For each of the many phenomenons (or phenomena, as some would prefer it) in the world, there are different expressions.
For example, there are at least two different kinds of spontaneousness (or spontaneity) that I shall attempt to illustrate below.
Abigail
Abigail was a girl who didn't like to plan, and went with the flow. People who knew her admired her for her spontaneousness, and really wished they could be as cool as her. She would skip school to fly over to Africa for a holiday (her parents could afford it). For breakfast, she could be chewing on a lap cheong (chinese jerky of sorts). One of her favourite antics was going for school assembly with a helium balloon tie to her pony tail. (It was to irritate her teacher for confiscating her colourful hairband. Her school did not allow colourful hair accessories for their students as part of their school uniform code. So, she got a black helium balloon with a black ribbon to tie to her hair instead.)
When she fell in love, she was also spontaneous and went with the flow and had unprotected sex with her boyfriend. She got pregnant, spontaneously. And her parents hunted down her "true love" for her, and "enticed" him to marry her. They had their "unannounced" wedding in Bali, "suddenly". ("Oh so spontaneous! So romantic!" But actually it was to hide her showing tummy.)
One day, her parents spontaneously lost their fortune due to some spontaneous market crash and bad luck. Abigail had to go to work and be a mother to her children (she had three more by then, one with a different man from her then-husband, who found out and became her ex-husband). She didn't have much chance to plan much anymore because there was not much room for manuveuring between working and feeding the family, anyway, besides occasionally dreaming about how she could have gone to some other country to do some social work.
Betty
Then there was Betty, who planned and was fastidious about her time, money, and everything else. Everyone who knew her, admired her for being so organised and careful, but did not really wish they were like her.
"Live a little, Betty!" they would say. "Be free, like Abigail!"
But Betty shrugged and confessed that she didn't know how to be like Abigail.
"Betty, you're no fun!" they said, "We're gonna hang out with Abigail!"
And Betty would shrug and go home by herself. She'd spend her afternoon alone at home, watching tv (whatever channel), cooking or buying her own lunch, sleeping or daydreaming, doing her homework or read a book, or surf the net, or daydream, or cut her nails...
In my way, I'm also free, what? Betty shrugged and thought to herself.
When she fell in love, she was also swept off her feet, made out with him and stuff, but did not get pregnant because she insisted on using birth control. The relationship didn't work out, due to some differences, so she shrugged and moved on by concentrating on her studies then went for an exchange programme somewhere in Europe. In Europe, she had a crush on one of the Ang Mohs she met in one of the backpacker's hotel, and had a thing going on for a while. Then she had a crush on some other guy but it wasn't serious.
She then started working for a while and then changed her jobs in a year or two whenever she didn't like what she was doing anymore. One day, she decided to propose, plan, and implement some corporate social responsibility initiative at her workplace, and during the course of making it happen, she met her husband and got married...
Claudia, Dawn, Edna...?
What about them? What were they doing with their lives?
