Out of the country to lose my identity

Last weekend I made a short trip to KL (to feast). I don't know how to describe it. Everytime I am out of Singapore, be it crossing the causeway, the second link, at the airport departure hall (other than on business trips) or at the ferry terminal to Bintan,I have a very good feeling. I used to ascribe it to the promises of leisure and free from work routine. But even now that I don't work and don't suffer from work stress, the feeling is still good. I am trying to analyse why. So I try cognitive method, i.e. what am I thinking that is antecedent to this pleasant feeling. As the plantations roll on and on and the streaks of clouds seem to swirl like the tail of a pheasant against the body of the faraway hill, I wasn't thinking of anything. My mind was quiet. The funny music from the driver's hp that interspersed the soft drone of the coach engine does not disturb me. Perhaps it is the openess, the space that make me feel I am a small particle of this vastness. I have no need to fulfil any ambtition and no need to satisfy any desire to feel good about myself, ie. no need to feel purposeful in any way.

Ah but if nature inspires this type of feeling, how do I explain the good feeling even at the airport departure hall. Usually when making an overseas trip, everything already planned, all errands at home properly instructed and settled, the feeling of real freedom sets in.I guess then it all boils down to the suspension of care and worries. It is almost like losing your identity for a brief time. This perhaps also explains the drudgery when returning home, the drudgery of assuming the "ME". The "ME" that calls for maybe purposefulness or an image by which I am satisfied with and which I want others to hold me as.

If that's the reason then it has nothing to do with Singapore. It is in my own mind and how I perceive that once I touch Singapore soil I have to "strive" because every other person is striving to uphold their own image (be if wealth, benevolence or being well balanced and having it all).

"We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive at the present moment" (from "24 Brand New Hours" by Thich Nhat Hanh)