I was contacted by a single mum who wanted to get out with her young son. She got the idea after making a visit to Perth. "This place is great for us to start anew," she told me. One of the key questions I asked her was what she found bad about Perth. Her reply was, "Shops close at 5pm, the whole place like ghost town."
"Peaceful," I told her. It is interesting how perspectives can twist something into different realities. By the time I tuck my daughter to bed at 7.30pm each night, the panoramic view outside will be pitch dark, with soft lights and stars illuminating our street. Most of the shops will be long closed by then. Ghosts? Hardly. Meanwhile, some thousands of kilometres away, I can imagine how the streets of a sunny island swarming with wide-eye zombies on the streets, wobbling around mindlessly. That would be way more horrific for me than this ghost town.
There are only two things happening in our lives. Either you are with nature, or against nature. Whether or not you believe living in the most light-polluted place on earth is with, or against, nature is up to you. Oddly enough, you actually feel happy and sleep well at night for believing in what you choose to believe. That works fine, except for some, who find ourselves in a position where we no longer can postulate the special set of beliefs we are supposed to adhere to is convincing enough to get by. I happen to be one of the unfortunate ones who can't find peace in the land where the river always flow.
That was when I knew I had to make the decision on what I wanted to do with my life - where I wanted to live or specifically, how I wanted to live. I wanted to throw myself in the wild, something I never had the courage to do for 3 decades hidden behind my mother's back. I wanted to give myself such a hard time out there, so as to punish myself for fault finding the paradise I was supposedly living in. I wanted to get home sick, so sick that I could finally return home one day vanquishing all doubts that, that was truly home. After all, didn't I read countless of accounts of people who left the island only to return to tell everyone there is no place comparable to the best country in the world?
I wanted to be like them. So I convinced myself to leave, in order to know more about my home. If I stayed where I was, I wouldn't know much. Instead, from far away, I could see. That is what we call the blind spot. Drivers will be familiar with the dreaded blind spot, right next to us yet impossible to see. Life works in a similar way. You can have a Miss or Mr Right with you all along but fail to notice it. You can be right next door to heaven ... or hell, once you switch to the third person's perspective.
Almost 5 years went by. How time flies. I've came to understand the concept of success is different here to where I came from. Imperfections and signs of age or weathering in life should be prized. I shook my head when I hear the newly arrived parents commenting about what level of achievements their children should attain at certain ages. I wonder if they will ever be able to contemplate the passage of time in the imperfect nature of life.
In this serene loneliness which inspires self reflection, I finally saw what was in the blind spot.
well written the article is
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