.... knowing is half the battle....

I thought I saw a peacock at the foot of our bed. I scanned around but I can’t find it again. I went back to bed and when I was about half asleep, there, I saw it again - the peacock at the corner of my eye. I slowly opened my eyes and it disappeared again. I half-close my eyes, viola! – the peacock appeared. And then I realised it was the shadow made by the flowers that I gave my wife this morning and the cup that’s sitting in front of the lampshade.

I remember when I was a kid, one of my friends claims there’s a ‘kapre’ (tree-demon) living in a huge mahogany tree in front of their house. Every night when he goes home, he would ask me to walk him across the tree. I thought, then, the ‘kapre’ can’t touch me because of the rosary my granny gave me. I thought the rosary has special powers because it lights up in the dark, and the light scares all demons. And so every night I would walk my friend passed their huge mahogany tree with my glow-in-the-dark rosary.

Few years had passed and I was already in college and my friend has moved house when my eyes met the same mahogany tree. It was full moon and my glow-in the dark rosary is nowhere to be found. I was staring seriously at the tree as though I’m looking for something. For the first time in my entire life I saw how beautiful and healthy that tree is. Its shape is like a man holding a barrel of wine. And then I thought, this must be the ‘kapre’ that my friend is talking about. I walked towards the tree, looked around it, kicked it, tried climbing up, snatched one of the leaves and smelt it… and then I laughed. Now I know that the ‘kapre’ my friend had been fearing all his life is nothing but a beautiful and wonderful tree…. that it was all in his mind.

And now as I think about it I can’t help compare how many of us, walking in this planet, are like my friend. We created monsters that we fear. Sometimes we create an entire religion out of it, causing us to loose our quality of life, loose our drives and loose our focus. How many times have we failed ourselves and the people that we loved because we thought the wonderful opportunity outside our doorstep is a monster waiting for a kill? How often we overlooked at something because of fear?

I hope that every time we see obstacle along our way, we take time to look at it, scrutinize it, and learn to know it as it is, instead of painting it a picture that we will fear. I hope we look at it in the eye, know what it’s made of, where it’s from, what can it do… and use all information to better ourselves/plans. Instead of holding us back, may our fear encourage us to go forward. As what I always hear from one of my friends… ‘knowing is half the battle’.

Photo: Young, Sydney 2010