had lost their meaning, and thoughtlessness marked the passing moments.


I think there are three kinds of believers in this world: Those who believe in people, those who believe in standards, and those who believe what their hearts speak to them.

I know that sounds a bit New-Agey. Haha.

(IMPORTANT POST-EDIT: This distinction may between different motivations of people may very well be a false dichotomy. Throughout this post, I talked about things in extremes. In any case, I do believe that they often come together, and sometimes a good balance is optimum to dealing well with a situation. That said, I still feel it is a zero-sum game; caring too much about goals will likely lead to sacrificing relationships, and vice versa)

My basic instinct is to follow people. I'd rather follow people over principles most of the time. I'm not saying that's right, though.

Sometimes I find myself more urged to pray for the healing of a relationship than for the healing of a friend's heart. I think that reflects a certain degree of self-centeredness. I don't loathe it because I think the desire for things to just be okay and stable is a natural one, but it is something that could be worked on... Off the top of my head I can think of at least three times I've been completely thoughtless, and one time when I completely misread a friend and caused him some embarrassment.

I remember a very unexpected conversation I had with a friend a long time ago. I was talking on the phone with him during Secondary school or JC and he started reciting questions from one of those "How well do you know X?" lists. I can't remember how I answered. Haha.

I've never really felt that I was good at remembering details about people. I always wrote it off thinking to myself that I had some kind of abstract understanding of my friends. If you had to raise your right or left hand, I'd know which one you'd pick. Something like that. I don't know how true that is, frankly, but in a sense I've never really spent time giving thought to what exactly my friends are unless a problem has arisen. When we're together just having fun or picking up chix at the bar, all I think of is how blessed I am to be with them.

But details are important. Small matters can have big consequences. Zhou Wubiao's emphasis on being meticulous as well as serving in PA crew during church service have both taught me the importance of details when it comes to work and study. Putting thought into every detail of my Zoo World zoo to make it as cultivated as possible has helped me to understand why girls put so much detailed thought into their dressing and habits.

Theory is different from practice though. Haha. If life was like DOTA, then all I can say is that lately I've more often than not been on the losing end of all three lanes of work/study, friendship/family, and my relationship with God. All I have left to say now is, that I'm trying to be more detailed. And that I'm hopeful that things will work out.


...Would you be mad if one day, if you found out I was more your follower than your friend? Definitely. Because followers rarely understand. They can seldom empathize. They can't comfort you because they don't know those intimate details that matter most. Perhaps one of the hardest things in this world to bear is the knowledge that you simply don't know how to ease the sorrow of someone you care about, that you don't know how to make things... right.

But be that as it may, followers still care, in their own naive, somewhat self-centered way. Followers can still have faith in you.

In this world, there are those who will follow men. These people will be pleasing in the eyes of men, and they will nurture and give of their care. But they may sometimes find themselves misled by the wrong people. Often enough, they will face disappointment, because they could not find the closeness that they sought, because they could not deal with the emptiness within and stop worrying long enough to take a good, long look at the people they admired but did not understand.

Then there are those who are defined by their willingness to follow standards and ideals above all other things. These are the people who will go on to do great and glorious things, to do what can be done and what must be done. These are the people who will take a stand for things that are bigger than any one men. These are the people who will never let standards bend or weaken imperceptibly. Yet they will have to face their fair share of painful conflict and broken hearts. They will lose friends over arguments and make plenty of enemies.

There are times when harmony between people and adherence to an ideal come into conflict with one another, and one must take precedence over the other. We're finite, and we can't just change what defines us on a whim. But we can try to let go of these self-concepts, and to me, the very best answer to this dilemma would be surrendering to God and letting him show us what is most important.

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Sometimes I start a post with a title, but there are times when I finish writing and I end up changing it to something else. It's only after writing it all out that I realize what it is I wanted to say in the first place. The name of a post has always been there. It didn't need to be named from nothing.

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"Everyone wants happiness, no one wants pain, but you can't make a rainbow without a little rain." -Somebody





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POST-STORY INSERT:

In Indonesia, there is a famous and deeply regarded story (Not sure if it is historical or fictional) about the origins of Islam. Many centuries ago, a group of priests came to Indonesia by boat. They were known to the people as the Wali Songo (The name has something to do with the color 'White').

They found Indonesia to be a country already occupied by animism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Introducing Islam would not be easy, and the Wali Songo debated amongst themselves how best to spread their religion. Two prominent figures arose (I will add in their names... once I stop being lazy). One believed that Islam should be introduced in an uncompromised, undiluted form. The other believed that slowly integrating their beliefs with the existing culture was the best way to spread Islam. He believed that in time, they could work towards purer forms of Islam.

Islam succeeded in spreading, but the differences between the two Wali Songo persisted through the strands of religion that followed. Today, Indonesia has many different groups of Muslims, whose beliefs exhibit varying levels of syncretism with older belief systems in the country. The diversity, and the religious conflict pertaining to it, may be said to have originated from the differences in ideology between those two priests.