13 February 2015

LIFE’S TOO SHORT

When we were too busy trying to define our emotions in words, life simply happens.
We could not stop the passing of time, unless you’re Piper Halliwell or Hiro Nakamura. Hey but even if they could manipulate time, they could never stop it from fleeting.
There’s the beauty of it all, underlying just beneath the mundane routine of life. The motion, the order of nature, the passing of seasons. And as much as we thought it underlies us, it also envelops us within – all aspects of our lives are only a function of time.
The beauty of it all lies in the constant motion towards the end of time, not even one second skipped. We bear witness of this vicious shift for each passing second, yet we have no say in it at all. We could only let it be, for that’s the only say we have in this. Let it be. Time is very near; it’s omnipresent, but it’s never within our grasp or whim to control.
The clock ticking away and time becomes a temporary mechanism of which any given event is addressed at, but never has it become a permanent sentient. The passing of time is ironically the only thing constant, making other parameters of the equation as the responding variables.
We wonder, how short our life is, because we could never tell the definite end of it. It’s just through the passing of others do we realise how relatively short our life is.
What we manage to make within this short span of time is what matters; as life happens within this very tiny frame. Then what really matters? Why do we have to let our hearts continue to be broken, our souls to be shattered, our minds to be harassed if life is indeed, too short?
Why do we have to create enemies, hurt our friends, and stop loving if in the end it doesn’t matter? Not to you, not to me, not to God even. Because in the end we will all end up perished, expire. This is too small to compare to the gift of life. Why not we cherish every moment passing with love, knowing that happiness and pain are just another function of time but what we choose between these two is what defining our temporal existence?
And tick tock still, our time ticks away.








10 February 2015

WALKING IN YOUR SHOES

“I wish I could tie you up in my shoes; make you feel unpretty too.” Unpretty, TLC
It must be the selfish part of me, to be wanting things I know I could never have. 
 
They say the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, and my other side of the fence is you.
 
I wonder how walking in your shoes feels like; it’s always a scene to watch you walking by over and over every day. Your style, your looks, your life flash just before my eyes as you walk, deluding me with a sense of incompleteness, inadequacy, insatiability. I wanted an escape, and your life seems perfect to be my escapism. 
  
I bet your wife loves how sweet you smell; the oceanic scent of Polo; and I bet she loves the way you kiss her before you go to bed every night. She would iron your shirt for tomorrow work before ironing her own baju kurung while she smiles looking at her pregnant belly. 
 
I never felt loved, and I wonder how it’s like to be laying side by side with a person you love every night – rising above to heavens and coming back, all with the only person you love.
 
Even in times of trouble, her love saves you from wrecking. The world will never able to hurt you as long as she is by your side, the same way the world can never hurt her as long as she is in your arms. Your unborn child in her womb is your seed of love – literally and metaphorically. Your life is perfect in every sense possible, while I make do with what I have. 
 
I had to come to terms with loneliness with nobody to turn to in times of depression. I had to pretend I don’t care when it comes to matter of the heart, because I know nobody else will. I had to iron my own shirt – bummer. 
 
I feel inadequate most of the time, always being reminded by people that I somehow am different. I wish I know how I could turn my life around, being the person people expected me to be. But most of the time I pretend I know what I’m doing with my life, when in truth I don’t even have a clue. 
 
But you – you look well adjusted. You seemed to know every parlour trick there is to bend the world to your favour. You seemed contented, happy, adequate. And I just wear smiles on my face every day to conceal the pain of feeling lacking.
 
I wish, that I can walk in your shoes for a day and see the life from the perspective of someone else. I wish I could see how myself looks like in the eyes of others. I wish that by walking in your shoes, I could understand better the world and how it is always meant for us. 
 
Your shoes are tempting; Bally shoe or Camel; while mine are those pirated from Thailand. Your life is sweet like cinnamon, while mine seems unfixable. 
 
There’s got to be some kind of meaning to life and Lord, I wish I could see it through your shoes.










