I haven’t been out of Colombo for quite a few months & that’s not great news given how limited your options can be on a boring saturday afternoon in Colombo. The last time was probably Wasgamuwa, which turned out to be everything I would ever want out of ”getting out of Colombo”. The drive was spectacular, especially the stretch beyond Dabulla to wasgamuwa, where there were quite a few breathtaking straights with high mountains on either side & the early evening sunlight somehow finding its way onto the road in front of us. We also managed to see about 300 elephants after spending 2 whole days inside the park. The fact that all 300 elephants were seen in a brief 20 minute period didn’t dampen the spirits of my Eco friendly friends who thought that they had witnessed the second coming of the messiah. But really, I sort of understood what they felt, even though I didn’t feel the same way. I was just glad that the 2 days weren’t an absolute waste of time & I could proudly tell my mother ”we saw 300 elephants”. (Explaining why we didn’t see any elephants in Wasgamuwa after 2 days inside the park to my mother would have been a painful process). Back at the bungalow I managed to walk across a paddy field which was due to be prepared for sowing in the coming weeks & I found myself at the foot of what looked like a eucalyptus tree with a tree house on top. ”Pal rekeema sadaha Yoda gamu lebe”. It overlooked an expanse of paddy fields which stretched as far as the horizon, ( no really… it did), and it apparently went all the way up to the banks of the mahaweli river which was miles away. It would have been the ideal place/moment to light up a J. It would have also guaranteed that I fell off the tree instead of climbing down since the entire structure was so unstable & made scary creaking sounds the whole time as the hot/dry wind blew the tree from side to side. I seriously wouldn’t mind if my current office relocated to Wasgamuwa, I doubt I’d want to be a farmer like many of the locals, but I certainly wouldn’t mind spending more time in that sort of surroundings.

I tried to do another Mirissa weekend in january. So i rang up Sunil the owner of the small guess house i usually stay at for just 2500rs a night & 3500rs with air conditioning, (i usually skip the ac). I was a bit shocked to find out that he was block booked up until march & a non ac room was going at US$95. So much for Mirissa… I’m still kind of paying off some credit card debt so that was just too much of a stretch.

Hopefully I will enjoy posting on this blog again, this was certainly enjoyable.  But it’s just that there’s beenlittle that’s note worthy to write about.

And to keep myself busy I’ve decided to run the Colombo marathon, or at least start training towards that goal. The half marathon to be precise, which is going to be a 21km stretch from Colombo 7 to some point on the Bopotiya road heading towards Negombo. This is not going to be a cake walk in any way. I’m a good 15Kg overweight, only managed to reduce smoking a couple of weeks ago & can’t manage a 30 minute jog at the park without feeling my back. I’ve called upon the services of the navy women’s water polo coach to get me fit enough to complete the race. The objective is to merely finish the race, that’s it. The prize is to overcome myself physically & mentally. And I’m guessing this should do it. 

I start training tomorrow, a grueling 5000 meter run complemented by various forms of physical torture which, through a process of gradual increase over the next 6 weeks should help me to finish the race at the very least.

 ¹If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,^[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.

 What the first part of this chapter says is that to speak in tongues, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit, to prophesy, which is also a gift of the Holy Spirit, and if you have extreme faith but do not have love, you are nothing. Meaning, it’s actually possible A) to operate in these gifts without having God in your life because God is love. B) Once a gift is given God never takes it away, tongues, gift of prophesy etc. C) even charity, faith, tongues, prophesy combined you are nothing without love & nothing without God intimately close to you & within you through his holy spirit.

 ⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.

Powerful isn’t it, always protects, always trusts, and always perseveres. For those who think that with time love fades away think again, true love is time tested & it grows through the years. And finally true love, never fails. It’s speaking more or less about the love of God, but it is also a benchmark to measure ourselves against how much we love someone, our parents for example & how we treat them. A spouse, parent, sibling, anyone really.

 ⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child; I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. ¹²Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

This is easily my favorite part. Prophesies, tongues & knowledge are put to shame before love but with greater & deeper depth. It says that when perfection comes the imperfect disappears; the perfection talked about here is true love, the love of God. And it goes onto show that a person without the love of God in their hearts is like a child with childish ways & with the reasoning of a child, but one who has the love of god deep within is like a man who has put childish ways behind him. It’s called Maturity. Now we shall see a poor reflection as in a mirror, because we cannot in any way without the love of God get intimately close to him even though, read that again, even though we have faith, knowledge, the gift of prophesy, the gift of tongues etc. So though we might be Christians with Christ within us, we are a poor reflection without the love of God burning bright within us. The verse goes on to say that ‘’Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face’’. That is an amazing place to be, face to face with God because his love burns within you. No matter what goes on around you are absorbed by the physical emotional & intellectual knowledge that God is with you. It’s like having someone next to you, a best friend all the time who you can talk to. None of this is possible without having the love of God inside of you.

 ¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I hope this revelation gets a hold of you & blesses you just as much as it has blessed me over the past 2 days. I’ve been able to discern a lot of things in my life with this one powerful chapter.

So needless to say, when I was woken up by Mr.Fish at 3am today, I wasn’t the most optimistic fisherman on the island.  But miraculously, we ended catching a good 3kg worth of fresh water fish. Of course this was the first time I’ve been on a fishing trip using a throw net (Highly effective), & though it bears no comparison to the gamesmanship provided by using a rod & reel it did solve the fish to fishing trip ratio. A bit like what screwing a prostitute must be like. Probably no foreplay, getting right down to it & finally probably not as good as the full deal. the catch was plenty, catfish, Lobster, Pethiyo?, Batto, Mal gurami (I think that’s what it was called) & some other fish I can’t name. Now to cast at this secret location during the wee hours of the morning, that’s the obvious next step i guess.   

Some videos of the Throw net in action!

Sadly, what i’ve also realized is that my own life is governed in some form by certain fears, which is not great in all honesty. Fear of failing cheif amongst them, fear of being stagnant, fear of mediocrity & the fear that i will at some point give up & settle. Settling down in my book, is not an option. There is too much to be explored in this world & too many wild fantasies & dreams to be lived out. Like… i’m gonna be honest here, a BJ… a cold beer & a live game of football between Arsenal & Man U. Or maybe angling in a 400Kg giant Blue Marlin in choppy waters with my arse strapped onto a boat. The fear… is that those things may never come true.  It was fear that made me quit the one thing that mattered to me as a kid, Rugby.. so that someday i will be able to put food on the table. So i focused on studies, to a great extent i believe that fear stifles the real person inside us. I still enjoy rugby & i feel more at home on some beach sledging away at the opposition than taking photo copies in the office.

The scary part is maybe i was destined to beat Nadal at the 2010 French Open finals & be the first Sri Lankan to win a grand slam.. or even get to the fourth round. Damn it, fear got me… never picked up that tennis racket. Too many decisions in today’s world are governed by fear & too little by passion unfortunately. But sometimes you just got to listen to that voice inside of you, stop worrying, have faith & take a chance. I finally decided to quit on a lucrative career in supply chain management & decided to be an Economist at the ripe age of 24. I already feel it’s too late, but wait.. what am i afraid of, that i might still be trying to be what i want to be at 30? ah well, it’s a wip.. work in progress. I fear that the battery on my laptop computer might not last. Gonna give in, save.. publish.

But what really caught my eye was the Highway project connecting Kerawalapiya & Kaduwela I beleive, been submerged under what seemed like a couple of feet of water. The fact that this highway is elevated quite a bit above the normal houses on either side makes it quite obvious that lots of houses are up to their roofs with the floods!  Something is obviously wrong here, I’m no expert on flood retention land or flood prevention but prior to the piling up of sand for the highway, these houses never suffered this kind of flood water levels even in more severe rainy seasons we witnessed several years back. These are obvious low lands which accumulate the water from surrounding areas & it raises the question of whether a proper feasibility study was conducted prior to starting off on this project. It seems to me that the lives of these people have been effected quite adversely due to this, which is quite unfortunate. I wonder if anything would be done about this? relocation of the people permanently or maybe a system where the ability of these areas to retain flood waters will be re-established. Either way, it’s also scary to see the highway under water! Imagine that, a multi million dollar project which goes under a couple of feet of water when it rains. Yes these weather conditions aren’t normal, but can we really afford to have a highway which is affected by this type of weather at all? in that case it doesn’t make it any different from the Negombo road since Dandugama is under water too!  Let’s see if this project goes on as if nothings wrong.