Greetings, it's been a long time. One month in fact. The cause for this absence can be attributed to general laziness, tardiness and a good friend called Promos. But much as i would like to correct this laziness, this good friend will once again prevent me from doing so, hence this will possibly be the last post till after the promos. Similarly, there's much to blog about but due to obligations to mug, this post will be short and sweet.

In the short span of two weeks, i've come to know of two deaths. Both were persons young and youthful, cruelly robbed of life by death. We hear of death all the time, and its certainly nothing new. As surely as there have been people living before us, there would have been people who have gone on before us. We read about deaths in the papers, we hear it on the news, we see it in drama serials, but when it happens to us for real, it strikes us hard regardless.

It can been seen as a blessing and a curse that both of them were not close to me. Blessing in the sense that i'm spared from the grieve of losing someone dear. Yet a sense of pity transcends that gratefulness, pity that i didn't have a chance to know these 2 people better, especially when i could have done so for one of them. A sense of regret, knowing that there will not be another chance.

It's a cliche but a wise one nonetheless that the greatest lesson one can draw from death and its aftermath is how to live.

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” -Mahatma Gandhi

To learn about living through the messenger of death is perhaps one of the harshest and hardest lessons, but it would be better than learning nothing at all. Whilst death is the cruelest of things to happen to man, it is in essence, our timekeeper. For without death, we will not treasure time and our lives. The knowledge that one day everything will end, that there is a great chance all that we do will come to naught, must give us a sense of purpose that each day is precious and drive us to do all we can, in hope that something, at least one thing will be fruitful. Hopefully, one day after you have faded from the face of this earth, one thing that you have done would have made a difference.

I am as foolish as each and everyone of us - as guilty of procarstination and time wasting, as culpable of throwing away time as if it were limitless. But if the life of those who have gone has touched us, than let his death do the same, to touch us in remembering how precious, no matter how difficult a struggle, it is to live. To those who are personally affected, my regards go out to you. Take care, and may God give you the strength and courage to carry on.

And to the rest of us, be thankful for the next one and a half weeks, for the days you awake to hit the books and hit the bed on books, for the endless hours of writing and reading, for the tonnes of memorising, but nonetheless be thankful that you're still here to struggle. Till the promos, take care y'all.

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.”
Norman Cousins