hit the road, jack

i admire people who finish things, eat them up, partake, and use up something until it dies a natural death.. out of good use, not in the bin, dusty. in a consumerist world, the real sin is to not consume, i feel. i admire people who really read books from cover to cover, listen to their records in full, eat what they buy, live in their dwelling places, cycle on their bicycles, use all their shoes, and paddle to reach somewhere.

i was sketching people while sitting at a local hawker center at the east coast, having kopi, and writing this. and i was amazed by the tool in my hand. it has ultimate fidelity to what i think and see and helping me commit it to paper. how long does it take to finish this single thin lead on my pencil, or ink on my pen? there are hundreds and thousands of wonderful letters i can write with it, texture marks while observing people and the world i can draw with it. but do they really reach their full potential? most of them end up lost among the multitude of writing tools i already have. and the world keeps on making them. and people keep on buying them. it is so easy to replace something so small and all over the place. and yet there was a time when it wasn't even invented. it is so scarce one will hold on to it until one consumes it fully or one is so scared to run out of it and doesn't use it.

i don't mind products if there isn't an over-accumulation of them without being used. Whatever your passion is, you have the tools to pursue them. but for goodness sakes, pursue them. pound on it, read it, use it. create with the tools you have selected. do not stay in the acquisition phase. this age is about that. too many products. people have forgotten the time to use them. or the talent and dedication to use them to make something out of them. to create something. this age has put so much stress on having something. not using it. having houses, not living in it. having having having. i advocate using. have it but use it. don't just hold it. consume it. pass it on. or else we have already killed so much natural resources and generated trash to make things we love and yet they didn't even serve a purpose.

so, back to my first line. i admire people who consume in a consumerist world because they are the ones who live. they simplify their lives to be able to have the time to consume one product to its fullest. have more than 5 pairs of shoes and you have to do a walkabout to actually wear off the rubber that you paid for to undress the rubber trees.

i am not saying it is wrong to have 5 pairs of shoes. by all means get them. i am saying hit the road, jack.