Celebrating National Day 2023
Thursday, August 31, 2023
Wednesday, July 26, 2023
I love you. Jon's 33rd.
I have a confession to make.
I had planned a reunion of sorts on your birthday because I was stumped about what to post for your 33rd. So an event or a meaningful meeting would definitely give me something to write about.
On Monday I texted a certain someone whom I've not seen in a long time asking her to join me for a cup of coffee on Wednesday. It didn't happen.
I also scheduled a much needed, long awaited dentist appointment late in the afternoon on Wednesday.
That didn't happen either. My dentist had an emergency.
AL swung by in less than 20 minutes whisking me away to the deep recesses of Old Klang Road to a hipster coffee joint serving bagels with cream cheese and spicy potato wedges washed down with gula melaka latte. We sat in the small converted link house enjoying the fare while young local Chinese baristas hustle about the cafe in their oversized t-shirts tucked into tight high-waisted jeans. They seem to be doing fine especially the resident cat. After a healthy dose of single origin African coffee and conversation we left for another new coffee joint in Sect. 14 PJ but it was closed.
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| Cafe' Cat by PineForest |
So we went to a nearby cafe restaurant owned and run by a friend named Jonathan. Having visited him several times before I could see he wasn't his usual self. He looked depressed, and troubled by business woes. Ever since the post-covid recovery phase, Jon has been struggling to make a living to support his young family and in the past few months business has gotten worse at his cafe at Jaya Shopping Center.
I tried the standard blanket statement of 'all of us are also suffering bro' but I didn't think he bought it.
I tried the standard blanket statement of 'all of us are also suffering bro' but I didn't think he bought it.
In fact he confessed that in the mornings before he opens his restaurant, he'd sit in the dark pondering the fate of his business, and that of his family, driving him to the brink of a breakdown.
Here is a man who has had the courage to strike out to practice his craft of creative cooking but circumstances seem too overwhelming to endure. It seems that he was beginning to entertain all thoughts of abandonment and resignation in search of employment.
I have often wondered how people in business are coping with the post-pandemic fallout. Now I am getting the answers as if in search of stories to mirror my own. The only difference is that I don't have the yoke of a young family to weigh me down or spur me on. Either way, suffer we must.
Ponder, reflect, contemplate day and night in solitude we must, until we come face to face with our predicament. And maybe if we are patient enough, we will find the answers we seek in ourselves.
We sat with Jon a long while, listening to his plans pre and post-covid and as he talked us through, it seemed he had a couple of viable options available for him to decide his next steps. We left him feeling and looking much more cheerful than we found him even though he refused to join us for dinner at the newly opened Chinese Muslim Mee Tarek and Mee Hiris Restaurant downstairs.
So looking at what has unfolded today, if I were to have a man to man talk with Jon the cafe owner, I wouldn't know how to tell him what I think he needed to know in a way he'd understand because it would tantamount to preaching and enter the realm of meta physics.
Hence I just sat there listening and holding space for that young man to vent.
However, if it was you Jonathan, my son in a similar situation, I would probably say these to you;
As long as we are willing to adapt, we can survive under any condition.
If we are used to eating five meals a day, cut it down to two. This will reveal our eating habits are just that - habits we have gotten used to unnecessarily over feed our bodies even though we are not hungry. Our body will thank us for not over burdening the system.
2. The mind is and always will be our enemy. Be mindful.
Most problems only exist in our minds. We just have to remind ourselves that every problem has a solution as long as we are willing to face them. When we do that we begin to see that things aren't as bad as we imagined. But the mind's primary job is to think and even overthink incessantly. Our job is to control the mind and use it to serve us and not the other way around. To do that, we have to be mindful. To focus on our breath that will bring us to the present moment. To stay in the present is to focus on everyone and everything around us because this is the only reality that exist, right now. So by constantly being here now, will silence the mind and lessen the endless chatter.
3. Fear does not exist. Live exuberantly.
When we're fully present, we begin to realise that fear has no place to dwell in our being. Fear is what we encounter when we lose unity with the present moment. Our mind then dwells in the past or gets anxious about the future.
