Friday, July 18, 2008
blog
"So this is my new freedom
Its funny
I dont remember being chained"
- From Savage Garden's The Lover After Me
why quote this few lines from this song?
in life, people come in and out faster than you can say "presto". some you will remember for life, some will just get forgotten with the passage of time.
the people that you remember most are those who made a difference or those who taught you a few things here and there. you will not remember him for his/her achievements but for his/her contributions (negative and positive) to your life.
actually, today would just have been another ordinary day to me if not because of a simple routine trip i made in the morning to the weapons flight office.
i met 3sg (ns) daniel (yes the ns is there for politically correct-ness). it dawned on me that his ORD date is today.
what was he doing back in afs? to give chocolates to his colleagues (i.e. the instructors) and fly a final flight as a pseudo-pilot (aka simulator-pilot).
ok, granted, there are 4 pseudo-pilots ORDing today but i chose to talk about daniel because he is the one (only one in fact) that i have interacted on a more personal (rather than professional) level.
he is perhaps one of the person whom i see that chooses to pursue a rather different path in life. choosing to pursue further musical education certainly scores uniqueness points. he is so lao jiao that he has been here since the end of the 18th and the start of the 19th WSO course (we are the 23rd WSO course, meaning that he has been around for 1.5 yrs or so).
listening to him speak about the different kinds of WSO trainees he met etc etc was enriching. in a way, he and i are contrasting in our future paths, me taking the conventional JC-uni route, him taking the poly-music route. to meet such people and understand why they love the route they are taking is refreshing to say the least.
today was the last day (technically it is yesterday) of his time in RSAF/SAF. i asked him how he felt about ORDing, he quoted me the 3 lines. in a way, he does not feel that his time here has curtailed him or restricted him. as usual, i would have liked to talk more to him but busy work meant that such interactions were kept to the minimum today.
if there was a slight tinge of regret, it must be the fact that i didn't get the chance to interact more with him. but then, you cannot get your way in life all the time. nevertheless, the 3 lines he quoted me left a deep impression. in a few years' time, would i be feeling the same or would i be a bitter soul cursing at myself for having wasted time wandering around in an unsuitable environment? daniel's attitude has certainly provided much food for thought.
on the other hand, i marvel the speed at how people pass in and out of my life. sgts hari, amin, hew, hairul, lt ching, lt brian etc. maybe one day i will look back and start digesting and redigesting the interactions with these people. hopefully i do not forget by then.
that's perhaps why this post exists.
shermon blogged @ 9:53 pm
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