Second Chances

I wonder what it's like to have a birthday in December. What it's like to have everyone celebrating their birthdays around you, and you waiting for your own magic date to come. I guess birthdays don't become stale, and when your birthday is doesn't really have a bearing on who you become. But I wonder: do December babies ever become impatient? Or, on seeing everyone around them commemorating the passing of another year with one foot in the past even as they face the future eagerly, do they enjoy being younger and delaying the inevitable like a death-row criminal is grateful for any postponement?

Was at TLJ's birthday party yesterday, and it was an occasion for reunion with all the people from the secondary-school days. There were also a few people from JC days - even a couple from Army days; but when three or more gather in the old spirit of the class of 4N, then we form a complete world unto ourselves, and the devil take everyone else! Heh, if I were not working in Chinese High now, I think I would have found our easy camaraderie and unassuming familiarity disconcerting. I had not originally expected my secondary-school links to persist beyond JC days; and their longevity now, the very vitality and healthfulness of the old friendships, are so far beyond what I had expected would befall us that it strikes me as somewhat unnatural. But, as my return to the old school has shown me, a lot of things may not change much at all, and surprise and incredulity are obstacles to a full appreciation of what has survived the test of time. It is like having the days of yore returned to you; you find an eddy in the stream of time and find your way back.

You know, I think now that the friendships and the culture that we had in our old class is utterly unique, not to be found again in any of the groups in which I may find myself in the future. It's just inconceivable, the kind of madness that we get up to, what we get away with when dealing with each other, and the amount of trust and simultaneous self-effacing indulgence that you need to sustain something like this. If you know what I mean. Yesterday, TLJ asked for a smart-casual dress-code; and since we all went way back, JY and the birthday boy's JC classmates decided to suggest that everyone appear in singlets and shorts. And the fact that everyone actually did appear in singlets and shorts says something about how much we know each other.

Here is a paradox for you, then: these things, these relationships, and the nature of our interactions, are precisely the things that are rare and are thus worthy of cherishing. But in cherishing them, we will destroy the environment that sustains them. Unselfconsciousness is the prerequisite to such relationships, and the act of cherishing calls upon a very high volume of selfconsciousness, doesn't it? It is the nature of such things to confound protection. They are miraculous because they are rare, and they are valuable because they refuse to be domesticated into being an easily repeatable and accessible experience. The possibility of it all slipping away from you makes its presence in your life all the more amazing; and the moment you shackle it and hoard it greedily to yourself, you will find it tasteless and not worth the trouble it took to mummify it into a museum exhibit in your memory.

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And here's another thought for you: believe in the value of second chances. It is an act of high charity if you are willing to unequivocally give others second chances, opportunities to start over and to set things right. This is the manifestation of the virtue of forgiveness in real life. And, when you are on the receiving end of forgiveness, is there anything as tempting, as seductive as a second chance? It has the allure of the familiar, of going back to a set of circumstances that you recognise and remember. It also has the allure of anticipation, springing from the hope that, knowing what happened the last time, you can make this time end up better. A second chance in this way imbues both the promise of the future and the promise of the past.

But when you take second chances for granted, then there is the seed for complacency. There is, perhaps, a source of what Joel was talking about a few days back - the Kunderan lightness of being, a sense of perceived significance being disporportionately small compared to the actual importance of the issue at hand. The feeling of not being bothered by life, because you are secured in your belief that your decisions are not final, that consequences are not immutable, and that you can try, try again. The old motto for industriousness and steadfastness thus becomes an excuse for irresponsibility.

The trick, then, is to accept the occurrence of second chances as natural, without allowing yourself to stop putting in effort every chance you get. The former allows you to recognise and utilisethese opportunities when they come along, while the latter makes sure that the utilisation is of a worthwhile nature. How, then, to establish this balance? How to appreciate mercy without sinking into complacency?