About Christianity

what was your ambition when you were a kid? not during the age when every kid's ambition is to be like his/her father/mother. during the time when you knew what you were doing. was it a doctor? artist? or maybe you wanted to write the best story, or even maybe become the world richest person.

hmm... actually this post... should it even be here? i don't think it is about christianity. yet i don't want to put it at the random blog. it is still from my reflections though.

what are you doing now? maybe you are an office worker. maybe you are doing something you didn't like. when we grow up, i realize that gradually, we are unable to hold on to that dream we once had. maybe for some, it is because our thinking changed. for most of us, i guess it is because our circumstances don't allow it.

do you actually know why i name my website as no-more-fairytales? the reason is very simple. it can be taken literally. when we were young we believed in fairytales. that if we work hard enough, our wishes will come true. that if we are good people, we will live a good life. there were heroes, and the witches always get defeated. as i grew up, i realized that fairytales are there only for one reason: to give hope to the little children, even if it is a false hope. children must have hope. depression and giving up, these are the only things allowed to adults.

somewhere along our lives, most of us gave up our dreams. and because we have to let go of them and take up other things, we slowly forget our dreams. maybe, you slog through life everyday, doing what you don't like. i know people who are complaining about their jobs and how much they wanted to quit. i know people who screamed wih frustration because the things they study are not what they like.

then maybe you get lost. because you have no more goal. i rephrase... because most of us have no more goals that we are after from the bottom of our hearts. our dreams have turned from childhood ambition to short-lived task goals to meet our needs. maybe you gave up being an artist to take up accounting, so that you can have a brighter future. maybe, you forgot about your wish to become a musician, so that you can become an engineer and have a stable job.

you know, when we do this, we usually suffer a little bit. i know this kind of feeling very well. because i am like that too. i never liked the sciences and mathematics. i had always liked the arts. but for the sake of future i gave up all of them. instead of geography i took up chemistry. instead of linguistics i took up mathematics.

slowly you will begin to feel trapped. what exactly are you doing? you know the logical answer. you need to do it for your future, for your family (because your kids are depending on you)... etc. but, maybe that is not what you really want. you are doing something you need to do instead of something you want to do?

finally you drag your feet at life everyday. you become totally lost. maybe it happens for just a little while. or maybe a few months? if it gets serious, this happens for a few years.

what can you do? i don't really know the sure formula to it. but i think, if you can, then remember your childhood dream. or maybe, remember what you had really wanted to do. if there were no restrictions, and you could do what you wanted, what would you want to do?

maybe it is impossible in real life to achieve your goals. but at least, you can do something about it. you have things you need to do, and you do them. this is respectable. but doing things you need to do doesn't mean you cannot do the things you like to do.

in your own little free time, you can try doing the things you like. in your 1 hour of rest time you can write a story, or you can draw. in your 2 hours of break, you can read medical books if you like it, or pretend you are a lawyer. hmm pretend? yea, that is a good idea too.

all humans need motivation. do a little something you like here and there, and you can also provide yourself with a little motivation.

you have no time? i think for most of the people, the excuse of having no time is simply crap. i have seen how people manage their time. i know people who work hold a full-time job, study for a degree at night (and did well for it), come up with time to spend with their girl/boyfriends, go out with their other friends and have enough time for rest. we are humans with 24 hours a day. it depends how you manage it. i know this is true, because, i am one of them. and i know it can be done.

remember your dream again. don't forget it anymore. maybe, this will be the single thing that will help you to move further along the road of life.

of all the manga i read, love hina is the only odd one out. it is the only comedy-based manga i read. i usually don't like comedy. i prefer more action, and tragic stories. my friend once recommended me love hina, and said it was very nice. i had my doubts at first, but i listened to his advice. and when i read it, i realized that i got addicted to it very fast.

why did i continue reading even though i usually don't like comedies? why did i not stop reading it even though it is full of 'lame' actions and no proper fighting? i don't know why. but i know i continued to read, all the way till the end. and the end was something i could never forget. it was not a very dramatic ending. maybe it was an ending you could have expected. no great twists, no great shocks. but still, it was an ending i could not forget. i don't know why, but at that time i felt something stirred in my heart that says, 'i want to be like that.' like what? i don't know. seriously, i don't know.

