Consigned to Fire of Wall

 

I have, as any of my friends who follow me on social media can testify to, a new hobby. I’ve discovered TikTok videos and I’ve been trying my hand at making little videos out of my phone camera pictures. It’s fun in that you can play around with sound effects and as they say, a picture often speaks a thousand words.

Most of my videos are short, silly and meant to be ego boosting. Main topics have centered around food and drink (You got to do something with all the food photos that have become part and parcel of any meal), family and since the Legal-Half entered her contest, I’ve put up lots of shots of her moments of glory.

One area that middle-aged obese men shouldn’t put up are exercise videos. However, I started putting up my sprinting clips along with pictures of my spiking heart-rate. I usually use “action-movie” sound tracks to give it a bit of a “ra-ra” feel. However, last night’s video was different. Decided to use one of my favourite tracks from classical music – the Confutatis section from Mozart’s Requiem. Always loved this piece since I saw Amadeus as a kid and you could sense that the guy was trying to sum up his life in that final piece of music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEejafVSMaU

 

 Given that I live in Asia, one might also say that I’ve been tempting fate by publishing my photo with a piece meant for the dead. However, I guess if one were to look at things from a philosophical point of view, one could argue that life and death are part of the same coin and while you can’t control how you were born, you do have a certain amount of control over how you leave. Then there’s the key difference in that when you’re not likely to remember being born but you’re likely to be able to sum up your life before you die. Which in a way, is what the confutatis section is about, where the composer (Mozart) sees the damned being consigned to burn in hell and begs for salvation:

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/confutatis-maledictis-requiem-mass-d-minor-confutatis-maledictis-requiem-mass-d-minor.html

 

 Which then begs the question as to how a requiem for the dead has relevance to the activity of sprinting. My argument in the TikTok video that I posted is that its about feeling alive. I’m a middle-aged obese man just getting buy. Sure, I’m functioning well enough to type this out but if you think about well enough, how much of modern living is really about being alive. How many of us genuinely have a passion for what we do? We survive but are we really alive? I mean for me, the sensation of having my heart accelerate in those 20 seconds of actual sprinting is probably livelier than my entire day:

https://www.tiktok.com/@tang.li0/video/7275384786665950471?lang=en

Then there’s the nature of the run itself. Most of us who went through national service tend to run to keep the weight down. After all the 2.4km run is the one stable of the Individual Physical Proficiency Test (IPPT) that all of us have to go through. However, I got fat along the way and was advised to avoid running or I would bust my knees. So, I walk often and I like to walk far in nature – anything to get me away from a desk and being a bureaucrat.

However, I started sprinting because I needed to get someone out of my system and found that I enjoyed those 20-seconds spurts of full-blown activity. Its lead me to question the nature life, where everyone talks about how life is marathon and you’ve got to have the endurance. However, after staying in the same place for nearly a decade, I wonder if life necessarily needs to be a marathon. Could it be a series of sprints instead? My best moments in terms of my work were “sprints” – short projects like visit of Crown Prince Sultan (MBS’s uncle) to Singapore in 2006, the IIT Alumni event in 2012 and the IIM event in 2013.

All of us are effectively running from things like bills. Particularly the prospect of medical bills. If you live like you’re in a marathon, you think ahead and move at a consistent pace. If you sprint you need to look for different things. How do you pace yourself as you recover for that next bout of power. Its about knowing when the moment arrives and then giving it your all.

I go back to myself. I’m a middle-aged obese man cruising along. However, in those short bouts of giving it my all, I suddenly understand that I can be alive. The question is ultimately, do I have the courage to live the way I should live.