1. Public Enemies
I caught Public Enemies last Friday night and highly recommend it to people who want to watch top notch actors Christian Bale and Johnny Depp play the game of police-and-thief. Based on the true story of serial bank robber John Dillinger and FBI agent Melvin Purvis, you will witness the many faceoffs they had in public areas and how Dillinger was finally killed.
Set in the 1930s, director Michael Mann was skilled in setting nostalgic scenes that defined that period. Of ballrooms, nice tuxedos and soothing ballads. The movie is filled with people who speak with southern drawls like Kellie Pickler. The male actors portrayed well-polished, masculine and cultured men who are dukes and rakes in their own right.
The sound of gunfire from Colt Thompsons and BARs were so loud and real I was cowering in my seat most of the time with my hands covering my ears. But more than just the pure adrenaline junk that Hollywood movies like to feed us with nowadays, this is a biopic which prods your mind to think further about life's many issues and to put yourself in the shoes of those who walk a different path.
They depicted Dillinger and his gang as loyal friends who had a code of honour even when they were doing something morally wrong. Like Bonnie and Clyde, they were just misguided kids who had no formal education and no wisdom to know what to do with their lives.
It's not easy to teach boys to attain the full measure of a man. In the past, people had a poor quality of life. They had no access to the resources that we have now and life must have seemed uncertain and unfulfilling.
Being idle or aimlessly working at a odd job, they turned to crime as it was the easy way out of a hard, poverty-stricken life into the lap of luxury and comfort. When people have no opportunities in life, sometimes they find themselves having no choice but to be desperate.
That is why education is so important. It's purpose is to give youths a chance to learn more about themselves and the world. In turn, learning empowers you to move on to greater things. To study the universe and its constituents in micro and macro scopes. Finally, it enables us to apply what we learnt in our jobs. Jobs that we truly love pouring our heart and soul into that they are no longer considered a chore.
But in the end, the question of what truly fulfills our deepest desires is an unanswerable question. Does Maslow's hierarchy of needs even adequately and accurately identify what is necessary to gratify all our innate, mysterious and unspoken desires?
The concept of prisons intrigued me. It's funny how prisions are so geographically near to the community, so easily accesible to visitors and yet so enclosed and distant from any real emotional human connection. It's like living in a pseudo reality. You are breathing, moving and doing what other people do but yet it's like you are not living. You are merely existing without any purpose or function.
Consider for a moment the damage jails cells inflict on its prisoners. Can a caged bird still sing as sweetly as when it was wild and free? Can a man be filled with life-bringing hope within four dirty and stenchy walls? Should we deprive a man of God's only gift to him-joyous freedom? Could a man who does wrong be done injustice in the way we treat him?
We mark a human as a criminal for his offence but he's branded for life. He paid his penalty but the punishment does not end even when he's out of prison. Shouldn't we show more grace to ex-offenders?
Monsters are what we make of them and princes are crowned because of the honour we bestow upon them. How can we balance being merciful and being cautious? I know well the feeling of being generously gracious and nakedly exposed to the vulnerability of being betrayed again.
Everyone has the ability to reform as long as they find by themselves a reason why they won't go back to their past misdeeds. An ex-offender can go on either of two paths; the path he chooses can be determined by the support he gets from his family and the society at large.
2. National Service or Service to Nation?
I am so grateful to the whole National Service experience. It has done more for me than I have done for the nation. I think the armed forces have rendered me a service by humbling and humiliating me; bringing me to greater heights of thought and keeping me grounded in the depths of maturity.
I used to be cocky, thinking that being smart and coming from good schools automatically brought you success. But national service taught me that you are worth nothing unless you make yourself valueable. Anyone can take your place unless you make yourself indispensable.
I miss standing on the edge of the island, staring into the horizon and identifying ships. I miss seeing outstretched stingrays and monstrous fish from the watery depths. I miss peeing into the sea and hearing stories of my friend defaecating in ration boxes and then throwing them into the sea.
