When Honour Meets Envy

I have often mused about the trappings of an adult life and the definition of it. Allegorical questions like what it takes? how it works? who to look to? and where it leads? are but a few of the more abstract anonymities that vexes my mind this morning.

But perhaps the grayest conundrum of all is the question of WHEN?

When to be strong and vulnerable?
When do you persist in the face of futility?
When do you give up?
And when do you honour?

The list of rhetorical questions will undoubtedly go on perpetually because life is also a life-long learning process of mistakes. When you unveil the curtains of interweaving mendacities, you will regard the underpinning truth of it all - where all the answers are already entwined within our own beliefs and faiths.

Most of the things we do in life are a series of mistakes - of us missing to understand the stakes of our actions against everyone and everything around us. Its affectations have long since being the keystone to the way we conduct ourselves with the dynamics of our surroundings and the capriciousness of human nature.

I just have to go out into the world, bring along a mirror and look into it. I will see that being a grown-up comes with a lot of emotional responsibilities and mental acuity as I gaze into the people and world around me through my own indistinct reflection.

We all stand on our own patches of grass that it is always easier to look at someone else's pasture and justify all the fallacies for our desire on it. Each day in our waking moments, we have to contend with the achievements and failures of others - dealing out determining decks of judgment cards to them in hopes we may have some sort of précis from it all.

As others grow in stature and feat, there are individuals who cannot face the fate of a man's affluence. I will not lie to myself by claiming I am above such notions. Like everyone, I am only human. It is the capacity in which we bring ourselves back to solid grown and steadfast affinity that perhaps will define us for the character we could be.

People come and go. We lose and gain new friends from time to time. Successes will come knocking at your doorsteps many times, so does failure. We are not oblivious to the accomplishments of others, nor are we absently empathic of their defeats. Ultimately, everyone wants to see themselves better than others and we all strive to do that in our lifetime.

I just want to remind myself that no matter how well others do in life, I should never compare. Even more so if that person is a friend because life is more than just about the paycheck you receive at the end of the month, the key in your pocket that opens the door to a high-end property or the turbo sound of your ride coming when you sent your valet.

It is about acknowledging the reality that it is in the character of very few men to honour without envy a friend who has prospered.

Stoned Arrow

If there is ever a day that I could be more incensed by someone or something than today...

Be that as it may, I was enraged by this person beyond words. My demeanor was seething with venomous focus, my veins livid with noxious gush, and my tongue ravenous with spiteful utterances and malicious intent. I could feel my jaws clenching under the tremendous restraint and my muscles straining to liberate itself from my frame of equanimity.

This is a recollection about someone who believes himself to be of higher stock than others. A vermin who sits so comfortably on his roost that he can no longer feel earth beneath him nor see his own legs, eclipsed by his potbelly. A soul who's only sole purpose in life that is not yet revealed is to make the people around him feel thankful for not being what he is.

What started as an initiative on my part to seek help and better performances resulted in an all-out war of words with the scum. An engagement that was largely his responsibility to support my querries ended up with him "educating" me in the importance of doing my job right from the start by his own right.

Even before I initiated the first communiqué, I was wrestling with my conscience of whether to rope in his superiors for my enquiries; as an indication of his incompetence and oversight and also as an accelerator in harvesting prompt reply from his gangrenous hands and festering mouth.

Perceptive consideration took the better of me. I limited the list of audience to him only. But he had the fool's courage to reply by roping in his and my superiors, much to my joy and amusement. In his response, he critiqued on everything that I asked which spawned from objective intentions of seeking help and rectifying matters. The very kind of reply you would consider as a no-contest. He was wrong.

For the backing I received from my benefactor, I fired home with a 30 minute composition of factual responses with logical system knowledge and reasoning behind kindergarten common sense. Saving the best for last, the icing on the cake was an additional last-gasp addition to the mailing list - to an overall leader 2 levels above.

At this point, subsequent chronicles of this story is no longer relevant nor a requisite. The purpose of this is just to remind me of how silly people can be when they come from higher places. Every man and woman is an equal. So talk down on others at your own risk. At the end of the day, he will be known as the Brave Fool who threw a stone and received a volley of arrows.

I need not fear individuals like this in my life. I need to remember to be true to my convictions and principals and never compromise under pressure.

Today I learned that there is nothing to fear even when you are surrounded by enemies on all sides. This should be an excellent position. Why? Because you can attack from any direction!

Broken Twig

It is remarkable sometimes how far people would go just to make sure they are superior to others. Human beings are probably the only known lifeforms to kill and do harm to one another, be it physically or emotionally, for reasons other than pure instinctual survival.

In the past few months, I was swimming across torrent seas with raging winds that cut to the core of my bones. This very sea - the large body of water where I have navigated for 3 years now, is no longer the environment that I have come to respect.

This milieu of mild misgivings muttered meanings of malicious mayhem into my mind.

The people that have helped, supported and admired me for the longest time suddenly abandoned ship and left me forsaken on a derelict vessel from where its stirring philosophies and beliefs inspired blind loyalty from me when I came aboard the ship, hauled the anchor of naivete and set sail into the limitless horizon of possibilities.

With the constancy fading, I sculled my way aboard my diffused dinghy onto the shores of self-reflection clinging onto my self-worth on these sands of solitude. Every moment of the way, I kept hearing those uninspiring words of wrath that did so much harm to my poise.

A castaway on this island of intent, I gazed faraway to the other side of the world at my Plateau and resolved not to return there for a period. I know that being in that place will make me wallow in my self-pity.

I thought then that being away for a time from the Plateau will heal me but it only served to starve me of my connection and my bond. For a time, I thought I did not recognize myself anymore. I know better now.

So I'll say this to anyone on this island as I dig my feet into the earth: I am going home and I will not let the actions and words of a select few from Point Vantage dissuade me anymore. I know why I did what I did and it was folly of them to judge me too soon. Because once I am judged, forever I will arbitrate the intentions of these people...

...because if you think I am dirt, then I'll tell you that I am the soil which grow trees and you are only a broken twig.