The Life of Me

Time never waits for you. It just never stops.

It was just last night when it suddenly dawned on me that it’s already March of 2-0-0-9; and I haven’t write a single page of the first draft of my so called adult novel. I can make a list of reasons why I failed to compose at least a paragraph, but hardly able to consider it as serious barrier to even make a start. Simply put, I was just too lazy.

I should have take lessons from the movie which I watched last night, “Das Leben der Anderen”. The writers of then East Germany faced constant scrutiny from the secret police, Stasi. Yet, the most rebellious of the league always tried to put down in words whatever they had in mind, and found ways for it to be published. Even if their writings can cost them their dearly lives.

While I spend most of my times sit in this comfortably air-conditioned room, listen to any songs I like, and read any books or papers I can lay my hands on, not even a single page I produced for the past couple of months. Yet, I constantly remind myself that my mind is still ripe with these brilliant ideas that can be turned into literary gold. And that translates into best selling novels.

Talk about procrastinating. The only person I disappointed with this laziness is me.

Learning from Jay Gatsby

It can be said that I was particularly clueless about the plot of F. Scott Fitzgerald's “The Great Gatsby” when I first started reading it a couple of months back. All I ever knew was that this novel always made it to the shortlist of “great American novels of the 20th century”, or "100 best novels of all time”. I also heard from someone or read from somewhere that this novel had perfectly portrayed the lifestyle of the wealthy and famous, the socialites and crème de la crème which formed New York’s upper class in the 1920s. Those two reasons alone were the main reason that aroused my curiosity to this novel.

Little that I knew that its story would end in such a very dramatic way. That was why I felt some kind of sad, awe and shocked by its very tragic ending.

It also made me ask myself for a thousandth time the ever so old yet still mind-bugging question, “If you really love someone so deep, how long will you wait for her (or him) to love you back with the same intensity?”

Jay Gatsby waited persistently for nearly five years to be able to meet his one true love, Daisy Buchanan, once again.

How long will I patiently wait to be able to meet the love of my life, for the very first time?