Shrug

I frequently fail to understand some people. Well, that's not entirely true. It is not that I do not understand them, it is that I cannnot empathise with them. Why do they do the things they do? Why do they think the way they do? I know the reasons for these intellectually, but find that the reasons clash violently with my own concept of what should compose a human being's psyche.

To illustrate, allow me to narrate an incident when I was about ten or eleven. My primary school class was on a field trip to one of the refinery islands off the mainland, if it can be called that, of Singapore. I think it was the Shell refinery, but I could be mistaken. I recall sitting on the bus, staring out the window at the sky, utterly taken at the sheer beauty of the sky on that morning. The sky was a clear azure, possessed of the sort of clarity that is sorely missing from our everyday lives. We mix colours, try to make things better, faster, more interesting. In the end, we do nothing but confuse ourselves. We lose sight of the fact that simplicity can be perfect. When we look upon something that is unadorned, we dare not consider the notion that it should be left as it is. Instead, we try to improve it. Everything can be improved, nothing should be allowed to stay as it is. This attitude is a major driver of our concept of productivity, but surely there must be moments when you pause and remark to yourself that things were so much better before complexity blanketed life.

I certainly do. Even now, as I sip a wine, I think about the grape, the year, the producer, the terroir, the way the wine tastes forward and back, the progression as it breathes, the possibility of aging, the possible matches with food or cheese, the way the scent rises as I swirl it. I can remember a time when I would have smiled and sincerely appreciated an easily drinkable wine, no reservations over a screwcap or box. I can also envisage a time when a wine becomes a veritable encyclopedia of information on my tongue. To a very large extent, I enjoyed the boxed wine far more than I would a 1982 Lafite today. The sticky sweetness of a lychee martini was heaven then, whilst a 1974 Bordeaux today would not impress me with its age, but that someone would bother to keep it for over thirty years. Losing the capacity to be impressed is a terribly sad thing, and one I would not wish upon any person, even those I despise, for the despicable do need to be awed now and then.

Returning to the bus, I commented to someone that the sky was quite gorgeous that day. The sky was of a pure blue, and the clouds shone with a radiance that evoked little beyond thoughts of heaven, as it is depicted in popular culture. In return, I received a brief acknowledgement that the sky was quite good looking, but it was all too philosophical for him, then a shrug and return to some inane ten year old game.

I can understand the failure to think about clarity and purity. Perhaps I was simply deluded. I could not understand the shrug. A fatal resignation to the fact that some things were beyond him. I would have at least expected an attempt to think about what he felt he did not comprehend. Instead, a shrug.

I used to think that all people strove to be better than they are. That when they run up against a barrier, they at least contemplate some means of overcoming it, instead of merely shrugging and changing direction. The human spirit should be above that. We should strive and crave and lust for something better. Even if it is nothing more than a superior understanding of what is already before them.

Given that there was nothing particularly deep about the sky that morning, or any other morning, is it so offensive to allow appreciation of simple beauty to grow in one's breast for a moment before dismissing it?