Yet Another Mountain
I got back the day before yesterday from a church camp in C. Highlands with a bag full of dirty clothes, lots and lots of food (the fact that I live alone in a hostel seems to arouse a kind of maternal instinct), and a roaring headache. The bus trip was far too long, in my opinion, and much too bumpy besides.
I loved the camp, not because I'm particularly holy in any way (in fact I have a bit of guilt over the condition of my thought life), but because it's been at least eight years since I've been there, and it's changed a good deal, and because I ws experiencing a sharp attack of loneliness just before it. In fact I seem to have gotten hooked on human contact, as if it were a kind of drug: stay away too long, and poof! withdrawal symptoms pop up. I'm certainly going through withdrawal now, at any rate. First symptom: Looking forward to blogging and hoping for comments!
The Highlands have changed a lot in eight years. (Of course they did. You can't expect anything these days to remain the same. As Screwtape says, to be in Time is to change.) Everywhere I looked, new carparks and shops and stalls were popping up like mushrooms after rain. And according to some of my friends (who apparently know the place like the back of their hand), not all the changes are for the good. Like a certain pancake stall got displaced by the new mall and had to move somewhere else, or the nice durian seller migrated to another city for better business, or the new factories down the road have increased the temperature so much that the dorms need air-conditioning to keep up the illusion of being in a cool climate.
Personally I think the climate was perfectly cool enough, especially as it was raining and I had brough nothing more than a thin jacket with me. I was shivering through most of the camp, except at night when I had a nice thick quilt plastered around me like a kind of over-exaggerated cocoon. At least I didn't have to worry about sweating, except on the first morning when somebody decided that it would be nice to go running to the town centre and back to the camp site. I was gasping for dear life by the time I got back--just in time for breakfast.
Anyway, I got back to my college hostel on Sunday around eight pm, and the first thing that struck me when I went back to my room was that before now, I've always gotten used to the hustle and bustle of getting back from camps, outings, and the like. This is the first time I've ever gone from surrounded by people to completely alone and silent. I don't like it. I don't like it at all. I told you I'm hooked on people.
Incidentally, I've found that it's more difficult than I thought to put deep thoughts in my posts. It's easier to converse when one doesn't say 'Let us converse'--it's a quotation I found somewhere in C. S. Lewis. Likewise, it is easier to be deep or wise when you're not trying to be either, I think. I'm not sure. I've never been either, and that is, I think, a fact.
It appears that the Western world has been denied its dreams for a very long time; that is the best explanation I can think of at the moment for the reiterated advice in nearly every movie these days: 'Go find a dream and never give up'! As it goes, it's not that bad a piece of advice. It even turns up in The Sound Of Music, but it's a rather shaky ground to base a life on, isn't it? I know I wouldn't try to choose a career simply based on a wish or a dream, for that matter. And the fact is that not everybody can do that. What would you say to some kid who declares that its dream is to rule the world--"That's a lovely dream, honey. Now here's a couple million soldiers and a few H-bombs, go live your dream and never give up!"? Or even to some guy who thinks his dream is too be rich beyond his wildest dreams without lifting a finger for any of it? "What a wonderful idea! I tell you what, why don't you go murder some rich relative and claim the inheritance?" But even that requires some effort. It'd be interesting if everybody took that advice seriously...and the world would probably collapse into utter chaos by the third day.
I think there's better advice to be taken. 'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you' is a nice start.
I loved the camp, not because I'm particularly holy in any way (in fact I have a bit of guilt over the condition of my thought life), but because it's been at least eight years since I've been there, and it's changed a good deal, and because I ws experiencing a sharp attack of loneliness just before it. In fact I seem to have gotten hooked on human contact, as if it were a kind of drug: stay away too long, and poof! withdrawal symptoms pop up. I'm certainly going through withdrawal now, at any rate. First symptom: Looking forward to blogging and hoping for comments!
The Highlands have changed a lot in eight years. (Of course they did. You can't expect anything these days to remain the same. As Screwtape says, to be in Time is to change.) Everywhere I looked, new carparks and shops and stalls were popping up like mushrooms after rain. And according to some of my friends (who apparently know the place like the back of their hand), not all the changes are for the good. Like a certain pancake stall got displaced by the new mall and had to move somewhere else, or the nice durian seller migrated to another city for better business, or the new factories down the road have increased the temperature so much that the dorms need air-conditioning to keep up the illusion of being in a cool climate.
Personally I think the climate was perfectly cool enough, especially as it was raining and I had brough nothing more than a thin jacket with me. I was shivering through most of the camp, except at night when I had a nice thick quilt plastered around me like a kind of over-exaggerated cocoon. At least I didn't have to worry about sweating, except on the first morning when somebody decided that it would be nice to go running to the town centre and back to the camp site. I was gasping for dear life by the time I got back--just in time for breakfast.
Anyway, I got back to my college hostel on Sunday around eight pm, and the first thing that struck me when I went back to my room was that before now, I've always gotten used to the hustle and bustle of getting back from camps, outings, and the like. This is the first time I've ever gone from surrounded by people to completely alone and silent. I don't like it. I don't like it at all. I told you I'm hooked on people.
Incidentally, I've found that it's more difficult than I thought to put deep thoughts in my posts. It's easier to converse when one doesn't say 'Let us converse'--it's a quotation I found somewhere in C. S. Lewis. Likewise, it is easier to be deep or wise when you're not trying to be either, I think. I'm not sure. I've never been either, and that is, I think, a fact.
It appears that the Western world has been denied its dreams for a very long time; that is the best explanation I can think of at the moment for the reiterated advice in nearly every movie these days: 'Go find a dream and never give up'! As it goes, it's not that bad a piece of advice. It even turns up in The Sound Of Music, but it's a rather shaky ground to base a life on, isn't it? I know I wouldn't try to choose a career simply based on a wish or a dream, for that matter. And the fact is that not everybody can do that. What would you say to some kid who declares that its dream is to rule the world--"That's a lovely dream, honey. Now here's a couple million soldiers and a few H-bombs, go live your dream and never give up!"? Or even to some guy who thinks his dream is too be rich beyond his wildest dreams without lifting a finger for any of it? "What a wonderful idea! I tell you what, why don't you go murder some rich relative and claim the inheritance?" But even that requires some effort. It'd be interesting if everybody took that advice seriously...and the world would probably collapse into utter chaos by the third day.
I think there's better advice to be taken. 'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you' is a nice start.
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