springleaf - the little boy

happiness is not what you are here for.

if there's any nice surprise you want to have, you can jog. not along the same track that you used to jog regularly, but go places, all over singapore. surprises come in places that you never thot would exist in singapore but actually exist right here. and most of them are so intrinsically nice, in a sense that they remind you of beautiful things, beautiful moments and beautiful places that only exist in paradise that captures your primordial, nature-loving mindset.

and one of such places is springleaf estate. marathon man had jogged here quite a few times before. it was a nice place, with a lot of types of houses and varieties of trees and garden plants in the estate that made him feel like roaming in a big garden. but this time, as he had vaguely expected, there was something new to greet him - the canal that's extended from lower seletar reservoir towards upper thomson road. it was there before, but only in its unkempt form. now with the abc water project, it had put on a new face, with its body of water widened, and the banks nicely re-inforced with gravels tightly packed in chicken wires.

there were quite a few people fishing in the canal, some fly-fishing and some wait-fishing, some with live baits, some with lures.

he approached a fishing boy, and asked him, "is there any fish?"

"so far, for the last 3 hours i hv been here, no. but i think i should at least catch one today."

"then why you still here? you could change position."

"do you think that i came here to fish?"

"well, that's obvious, isn't it. if not, why brought your fishing line and cast it into the canal?"

"i just go thru the motion of fishing, but actually i just want to pass time."

"pass time? well, but you are fishing to pass time!?"

"but fishing is not what i came here for."

"ok..... somehow sounds logical."

"let me ask you, what are you here for?"

"i jog."

"no. i don't mean here, as in where you are, next to the canal. but here, in this world, why you exist in this world?"

"well..... i think i have no say on that; i do not have a choice to exist somewhere else."

"ok, since you already exist, then what are you looking for in your life?"

"i guess happiness."

"do you really think happiness is so important?"

"hmmm..... i think so, and many people think so, too."

"let me ask you, do you condemn people for looking for happiness?"

"why should i?"

"like those robbers who feel happy after robbing a bank, or those drug addicts after having their shots.... they, like you are after happiness."

"ah, but they do it by hurting others."

"ok... so happiness is conditional?"

"you can say that."

"so if something is conditional, meaning it's not absolute, like truth supposed is, do you think is worth for you to pursue?"

"i just think that, life without happiness is not worth living. like so many other people, they are struggling day and nite to scratch a living, i don't think they are happy. and i don't want to be like them."

"maybe they are not happy. but as i said, it doesn't matter. because, maybe, they are here not going after happiness..."

"then what are they going after? even though they are very poor, they still have the right to go after happiness, as long as they feel contented with what they have. as long as they feel they have enough to live by."

"look, the canal is here, because there's water. but water doesn't exist for the sake of making a canal look like a canal..... and men are here not because of happiness, but they are here because there's something else that exists...."

"ok, ok.....i'm afraid you lost me.... anyway, i am happy to see how beautiful this place has become, and i think it has made my day, at least for today....."

the boy said, "your days are always made whether you are happy or otherwise.... time passes regardless. if you are in this world to pass time, like i am now here, then don't be too particular about the state of your mind, just like i couldn't care-less whether i caught a fish or not..... but do you want something more out of your life?"

"are you trying to preach me on something? you are only a boy. preaching to me about life is like you're teaching a duck how to swim."

"a boy i am, but it's me, or your younger you that would inherit all that matters."

"and what's all that matters?"

"never mind."

"why never mind?"

"no matter."

"come-on....... i just want to know whether there's fish..... now you are talking cock!..... ok.... chow."

"wait a minute, before you go - take this riddle and solve it, in your own time - why is Solomon doing odd matter?"