The “My Sassy Girl” soundtrack plays as the background music of my life in the present. It reminds me of the film from which it came from, which reminds me of the one thing that will never disappear: Hope…

My brain was starting to attain a sponge-like consistency from mopping up all the study notes and words in the text book. It was quite lucky that dad suggested we go for an Asian buffet lunch. I felt my stomach rejoice so I agreed. It still feels weird to this day to drive either my mum or dad around because I’ve been so used to them doing that for me for the past years of my existence. We drove to the place he wanted to eat at but it was closed (at about 1:30 pm on a Sunday)! I guess that these places don’t open for lunch on Sunday despite my dad’s belief that people like to go out for lunch on Sundays. I guess us Asians do it differently. I could see my dad was real excited about it but in the end after driving around for a while we found a place that was open and settled for a normal “off the menu” lunch. After lunch, we went home and dad put on his newly acquired (artist of the moment) Ludovico Einaudi album. The first time I heard some of the tracks, I’m sure I’ve heard them somewhere before, perhaps in a film. Dad said that this was probably true because he does do film scores, but I don’t really want to do an internet search for it. I wonder if when I leave it for a while if the film titles will just come to me. His music is not like the usual classical fare that dad goes for. It’s definitely not classical music and I could only best describe it as “music from a film.” Either way, it sounds really good and the repeating melodies are catchy. With my stomach full, laid out on the couch in the living room, I fell asleep to the music in the room.

I love going out to lunch and dinner with dad. We always have some interesting conversations. We talk about a lot and I don’t remember everything, but today we covered how the Indian dishes “Balti” and “Chicken Tikka Masala” are British concocted products and will not be found in traditional eating establishments in India. I knew the Balti was made up by someone in Britain (a Scotsman I think) and was assimilated into the Indian restaurant circuit (evidence: the multitude of Balti houses in London). I didn’t know that the Chicken Tikka Masala was also a British recipe either! It seems that it was invented by Indians in Britain for the purpose of westernising their native cuisine. My dad then went on to describe how a lot of Asian restaurants in the UK are westernised so that their dishes will appeal more to the hungry western population.

We then spoke quite a bit about one of dad’s favourite things in the world: music. We discussed specifically the state of popular music nowadays and how it’s all image based. I guess in pop music, looks come first and then musical ability. I don’t think it’s true of some other genres such as classical music. I think in classical music, if you were really talented, you could get away with looking like a complete miscreant misfit. The classical music community would still support you as long as you took regular baths/showers. I still feel that music is something that anyone can relate to. It could be the one thing that we all have in common because whether it be this artist or that artist, you will always find something you like. Music is loyal and will stay with you throughout your whole life. Your tastes may change over the years and you may even change yourself, but music will always be there for you in some shape or form. To paraphrase that dude from Empire Records, “Music is the glue of the world. It’s what holds us together.” I think over the years it has held things together for me. For all you High Fidelity fans, I’m sure if you tried hard enough, you could arrange all the music you own chronologically and autobiographically. I know I could. I’ve attached certain emotions and thoughts onto certain songs and whenever I hear them, the memories come flooding back to me. A piece of music will be a snapshot; some sort of auditory stimulus that will jog my memory of times past.

I remember what Chris told me a while ago when I asked him about the first time he “discovered” music. This is what he told me: “I couldn’t explain why I never paid any attention to music, but at some point in your life it just suddenly grabs you I guess.” I think that’s exactly what it does; it grabs you. I think it grabs you at that first moment when you realise what it’s doing to you and preserves that emotion accordingly. Obviously when you’re younger you’re into mainly pop music but it nevertheless grabs you for whatever reason. Maybe it was the first time you moved your arms to the beat of any song. Maybe it was the first time a song’s lyrics made the most sense to you. I could certainly relate to all those things because I went through those and music still keeps doing it to me to this day. You will always go through life hearing something new you’ll like. It’s sometimes hard to comprehend that there are a finite number of notes and chords in the world and even though most music uses the same chords, it produces something different each time (except those cases that involve law-suits).

Case in point: yep, I always learn something new from dad.

I’d been playing the guitar quite a bit and I feel my voice has improved a lot over the months (and years). Chris swung me a comment the other day about how I should learn songs by The Flaming Lips and some other band I forget the name of because I have a similar style to them. That must mean that there’s some sort of market for my voice. Now if only I could bottle it like perfume and sell it to record executives. I may have heard wrong but I think on the news the other day they announced that busking was now legal in underground stations (and possibly in public). Hmmm, one day just for the experience and for the fun of it I’d like to go out there and busk for a while. I’d have to get someone else to do it with me too. Image is everything in the entertainment industry so perhaps I should get one of my friends to dress up in revealing clothing and just dance in front of the upturned hat I have placed on the ground, which will be overflowing with cash. Ah, to dream of fame, riches and revealing clothing.
There are so many things to be happy about in this world. Times can sometimes be rough and at times it feels like you’re having millions of lemons thrown at you. Today is a red letter day for me because a huge part of me died today. Ever met someone who you truly connected with and who you care about so much it made you question everything around you? I’m not sure if you get to meet many people like this in your life, maybe you only get to see it once, but this is the reason why I feel the way I do now.

Every cloud has its silver lining. It really does. At times, life will be the colour of a concrete sky but there will always be light behind it. Sometimes the sky is so bright and sometimes it’s dark yet reflective, like polished obsidian. No matter how things are or may seem, there will always be time for reflection. I find that the more I try not to let things affect me, the more they do. The harder I try, the harder it seems and it seems that if I just stop thinking about things, everything makes sense again. Pushing things to the side never solve anything. I’ve always been glad I confronted things no matter how hard the truth would be to face. It’s a hard thing to grasp at times, but simplicity isn’t always about breaking down something that’s complicated. Sometimes it’s about starting the process again from scratch and building up to something less complicated, stopping early before it gets too convoluted. That is, in a sense it is not always about peeling away the layers. It’s sometimes about starting from nothing and building up towards complexity till you reach that point where you understand what is in front of you.

The pursuit of all things comes with its obstacles and oblivious answers. These answers may prove so elusive that they’ll start to resemble a tiny hair caught in the fabric of your collar. You search and search for it, but you can never seem to find it, so can only leave it to continue pushing into your neck, irritating the heck out of you. The key is not to give up looking for answers. You have to look for meaning in the things you believe in and are willing to fight for. After all, you cannot believe in something or appreciate it fully unless you understand why you believe in it. And then there is also that danger of over-analysing, where you end up looking too deeply and the thing you look at loses its beauty. I don’t want to sound like Morpheus from The Matrix throughout this discourse, but I’m a believer of one of his quotes: “I can only show you the door, you’re the one that has to walk through it.” You may have heard a variation of this from one of your childhood teachers in the form, “You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.” It might have annoyed the heck out of you to hear all those proverbs and rhymes when you were younger, but when you’re older you will have your moment of clarity where everything about them makes sense. The saying is true. You can only do so much before you have to leave things to continue of their own accord. I don’t know how many of life’s truths and rules I’ve mentioned so far, but here’s another one I always try to follow: “If things are out of your control, then things will turn out the way they do regardless of if you make it hard on yourself or not.” I just don’t know if now is the right time for me to go of the controls, place my arms behind my head and watch to see how it’s going to be.