Friendship and the Important Things In Life

I've been watching Sketchbook ~ Full Color's and it got me thinking when I finished with the last episode. Besides its great cast of voice actors and actresses, the water colour scenery is great as well as the slow unhurried pace of its story about a group of art class students living their daily lives in high school. A scene describing the art class having a sakura viewing picnic showed how much it means to have friendships, even if those around you are quarky or have their own foibles. Seeing a late blooming sakura trees when the trees around are near full bloom, everyone set out to help it bloom as well going to the extent of hugging it to give it that extra warmth and doing things like cheering from its branches. To normal people this may seem as pointless as pressing the lift button in the hopes of making it reach faster but you cannot dismiss their exuberance and general faith that the support they gave will bring about a change.

The comparison with Sora is that she lives life at her own pace and instead of being viewed as slow or holding others back, her friends were beside her all the way supporting and lifting her up. As she said no matter how slow the sakura tree blooms, in the end they bloom. It's a great message on the importance of friendship and accepting people as well as doing what you like best in life without the worry and stigma of being judged by others. Something that seems lacking in this world of ours but life cannot always imitate the perfectly scripted world of the anime, right?

Yet I find that sometimes this slice of life scenarios can be found here and now even. Even with all the negativity we hear about Malaysian youth's being more polarised and racially inclined, it is fortunate that I've found places that the colour of your skin, the beliefs and political alignment you profess to and the opinions each hold dear are never an issue. I've friends who are of all spectrum of race, religion and backgrounds that I'm proud to be associated with and when someone is down or browbeat, they are always there to lend their support, hear you out and extend a helping hand. Life is never easy, but its made more palatable with such people around. We should always remember that before it is to late, we should treasure what we have and give precedence to what really is important in our life, which does not always boil down to the pursuit of wealth, status or material things.