Don't Waste Your Life

Learning to sign, for me, took a few steps. I remember trying out various ways of writing my name, but invariably all these ways included my given or my family name. Some do sign with names that they have given themselves, but that perhaps represents something else.

In terms of form, I remember I had tried to imitate the form of those who I deeply respected. I had tried to do that with a teacher whom I had a crush on in Primary 4 (who I knew as Miss Yap), I tried it with a teacher who worked hard for my class who I respected in Primary 6 in another school. And the one that my final signature looked most like, was my dad’s.

I have a strong feeling that my signature which involves my given and family name, represents where I come from and who my parents wanted to be. My surname means I come from somewhere in Swatow, China where my grandfather first came. I am the descendant of a coolie who carried 50kg sacks of rice at the Singapore River and a seamstress, aged almost 20 years apart and who married each other during World War 2 to escape Japanese atrocities; especially soldiers who liked to rape virgins. Their efforts at earning their keep produced a man who would eventually spend the most part of his life in stability as a civil servant, and who would also become my father. I don’t know very much about the people who brought my mother into existence.

These two significant people, then, wished for me to have certain qualities; namely to be upright and compassionate. Li means standing up straight, and ren means a kind of a wise, compassionate, controlled and transcendent love. As I think, I have come to believe that to be able to bring the two together requires deep wisdom to meld and synthesize two qualities that are often perceived as conceptual polar opposites: that of justice and of mercy. And I want to pursue that wisdom.

And so everytime I sign, I am reminded of where I come from and who I am supposed to be.

Beyond that, I realized that over the years my parents’ signatures, which spell Tay and Tan respectively, have somehow developed into wordforms that are incredibly similar to each others’. Interestingly, the first half of my own signature looks like their wordforms that have evolved into each others’, even though in my signature it spells something else. And then the second half of it is something that I added on to lengthen it, increase the difficulty of imitation and differentiate my signature.

This reminds me that however much modern day individualistic psychology tries to convince us we are unique individuals, we cannot escape the reality that we are also an extension of those who came before us. If I were to think of parents who start out with young children, I can’t help but think that most parents have little idea who they really want their kids to turn out. The truth is, perhaps they don’t have that much control. I don’t think my parents ever imagined I would become a social worker. It would already be a blessing for a young child to have parents who at least knew what they didn’t want their child to turn out being. Interestingly, parents who take enough effort to bring up their children in a specific direction, would usually be good enough people to render wanting their children to be somewhat like themselves.

But in the process of growing up, which in some ways culminates in needing to have a signature of our own, each of us adds extensions of who we were supposed to be. We do this to make ourselves better, more special and difficult for others to be us.

I have my extensions. There are things at which I am better than they are, like writing or knowledge of certain areas like psychology, techie stuff and maybe insight into life. But there are areas which I would never be able to emulate them; like my dad’s humility and industry, my mom’s eye for detail and concern for people. Extensions are just parts that build their existence on that which was passed down; they cannot exist independently. I am in some ways like my dad in temperament and in my way of dealing with problems, and I think I inherited some of my mom’s ability to care for people. As I go along, those qualities become mine, not merely a hand-me-down. I learn that they are good and I own and embrace them. Others which are rotten rags unwittingly passed down, I learn and try to throw away. I may not always succeed, some of these rags seem to be permanently sewn onto my skin. And yet, there are parts of me which I have that they don’t; like the ability to connect deeply with people.

And so, each time I sign, I remember that my signature represents me; all of me. Parts which I inherited, parts which I brought from my own journey to add-on, parts which were thrust on me which I then decided to own; parts which were thrust on me sometimes as expectations and sometimes as hopes. It represents I give my word to honour that which I signed off; and I stake it on my being.

With that, “Love, me.” now means a whole lot more.