29.8.11

day #3: people never notice anything

woke up early, and forgot that i had not set up the time properly (phone still showed singapore time); alarmed because i thought i was late to get a tax application form for my dad. rode a cab, first forth to the office, and then back home. the security guards there were being very helpful--if i may add a little detail here--they were the ones who flagged the cab for me. after arriving, i decided to take 'a day off' and read a book instead, at home and in a non-pretentious cafe nearby for one hour or two while i let my soup go cold. i forgot whether i finished it that day or the next day; it was the catcher in the rye by j.d salinger, a good travel book. i mean it was thin and lightweight, and it was the perfect time to read it, during a trip back home, when i was eighteen, when i could still relate to Holden Caulfield, the main character. (or the goddam bastard, as the narrator likes to call some people..)



besides the distinct use of language (i think language is contagious, i really do), the relatively rapid flow of the narrative allowed me to flip through its pages more quickly than i would like to… the book tells of what Holden does during the break he's got after being kicked out from school. it's the fourth time he is being dismissed from school because he fails most of the subjects, except english. throughout the book you could see that he has more sense than most of the boys in the school, even more than most people he meets along the way. he has a (typically, though) interesting opinion regarding the system, hence refuses to follow what he believes to be useless. when he acts stupid he will tell you that he is being stupid, is not ashamed of it and that, is perhaps one of the reasons why i found him quite likable. (was never sympathetic for him, though.)

this is the passage that i liked the most
The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way—I can't explain what I mean. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it.

upon reading this i felt sad, i felt that this is true, all the things you have heard about people who do not change is a terrible lie, because people do change, and it is not only you yourself who has always changed. the world is not a museum, everyone is in constant movement to other places; their souls scattered, their desires transposed, their directions skewed…they don't stay still. even if they do, i believe, people will still change because their surrounding does the job of making the movements, and this is how these very still people are affected. however i realised that not everything about everyone changes. it's a little like your handwriting: no matter how much it has changed, there will still be some 'signature streaks' behind each stroke and each gesture. if you find your friends to be all the same after a few years not meeting with one another, you definitely have become closely acquainted with their signature streaks, which is a good thing indeed. but still, it's not that they really stay the same. they never do, and neither do you. that's how people change, i think.

1 comment:

  1. hmmmm....

    boleh tanya tidak??

    boleh yah.

    itu perawatan wajah pakai erha klinik kah?? habisnya mengkilat bgt, kerennnn..... T.T *terharu sambil garuk2 kepala...

    ReplyDelete