In Continuum.

21 Grams

Now,my mother has a really good habit that's really bad at the same time.I dont even know if that last sentence made any sense to you,but basically it is one of those glass-half-full-half-empty things,they work both ways.She has this really good habit of clearing up messes and then making the house looking neat and tidy.Now,that's a great habit and that's going to get you a long way sure.But you dont clear up your son's DVDs and then forget where you placed it.I'm still rather ticked by the fact that my 21 Grams DVD is miraculously lost somewhere in this house,nowhere to be found.I know it was in my room somewhere,but apparently after one of her spontaneous spring cleanings,it disappeared.I love love love that movie,and was just about to watch it again a couple of months ago when i found out that all i've got right now on the shelf is an empty casing.Guess i just got to buy it all over again,or is somebody kind enough to give it to me as a Christmas present?We can watch it together!

Anyway,i blogged about this before,but at this point of my life it holds a particular importance.You know,it's like this song in your iTunes library that never meant a thing to you,but because of certain circumstances,they mean something to you all of a sudden.Like,right now you might be a fourteen year old school girl listening to John Mayer's Stop This Train,and not understand just why he is so afraid of growing old when you are desperately wanting to get into the latest NC-16 movie.Or listen to Bjork's Hyper Ballad and mock the mentalities of people on the verge of their suicides.You claim to have a sane mind now,that any such thoughts are folly.But once you are in that state of mine,the song would make much more sense than it does now.When you are 29 and pushing 30,John Mayer's Stop This Train is going to be so much more than just a song with good lyrics and nice guitar playing.It is going to be a song both petrifying and daunting,but at the same time be comforted that somebody else felt the same way as you do,ten twenty years down the road.

21 Grams is a movie that struck me hard when i first watched it three years ago.i was at Krishna's house for a stayover i remember,and his uncle just smuggled a bunch of pirated DVDs from Indonesia,somehow.The problem with Krishna's room is that the air-conditioning's enough to preserve a dead body,or keep a piece of pork chop frozen for eons.Because right in that room of his,even when the remote control shows 25 degrees,you got to minus about fifteen degrees off that.Besides,it was at 18 degrees right then and we had a serious shortage of blankets.So this is how those dead chickens feel like in the freezer,i thought to myself.I swore not to eat chicken,and that lasted for a full week.Which was admirable in my books.

I took a random DVD off his collection and headed out into his livingroom to watch.I think it was 5am when i did that,and was alone in his dark house when 21 Grams started.I remember watching it,having no clue whatsoever what it is about.I guess it was because of that,i was completely awe struck by the power of the film.Not just because it was not told in a chronological order like Memento,but also because of the message it brought across through the TV screen.Sure,it had a saucy sex scene between Sean Penn and Naomi Watts,and i was in the middle of the livingroom,in the middle of the night watching it in the middle of my friend's house.Just imagine,if the maid came out and saw me watching it,wouldnt it send the wrong message and vibe?I remember peering over my shoulders to see if anybody was there in the corners,quietly chuckling to him or herself(His sister Samantha was at home).

Anyway,21 Grams.That's the amount of weight we all lose when we die,believe it or not.When Dr. Duncan MacDougall set out to find out the measure of a human soul,he found out that despite the weight of you in life,your height,your sex or your race,everybody loses exactly 21 grams at the exact moment of death.Of course,his theory had little or not scientific merit behind,but people accepted his theory because...well,i must imagine that people would like to believe the existence of a soul in every human being.Which might only lead to a possibility of an afterlife.After all,who doesnt want to live forever in ignorance and blissfulness?

21 Grams,the weight of a stack of five nickels.The weight of a hummingbird.A chocolate bar.Such a seemingly insignificant number representing a bigger,greater picture of life.Because if you think about it,if you look beyond the fact that it is the weight of the human soul,it represents exactly the burden a human bears in life.What is this 21 grams then?Is it the load life induces on us humans?Like a bag of rocks?Sand?What is it?

I'd like to think that 21 grams is what makes us human,what makes us uniquely different from all other species.To know what that 21 grams are,we have to know what makes us humans,what makes us real.What makes us up like a puzzle is the emotions in lives i think,and those are the components of our souls.Anger,hate,love,depression,happiness...etc.Everything,they make up the essentialities of life itself.

21 grams is all you've got.No more and no less.You do not sing into a depression with happiness remaining at the same level.You do not fall in love,with the same amount of hatred for others existing.Because the glass is only this full,you cannot add anymore water after the contents overflow.This is what you have,what you have to deal with.I think that is an idea everybody should follow,should think through.If that's all we've got in life,is it really worth it to have so much hate,so much regrets,so much sadness?Is it really worth it,to have the whole 21 grams filled with such negative emotions?To hate?Is it worth it?

Corinna once asked me a question,which raised an eyebrow for me.Sarah,if you are reading this i hope you understand her intentions.She was merely being realistic.She asked me why i didnt hate her for whatever she did to me,and that if she was in my shoes,she wouldve hated that person for life.Sure,it was an abrupt ending.It didnt have a properly closure,merely the end of a sentence but without a fullstop.It was the wrong kind of sentence structure,the misuse of punctuation,and the victim was me - the teacher at the desk pulling his hair out.

Sure,there was hate and there was anger.Those were swiftly followed by depressions and sadness.But those are just stages arent they?They come and go,and i guess at the end all i felt was this very neutral feeling,this equilibrium in my life.I think that is where all emotional traumas should end,in that very quiet,peaceful stage of serenity.You do not feel anger,or sadness,or elation.Just nothing,absolutely nothing.I do not hate her for what she did,or didnt do.Nor do am i happy that she taught me some life lessons i've learnt by heart.Sure enough,i am grateful and glad,but that doesnt mean i have to be excited about her ditching me for another guy back last November.So no,i dont hate her,not right now and even the rest of my life.

Thinking back on the sparks that mightve flew between myself and the people that i have met,the sparks out of friction and misunderstandings...do i hate them?Am i willing to give up such a large part of my life - my 21 grams - for such a primitive emotion?Am i ready for that?I mean,sure those people pissed me off,pushed me around and had my sprawled on all fours on the ground literally,dirtying my white uniform in Secondary School days.Or had people calling me names,speaking behind my backs and pointing fingers.But we all moved on,i moved on to a better person.And i guess at times,when a whole bunch of people accuses you of something,you should start to reconsider your position in the whole situation.Sure,i hated a whole bunch of people and despised a whole lot more.But at this point of my life,i dont want hate,no regrets and not anger.But that doesnt mean i have to forgive people for their atrocities.I forget and not forgive,isnt that against the saying?

So right now i am mending the mistakes that i have made,if you call them mistakes at all.I am talking to people whom i havent talked for such a long time,finding out their lives and how they are doing.I know on the surface it might seem rather hypocritical,almost superficial that i am talking to people merely for the sake of trying.But like i said,life is too short to be indulge in so many past emotions.You know,to hate a girl just because she rejected you,to be nostalgic about the good times,and the times that couldve been.You know?Life is way too short,life is way too light - standing on the scale at merely 21 grams.