I've been rather quiet lately, on this blog that is. No, I haven't gone missing or lost my love for writing. Just busy with a deaf-awareness carnival that's coming up, and also responding to forum posts on Deaf-initely Boleh!, the official name for our deaf-awareness project.
Since joining The Singapore Association for the Deaf more than a year ago as a volunteer, I have become more of an activist for the deaf. It's not that I have nothing better to do, but career & family-building, two of the things which most middle-aged adults with young families are pre-occupied with, are just too self-centric. There's got to be more to life than that, and since a dream transformed me in early 2004, life has never been the same again. Some people are transformed by some life-changing incidents; for me and with a dose of dry humour from God, it was a dream that woke me up from my personal pursuits.
I now believe firmly in reaching out and stretching the limits of love. The Bible says "love your neighbour as yourself". How many neighbours can we possibly reach out to in love? If you try, you will be surprised. It's far more than you think you have the capacity for, because if the love in you comes from God, it's limitless. It just flows and flows, a well that never runs dry, as long as you keep tapping on it. Try it, if you haven't.
Coming back, in the course of this project, I was blessed with the opportunity of meeting up with other like-minded friends who have added this desire to care for and reach out to others to their standard set lunch of career and family. One of these new friends, brother Andrew as I shall call him, has been an encouragement to me. I reckon he must have been a successful "yuppie" (young urban professional) in his career as a mass media producer, prior to his giving up all he had to channel his talents to producing photoessays that tell stories which need to be told. No more pandering to the insatiable appetite of the attention deficit mass media consumers who crave all things sensational. Just simple meaningful stories of fellow human beings who live and die unglamorously in the shadows of their successful, multi-millionnaire peers.
Walk into any MPH or Times bookstore, and you are bound to be greeted by blockbuster clones proclaiming to share the secrets of becoming rich & famous. The list of compulsory habits to make one successful seems to get longer and longer, and that's no coincidence, given that the authors need to survive. They will be dummies if they stop at "Dummies for millionnaire wannabees". Flip through the papers each day, and if you even pay attention to the ads, you will see offers to help you gain wealth & hair, lose weight & wrinkles (note the sacred order). If you take up all these offers, you can't lose, it seems.
Coming back, I said brother Andrew wants to write about uncelebrated and even despised beings. And you may wonder for an instance if this makes sense. Who wants to hear about the average man in the street who's worked for years in the same position? Who wants to hear about the pasar malam hawker, the taxi-driver, or the blind tissue seller?
I want.
Everyone has a story to tell, and more often than not, stories that touch lives are the ones that are remembered long after the success stories of their glamourous cousins have faded into oblivion. Decades from now, nobody will remember how someone made his first million before 25 or who that person is, but many will remember those who made a difference in the lives of others by being there for them. These are stories that need to be told, stories for passing down to the next generations. Stories that busy people need to hear but may not have time for.
Go ahead, Andrew. I'm proud of you.
God bless,
Thomas
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