Blink, and you will miss it. Is it finally... here? A day older, a week older, a decade older, time is a social construct, and age is a moving goalpost. Seasons passed, and a new one arrived. The wind blows past my face, washing and absorbing all the shame and guilt I stored inside my mental space.

The time has conspired to let me land on a few firm grounds with life-expanding experiences. I am my own decision-maker, free from the bond of my previous life. Holding on with a sweaty palm, decisions float with ever-increasing uncertainties like a balloon hanging on a thread.

Responsibility maketh men but make no mistake: the doom and gloom remain, only the burden is gone.

I've been wearing a wrong watch a few times a week. Initially annoyed at automatic watch, but I quite enjoyed it now. It reminds that time does not matter. Seconds and minutes, they pass, whatever number the tips are pointing to. Social construct.

The illusoriness of time, that life is infinite, is poison. The searing chain of time and expiry date should dictate how many and how much. The ebbs and flows of supply and expense, doesn't give a space for regret. It flows forward with a straight line.

Yet it ceases to be a good measure. What, then, a good one? Graeber said, in places without clocks, time is measured by actions rather than action being measured by time. I'm about to find out, maybe in the next decade.

I often linger on Joseph's story. His spectacular success was cheaply sold from the mouth of superficial error, not understanding that he peaked in the wrong place, wrong time, and with the wrong people! But God—He charted a path for goodness through destruction.

I wonder why and how (and when?) did he realize that God meant it for good when his cry was deafening. All the Pharaoh's palace inhabitants could hear his broken heart. The broken ties of familial relationships thrust deep and painful wounds. Yet he mended. He worked out his relationship for restoration.

Can I do it? No, not the realization that God meant it for good. I've seen much of His goodness to cerebrally accepts that He is good and will always be good. But the dam inside me, the unspoken tears, can I be like Joseph? Letting it go and letting everyone hear my screams? To make ways for healing. I still don't know. As Levinson poignantly pointed out, "The span from 20 to 40 is the era of greatest contradiction and stress."

Will thirty be my second chance in life?

In Jonah chapter I, it's interesting that Jonah went "down" twice. Down to the ship, and in the ship, down to the lowest part of the ship. The men in the boat first cried out to their god but found it futile. They asked Jonah to pray to Yhwh.

The tension kept rising in the ship, they tried their human best to aim for the shore, but the sea grew more tempestuous. The desperate moment requires desperate measures; they threw Jonah.

Even more interesting to note that the men asked for forgiveness because they endangered a man's life. Moreover, they prayed to Yhwh, offered a sacrifice, and made vows! God is glorified even when Jonah struggled with himself.

Working where I am right now, this is an early retirement for me. I ticked all the boxes of what I want from a job.

I identified (a decade ago!) that thinking and questioning things is my strength. Since then, my lifelong pursuit has been delivering strategic thinking and recommendations to the right people.

The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are, wrote psychologist Carl Jung. According to Jung, “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”

Not for me. The privilege of a lifetime is to become who God designed you to be. The true I am is wicked and no good for others. The world would hang me for what's inside my head—if they ever got out and displayed.

Happiness is a terrible goal. It's a bonus, at best. Yesterday someone asked me, "How is it going, a year serving in the house of God?" To be honest, I am not happy. It's fulfilling, but it's hard, tiring, and challenging. Most of the time, I don't know what to do. Sometimes I wonder if I offend someone. Occasionally, I'm proud to strike a nerve. Not a very good reflection of Jesus, eh?

Yet He uses me as a vessel. I'm trying to keep it real and honest about my family's struggle. People come, people are served, and people are being discipled. He never promised happiness in serving His cause. I mean, just read Paul's letters. What do I expect? Certainly, it will cost me something, but I understand that not following Him will cost me more.

So here I am, always a bridge for someone. Always in the transitory phase. This is where I pitch my tent and build an altar for the Lord.

It's funny that every trauma makes sense when I read this quote:

— François de La Rochefoucauld

And this quote gives me a direction for my next coronation as a father:

— M. Scott Peck

Someone is growing in my wife's belly. It's awfully, simultaneously scary and exciting. Feelings blend, twist, and churn inside my chest. It grows inside me, too, the fatherhood longing. I am relying on the instinct to kick in once the baby arrives.

For me, it's a fruit of faith. I never asked; it is planted in my heart. Fears and terrors seeped into the night, questions loom on my shoulder, and constant whispers in my ear. Well, I learned to navigate this past year with confrontation: don't emotionally stay away from things you despise, embrace suffering as part of goodness in His plan, and focus more on the things I want to see.

I grew up not understanding art and feelings. It's all systems and structure in my head. Texts, words, and mysteries do not scare me, but oh, the mood is deafening. I don't know what to do with it.

I barely learned piano, but now I understand a bit. Silence is what gives music harmony. And the ugly, dark, and sad notes played together could give nuance to a happy song and vice versa. Now I understand why Radiohead is a genius. The harmony between the three notes I heard is not linear. It's a three-dimensional being ringing the right amount of vibration in my ears.

Such is life. My life. A harmony between events, people, regrets, occasional laughs, and silences God played for the pleasure and glory of His name, for my betterment.

I can't wait to see you, son.

I want to listen to God's song for you.