The Waiting Room

 In Travelscapes

There are some things that might last longer than us when handled properly. I believe that photographs are such things. Every picture that I have taken, I might be able to pass it down to my child as a record of what I have seen in my life and hopefully it will inspire my child to see the world in his own way. Life consists of fleeting moments, if not for the camera, all these moments will be gone forever. When I took this photo, it was actually the first time I ever went into a train station. We don’t get these type of trains where I stay. When I first saw this, I felt like a child fascinated by a toy train for the first time, it’s just that the real thing is much bigger.

Sometimes I strive for perfection in every shot but then I realized how impossible it is. That attachment to wanting to create the perfect picture has costs me in so many ways, especially in soaking up the experience of the moment. Every moment is already perfect but if you rely on your mind to see it, there can only be imperfection. The mind is only able to see a small part of what is in front of you. That explains why when you look at a photo later, you realized that there are things in the picture that you couldn’t remember seeing while you were there. Nowadays I shoot with my heart and the heart always know where to look—it always know the perfection of the moment, of the scene which never repeats itself. That I feel is the difference between creating art or just taking a snapshot.

Have you ever thought about why we are so attached to things in our lives? I mean how many of us realized that all things are fleeting and we have to lose all of it when the time comes?

“Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose.”

C.S. Lewis

Think about these waiting rooms in a train station or holding/transit areas in an airport where we are waiting to board. We might be there for a few minutes or a couple of hours. Think about these spaces. There might be paintings on the wall for us to enjoy and a nice seat for us to relax while we are waiting. There might even be a coffee machine making you a cup of hot and beautiful aroma giving you a dose of required caffeine boost. There are things in the waiting room that you can enjoy but you know it is not yours to keep. You can use it for the time being but when the train arrives, you are not going to lug the sofa over your shoulders and board the train with it. It is alright that the sofa stays where it is because you understand that they are just there temporarily for your usage. There is no need to mull over it when you leave it behind and leave for your next destination.

Most people are like climbing the mountain of life with this heavy stone over their shoulders—the stone of accumulation and burden.

Life itself is like a much bigger waiting room. Whether we are in it for 7 minutes or 70 years, it is the same. Our holding area is like this body that we inhabit where we drive it around everyday, interacting with other things and people along the way. In a lifetime, there would be a lot of things that we will come across but somewhere along the line we started getting so attached to the things that we have accumulated in terms of the material stuff and relationships. The more attached we are, the more we would like to lug the sofa over our shoulders and board the train with it. It then becomes something else entirely. It is no longer about using and enjoying the sofa, it becomes a desire for hoarding things, it becomes a desire to manipulate and control people and circumstances. Everything becomes just a collection and these collections if you realize, can never be with you forever. The greatest agony then begins when you start to lose all of it. Most people are like climbing the mountain of life with this heavy stone over their shoulders—the stone of accumulation and burden. So what if you can move the stone to the tip of the mountain? It will still be in the world whichever place you move it to but you know that you are not going to be in the world forever—everything stays here.

To prevent ourselves from much unneeded suffering is to realize the truth of the nature of things. You are in a waiting room. You can appreciate,use and enjoy everything the world has to offer. The faster you can let go in this moment, the faster you can enjoy the next moment. Every moment is renewed, it’s refreshed. Every moment is never the same as the last moment. It is just as fleeting as the things you accumulated in the past. The mind stays with the past, the being stays with the moment. Letting go of yesterday’s things frees you up to appreciate the things of today and that is the point of life. You can carry the stone with you up the mountain or you could just sit and watch and marvel at the epic proportions of the mountain and all its wonders, knowing that the stone is always home where it should be and it is not of your concern. Your life on the other hand is always your concern and nobody will walk it for you. Nobody truly cares about how much you have accumulated in your life, they are too busy with theirs to begin with. The heavier your stone, the more strength you need to carry it alone until one day the weight take its toll and crushes you under. It might be too late then to realize that these accumulations are for nothing.

Things are nice to have and use but it is the attachment to them that are pointless. If your world is only full of things then what else is there? How do we know if we have a life or that we truly existed since all things are fleeting? The only answer I can think of is experience. It is not just the valuable life experiences that count but the every moment experiences. How you have breathe in each moment, every little sip of the life-giving water that you drink, each step you have taken along the way—these are the precious little gifts of life. These little moments are the fabric that life is made up of.

Remember, we are all just passengers waiting in this big room of the world. Learn to appreciate and make good use of the resources that passes through your hands. Understand that all these shall pass one day and be grateful for what they are. There is no need for attachments because ownership is an illusion. All things shall return back to earth, including us.

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