A Shooting Star

Last week, I read this book called A Shooting Star, which was basically a book portraying the “brief, yet remarkable” life of Markus Ng (1985-2009), a youthful Malaysian whose life and good deeds touched many others’. Despite not knowing him (as the book is primarily dedicated to his friends, colleagues and family), getting the book from a Malaysian senior in university didn’t fail me in my search for inspiration (plus he graduated from the University of Essex a few years back).

Reading about Markus’ life, he indeed lived an abundant one despite the short span of time. Markus was a remarkable man to me in that he never seemed to lose his spirit in helping others, in being kind, in aiding the marginalised, in trying to create a better world. Although we might have different views of God and of religion, he had a deep faith in God and as another university senior put it, “He struggled to understand his faith and to authentically apply his faith values in the harsh realities of life, as best as he knew how.”

And so, I had to ask myself: What kind of life have I been living?

Although I actually skipped many of the tributes and personal accounts from his family and friends (as I found it slightly uncomfortable to), I managed to fully read his personal writings and his reflections (on life?). One that struck me well was a passage of how he struggled with depression; some excerpts:

“Hi, just thought I’d share my struggles with depression, for your benefit.”

“I first recognized that I was depressed when I was in college a few years back. After high school, I was enrolled into a diploma program tailored for students to move on to a degree in accountancy.”

“Soon enough, I discovered that I really disliked accountancy. It was such a pain in the ass to study it, and I distracted myself with extra curricular activities. Unsurprisingly, I failed the academic year. I was devastated.”

“I repeated the academic year with the new intake, watching my batch-mates graduate with their diplomas and move on to do their degrees.”

“I was severely depressed then. Never in my life had I felt so worthless. I felt stupid, weak, and lonely. At times I cried. But I told myself not to cry, and to be stronger.”

“I withdrew from people around me. I stopped attending lectures. I went for walks in shopping malls by myself. I spent time in the library studying alone. I totally reversed my sleeping pattern to sleep during the day. During the night, I’d stay up to play computer games, and watch football, and other random television programmes on Astro. I’d take long drives in the car to places I had never gone to before in the middle of the night.”

“I asked myself why can’t I help myself? All I had to do was study! It was such a simple thing. In my head I knew what I had to do, but my heart just wasn’t there. I felt perpetually tired and sleepy as well.”

“It went on until my mother pulled me aside one day and had a good chat with me. She knew something was wrong, but I had always responded to her telling her that I was doing fine.”

“I soon found out that it wasn’t mere laziness. I was clinically depressed. I thank God my mother’s a doctor! I learnt for the first time that depression is often the manifestation of a chemical imbalance in the brain, and I could really help myself by taking some medicine to restore the chemical levels.”

My point is, what if what I’m currently experiencing isn’t “mere laziness”? I keep complaining about not being able to stop procrastinating but what if this was depression? Have I been going through depression without knowing it? In fact, although I don’t tell this to a lot of people, I actually skipped most of my lectures during spring term (classes and lectures with attendance checks are of a different case lol). This ‘depression’ I think I might be having might not be as severe as what Markus experienced, but it certainly is a food for thought. Not just for me, but for you too, no?