Past, Present, Future

I've often gotten remarks from acquaintances about being a guy who blogs and writes. Usually, remarks from the male species goes something like, "You write (insert slightly disgusted facial expression)? About what? Your day? Your feelings?" while the girls usually are more ambivalent.

Regardless, my reply to their 'about what?' question would usually be "Oh, you know, anything that inspires me, absolutely anything." To which their reply would be a slightly perplexed silence.

But as I ponder slightly more about it, I realised so much has changed over the past few years, and to understand, I need to bring you back to who I was before, circa 2006-2008.

Without boring you, I was a mess back then. After high school - which I scraped through - I entered into a wilderness, unsure of myself, no clear direction in life. I was so lost. I skipped most of classes in A-Levels, which resulted in, again, barely passing. It was in this time of wandering and confusion I met a girl, who, now that I actually think about it, I really wronged. To a certain extent, I am partly to blame for her fall. At that time, I was searching for direction, and I thought I could find my identity in a girl, while at the same time, she was trying to find her identity in me. Needless to say, we both ended up disappointed and hurt. Again, with her, I was barely myself, I became the person she wanted me to be, and I don't have to tell you that that's not going to work.

After her, I was really lost, hell, she was the focus of my life for a year and a half. I drifted through a few jobs, and I wish I could tell you that in that period I really looked at my life, but I didn't. By nature, I hate confrontation, and to acknowledge that that was the lowest point in my life took a core of steel I just did not have. I closed my eyes and just sleep-walked through endless days of twilight.

There was no big catastrophe that made me change, but by random happen-chance, I read this quote by Paulo Coelho, in an introduction he wrote in his book, Like a Flowing River, his first book I ever read which remains a favourite of mine to this day. He said

I want to be a writer, not an engineer who writes.

So, a writer I am trying to be now.

Which brings us all the way to last year, where I entered Mass Comm hoping to major in Journalism. So your question, why do I write, and what inspires me, is basically this: I've kept silent for twenty years of my life. Now I realise that I have something to offer the world, and that is why I write. I am inspired by conversations that I have with people, random happen-chances that occur in my life that I know are caused by a Divine Hand.

A friend said yesterday, that "I feel like, most of my life I've been living in a dream." And I can really understand that. I can't tell you how sweet it is, that I am actually living, not surviving. I am really breathing, for the first time in my life. I just want to say that, God has been good, and while I never actively sought my direction, He just gave me a nudge and a wink into the right direction, making sure to unlock doors and all I had to do was step through it.

As to my future, there's this lesson that I just learned yesterday. All this while, I've been hankering for an adventure, and I read The Way of the Wild Heart by John Eldrege without truly knowing what I really wanted. He wrote that the Holy Spirit is fiercely adventurous, and that He will bring you on the adventure. I realised that all this while, He has been riding shotgun in my life, and it is now the time to exchange seats with Him and let Him drive. It reminded me of a post I wrote, so long ago.

I hope some of this speaks to you, wherever you are. Not all of us find our way through random occurrences,  and, coming from one who's been lost and actually sometimes still find himself in a desert, I hope that you find your way. If you need a shoulder, an ear, or a drinking companion, my door is always open.
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