and then a few years later, which is today, i found out why. the friend who recommended me love hina had asked me to send him the song 'winter wish' because he lost that song. winter wish, although a bit old, is still a very nice slow song that i just could not get tired of. and he reminded me once again of love hina, since winter wish is a song for that anime. so today, i went to revisit love hina again. and then, a few years later after i read the manga, i found out what kept me from putting down the book.

the story of love hina took place in a very ordinary setting (except for the flying turtle) with ordinary people having ordinary dreams. nothing special about it. a bunch of people around, working for the thing they wanted, and well, they failed. hahax. until the very end.

essentially it was a bunch of 'failures' who got together to work for their own goal or to run away from their troubles. they were not successful people whom others would want to model after. yet in their lives, despite their hardwork and the seemingly very hard-to-reach goal, they were still able to enjoy the life they had. enjoy it with their important friends. and they had fun. sometimes when we read the manga, we actually focused on the fun they had instead of their troubles and their hard work.

and again, the 2 main characters failed to reach their goal which is to get into tokyo university. and they tried again, after allowing themselves to emo for a bit. and finally they got hold of their goal.

this is a very ordinary story. perhaps so ordinary that we might see ourselves in it. life has problems. and life is full of crap sometimes. everyone fails at one point or another. most of us are ordinary people. people who fail, people who run away from troubles. but at the same time we have people close to us and to support us.

in our ordinary life, despite wanting to be like them, to smile and have fun despite life's troubles, we thought that would be too idealistic. if we have time to play, we would have time to work harder right? i don't know. maybe. maybe not. in our simple life, we might think this ordinary story may be too idealistic for us. not all who work can reach their goals. not all the troubles can be cast away that easily, or solved just by working hard. and lastly, not all dreams could be fulfilled.

it is nice to keep a dream. it is nice to have a dream fulfilled. but reality is not so nice. reality sucks. but despite that, we are still living in reality. reality doesn't always offer us such nice friends, such nice endings.

and then i had realized, in my ordinary realistic life, i had envied and wished to be like the characters in an ordinary story world. to have a dream to work for, to have friends that close, and finally to see my dream fulfilled and get a happy ending.

after nearly 3 years, then i realized that. what a long time. to think it took me so long to realize what was wrong with me. it is a problem which not only i had, but i realized many others had. we have given up dreaming, rejected people when they came too close to us, and we stopped believing that our dreams will come true if we work for it.

did i make a post about this before? i felt that i had. but i cannot remember it now. oh well, if i made such a post before, then just take it as i am a broken record repeating myself.

sometimes we give up dreaming because of the failures. failure in going towards the goal not suited for us. it is tragic. we are going towards a goal that is not meant for us, and when we fail too much, we give up dreaming.

maybe, we should just ask God. what kind of life is suited for us? He created us differently. and i am sure our dreams will be something we like, and not because God says so. so, if we ask Him, and let Him guide us, we will one day find a dream that truly belongs to us. a dream that we can achieve if we work for it.

do we want friends? we have friends. but at the same time we stop them from coming too close. we are scared. maybe i am scared. or rather, maybe we just want to try to act as though we are a tragic character. who knows?

God is a friend we can let Him come close. a friend we can trust. the closeness of our bond depends on us. and if we want, we can have bonds closer than those characters in love hina whom we (or i) envy. and slowly, He will help us to trust in people once again. and then we have friends of this world whom we can walk with, laugh with, work with...etc.

in our ordinary life, we have given up a lot of things that was ordinary. dreams, trust and hope. in the 3d ordinary life, 2d ordinary life seemed so idealistic. 2d ordinary life seemed so hard to achieve, as if it is a goal we can never reach. everyone is walking on the road of reality, not knowing each other is just like him, admiring the people and wishing to be like those 2d characters. this is a joke that is not even funny.

maybe, we are just lost in the dark. and those who come near us we treat them as danger, because we cannot see. so today, ask God to light up your path, and ask Him to direct you. so that we can see our dreams. so that we can believe our dreams can come true. so that we can see not all who come near us are dangerous. so that we will have someone to walk with us. and finally, so that we can smile and laugh and enjoy life even in the midst of trying hard like those characters, because God is with us.

today, pray and ask God to lead you to your dream, to light up your path so you can see. and then, believe in God as He leads you to the dream meant for you.

