That SSDD gene

In the long planned but as yet unwritten book/screenplay, I intended to start with these lines: "all of us in this family have it - that streak of divine discontent. Always searching and striving for greater heights".

Our grandparents did that... Sailing the southern sea to a better life in the "glorious south" away from a China that was imploding into a civil war. Our parents did it, lifting themselves from poverty to a better station in life. And we did it too: working all over the world and in my case, actually being sponsible to grow a business with a global footprint.

In the draft of my book, I pointed out that I am responsible for passing on that gene to my children. And I don't mean a literal DNA mutation but rather a metaphorical one. J and M spent their years being nurtured to see the world as their oyster. They had their under- and post-graduate studies at hallowed institutions on both sides of the Atlantic in the UK and US. 

Yesterday, J returned from an "adult" vacation (and he means just sitting, chatting, meeting people, learning about the places he visited rather than just seeing the sights), he penned his reflections in a letter to me titled "Stockholm thoughts".

"This is it. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the direction that I didn't know was missing from my life but answered questions I didn't even know my soul was asking, like some strange teleological tractor beam".

Well, he may not realise it but its that seek & strive divine discontent gene at work. He is my SSPP and M my DDPP. What I also didn't realise is they are both commonly endowed with SSDD.

Grandparents escaped war. Parents escaped poverty. I scaled the societal pyramid - to as close to the top I possibly can.  Each generation were discontent with something in the present and sought out a new realm. 

Our children too will have their destinations. Singapore's newly minted Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said this at his swearing-in: "young Singaporeans want to have a good life that is measured not only by the narrow metrics of material success but also by meaning and purpose". 

So, as J contemplates his Stockholm thoughts more deeply and M hers too, my one wish is that they are able to do so from a position of strength and stability unlike the grandparents. They need not escape a bad situation. They are however looking for a better situation... beyond materiality to a higher purpose. 

In OOHH, we had installed fountains for our pool. It's nice to listen to sound of water as nature intended. There are eight spouts in all and I thought they stood for the eight attributes the apostle Peter set forth to the world. Seven successive graces to humanity. He said "giving all DILIGENCE, add to your FAITH, VIRTUE; to virtue, KNOWLEDGE; to knowledge, TEMPERANCE; to temperance, PATIENCE; to patience, GODLINESS; to godliness, KINDNESS; to kindness, LOVE."

M & J, taking after their mom are preternaturally diligent beings. The rest they have shown increasingly as they grew up. And as they seek forward, may they always have these eight attributes on hand to draw on and employ. It will make the path forward easier.