Sunday, September 19, 2004

the beach

yesterday, I and 7 other friends headed to the beach for some fun in the sun, after being cooped up in the hostel for one entire month mugging for our prelims.

it was your typical day at the beach: some frolicking, cycling, seashell searching (an activity carried out in vain, this being SINGAPORE), and burying people in the sand.

in all this, i found something really weird. it was a realisation that came to me as i was writing a letter to a friend: things look better at the beach.

the shells i found looked so beautiful, the gleaming mother-of-pearl practically yelling out at me to pick it up, the odd shapes and colours of the stones...they were mesmerising. however, the moment i took them back to the hostel, gave each one a good scrub and dried them, they looked drab and bland, almost as if they lost their magnificence somewhere on the bus ride home.

as if, once plucked out of their natural environment, they were gone.

it made me relate this to people who have not found their purpose, or have pursued their own purposes instead of the one our Maker has planned for us all along. they are like the shells, gleaming and excelling when in the place they are meant to be, but being mediocre when elsewhere.

and it bothered me, because i have yet to completely realise what my purpose is. will i be like the shiny mother-of-pearl, with it's diminished splendour, now kept in my drawer? will i cease to thrive, should i fall into the wrong path?

the beach. its romantic appeal has never ceased to fill me with ponderings like this.

lishun at 3:48 PM

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