The day before New Year's Eve

Today i re-learnt a couple of lessons. I've probably learnt them before and yet i guess at the end of the day, maybe coz its the day before new year's eve, it was GOD's way of telling me it was time to relearn some lessons that i didn't learn very well.
Let me first talk about the day in general. Now that i come to think about it, i think i'm a rather long winded person. Or maybe i just enjoying writing once i'm in a writing mood.
I spent almost the whole day from last nite when i returned home after receiving my Christmas present from a friend, and having a late coffee session, fiddling with my new toy. Received an ipod shuffle for Christmas. It was clearly very pleasant. And if behind every action there is a positive intention, then i can see many reasons why an ipod shuffle was a great gift. Anyhow, being the computer idiot that i am, after all, all i know is how to type in my blog, go to friendster and check email, i spent close to 16 hours getting the ipod shuffle to work. I think i've clearly read the instruction booklet a good 20 times in 16 hours, and done every conceivable action i could. And the conclusion was that i still could not work it. Anyway, i decided to give it up to meet a couple of good friends for dinner and subsequently to go partying with Superman.
Dinner was a simple affair at one of the places that i truly love coz of the avocado squeeze more then the food really. And when i met this girlfriend of mine, i was baffled at how she was feeling. Here was a girl that just got attached to an extremely understanding and loving man, and she was missing her ex boyfriend coz he finally decided to stop waiting for her and get attached. Sometimes, i wonder at this sort of stuff maybe coz i wonder how come people never treasure what they have and when they finally lose it, it seems like this one person they never treasured suddenly becomes the most important person in their lives. And therein, i relearnt my first lesson. And that is that i should treasure the person that i am with now, at this point. And not when the person is ready to leave.
So after dinner, we decided to go take a walk and eventually ended up having coffee at coffee bean. Nothing much happened there. Was really looking forward to going partying with Superman. Haven't partied with him for a while now.
I sms Mr TG if he was going. And got a negative reply. But that didn't dampen the mood really. Was really looking forward to partying i guess. And when i finally reached Thumpers, Superman came out to bring me in and also shared with me a good piece of news. Apparently, my favourite person was turning up after all. And so, that really did brighten up the mood. And i was a happy camper from then on. If only life could be so simple.
And so when he arrived with two other friends, we all engaged in conversation and we talked about many topics. Now you know that although i'm long winded, i wouldn't go into such nitty gritty details if i didn't think it would build up the story. So we chanced upon this topic of conversation about giving your number out at a club, pub, nightspot etc. And the topic led us to an interesting philosophical discussion about mankind in general.
And so we talked, we debated, and whatever you could think about for a long long while. And i guess that was how the rest of the night progressed. Each had their points of view and i could clearly see where he was coming from. But i remember not too long ago where i had this same mentality. I remembered sharing with Papa Bear that life was very funny. That for the life of me i could not understand life.(No pun inteneded) I shared with him how hard it was to succeed. Coz if it was a simple success, it probably wouldn't feel anything. So it has to be something of a stretch. Something that you might not have achieved if you had just gave a half assed effort. It had to be something that you gained out of sweat, hard work. And then you will have lots of pride and you will feel good coz it would feel like an achievement. I remember Papa Bear asking me, why does it have to be that way? That's just one perspective to look at things. Can it be easily achieved and still be deamed and achievement? I was stumped there. I tot about it long and hard, and i came up with this conclusion. Why must the road be long and why must the journey be ardous before a person can be contented? If the road was simple but it was where you wanted to go in the first place, would you have achieved your objective and therefore, should you not be satisfied as well?
And so we spent a good part of the night, these friends and i debating about this. TG as usual was vehement about his point of view. That it must be fought for so that one would treasure it. And that what was handled to you on a silver platter would not mean as much. And i was fervid about my point of view. That sometimes, life hands you a silver platter and should you therefore not accept it and enjoy its goodness?
I can see where TG is coming from. I then made this statement to him. That its alright to want to be a mediocre person. That not everyone wants to be rich, not everyone wants to be a boss. Some people enjoy living the life of an ordinary person. And he posed me a question that got me think. And i guess that is one question that has been on my mind for the whole of this year. What defines an extraordinary person and what defines a mediocre person. And can one truly be contented if you know what lies out there?
I remember the book, the Devil and Miss Pyrm by Paulo Coelho. To my understanding after reading the book, it was about contentment and life. I'm too lazy to describe what the book was about. But i guess you need to read it for yourself to see what our topic of discussion was going. And suddenly it hit me that i was merely in denial. A friend was back from community service in Cambodia the other day. And he told me that he wishes to go back there again. And this was coz he saw how contented the children were there. They were so carefree and happy. Did they know that there was life out of their little village. Some of these children did not even have an education coz their parents could not afford to send them to school. So when they grow up, they will probably take over farming or whatever skills their parents have imparted to them and this will continue on until someone breaks the cycle. And yet, in some parts of the world, where the population is generally more affluent, education is compulsory. And he said he wished he could live there and be like them. So i posed him this question. It was good to go there for a short while. But would you truly be contented? Becoz you know what you're missing out on?
It was an interesting topic that at least managed to keep many of us interested for the night. And at some point of time, i actually teared. It took a lot of familarity for me to tear in front of him. Coz u know that i am not someone who tears easily. Or maybe i am. I just don't like to show it very much. Anyway, it was a good talk albeit the fact that it was probably a little too roller coaster for my liking... sighz