wanderlust

i bloghop like any other frequently because it's fun and i'm a nosy parker :P
but i think the real reason is just so i know what's going on with you, even if i'm not the first person you'd tell. sometimes i find that you write profoundly, perhaps with a lot of emoticons and phrases i may not know, i see happy smiley people in your photographs, but sometimes you get depressed and annoyed. i pick up my cues from your stories which may or may not be trivial but nevertheless it's about you.

Christmas was here sometime ago, I had a good time but it wasn't the best. you win some, you lose some. i saw your blogs, many of you spent time with family and at church, doing plays or going for midnight service. that reminds me of a time when i did the exact same things, but as of last year i saw my faith slipping away. when i see the photos of your religiously celebrated holiday, i wonder what was it exactly that happened to me. did i lose out on being in the same circle where i grew up in with people of the church or am i just one of the very few people out there who came to realize that religion isn't all there is to life?

that's what i see in my parents. they are caught up with work, and that's normal because it's necessary to survive. and they spend the rest of the time doing charity work for the church, helping out with bazaars, dinners, fund raising events etc.
i used to love being in the midst of it all, being a part of the youth team, going for spiritual camps... that was all good and dandy til one fine day, i met a completely different group of people who saw everything upside down and inside out. it was strange, it was weird, i felt like a social outcast because while i used to be proud for being street-wise, meeting these people was probably the first REAL thing that has ever happened to me. they may not be your regular joes who fit the social stereotype of a jock or a nerd, but while i lived in a world of black and white, theirs had colours of every kind. i was even, to a certain extent, ashamed of myself. of my genuine naivety towards everything. i can't claim i'm all-knowing and knowledgeable now, but i daresay that i'm enlightened by these people and their thoughts with whom i understand.

Buddha's state of mind was to achieve enlightenment, that is to "awaken".
i believe i'm one step closer to that.