what're we living for

i'd intended to write this when i get home but it's my last night on my hospital bed and i can't sleep so i'm doing this in the dark for who knows what reason. gah.

i watched harry potter 5 twice in the last two days (sorry hospital tv is rather limited) and i started thinking (like i always do every single time i watch a harry potter movie) what i'm doing with my life. i've tried rationalising about why it's harry potter that triggers these thoughts most, and frankly i'm at a complete loss. the only reason i'm ashamed to admit is that it's possibly because i'm jealous of him, of the people in the movie, of the story of their lives.

sure, it fits almost any stereotypical teenage hero stories. fighting the growing evil, learning about themselves, findign love, hate, jealousy blah blah blah. but there's something about harry potter that draws millions and millions of fans (and no, it's not entirely because of emma watson). maybe it's just how it's presented. as much as i'd like to avoid it, it keeps leaving a disgustingly deep impression on me that makes me think more than i want to.

but aside from the largely childish adventures, it is their lives that intrigue me the most. i spoke to someone earlier who commented something along the lines of i wouldn't want to be neville longbottom, he always gets picked on. irony is that i used to be victim to this very person's words and actions, and he knows it. so their lives still contain the same factors that make us gripe about ours.

but i think there's something more. the message i get, that i'm missing out in my own life, is that they are doing something good, something useful, even at worst something interesting with their lives, no matter the danger, the life-threatening situations, the screwed up family trees. they lead their lives according to their own values, which i realised is becoming increasingly difficult these days.

whose dream are we talking about, when we say 'this is my dream job, my dream uni course, my dream life'? is it really our dream? or the one that was set before us. how many of us can claim an ambition that is truly our own, without any influencing factors from outside? how many med or law students have known that they have wanted to be doctors/lawyers from the day they first experienced rational thought? maybe some will raise their hands, and fair enough i respect that.

but personally it's taken me up until somewhere in year 5 or 6 that i started thinking about what I wanted to do, not what my mother or my friends or the damn Singapore dream wanted me to do. what did i want to do? in the end it was clear that my own path was pretty far off the track that people thought i would go and wanted me to go. but i suppose that was the first step in my own little rebellion.

i watched bucket list 4 times as well (sorry, hospital tv again) and again it made me think about how we really want our lives to be defined. by the contribution we've made to society? which society? my family thinks there's enough trouble in our home country and uses that as a reason to bar me from overseas trips to help the community there. and the stupid thing is, i have nothing to say to that. it's perfectly true. so i have to contribute (in my family's eyes) to a community that has in fact done more to limit what i can do than actually open up the roads for me, just for the reason that i don't have to travel anywhere? i'm sorry, my head has trouble wrapping itself around that one.

so what is it then that we can do, that our lives have a certain definition, or any definition at all? do we all have to be like the late DBS CEO? why is that? it's simply because that's become the the common 'dream' of everyone, the measure of success, and in this world only success matters. of course there are those handful that will succeed no matter where you put them. take away their family, their education, their finance, everything, and they'll still succeed. these are special people. not everyone is like them, and it's about time people realised that. not everyone has the same dream. otherwise they wouldn't be a success story. they'd be normal.

maybe if you're reading this you'll think i'm saying this because i want to be remembered when my life is over. no it has nothing to do with that. it has everything to do with what i'm doing with my life right now. for the coming months i'm going to face a very boring period of my life, where almost everything i enjoyed has been temporarily taken away. and it puts into further perspective the question of what i'm doing with my life. because one day, life may not be so kind to me. it may not give me back what i love after it has taken them away. would my life still be worth living if that time comes? who can answer that question, because i sure as hell can't. all i can do is watch harry potter.