I have always tried to live as spartan a life as possible. My room, my attire, my food and drinks are such that if I need to pay my own bills inclusive of rent, I could comfortably live on $2,000 a month. Since I live with my father, I spend even less. Some would call me frugal; others, less friendly, would call me stingy.
Since my secondary school days, I have always been economical about my time. It was 10 years ago that I first read Rudyard Kipling's poem If in its entirety. My mother used to chide me for being so intense about not wasting time. But as Kipling put it: 'If you can fill the unforgiving minute/ With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,/ Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,/ And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!'
My mother told me my father would often quote these lines. So for appointments or meetings or functions, he would calculate the precise travelling time he would require and leave home so as to arrive at his destination at the exact time, and not a second earlier.
Coming back to Kipling's poem, while I have no desire to own the Earth or everything in it - and I most certainly have no wish to be a man - I still try to 'fill the unforgiving minute/ With sixty seconds' run'. But I do so in different ways now than I used to, for I have grown older.
From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, when I did research, I would key in the data myself, write the program for the statistical analysis, do the analysis, then, using the results of the analysis, write up the article. All that took a lot of time.
So as to fill the minute with 'sixty seconds' run', I had a plank of wood firmly attached to the handle bar of my stationary bike. With the keyboard resting on the plank, I would do my work while pedalling away furiously.
I have friends, and I don't forget them. I would certainly help any of my friends if they need my help, and I know they would help me if I needed help.
In my two years at Raffles Institution (RI), I made only a handful of friends. Forty years later, we are still close friends, though we sometimes don't meet up for a few years. Some people may find this strange. The answer is simple: We are all in different professions.
X is a vice-principal, Y is an analyst in the petroleum industry, and Z and S were administrators who have retired early though they are only 56. None among them, besides me, is a doctor.
In daily life, we interact most often with those with whom we work. So some of my closest friends are in the same profession as I am - medicine.
My staff at the National Neuroscience Institute are thus also among my friends. Indeed, a more precise term for them would be 'comrades', for we share the same aspiration, which is to help our patients. I also like the fact that 'comrade' carries a socialist egalitarian implication.
The last time my RI friends and I met was in 2009 when I was hospitalised. We tried to arrange another meeting earlier this year, but it was postponed twice. I was happy when we finally did manage to meet up.
Age has treated my friends very kindly; they do not look 56 years old. I have been less fortunate in that respect, but I have no right to complain. I escaped death by a hair's breadth a few times. I am not sure why, but I have mellowed as a result. I now actually actively invite friends to visit me, rather than say, 'I'm too busy, carry on without me'.
So I had a great time catching up with my RI friends and talking about our dreams for our future. On the spur of the moment, I wanted to show them a particular photograph that was perched on my bookshelf.
At the top of the shelf, I have a few pictures, including a replica of a painting by Sir John Everett Millais showing two nuns digging a grave in a graveyard in a rural area with poplar and other varieties of trees in the background. There is also a Liuligongfang, a special glass statue of a lotus leaf with a lotus pod. It is understated yet elegant. My mother had given it to me.
As I was reaching for the photograph I wanted, I toppled the glass lotus leaf. A corner of the leaf broke off. I cursed, 'Dammit', picked up the glass lotus, and placed it back on the shelf. Then carefully, I picked up all fragments of glass on the floor.
For a few minutes, I was somewhat despondent, for the glass lotus was not only aesthetically pleasing, but it also had great sentimental value. Then I reminded myself that detachment from worldly things is part of Buddhist philosophy. Anyway, unless one goes right up to the ornament and stares at it, the defect would not be obvious.
My old classmates were sitting outside in my sitting room. I took the photo I wanted to show them, and told them what had happened. I used the Chinese phrase, nadeqi, fangdexia, which means if you can pick something up, you should be prepared to let it go without any feeling of regret or sorrow. That is similar to the Buddhist teaching of detachment.
I have not attained that state yet, but perhaps I am closer to it than before. As I told my old friends, much as I valued the glass lotus, their presence and our friendship far outweighed the loss.
My mother, if she had been still alive, would certainly have approved of how I reacted. Friends are indeed more precious than even beautiful objects.
The writer is director of the National Neuroscience Institute.
No comments:
Post a Comment