The End of the Beginning of the End...

So, there it is. The end of the year. The inexorable march of time that brings us all one step further in our life. So what does the future hold?

My personal answer - nothing but hope. And, if the said hope proves false, danger and fear in its stead. A friend of mine once said that the future will never come to be, 'cause when it does its the present, not the future.

What about the past, you may ask? They're but memories to me, some sweet, some bitter, most mixed in both; some true to last, others misleading. Well, at least I know partly what Brom (from Eragon, by C. Paulini) the storyteller feels like now - to look back, and know that one remembers not much of it, then to look forward, and know that something still lies before one's self.

If you read the Erevis Cale Trilogy, you'd know that Cale, the butler cum assassin-follower of Mask, decided that while his future may be determined without his consent, he chooses how he would walk his path of life, to his end. I believe his point - our fate is chosen for us, whether by other-worldly rules, or by our own subconcious personalities. Yet, we can chose what path we take towards that goal, though if given the chance, I'd prefer to be able to know what's going to come up in the future.

Still, unless we end our lives here and now, there's no other choice but to go forward. If only life was like a video game, with saves and reloads if you make a blunder. But it isn't. So many thanks all the best to you for reading this. As hunters may say, "Good hunting."

On the Week 'Fore Christmas, What I Had Recieved...

...Was a note to ask me - though not in person - to spread word so that the seed of kindness, long buried in someone's heart, may grow into a blooming plant.

And, well, I thought, just in time. So, I decided to see what Christmas has for us to offer. In the olden days, people treat Christmas as a holy tradition. People sang carols, prayed for peace, light candles as a sign that visitors are welcomed. A couple of years later, peoples' lives were better. Christmas turned into a holiday - kids loved to crawled into the bed, excited, fall asleep two seconds later, then wake up in the morning, to find gifts from Father Christmas - actually, it awas their parents, of course.

Now, seeing it as me, no longer a kid, I noticed more and more commercially-orientated Christmas, as do every other holiday. Try walking through one mall, and you'll see a couple of conifer trees, lots of red hats, and more than one Santa Claus when you're lucky. Not that there's no more peace and "holiness" (for lack of better word) in Christmas, but just that I find it harder to see such a point.

So, what can we do this Christmas? Aside from doing the same each year (join the crowd, or stay at home for a rest), try to preserve the "endangered species" that is the original Christmas spirit by doing a special kind deed or two. You can help somebody to reach their destination, carry a load up a floor, or even give a sincere praise to that guy next door.

People feel better after doing something good - if you didn't, see me and I'll give you all my money. Its the satishfaction and peace that you've done something to help hat encourages you to do more. So at least try - spread the love this Christmas.

Its Just Emotions

" 'There's no shame in what you are feeling, Harry...... on the contrary, the ability to feel pain like this is your greatest strength,' Dumbledore said calmly.

'Look, I don't want to talk about how I feel, alright?' Harry said heatedly.

'Harry, suffering like this proves that you are still a man! This pain is part of being human-'

'THEN-I-DON'T-WANT-TO-BE-HUMAN! I-DON'T-CARE!' screamed Harry until his voice broke, while he seized Dumbledore's instruments and hurled them all over the office.

Dumbledore merely observe Harry demolishing his office before replying, 'You do care. You care so much you feel as though you'll bleed to death by the pain of it.' "

- Excerpted from J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix"

If you are in Harry's shoes, how would you feel? Know that you must live without a family for thirteen years, to suddenly found someone as close to you as a family can be, only to lose him/her, by a mistake you felt you should have avoided?

Would you do as he does, yelling till you're hoarse that you won't care, while inside you're tearing apart? Would you show no feelings, but inside you're still grieving to the point of insanity?

Nowadays, people would chose the latter over the former - to grieve for someone, especially in front of others, was now treated as weakness rather than compassion. My regrets considering the situation, since that the griever who does so often end up really, really bad. Its like trying to wall-in a flood - when you can't hold it any longer, it breaks and come forth multiple times worse than when you first felt it.

"Oh, well, we'll get over it," you say. But to get over it, you have to let it go first, not clinging to it. And, well, I've yet to find a better way to let it go than to just express it, no matter how histerical it'll come out. Everybody feels better after doing so - the first step to move on to the future is to let go of the present.

Wanderings of the Abodeless

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,
Yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your
Teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed,
To me; I lift my lamp, beside, the golden door!"

- Excerpted and adapted from Emma Lazarus's poem of the Statue of Liberty, America.

Telcontar is a worn traveller, that read the excerpt and envisioned a place that was not his homeland, but feels as intimate to himself as that homeplace of his; a place, where, he knew he'd feel safe and comfortable, though not exactly, home. To him, it worked just fine, for his so-called "home" was lost to him for a long time. He was one of those people that called themselves "the Abodeless" - the people whom had never thought of a place as a real home.

He had been to deserts, savannahs, forests, mountains of untold heights, oceans of width immeasurable by himself; by today's technologies, those places he visited could have been charted as a whole map.

He was always alone. It wasn't that he didn't attract felllow Abodeless to offer going together with him; its just that he found company trying and he preferred to be alone. And it was just as well - there had been circumstances where he'd could've survived only by himself.

Now, he had an impulse to go aganist the Abodeless'es rule of going without any direction - he wanted to see where the place described in the poem looks like. He was disapointed. Turns out, his fate was probably to wander abodeless forever.

Upon further reflection, he realised that he was, in fact, at home - his wanderings to found a place to belong has become a place to belong. With a small sile at the notion, he turned his back and walked straight to the horizon, his figure shrinking out of sight.