By CC Pung J.P
SINGING is said to be one of those activities that, if done regularly, is supposed to slow our progress to senility.
Unfortunately, since this last session three years ago, I can’t remember if I had held a mic.
But life goes on, karaoke or not. I note the passing in the last week of novelist Chiong Yau whose works in Chinese I read much in my teens.
She died in Taipeh, Taiwan, aged 86.
In Kota Kinabalu, Jules Patrick Stephens, passed away at 72.
He is a nephew of the late Sabah Chief Minister Tun Fuad Stephens.
As I deal with the relentless, couldn’t-care-less and often cruel passage of time and the inevitable aches here today and pain there the next, I can’t help but becoming a bit contemplative.
One inevitable question is “would I or could I have done this or that in another way?”
Well, I have never been sacked from my job?
Two quite life-changing occasions where I left my job as a chief editor, I did so on my own terms.
What I could have or should have done different was to have kept my then wife posted.
Power never cowed me.
That I don’t bow or courtesy to authority defined my character more than I desired.
Looking back, I think my Baby Boomer rebelliousness derived some joy seeing some supposed superiors of mine looking intimidated.
I’m grinning.
There are enough titled and wealthy friends around me that ought to make me rethink my philosophy.
Well I have not attended a single funeral where the size of the coffin deffers between a titled deceased and an ordinary bloke.
And no matter one’s titles, the dead don’t see the inscription on the headstone.
Titles, wealth, legacy, loud funerals or otherwise, we are meant to be forgotten.
Or is as inevitable as death follows life, both of which we don’t get to choose.
Someone pointed out long ago that our only relevance is what we do between the two dates, I.e. the dash between our birth year and our expiry year.
Peace.
Editor: The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of talantang.com
