I wrote this half a year ago. On a whim. Like how you sometimes have a lot of thoughts in you that you just want to let out.
Reading the draft again reminded me that I had written something similar before. On the ugly cost of chasing after pleasures without holding back. On the naivety that there isn’t a finality in life, and that many things and many people could be taken for granted — even when they were usually gone before I realized it.
It is an essay on regrets — for what I have lost when being lost in time.
Let’s begin.
🍂 The past
I
Last night, I went to bed at midnight. It has been a long while in recent months since I had a pretty normal sleep schedule.
And I had many dreams. They woke me up several times during the night. The first was 30 minutes after I fell asleep. The next was between three and four in the morning. The last one happened around six, probably.
Though I vaguely remembered them, the dreams felt surreal. They were pieces of my memories at different points in life all bundled up together.
I was debating if I should get out of bed before my alarm went off. I didn’t feel the need to answer nature’s call and also not the tiredness to go back to sleep. As I pondered and pondered, I found myself thinking about the past.
II
It was 6 December 2018.
A day after my last graduation exam in secondary school. I was spending the night with the boys and other friends in a farewell event meant for outgoing Leo club members in the region. It was probably one of the most exciting periods of my life.
And it made me remember something.
I picked up my phone, opened the Photos app, and scrolled back up to the last two years of my time in that school. And I could see how colourful those days were. They were moments that could be thought of as the highlights of a person’s life, like the events that would pop out when you look back in time; when you read a person’s biography; when you tell your grandkids as a grandfather later; or when you are breathing your last.
Stuff like that.
But as time flew closer to late 2019 and through the pandemic years up to early 2023, I saw fewer colours than before. There were mostly pictures of food that I took to show my family before I ate. Of sunsets and other picturesque scenes I saw. Of lecture notes on calculus and seminar slides on how to get into Oxford and the like.
There were fewer colours than before.
But it wasn’t because those days were dull in appearance.
The food was colourful.
The sunsets were beautiful.
The ducks and tortoises at my university were cute.
But there were fewer people.
I saw fewer photos together. Fewer of the ones with people, especially those I hold dear. There were fewer of them in recent years.
It made me think about Donald Miller. About the book he wrote when writing a movie about his life. About the one theme which the book revolves around.
A character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it is the basic structure of a good story.
—Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
As I thought about it, I felt called out. In the times that came after the two colourful years of my life, I have lived a story of mundane repetitions — constantly switching between the reckless pursuit of pleasures and the fleeting effort to salvage the broken pieces.
While I, the character, wanted something, I haven’t managed to overcome conflict to get it.
The worst thing is, the conflict was within me. A sense of naivety that there would always be time left no matter how much it disappeared. That relationships and opportunities would stay forever even if I take care of them later. That I could achieve big things in life — write good books, fix climate change, attain the freedom of time, money and choice — without facing the uncomfortable truth that my way of living was taking me away from them.
It wouldn’t be surprising, then, that those years were less colourful. That I had less nostalgic photos taken with people than before. And less treasured memories made with people than before.
III
I remember reading that our brains batch together similar events. If you were chasing after quick shots of dopamine in the virtual world for many days, you really can’t tell the difference between one day and the other.
Truly, as if I was lost in time while losing myself.
When I think about it now, I feel sad. The times that were dull weren’t short. They amounted to years. Four years. And all these four years of shallow living amounted to little I could cherish.
And I wouldn’t remember them as well as the colourful moments of the past. I would forget most of it. Because I couldn’t tell the difference when they were all the same, repetitive dullness.
If a story was a condensed version of life, as Donald put it, these four years would have been a boring story.
A sad, boring story.
🍃 The present
But it doesn't have to be this way forever.
You are now reading from me in the present. The editor me. It's the last day of September 2023. While editing, I thought it would leave a bad taste by ending my story there. Like a movie that makes you feel empty after it ends.
When this story stayed as a draft for months, I went through a few events which were challenging but life-changing. Because they opened my eyes to the uncomfortable truth. To what had led me to tell a sad, boring story. And what I should focus on in this journey of trying to live a better story.
I haven’t finished Donald’s book, but I found a conversation between him and his friend resonating.
“You’re right,” he finally said. “You aren’t living a good story.”
“That’s what I was saying.”
“I see,” he said.
“What do I do about that?”
“You’re a writer. You know what to do.”
“No, I don’t.”
Jordan looked at me with his furrowed brow again. “You put something on the page,” he said. “Your life is a blank page. You write on it.”
Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
To me, it speaks about control — you are both the character experiencing the story, and the writer penning it.
As the character, you may not have complete control over every aspect of your life, but as the writer, you can shape your story by making choices and taking action.
What matters is the wisdom to tell the difference.
—Thomas
P.S. Have a cookie 🍪
🏆 Weekly Gold
Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a YouTube video that blew my mind.
Here’s the gold this week 👇
Momen no Hankachiifu 木綿のハンカチーフ is a song on the bittersweetness left behind by a lost love.
If there’s bittersweetness in a movie, I often find it much scarier than a horror movie. That’s why I can’t bring myself to watch Your Lie in April, I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, and the like. Torture on the heart and soul.
But this song is beautiful. Perhaps my friend was right to say that bittersweetness is an element that makes a movie good.
Maybe that’s just how life is, too.
Bitter and sweet.
Credits:
Control and Choice by Daily Stoic
Cover photo by Soragrit Wongsa on Unsplash
Matt Swain’s book notes on A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller