No Closing.

With December comes all the pretty photos with hopeful wishes of it being the last month and hopefully the best or the happy ones of Christmas tidings. For yours truly, it is just a month where I realise how long the road in my learning growth still runs.

I do not regret the opportunities I took nor the experiences I lived and yet, I am still aware that I lack much. Foremost, I wish I had taken learning Chinese seriously when I was younger. Ethnically Chinese with no mixed heritage in the past (five, at least) generations, it boggles people when I say I am Chinese yet can only converse in Cantonese and passable Mandarin and fail utterly at reading or writing anything aside from modern alphabets and Korean alphabets. I believe that I am still capable of learning a new language but it is an endeavour that needs dedication and an honest pursuit to be fruitful; both of which is absent in me.

Having accomplished a complete certificate with ABRSM for piano, I have barely touched the piano in the last 7 years of my life. I picked up guitar until a back injury kept me out for 2 months and I never returned to continue the lessons. The gu-zheng was a one-year affair before my pursuit of a degree placed a halt to it. And the violin? I have always sighed inwardly whenever I hear or see one because it is an instrument that these stiff fingers can no longer coerce to sing for me. The bass is a new-found interest but accepting how my attention can die within any period of time, I push away whisperings of intent.

Have my desire to learn more of the unknown wane? Am I a Jack of all trades and master of none? Comparing ones' skills to those around you is to compare players at different level of expertise. There is no level playground as we are not mass-produced objects who have undergone QC before being released into the world. Our connections to society has shaped and created the individuals we have become today. Yet, we are always lusting after what another has and we are bereft of.

Opening a new chapter in my book is always a wonderful occasion and yet, like this post, I know not where I am heading to and what is my life's worth. Like my mind, it is a night of puzzling thoughts and endless questions with no clear conclusions until sleep robs me from my consciousness.