I miss the feeling of power and authority I welded over certain vessels and vehicles for certain purposes undisclosed. I miss speaking into the comms set and interrogating duty personnels. I miss real-time operations, drills and exercises.
I miss being cable tied for fun. I miss my band of brothers stuck in a lonely tower; sharing potato chips, watching DVDs, playing board games and playing the Papa-Sierra-Papa (PSP) together. I miss running at East Coast Park and playing sports with them on mounting weekends.
I miss the chatter, fun and music on duty. There's something about boredom that enboldens intelligent people to do stupid things for the sake of entertainment. And in the words of my dear IC Joel,
"I doodled this in a certain part of Singapore in a certain building on a certain floor at a certain time with a few uncertain people. I cannot specify where, though I can say that it was probably sometime during the wee hours. If I elaborated, a certain organisation will certainly not find it pleasing that while I was supposed to be doing certain things for a certain country, I was certainly doodling on his COWON O2. The only thing for certain is that I doodled a nice SUPERMAN."
3. Life and Dreams
Live every day as if you might not have the chance to take another breath tomorrow. In our highly volatile world today, anything could happen. I can think of so many ways how I might meet an early demise.
1. Die by falling flowerpots or other forms of killer litter.
2. Break neck, head or spine as the MRT brakes abruptly and violently.
3. Get murdered, cut into little pieces and packed neatly in a black garbage bag in some forgotten alley.
4. Get struck by lightning once, and then again.
5. My breath stolen by a simultaneously occurring stroke, heart attack and asthma.
6. Get stabbed to death by a Ah Beng's parang even after repeated pleas that I was not staring at him.
7. Diabetes, kidney failure, cancer and their other friends decide to pay me a visit, all at the same time.
8. Go swimming in a certain offshore island and my body was never found again.
9. Get kidnapped, robbed and killed after having gone shopping in a certain neighbouring country.
10. Get knocked down by some P-plate or PDL driver.
If I were to leave this world, I want to feel like I'm giving up my life voluntarily and without regret when it is taken forcibly away from me. To be able to say to death, "You can take me; I've done what I wanted to do in life."
If we fulfill our dreams and hopes, then our lives were not lived in vain. Don't give up your dreams for the vanity of materialism and deceitfulness of riches. We have an innate desire to compare ourselves to others; to want to look, speak and live better than others. What we should do instead is to better ourselves to the best we can for our own benefit. With that said, live your life being you, not somebody else.
Always remember how good ice cream tasted when you were young. Cause if you've everything in abundance but cannot enjoy a simple ice cream cone, it is as if you have never possessed anything at all. Your soul died the moment it began belittling the little joys of life and walked on the catwalk of vainity.
If you truly have a dream, your focus would not be on the difficulties ahead or how much more talented are other people. You'll want to place your unique signature on the same activity or goal.
I know how hard it is to stride with confidence when you think of yourself as second rate. But share your dreams with others. Share your weaknesses with others. And finally, share with others how you're never gonna let your weaknesses steal away your dreams, even if they're reduced to a flickering glimmer in your life.
Enjoy the failures, frustration, impatience, anger and depression on the way. The sweet taste of success comes after bitter hard work. Success doesn't taste as sweet if it's just handed to you.
This is the way God created us to be, to perpetually look for ways to be perfect like Him. We're all groping with outstretched hands to be connected once again to the Source. Of everything good, everything bright, everything glorious and everything right.
Be Yourself
Don't blindly believe what people say
See it with your own two eyes
All that talk about the early bird
What if it just got lucky
Be yourself
Beyond the bounds of propriety and sensibility
Be yourself
Free from the uniform mold of conformity
Be yourself
Unchained from rules, laws and obtuse reality
Show people lots of grace
Give others their own space
Go to places you've never been
But don't stray too far from who you are
- James Lin Yuxi -
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