Segar

*gambar Pegasus sekadar hiasan

Permulaan sememangnya satu perkara yang menyegarkan.

Agak malang jika difikirkan, berapa ramai di kalangan kita yang takut untuk bermula semula dari kosong? Aku tidaklah terlalu berani, tetapi aku sentiasa jadi ghairah bila aku mulakan sesuatu hal, terutamanya bila bermula dari kosong.

Bagai menjadi kanak-kanak semula. Semuanya jadi permainan tanpa peraturan, peraturan boleh digubah mengikut hati dan logika sendiri, paling tidak pada peringkat awal - sebelum realiti dan limitasi datang menggigit. Tidak selalu berjaya, lebih kerap tergolek dari maju ke depan, tapi itulah kehidupan, ya?

Semakin lama aku perhatikan, rasanya seperti semakin jelas, peraturan nombor satu (order of the day) untuk zaman sekarang ini adalah untuk sentiasa jadi orang baru - sentiasa bermula. Tidak cukup  sekadar menjadi pakar cerita-cerita lama, tapi harus menguasai perkara-perkara baru dan segar.

Nanti kita sembang lagi.

Salvation -an excerpt.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
There’s a place we can go to if you can wean yourself from your sadness, a place where you can start over.

A place you’ve never been before; where people accept you without questions and don’t bring up your past.

A place where we take time off from the real world, from the world that moves too fast for us.

A place where all the bad things that have happened to you are but a distant past.

A place where the sun doesn’t burn but shine, a place where the water is pure, a place where the ground has never been trodden.

A place just for people like us.

A place to heal until when you’re ready to face the world again. And when that happens, you’ll realize,

Now I am truly free.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

~Via Vinegar and Ice.

Polite Mat Sallehs & Rude Malaysians II

Quoting from a comment,
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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...