09 February 2015

Johny Wants To See The World

 
Last time I had this conversation with Ching Ching, she asked me again if I wanted to further my studies.
“Sure, definitely! But I need to work for the time being. I need to have the motivation to further my studies. I need to really hate working so that I will have a will strong enough to pursue my PhD!”
Hate is a strong word – I got this notion from one of my blog readers, who suggested that I substitute the word with something proper.
But since I started working since 7 months ago, hate is one of the major things I accumulate from the experiences.
I hate this whole experience of working. Even if I have gathered some experiences, some skills, the most predominant thing I collected is hatred.
Working for a company, or working for a government agency really had opened my eyes on what working really meant.
First of all, your nature of business is actually pleasing people, and any other than that is blatant false. Sure, it might state there on your contract what your job scopes are, but the fine prints in reality is accepting whatever tasks your boss or client assign you, no matter how irrational or stupid they are.
Your contract says you should prepare a report on certain occasions, but it does not state the format of the report. This is where the loophole lies, and your client can abuse this loophole to abuse you. They can reject the report because your formatting is different from what they imagine, asking you to do it again and over again until they are satisfied.
Really, your work really depends on your clients’ mood. Sometimes if they’re in the good mood, they’d simply told you not to send them any report. Kawtim-lah, no need report. It’s OK, I’ll pull some strings, change some dates, so you don’t have to send any report to me. Serabutlah, banyak report. Sure, you’ll meet this kind of client too.
Oh and they are also clients who made it their mission to turn your life into living hell. This type of clients is full of hatred no matter what you do to please them. Just last week, a client threatens to throw a file on our face because she couldn’t find a report we sent her. Yeah, suddenly her failure is our mistake. This is her real words she shouted
“Awak nak saya campak file ni dekat muka awak ke baru nak cari report tu?” I literally gushed and straightaway exclaimed “Wow garangnya.”
And she made her point across, again and again that OUR money is at stake.
“Awak nak duit kan? Awak nak duit kan? Yelah, ni semua duit awak ni.”
Sometimes she asked the questions more than once, sarcastically, prompting me to believe that she’s the reincarnation of the devil. The tone, the atmosphere of the meetings pointing towards the fact that she thought of us as inferior beings beneath her.
This is just one client, and we have many more that claw at our throats, ready to cut it if we make any mistake. Oh and all of them are reincarnations of the devil.
You ask me, how I could manage. Well I don’t. I simply don’t. I convinced myself that I am better than all of them and that their negativity could never get to me. I know how much better person I am from all these Neanderthals and that this is just temporary. And my superior always reminds me that this is all ‘duniawi’, nothing of importance in the eyes of God. What really matters is how we use this situation to please God by applying our religion into the commotion.
Yes, if you really want to please God, you won’t shout at other people’s face and berating them with your words. Then again, Allah says whenever you are met with trouble, be patient and perform solat. He didn’t even ask you to think of the solutions, just be patient and solat (or in today’s meme, Keep Calm and Solat). Just imagine that these people are a test and how you react and treat them is how you are going to be judged by Him.
However, with this accumulated hatred, I now know better than corporate world is not for me, and I am so going to be a lecturer; by hook or by crook. And I am going to tell my students that this is what waiting for them in the outside world, and I have gone through hell and live to tell them how it was.
It makes me happy in a way, for this whole thing finally shown me; clearly, how much I need a Ph D. 1st, so I could be an academician who can guide people, which is my real passion of life. 2nd, so that I can be a respected person through my knowledge and not how I answer to clients, and 3rd, so that nobody could step on me because they thought I’m beneath them.
This is a very valuable lesson, and I’m proud to have gone through it all. And hatred, is after all a strong word. To hate it takes a great deal of your emotional power and kudos to those people who managed to give me the feeling.





















06 February 2015

Hari Aku Berhenti Bertanya

Saat itu aku benar-benar mendesak inginkan jawapan. Berjam-jam lamanya aku bertingkah, tapi kau berdiam. Mungkin lebih 1000 hari yang lalu. 
 
Kita bagaikan sudah lali dengan rutin bosan ini – aku bersuara, kau mendiam seribu bahasa. Kali ini cukup berbeza. Aku perlukan sesuatu untuk membuatkanku berhenti berharap. Aku inginkan keputusan. Aku ingin mendengar sendiri, sejauh manakah kita boleh pergi. Atau selama manakah sebenarnya kita telah berhenti? Adakah kita masih berbicara dalam bahasa yang sama, mukasurat buku yang sama? Atau kita sebenarnya tiada lagi punya ruang untuk wujud dalam dunia yang kita sama punya? 
 
Tapi akhirnya bila kau memberikan jawapan, hati aku terguris kejam. Tercalar. Seperti juga hati kau ketika kau meluahkan apa yang sebenarnya yang kau rasa. Ya, walaupun kau yang bersuara setelah lamanya memendam, tapi aku sedar hati kau juga terluka bila mulut menyebut. 
 
Dan bila aku sudah beroleh jawapan, aku terdiam kelat. Kau juga. Kebenarannya terlalu pahit untuk kita berdua telan. Kebenaran itu kadang-kadang tidak perlu diluah kuat untuk dinyatakan, kerana ada bendanya lebih wajar dibiarkan tersirat di belakang ruang. Jika diluahkan apa yang tersirat itu bahasanya terlalu tajamnya untuk disebut. Kita menyakiti hati satu sama lain, tapi kita tahu hati kita juga tersakiti pada masa yang sama. Kita takkan menang. Kita berdua selalu kalah.
 
Kita terlalu bodoh. Aku bodoh untuk selalu percaya, dan kau bodoh untuk berfikir bahawa aku akan berhenti percaya. 
 
Setelah bertemu jawapan, aku sedar bukan jawapannya yang menjadi persoalan. Malah aku sudah lama mengetahui jawapannya, selama mana kau menyimpannya. 
 
Tapi apakah caranya lagi melampiaskan marah selain bertanyakan soalan yang sudah kutahui jawapannya? Hari itu, telah aku pelajari untuk berhenti bertanya.
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