In the city I'm not used to that's full of dirt,
I can't laugh the same and I walked with my head down
People pass by in a quick pace
I ask "has their dreams come true?" But I'm still struggling

I want to try living in the present
rather than returning to my childhood
It's my nature to be a coward

If I go to a sunny spot and stretch my arms out,
I wonder if I can go beyond the sky
that's what I thought
---

how many of you here do not dare to dream again? not because of anything, but because you are scared of failure. can you think of any time of your life when you are like that? i can. i thought, this is natural.

when we were younger (even though i am still very young) we dared to dream. impossibility seemed to be a concept meant for weaklings and failures. and then maybe we tried and tried. failed once. we got up. failed the second time. we got up again. the third time, we forced ourselves to get up again.

and then, as we tried to overcome the wall that we can never get over (at that time, maybe), we realized in the end, that maybe we are just only a weakling we used to say of others. and as time passed by, as we come once more to the wall we failed to climb, and we looked up, we thought, 'maybe, no more. i am tired. enough. i am really very, very tired.'

i think, as long as we are humans, we would have met with this kind of situation.

in a place where we are not comfortable with, we walked, with our heads down, unable to laugh. maybe we can laugh in front of others, but that would be a mask. because in the end, we would not be able to really laugh. because we know best ourselves we are not able to have a genuine laugh or a smile.

some of us could not lift up our heads. why? maybe it is because of the burden of failure. maybe because we dare not look at a place far far away, and say to ourselves, 'hey! i want to go over there!' so we walk with our heads down, not daring to dream about the future, seeing only the present, carrying our past failures with us. and then, we walked, following the others. where to? we don't know. anywhere. as long as the current state we are in doesn't fall off. anything better is a bonus.

and as we walk, we see people. those living in a city would know, the city is a busy place. tokyo, singapore, new york, london... people are rushing here and there. rush to work, rush for meals, rush to get home, rush to play. everybody is in a rush. and maybe once again we asked ourselves, 'has their dreams come true?' maybe. maybe not. who knows? everybody is rushing, as if there is something they must do. as if that is essential to their dreams. maybe it is. maybe it is not. again, who knows?

but, no matter what we think, that is still the life of others. we are still, walking with our heads bowed, walking with our failures on our shoulders, staring at the ground that is the present, not looking ahead which is the future. we are still struggling. for all we know, we are at a contradiction.

we just want to maintain the current state. but at the same time we envy those who has more. but even when we envy them, we cannot be like them. because we do not dare to dream. and if we do not have dreams, how can we work towards our goal? we want a better life, but we don't want to fail again. so we asked for no improvements in our life, yet at the same time we envy those with a better life. contradicting, isn't it?

maybe, you want to say, 'what do you know?' or maybe, you want to say to me, 'you cannot imagine what kind of feeling that is.' but, like i said before, as long as we are humans, we would have gone through this stage before. and me, like the rest of humanity, at one point of time or another, had already gave up dreaming. and maybe, slowly, unintentionally, we had replaced our dreams with envy.

we want to try living in the present, like all of us are doing now. we don't want to go back to our childhood, because we are cowards. (again, see the opening of this post.) we don't want to go back and see once more the faraway place we used to look at. we don't want to remind ourselves of the place we wanted to go to. because we are cowards, and we are scared.

and sometimes, life do give us second chances, if we are lucky. maybe, the rainy days are over. the sun comes out once again. finally? maybe not. because we had given up on seeing the sun once again. maybe the rain was there for too long, long enough to make us forget the warmth of the sun, the brightness of the sun.

and when once more the sun comes up and once more we have a new hope, as we stretched out our hands, do we dare to dream? do we dare to dream that we can soar beyond the sky? the sun is up, and we have our past failures to learn from. we have already gone through the worst, what can be worse, right?

i cannot say for sure you will definately conquer the wall this time and fly up to the sky. it depends on your goal and your ability, as well as God. but, if we stay at the ground for too long, when one day we want to fly up, we would find ourselves not able to do so. the weather is nice, and the hope is bright, wouldn't it be a waste if we let the opportunity slip off? maybe we cannot fly as high up as we want. maybe, we cannot fly for as long as we want. but, anything is better than the ground, right?

so if today the dark clouds are no more, and the sun comes out... lift up your head and look to that faraway place, and stretch out your hands once more so you can fly over to that faraway place. because this city of dirt, this gloomy place, is really not fit for human living.

