Wednesday, February 08, 2006

i CaN gEt nO sAtiSfAcTIoN!

dear jess,

I sit in the hot sun; you’d think the rain immediately after CNY would continue, and see the poslaju man drive past, eating a goreng ketiak, I mean goreng something in his hand as he does his rounds. It hits you that feeling. That smell. That insanely unexplainable feeling of being normal.

The same smell that smells like Chinese new year or hari raya. The same one that makes you feel that its ok and good to just be me. With the exception that all I smell now is phlegm and that even yawning hurts my infected throat right now, of course.

Contentment seems to be a sin. If you’re poor, you need to upgrade your lifestyle, if you haven’t traveled, you need to do so a.s.a.p, and if you haven’t gotten married by 30 god forbid you be found to be happy.

My passion to not be me sounds pretty idiotic at times. I’m sure I’ve had moments of contentment. Having breakfast by myself in khao san road, sitting in the middle of the national theater in Bangkok watching old ladies chatter gleefully, as I later sit in a 2 hour play without understanding a single thing, sitting in a hammock on my cousin’s balcony discussing possible business ventures..

And then there’s here, in the car, watching this man eating his goreng whatever. As if in slow mo, I think there are people with a thousand lives worse than mine, and all I can think about is where I should flee off to next or what form of escapism can last me the longest and make me sound the noblest.

That doesn’t stop me from being discontented. As long as I’m human and worse still, as long as I’m me, ill always be discontented and contented with only but a fleeing seconds of contentment as unexplainable as walking down the stairs and smelling Chinese new year.

I can’t explain it, but I can smell it. My feeling of contentment has a smell! How much more original or psychotic can one get? Time to hit the hay, heal myself and smell again!


Sniffling off,
jess

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