.

We take the pressure and we throw away
Conventionality belongs to yesterday
There is a chance that we can make it so far

We start believing now that we can be who we are

Another Surge - of A Different Kind

Aku sungguh terharu. Terharu dan kenyang.

Malam ini, makan malam aku ditaja sepenuhnya. Bukan satu, tapi dua!

Ada insan membelanja aku pizza, bagai orang mengantuk disorong bantal, sudahlah lapar, roti panas bercampur keju pula memang kegemaran aku. Apabila kotak pizza yang suam-suam itu di buka, aroma keju panas terus menerpa hidung. Vah, vah, vah, syabbas...syabbas mera rhoti! Belum sempat tangan mau ambil sepotong, tiba-tiba ada panggilan.

Mari berjumpa di KFC berdekatan katanya, tambahnya lagi "dinner is on me", tergelak aku.
Satu lagi meal menunggu sedangkan yang di depan mata pun belum disentuh, tapi usah risau, aku tahu makanan bukan segala-galanya, aku cuma anggap sebagai bonus (umpan? aku harap tidak).

Mungkin ini pun seperti kejadian lepas, hukum karma datang membalas, 'what goes around, comes around'. Mungkin satu ketika dulu, samada secara langsung ataupun tak langsung, aku ada membuatkan insan lain kenyang dan terharu sepertimana aku tengah kenyang dan terharu sekarang, jadi sekarang tiba giliran aku pula.

p/s: para gadis, sila ambil nota ya, kata-kata orang putih itu memang benar: antara jalan untuk memenangi hati lelaki adalah menerusi perutnya.

A Little Addition

Lagi sekali datang ‘catalyst’ yang membuatkan aku rasa terpanggil untuk menulis. Kali ini dalam bentuk post di bawah.

The Boinq, AKAB, Melayu Minimalis dan Lucius Maximus (aku masukkan nama Lucius bagi mencukupkan korum, boleh Lucius?) Mereka ini antara yang ada di luar sana yang menulis secara terbuka. Kadang-kadang ada cerita alkohol, kadang-kadang ada cerita perempuan, kadang-kadang ada falsafah tapi apa pun, cerita mereka banyak mengandungi input dan stimulasi yang boleh dikatakan bersifat memperkayakan . Aku pautkan blog mereka ke blog ini pun kerana isi kandungan blog mereka yang bagi aku bersifat begitu.

Sebelum aku teruskan lagi, aku mahu cakap yang aku tak ingin post ini kelihatan ‘redundant’ atau berulang. Jadi anggaplah, jika post di bawah mengusulkan satu permasalahan dan jawapan, maka post ini mengusulkan sedikit tambahan kepada jawapan yang sedia ada.

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Wisdom and Respect.

Wisdom allows you to discern and differentiate. Values are scattered everywhere, with discernment you’ll be able to choose the ones that you deem appropriate for yourself, when this happens, instead of jumping around with a ‘keris’ in one hand, you would instead be enriching yourself. And how is that not a good deal? Given the choice, would you rather have an enriched life or a shorter life expectancy due to the stress from all that ‘keris’ thrusting action?

Respect the rights of others. These rights transcend all borders, be them religion, race, color or creed. When a fellow sound minded man has made a decision, respect it. I believe Voltaire sums it up best by saying:

“I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it”

Though you may argue that Voltaire was a liberal thinker and you are not, I wish to ask you, even for only an instant, to put aside all the labels/names attached to both him and you. Without the labels, examine the statement just as it is. Is it devoid of practical goodness?

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Aku harap 2 sen aku ini akan dibaca dan dipertimbangkan .

p/s: Aku juga harap pembaca dapat menerima post yang separuh bahasa Melayu dan separuh bahasa Inggeris. Bukan apa, terpaksa menggunakan bahasa Inggeris sebab tak mahu maksud yang aku cuba sampaikan terpesong apabila aku menulisnya dalam bahasa Melayu.

Perbandingan II

Bagi aku, kuat agama dan baik itu tidak sinonim langsung. Walaupun selalunya tanggapan orang umum adalah sebaliknya.

Kuat agama tidak menjamin yang seseorang itu baik (baik hati, baik pemikiran, baik kelakuan dll) dan begitu juga tidak kuat agama tidak bermakna seseorang itu kurang baik atau jahat.

Tapi tidak pula aku nafikan yang agama itu tujuan utamanya adalah untuk menerap nilai-nilai baik ke dalam manusia. Tapi sedikit malang aku rasa kerana agama itu memandang dunia ini dengan kaca mata absolut (religion deals in absolutes) - Itu baik, ini jahat, itu dosa, ini pahala, itu syurga, ini neraka. Macam digital 0101010101

Lebih malang lagi apabila agama itu mengajar bahawa hanya pengamalnya sahaja yang 'absolutely' betul dan orang lain semua 'absolutely' salah.

Sebab itu aku tersenyum apabila membaca petikan kata-kata Kahlil Gibran:

- Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth' -

Besar impaknya kata kata si Kahlil Gibran itu.

