Prodigy Died

Chiang Ti Ming, the boy genius who was the youngest student ever from Malaysia to be admitted into the prestigious California Institute of Technology (CalTech) almost two decades ago, has passed away on Saturday morning here in Hospital Tuanku Jaafar, Seremban.

This guy used the be the national hero of sorts, getting a place in CalTech at a tender age of 15 and score results which were at the top 5% of his class. He achieved the Undergraduate Students Merit Award two years in a row, and later pursued and graduated with a doctorate in particle physics at Cornell University in New York. He achieved so much at his teenage years many of us took years to achieve. And he's now dead at age 31.

Press reports in 2002 said that he had been admitted into a hospital in Kuala Lumpur, for depression and withdrawal symptoms - and his death a direct complication to that.

I remembered I used to envy this guy when I was a small kid, being able to skip so many boring years in school just because you're a born-genius, getting big bucks paid for you to study overseas. And of course, start a career early and earn millions of wealth and drive supersportscars and mean superbikes and be a chick-magnet and stay in bungalows and penthouses and travel the world... oh I got carried away.

But what's the point of that expresslane if you can't enjoy life? God knows how much pain this guy had to endure, how much life events he had sacrificed to achieved what he had achieved, to live up to the expectations from his sponsors, the tonnes of pressure built up inside his cranial vault... and finally all that crushed him into a frail mental cock-up... and bring upon his early retirement from this world of sex and lust... (oops I did it again!)

Wise men once said, "it's not the destination that digs, it's the journey that counts". So slack on I shall... enjoying life and view any obstacles, like my upcoming final exams, as cocktail parties with loads of chicks and booze. Ugghh... bliss!