Grieve

I happened to open an old e-mail when I tried to find the address of an acquaintance of mine. I read on.

It's a story of my laptop computer being stolen during my overseas training in Montreal. This is a hard story to swallow, and I skipped meals for two days, as what people do after having a heart attack. Two days isn't a long time, but it was long enough to see me rewrite a manuscript (over four thousand words without a backup copy), to lose my wit, to leave a vacuum where I tried to fill with buying a book When Men Grieve.

It came as no surprise, after nine years, to see that I forgot most of the details. Memory is not, as many of us think, an accurate transcription of past events. Rather it is a story we tell ourselves about the past, inundated with lessons that we learn, or lessons we wish we should have learnt. To that matter, what am I supposed to remember? I found a quote in my e-mail, "Clenching the sands of life too tightly only causes more of it to slip through our fingers."

Thoughtful remark, I would say.

Kodak

How many people would be surprised to hear that Eastman Kodak filed for bankruptcy after struggling to adapt to an increasing digital world? I'd bet it isn't a lot. Since the digital photography technology has improved in leaps and bounds, I never dream about buying the traditional films (who does?).

It's obvious now that we are getting used to digital camera. And for good reason. We are accustomed to the beauty of digital photography. Take film speeds; once fixed for each roll of camera film, sensitivity of the digital imaging system can now be changed with just a click on the button. Or the secret trick to load the 36-exposure film cleverly to give 37 exposures in the not-so-distant past; now, we can press the shutter as often as we like.

We started seeing the new experience of taking digital photos, but I wonder how on earth one could ever imagine the change before digital camera was invented. At a time when digital photography may seem straightforward, I've come to the conclusion that it's always clearer to look back at the rear-view mirror than look ahead of the windshield.

Transmogrified

Everyone wore business attire (suit with neck tie for male colleagues, tailored trousers or skirt for females) when the team took photo with our hospital chief executive this Friday - it's just that a handful of us were wearing shirt and white coat. I meekly hid in the back when I found that my white coat didn't blend in with all those dark business suits.

It's not the first time that I feel that the dressing code means an entry ticket to a certain position. I still remember vividly my student days, when I started the pilgrimage to the medical ward wearing the white coat, with stethoscope hanging round the neck, to justify my presence. I tried to look as though I could behave as a doctor, talk in a professional parlance - or at least to blend in a bit more.

Now, in a matter of years, I am wearing white coat not to justify myself being a doctor, but to keep myself from becoming an administrator. I wear the white coat to keep me from the exit.

Atishoo

There are few experiences as common as that minor ailment known as common cold, where you sit on a train with people staring at you like an extraterrestrial creature, abashed with water running down your nose. And at the same time, you're running out of tissue paper.

Common cold is going to happen to everyone of us. You may feel a little as if having a cold is the sine qua non of having a winter. But, you might ask, why the heck do we sneeze when we catch a cold? What purpose does a sneeze serve, apart from embarrassing us on the train? The best perspective to take, as pointed out by Richard Dawkins, would be from the virus's point of view. From the standpoint of the virus (or more precisely, the standpoint of the genes that create the virus), I was told, it has evolved to manipulate the human respiratory system to expel it into the air, which in turn makes it more likely to infect more people. This makes sense.

Think of an even better-adapted cold virus that infects its host's nervous system and compels the host to kiss other people on the mouth.

If you find that idea weird, well, think about the rabies virus.

Butterfly

Close your eyes. Picture a bumble bee foraging inside a room.

That happened with my daughter visiting the indoor play centre within a stone's throw from my home. We had bought the ticket for that place with an iconic logo of bumble bee some months ago, and yet didn't bring her there until the admission ticket was going to expire. I suspect that my procrastination may have been a hunch that my daughter won't be too excited to be an indoor bee.

After the indoor game, my wife decided to bring little Jasmine headlong to the beach. "Excuuuuuuse me?" I can hear the query already. "Do you really mean going to the beach in the winter?"

"Why not?" My wife's voice was calm as a summer pond.

My two-year-old did feel stuck indoors and, after taking few snacks, metamorphosed from a bored bee into a caterpillar. Yes, she did. She could not stop laughing whilst having pretend play with mum, who also crawled on the sand like a caterpillar. Yeah, yeah. Within a minutes, the two caterpillars turned into two butterflies running around on the beach.

Pure joy.

Behave

A little one near the end of her toddler months is about learning to pick up new skills in her rapidly expanding world. Now, if you ask me, what's about growing up with a little child is that we learn to enjoy the world of freedom, making way for more relaxed interaction. But you can't do that if you're not looking through the kaleidoscope of children.

Take a minute - and maybe a deep breath too - and imagine a kid stomping on sand castle, wearing nappy and her smile. Of course, it's my little Jasmine. Soon after I posted her photo online, I was reminded that she wasn't wearing trousers. Oh please! Shouldn't I dress up my two-year-old in her Sunday best at the beach? I say to myself, "Okay, hmmm, let's remove that picture."

I found out more about how two-year-old should behave when I brought Jasmine to a church wedding ceremony. Even if she kept using an "inside" voice, others around me could hear a toddler babbling to herself. Is this a taboo to interrupt the sermon by toddler words like "happy" and "Simba"? No. It's a sin. Without much ado, I was scolded and taught a lesson by someone behind me. Finally, I left with Jasmine, puzzled by the question if it's the two-year-old or the guy behind who was talking with words inappropriate to the age.

Deadline

It's hard to believe the magic of deadline.

Deadly as the name may sound, it is quite impossible to live without deadlines. To me, this is an absurd state of affairs. How could I have finished so many things like reviewing two journal manuscripts and writing reference letter for my intern before I took my week off? How could there have been so many applications just before the grant submission closes? Did I have to mention the deadline for tax return?

There is now little doubt that, in evolutionay terms, we mastered the skill of procrastination (from the Latin pro, meaning for; and cras, meaning tomorrow) first, before the natural selection of a tool that has become known as deadline.

Although discipline is a linchpin of growing, it remains for most of us to rely on the patrolling of deadline.