'i often carry the feeling of going forwards, looking out at the outside world from here (top of a building)... for that dream i could never fulfill... for freedom, i made many sacrifices... ... ...' - this is a line you might find familiar, because as usual, it is taken from a story.

i don't know why, but recently, as you can tell from my blog posts, i keep on thinking about unachievable things, about unobtainable (is there such an English word?) things. i guessed it got to be my topic of interests for this short period. i have no idea how long it would last though. or maybe it is due to the stories i read and the story i am writing, and when combined these ideas get stuck into my head.

impossible dreams. say, you want to be the richest man on earth. or maybe the most powerful man on earth. how about the prettiest woman ever alive? or the most intelligent person to walk the earth (King Soloman already took that spot. settle for number 2!)

i have the habit of telling myself to know my own limits. somewhere in the past, i found myself gradually getting less and less interested in doing the impossible. well, not impossible, the less possible as you might say. there were goals we made many sacrifices on the way as we travel towards it. but because we are humans, there are things that we cannot control.

is it stupid? chasing after the impossible dreams. chasing after a goal you know you can never obtain. stupid, right? but from what i see, all humans are somehow like that. not that extreme, maybe. but definately something like that.

ok let's say something we are all familiar with, both students and working adults.

students, we all aim to score. nobody study to fail. ok i am assuming we are all mature students who study for ourselves and not because your parents want you to. and that you are mature enough to know what you are doing and what is right for you.

in most scoring systems, they don't go by absolute scores to compute your grades. they go by the bell-curve. a certain percentage will get A, some B, the rest C,D,E,F. familiar? should be, since most of us undergo this system. say, we are at the bottom. we are not intelligent people like the scholars. ok let's start.

have you ever have this feeling that you can't study? no matter how hard you try, no matter how hard you study, you just cannot compete against others. in a competitive society, failures are not tolerated. people can say failure is the mother of success. but if it were up to us, we would rather succeed without failing. sometimes we felt like giving up. studying is so hard, so difficult, so stressful...etc.

but we cannot give up like that. why? in our society education is compulsory. not everyone can be the world's richest man even when he drops out of university. we try. and even when we know it is near impossible, we try our hardest to score our best so that our GPA (grade point average) could be higher and pull us higher and to a better spot in the bell-curve. even when we feel like giving up, we just cannot bring ourselves to do it.

what about working adults? we want to get rich right? buy a big house, big car. in our society, people ask how big is your apartment, what car are you driving, what jewelry are you wearing, what handbags are you using. we try and try, fight for promotion, work overtime. work like dogs, work like slaves, all for money. hoping to get rich, yet at the same time we will be always be an average worker in the world.

money flow in, but like a hole money flow out. kids' education, housing loan, parents' medical bills, daily expenses. money don't fall from the sky. just as the boss gives us money, we need to pay out the money also. we work and work, aiming for a dream we cannot get. why? who doesn't want a better life? of course it is good to have ambition, but it is another to make too many sacrifices.

just like the guy who stood at the top of the building (look at the head of this post), we made many sacrifices for impossible, or near impossible dreams.

for studies, we sacrificed our 'life' sometimes. our play time, our rest time, our gathering with friends. we don't spend time with family anymore. our quiet time is cut short. maybe we don't go church anymore.

for work, we sacrificed time with family and children. we sacrificed our health due to stress. our time...etc

like what i said in one of my previous posts, sacrifices are not reversible. for this impossible dream, how much more are we going to throw into the pit? i am not living in a war zone, so i don't have the 'impossible' dream to get a good life elsewhere. i don't live in an abusive family, so i don't have the 'impossible' dream of having a happy family. because i have a normal life, the less fortunate, when you see this post, may think i am a hypocrite. because, even if it is impossible, you want to try. because there are cases when if you don't even grab hold of that impossible hope and throw in what you have, there is no more meaning in life. because if you don't work for that impossible happiness you won't know what to do. is that right?

i used to have impossible dreams too. dreams i threw in a lot, and get nothing out of it. unlike the law of equivalent trade, we don't usually get something for the things we throw in. so what do i have to say?

for those of us who have a more blessed life, be content with what you have. there are things you can never get. be content, and enjoy the things God gives you. for those who are less fortunate, you have a God, don't you? ask Him for help. i don't know when that help will come. but asking for help will give you something more practical than throwing your bets into that never-ending pit of impossible dream. it is not to say you give up trying. God will lead you, and along the way, you try, with Him, with His help.

one day, when you look back at your life, just as he looked down from the top of the building, i hope you don't have a face full of sorrow that says you sacrificed too much for the impossible dream.

in case you are wondering, the law of equivalent trade is a story concept from 'fullmetal alchemist' which states that for everything you gain, something of an equal value must be sacrificed.