4. Everything is temporary, ephemeral, transitional.
All that is subject to arising is subject to ceasing. the Buddha said. That is a universal, scientific truth.
No matter what we are going through, whether it be a joyous situation or a negative one, it will pass.
After the winter, comes spring. It's only natural hence irrefutable.
And sure enough the sun will come shining through.
If it's not shining yet, keep going, singing in the rain, soon there will be laughter in the rain or sunshine.
Well Jon, this is your post. The message is that I see you, us in every young man especially the ones named Jonathan. Just like you he's talented and hardworking. And I know just like you, he'll be fine.
Happy 33rd Dude.
P/s. I've chosen a song by my childhood crush for your birthday soire'. She's a Hawaiian hottie.
Thursday, July 20, 2023
I love you. Ken's Visit
Playing Host to Ken Brady
Everything that could possibly go wrong, went wrong on one of the most important nights of my life.
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| Image:Bangsar-babe |
I sent a courtesy email the night before to ascertain dinner at 8 and to wish him and his partner a safe & pleasant trip. He replied as early as 7am the next morning to advise of a flight delay from Bangkok landing in KL at 5pm instead of 2. My proposed dinner time was still doable. I calculated.
So I went about my day with scheduled meetings with Fai and Al, an intern from Kuantan. Our meeting went fabulously well but there were further delays in Ken's flight into KL. There was a second departure delay that had them sitting in their plane on the tarmac at Suvarnabhumi for another 90 minutes while airline officials off-loaded luggage for no-show passengers on a full flight. They finally landed at KLIA at 7. I was still at the office and made a mental note to leave at 8 to fetch Ken from his hotel in Bukit Bintang. With traffic coming into KL from KLIA on a Friday evening, I anticipated his arrival at the hotel at 9 at the earliest.
I was wrong. Just minutes before 8, he texted they had arrived and checked-in at their hotel. Horrors. I was still at the office. We rushed out the door into Friday night traffic going into the city center. It was a nightmare when in our haste we missed a right turn into Raja Chulan leading to Bukit Bintang.
We finally made it to the hotel lobby at 8.41pm. Our dinner guests looked very relaxed and seemingly unaffected by the day's delays. Ken looks as dashing as ever as does Mac. We quickly piled into Fai's car inching up Bukit Bintang, one of the busiest roads in town, slowly and surely making our way to nearby Hakka Restaurant (since 1956). All is well I thought, we can still make our dinner reservation. But no, we were chased and stopped by a Police patrol car, told to wait in the car while a summons was slowly handwritten and issued to Fai for running a red light. What red light??
As we reached our iconic restaurant, thank god they were still open and kept my reservation, I was silently contemplating what else could possibly go wrong with the night.
We got to our table, sat down and ordered wine, food and crabs! Chilli crabs are what we came here for.
They're Mac's favourite.
They're Mac's favourite.
I settled down, sat back to look at my guests like prized catches, to fully appreciate and acknowledge their presence and let out a satisfying sigh. Then I looked around the old establishment and recalled the last time I sat here was in late 2018. I was having dinner with four lovely and very powerful ladies.
One was an investment banker, another an heiress to an international Swiss watch brand with her teenage daughter and the fourth, an heiress of a property-based conglomerate. Yes I felt like a sausage in a basket of rich muffins. To be precise, three muffins and a cupcake.
I snapped out of my stupor when the waitress slapped a menu on the table and cried; "No more crab."
What the..??!! I began exclaiming when I realised I found the answer to the question I was earlier contemplating. No crabs. I buried my head in my hands resigning to hopefully the last thing to go wrong tonight. My head went limp in my hands partly from embarrassment from the misfortunes suffered tonight and partly from utter disbelief. I finally showed my face to my guests and apologised painfully. My gracious guests took it in their stride for the second time that night. It was a sobering night. Even the delicious New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc didn't help much.
But we had a fabulous time.