Kerana apabila sekumpulan orang yakin sepenuhnya dengan 'I have found THE truth' sehingga ke tahap di mana mereka berani pula mengatakan 'persetankan orang lain kerana mereka salah!' maka dari pandangan aku, komuniti dimana orang-orang ini berada akan terancam.

Aku tahu orang-orang begini wujud di kalangan kita. Cuma jangan sampai orang-orang begini yang menentukan halatuju negara dan masyarakat kita. Kalau tidak, mungkin perkara bodoh seperti yang berlaku di Pakistan hari ini akan berlaku juga di sini.

Percaya atau tidak, apabila aku terbaca surat khabar hari ini yang Benazir Bhutto mati ditembak dan beberapa puluh lagi mati akibat pengebom berani mati, aku tidak terkejut.

Memang sudah aku jangka hal itu akan berlaku.

An Unexpected Spiritual/Emotional Experience

-Chapter 1-


I think I have clarified my stand when it comes to the topic of 'Religion' on older posts/entries.

I tend to look at things rather objectively than emotionally, or whetever other-ly for that matter, and I tend to question things that I'm supposed to just accept (telan bulat-bulat).

For example:
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I rolled my eyes (I made sure no one was looking) when I was at a family reunion and my uncles were explaining about Adam & Eve to my young cousins (the kids being what they are ask endless questions about nearly everything...which is a good thing - curiosity kills the cat, but kids are not cats haha..)

I rolled my eyes when the uncles said with certainty "Oh manusia zaman dulu besar! Tinggi 40 hasta macam pokok kelapa, dada lebar macam rumah"
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Maybe this is written in the Quran or some other important books written by some scholar, I'm not sure (is it?). But whatever the source is, I simply find it hard to believe that humans were once huge like that! (the possibility is there albeit very very small, no archaeologists have ever dug up giant human bones/fossils) And so I decline to give explanations like the ones given by my uncles whenever the kids ask me the same questions.

If I were to ever give explanations about the origins of human beings to the kids I'd always say "According to...... it's like this and according to...... it's like this. So we don't really know forsure"

Since I disagree with the simple explanation of the size of our ancestors, don't even get me started on the explanation that they were originally made of clay...


-Chapter 2-

Last night, after being repeatedly asked/begged to join in(teman) by the same bunch of kids, I watched Evan Almighty.

It's a very funny movie (watching it with a bunch of kids made it a lot funnier) and I'd recommend it to you if you haven't seen it.

Halfway through the movie, came a scene that is, in my opinion, amazingly touching as it is inspiring.

This scene takes place right after Evan's wife left him following his seemingly illogical/nutty confession that God has commanded him to build an Ark. His wife took the children along and on the way back to her mother's (I presume) they stopped by at a diner to eat.

Lo and behold, there at the diner, God appeared unto her looking like Morgan Freeman and offered her words of consolation.

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God: Excuse me. Are you alright?

Joan: Yeah. (God looks at her unconvinced) No. It’s a long story.

God: Well, I like stories. I’m considered a bit of a storyteller myself.

Joan: My husband… Have you heard of New York’s Noah?

God:(Chuckling) The guy who’s building the ark.

Joan: That’s him.

God: I love that story, Noah and the Ark. You know, a lot of people miss the point of that story. They think it’s about God’s wrath and anger. They love it when God gets angry.

Joan: What is the story about, then? The ark?

God: Well, I think it’s a love story about believing in each other. You know, the animals showed up in pairs. They stood by each other, side by side, just like Noah and his family. Everybody entered the ark side by side.

Joan: But my husband says God told him to do it. What do you do with that?

God: Sounds like an opportunity...
...
...
...

Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient?

If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage,
or does he give him opportunities to be courageous?

If someone prayed for the family to be closer,
do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings,
or does he give them opportunities to love each other?
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And there I sat, slightly behind the laughing kids, and I could swear I felt tears welling up.

Polite Mat Sallehs & Rude Malaysians II

Quoting from a comment,
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"I'm not one of those ppl our society so love to call 'kebaratan'. I really believe we have an abundace of good manners inherent to our cultures, just like any other culture"
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Exactly! I have no clue how 'barat' I am (in the eyes of our society) because I don't even know what scale/measurement form they use to determine 'barat'ness. But abiding by the smart principle of "Know Thyself", I know who I am...and a white man wannabe I am not!

I care about things like these precisely because I love our Malaysian/Malay/Asian culture. In terms of cultural achievements, I dare say that we have more than what the Mat Sallehs have, go back a few hundred years back into the past, and you'll find a period when the Mat Sallehs were barbaric, backward, and seemingly merciless and us Asians at that time were full of -kehalusan budi bahasa.

The Mat Sallehs developed and took their culture to new heights sometime during and after the Renaissance period, yes their achievement was not only intellectual, it was also cultural. After that they continued to grow exponentially (allbeit with sporadic wars here and there) and finally they got to where they are today.

Our forefathers had very big hearts, our culture was rich and our manners were exquisite...I wonder what happened to all that? Maybe we ought to have our very own Renaissance in the near future...