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Whenever I’m in an awkward silence position among friends and strangers, I would pull out my iPhone and start a conversation. It almost always breaks the ice, because I’d have a talking point for an App for every demographic group. If the person doesn’t have a smart phone, I’d still be able to engage them by showing the pictures of my kid on the phone. With children – I’d hand them over the phone and turn them into my best friends. Instantly.

I had my first iPhone roughly 3 months after my daughter was born. I’ve taken over 15,000 pictures to date. Most of them are of my daughter and my dog. My daughter is now 2 years old.

If you are in my Facebook circle, you’d have seen tones of pictures of my daughter with lots of funny captions. A reason why I like posting her picture is that, statistically, they score the highest number of ‘likes’. On a good day, her picture commands 50 likes. 10, (I’d like to believe) when the Brunei’s internet is not working. Pretty good stats, considering that I have only about 300 Facebook friends.

My phone sends me a notification each time I received a ‘like’ or a ‘comment’ (you can tell why I’m so hooked to it). Sometimes to appear not so desperate, I would wait a good half an hour before I respond to a comment. How insecure? How superficial? I know.

For the lack of a better way to sugarcoat this, Facebook is screwing up my self-esteem. I have given up my happiness to be dictated by the approval of most of the people whom I don’t even know!

While I was busy with my iPhone, my iPad has taken over my role of teaching my daughter alphabets and the names of animals; Youtube has disrupted my daughter’s gracious ballerina move (Gangnam Style) and the Baby Sign App has replaced me in the cool action moves I saved up for her.

At what cost?

I’m not a sociologist or a psychologist and I do not know what the long-term implication of this would be, but I do believe that education should be passed on, human to human.

The other night, my wife who was sleeping beside me, ‘What’s-App’ me the picture above, followed by this:

:* Gd Nite.

I could hear her silent protest, out loud, on my iPhone.

Just then, it occurred to me that I had been sleeping with my iPhone for the past two years.

LOL! But this isn’t funny.

10th March 2013, Sunday 4.30pm. Waited 30 minutes for my wife while she was judging for a singing competition.

Watched at least half a dozen performances, which were all pretty good. One of them stood out at the end of the day, as I recalled commenting at length about her as we drove off.

I remember this very young participant, (must have been in her early 20s) not for her extraordinary vocal ability, but the way she was dressed (White glove, pink outfit with tight purple singlet. Flat chess, no bra!) and the lack of self restraint in everything about her performance.

I later on understood why, as my wife clarified that she was actually a ‘he’.

No wonder he raised a few eyebrows and drew smirks on the audiences’ face during his audacious endeavor. I too, was indulging in the mockery at his expense on the way home.

Nonetheless, the guy got through to the next round.

Monday, my wife received a text message stating he’s been withdrawn from the contest, as he was killed the night before, in a car crash.

Shocked, saddened and dumbfounded by the news, I also felt trivial by my very own immature reaction to what was to be the man’s last performance.

I spend the next two days trying to make sense of the news. What would I have done if I had known? Applauded louder? Shared the gospel with him? Not judged?

Not that I had it figured out, there’s absolutely no sense with dying young, but here are some of the lessons I derived from it:

1/ Life could be taken away. Anytime! Treasure those you love and be kind- even to strangers. You may never get a chance to say thank you or you’re sorry.

2/ Embrace differences. Respect!

3/ Courage. The guy stood up for his belief, and pretended to be no one else but himself. He gave his very best as if it was his last performance, with conviction and absolute passion.

All, at the risk of being the laughing-stock. He didn’t care a bit!

This gentleman was probably the boldest, bravest man in the entire mall that day.

Short-changed. Short-lived.

Why didn’t I see those quality when he was still alive?