VirtuaLife

Had a good conversation with mummy Lim the other day. We were talking about… excellence.

It is a blessing of my upbringing; I’ve never found excellence hard. Now I don’t mean that I’m a brilliant person, coz I’m not. Nor is excellence a lightbulb that I turn on or off at my slightest fancy. No, the reason why I don’t find excellence hard is because when I see the point in something, I surrender myself to it totally. I surrender to learn, to master whatever is given to me. And even if it’s not always recognised by secular systems, I’m more than pleased with the results.

It’s also a downfall of my character. Because ‘excellence’ is not an issue for me, I see hypocrisy whenever people claim to have the conviction but do not exhibit any of the trademarks of one aspiring to excellence. I’ve been called snobbish or elitist many times for my lack of tolerance for such people, personalities. Not that I mind; in principle, many of these people claiming a hair of pride in my life have humorously neglected the logs in their own.

The consistency of such claims is telling, in many ways. On one hand I have a group of people, mostly Christian friends, some work mates and some course mates who think my nose is so stuck up it could be mistaken for a miniature mountain. On the other hand, I have a larger group of work mates, school friends, and some Christian friends who have called me humble beyond a doubt. Whose right? Are any of them right? Do the opinions of one group balance out the other? Perception is a funny thing.

One thing I do know is that I cannot abide in anyone for long who does not have the same commitment to excellence as me. There are many girls I’ve liked, many guys who I thought I could have nursed a cold beer with, who in the end I’ve let go because our contrasting views on how life should be lived are so disparate.

I just want to be me. I just want a close group of friends who think and act the same way as me. Popularity is overrated. Controversy is a full-time job and a half. And when both sides of the relationship don’t match, there’s so much friction it wouldn’t be a surprise to see sparks fly.