Wisdom in… songs?

I listen to everything. With music in my itunes library, the genres range from acoustic to urban, with rock, punk, alternative, pop, ballad, R&B, Christian, new age, dance, hip-hop and Songs that I Wouldn’t Be Caught Dead Listening To wedged snugly in between. I find shrapnels of wisdom or bits in songs that make me nod my head violently in agreement from time to time, but Baz Luhrmann’s song (or narration on top of a song, rather), called Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen, is a song that is filled with gem-like advices from the world-renowned director from beginning to end. These are the bits that really got to me:

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked….You’re not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds know still don’t.

…and the awesomeness goes on. I first listened to this three years ago and the wisdom of it still amazes me when I listen to the song once in a while. Delivered with so much candor, without any sign of self-righteousness or authority, it makes even a stubborn mule like me take heed.

‘I do’.

After attending the second wedding where the groom said ‘I do’ in a booming voice that rang through the hall, full of confidence and joy, but the bride only managed a shy, looking-down-at-her-shoes-that-are-buried-in-her-wedding-dress ‘I do’ that was only audible to the pastor, I made a vow that I will say my ‘I do’ in a voice that can be heard by every soul in the room on my wedding day.

I don’t need someone to relay to my friends and families that I had said ‘I do’. It’s the weightiest two-syllables you will ever utter in your life (or one, if the wedding is held in Korean) ; a magical moment when you declare your love and promise to do so for the rest of your life to everyone who matters, including your husband. It is not a time to care about what others would think, to play the part of the demure, meek and ‘lady-like’ bride and conform to others’ expectations. Why let the pastor steal your thunder when you have perfectly good, functioning vocal chords? I will say my vows in a clear, loud voice for everyone to hear and know.

However, I won’t try to exceed the decibel level of my groom’s ‘I do’.

Inspired.

Lingering and omnipresent, you are always there but just out of reach.

My heart and my hand outstretched in one perpetual motion,

Longing for a glimpse, a whiff, a word.

But really, a chance is what I desire;

A chance to fit into the me-shaped hole next to you.

I wonder…

I wonder about the most useless things sometimes. Things that I will never be able to find out, no matter how long I live, or where I go. Well, unless someone builds a time machine and I live my life all over again.

I wonder what kind of person I would have been if my family didn’t migrate to Malaysia when I was four, or to Australia in August 2000, and had lived all my life in South Korea. Would I have survived through the so-called ‘examination hell’, or would I have just lost it and gone off the rails? If I did make it unto university, what would I have studied? Would I still have been arts-focused, or would I have become an accounting or medicine student? Or what would have happened if I still had the life I had here in Sydney, but went to boarding school? Or a girls’ school? If I lived in a different suburb? If I wasn’t Christian? If my grandparents lived with me (I have no fond memories of grandparents doting on me, as my paternal grandparents passed away long before I was born and my family left Korea when I was four)? If the child that was conceived before me had been born and I had another older brother/ sister?

I believe that people are what their surroundings make them, that we are infinitely malleable and shaped by circumstance and context (that God puts us in, of course), and these questions haunt me at times. I would do anything to find out, to get a glimpse of the life that could have been, although I am quite satisfied with the life I have and know any effort will be in vain. Then I wonder about the wackiest things that even a time machine wouldn’t be able to help – I wonder what kind of person I would have been if I was born a boy, or of a different nationality, even? Say I was born a boy into a well-off family in the States and went to a prestigious boarding school, would I have been the quiet, shy and retiring bespectacled nerd with red curls, or the daring but charming rebel who always seems to have an endless supply of alcohol and cigarettes, or the compassionate and smart poster boy who everyone admires, looks up to and is the unspoken leader of the pack?

I could go on for days on this, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. The only thing that is alterable is the present and the future. And even this, is not entirely up to me. Unforeseen circumstances, little bits and pieces of arbitrary events, actions or words of friends, families and acquaintances, and a myriad of different factors could turn my life around at anytime. But I have peace, because I know that all of those have been planned, screened and given the green light by my father in heaven, who holds my petty little life is in his palms :) and I have no doubt He will answer all my questions, no matter how stupid or foolish, the day I meet him.

Difference

No, I don’t mean that I’m going to make a difference to the world. I’m just going to be making a difference to myself, starting this week. Setting up this blog has been one of the difference that I made, after putting it off ever since I became a media student, um, nearly four years ago.

Others include making dinner for Dad (although the tofu was charred), doing the dishes without being told to and calling up my old workplace for my job back, instead of sitting on my bum browsing for work online. That was yesterday. Today I have made this blog, typed up 1,294 words about my view on living in a country (as opposed to travelling) to edit and submit to any publication that will be willing to publish it.

I have been pretty useless the past two months but a new heart has been stirring in me since Sunday night, when I finally set my foot down and decided that I won’t take this bull from myself anymore. I declared via my facebook status that I will be different this week, and have been carrying out my vow pretty well, I think, for the past um, what’s 24+13? 35hours. Hope this lasts.