Sneakers

As we live, we begin to discover what was perfectly sound in the old days would no longer work out in the present day.

Not that I am claiming to be a stubborn old chap who keeps reminiscing about his youth. I'm not sure if you will remember the days when we were left at home taking care of the young siblings. Picture yourself alone with your younger sister, two toddlers not even old enough for kindergarten, playing with a washing-up basin of water. You would have to make sure your younger sister won't drink the water. Fast-forward to the present. This is absolutely illegal. Period.

Then you start to notice that we are simply being disqualified to repeat what we were able to do previously. Over ten years ago (okay, almost two decades) I was having fun hiking and mountaineering with a pair of white canvas sneakers. Okay. The light shoes with flat rubber bottom are primitive, but are affordable to students living on grants and loans. It's no surprise that those slippery sneakers are not waterproof. What may strike you, though, is that I was then doing perfectly well with them, off the beaten tracks like Tai Shing Stream and Double Deer Creek. Not now. Shortly after having a badminton game with my friends this weekend, alas, the primitive white sneakers gave my feet plenty of jolly sore blisters.

I'm not sure of the moral of this story, except that we're often reminded that life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.