Life And Fairness

There is a certain web forum that I visit quite regularly. Last week, someone posted a topic with its subject being: “I Have Learnt…” – the author wanted people to share funny stories and lessons learnt on life. While most of the replies certainly were humorous, serious Jen wrote:

“This forum isn’t big enough to detail what I have learnt. I will say one thing only: that what you give is what you get.”

While I respect freedom of speech, I was certainly not expecting the following response:

“I have to disagree. Try telling that [to] the abused child or the raped woman or the starving third world children. I have learned that LIFE IS NOT FAIR!!!”

Admittedly, I was annoyed at first because I took it personally. Then I understood that the person was merely stating what they had learnt – (mind you, if I had come to my 27th year in life and all I’ve got for myself is that “Life is not fair”, not only would I be hugely disappointed and feeling quite empty inside, but I’d be out there getting busy with learning what life is really about).

Eventually, I responded:

“No, life is not fair. But it’s still what I have learnt. I can’t tell you what you have learnt either.”

What I really wanted to post was: Life is… unfairness and fairness, hate and love, truth and falseness, death and birth, discrimination and acceptance, dirty and pure, justice and injustice.

And I wanted to tell her to wake up.

There is nothing wrong with showing compassion for the unfortunate; as was the tone of this person’s comments. Compassion is a lovely quality to have. Showing it and feeling it helps keep us human.

However, it is not my or (let me bravely say) our mission to deal with or solve the mysteries of why people are born into or faced with unfortunate situations. We can help… but it is ultimately not our problem.

I didn’t post my extended thoughts because I didn’t want to detract from what the topic was really about, not to mention it was obvious that my already-serious comments didn’t belong there. This is my web home where I can say such words.

To put it simply, our lives cannot stop because of raped women and starving children. I’m not here to take a look around and conclude, “Yep, life sucks” – and then close the book. We’re here for a reason, and we should live for those that cannot or will not. God bless those that live through their compassionate duties for others, and feel fulfilled in doing so. I tend to focus more on myself, and maybe you do too, and to that I say: if you can help it, why would you want to fail yourself (and others) by not taking from life what it is there to give?

The Orchid Thief

I like it when films “speak” to me, and one that did was Adaptation – which I watched last night.

Scenes from the film kept coming to my mind throughout today. I’m still not sure if I loved, hated or just plainly felt sorry for the character of Charlie Kaufman. I do know that I connected to this movie in too many ways.

Charlie has many thoughts that I often have – both as a frustrated writer and also as someone who wants to project a certain image about himself. He feels too deeply about things, and tends to let it get in the way of him doing things. I do that.

It’s not even a great film, but its impact on me was. It was a reminder that I’m not the only manic writer at times.

Dream A Little Ice Cream

To be honest, I don’t really pay too much attention to what I dream about. The deciphering process appears to be too hard, and I don’t have an interest (at the moment) in learning it either. I’ve even had a couple of attempts to keep a dream diary but could not maintain it in the end.

Once in a while, I’ll dream something extraordinary and will have to write it down, otherwise it will slip away from my memory. Dream occurences won’t store in my mind easily.

Which makes me think that my favourite dreams are ones where I can take from them something to use in my creative writes. Unfortunately, these dreams don’t occur often enough.

I have considered documenting all the dreams I have that feature anything wedding-related. I have had 2 so far, (one of which involved Bert Newton scrubbing a paint stain off the back of my wedding dress – no, don’t ask), but then I thought maybe subconsciously this may lead to me focusing on negative stuff happening on the big day. If you have ever planned a wedding before, you know that there is enough to worry about as it is, so I dropped that idea promptly.

A few weeks ago I was working at a certain place and though I learnt a lot there, the experience has scarred me; so much that I have had 2 nightmares since. This entry exists because it’s the second nightmare that I wish to share. It’s no doubt the funniest dream I’ve ever come across but I didn’t realise its humour until I told my Boy and he nearly collapsed laughing.

The dream:
The workplace, which is actually a studio, had been converted into an operating theatre. Next to me, an obese man lies on an operating table being ‘worked’ on. I am also on an operating table. Someone comes up to me with a spatula and slits one side of my face open. That person then proceeds to shove ice cream into the gash. Lots of ice cream. The next thing I remember is running down a street – lots of traffic – skyscrapers everywhere. The person who was chasing me is the receptionist. “I’ll get you! I’ll get you!” she’s saying. Eventually, an unknown man sees that I am being chased, distracts the receptionist somehow and guides me away to safety.

I wake up, totally horrified – ’cause I of course recognised everyone in the operating theatre as staff members from this place where I once worked. Thanks to the ice cream, the fact that it could be looked on as being hilarious didn’t even cross my mind. Now I laugh at it. I suppose the most astonishing thing is that I didn’t think a day job could affect me like that.