Ken was his usual talkative self enlightening us with some of his travel stories in Egypt with Michael Ball. He kept remarking at how he remembered eating at this restaurant many years ago. Mac was grinning affably enjoying his maiden trip to KL while Fai paid full attention to Ken having sat down next to him on my left. I was feeling pleased in the moment enraptured in the fact that I am once again in the presence of my mentor who I respect and admire and who has played a large part in shaping my professional life. This time I was hosting him in my city. A city Ken has grown fond of and familiar with. We ate the fish and prawn dishes, drank wine and talked till closing time. Then we drove Ken & Mac back to the Marriot way past his 10pm moratorium hugging and leaving them happy and tired from their day of travels and delays.
We left feeling a huge sense of relief everything went fabulously well. Including the misadventures. In fact we agreed that they made the milestone event more memorable.
Later that night as I sat on my balcony, reflecting my friend Ken, I realised he was the only 'Big Brother' father figure person left in my life. My mentor who has known and nurtured me for over 30 years.
We first met and instantly connected at the poolside of a beach resort in Kuantan where I had my first taste of training conducted by 'the' Ken Brady, one of the founders of Ogilvy's Magic Lantern training series worldwide. It was the first of many to come, starting the steep curve of lessons turning me, a scruffy Malaysian Chinese hooligan into a gentleman, better an advertising executive in the mould of Michael Ball leading directly to David Ogilvy, the father of Advertising.
I try to make regular visits to Bangkok to see Ken. I remember my last visit right after my divorce just before the Covid lockdowns. I needed to tell someone about my life at that point. I had no one to tell to except Ken. He mirrored how I felt. He felt heartbroken, mumbled some comforting words and sat with me in silence. I suppose it was at that point that my healing started.
We have kept in constant touch via email. Ken would send a barrage of daily emails mainly curating tid bits of news, images, videos, jokes, or anything interesting worth sharing. His daily missives would occasionally be peppered with detailed and thoughtful travel posts after he returns from his travels from anywhere. Ken travels at the frequency of migratory birds. Throughout the years he has I'm sure amassed quite a following from his travels to share his daily emails far and wide. In fact I would say this advertising guru started email marketing and community building decades ago.
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| Image:KenBrady |
Speaking of community, no visit of Ken is complete without fraternising with the guys. These would be the remaining male colleagues left from The Ball Partnership & Spider days, the nineteen eighties and nineties They all showed up in full force. All four of them. So the seven of us had another round of seafood dinner (with crabs) hosted by Ken at Hokkaido Seafood restaurant in the fringes of the city on Saturday night.
All of us still had our teeth to enjoy the sumptuous crab dinner and our memories to reap the dividends of comradeship invested over 30 years ago. It was a happy reunion sans our fearless leader TL whose legacy we have become. He passed in 2009 and it was at his funeral we all were together last and according to Ken, it was at a dinner we had on that night that he had never laughed so much since.
Well, seeing what Ken has accomplished in his lifetime, in a vocation that brought us together, it is no wonder he is having the last laugh. It was a life well lived as is still being lived. Very richly.
Now that is an incredible story for another day.
First I'll have to track him down, sit him down to tell me history.
Friday, June 30, 2023
I love you. June
June /dʒuːn/ noun
the sixth month of the year, in the northern hemisphere usually considered the first month of summer.
"the roses flower in June"
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| Photo by Tuân Nguyễn Minh on Unsplash |
We are at the end of the first six months of the year although I felt as if I have just welcomed January not long ago posted <here>.
Seems time has literally flown spent virtually doing “nothing”
And by painstakingly doing nothing, and waiting.
Not just waiting twiddling my thumbs but waiting in a state of flow.
Of equanimity. Of sitting with oneself in silence and solitude.
Of not running away from oneself but sitting with one's pain. Befriending it.
Breaching the void, enjoying it and it's impermanence.
What a beautiful month June has blossomed into.
Truly “roses flower in June”
Stillness is truly the superactivity of the source.
And what a year it has been, getting to take stock at the half-way mark.
I am prepping and bracing myself for the next half.
And I know well enough the main aim is to take care of my physical body.
Now that my spiritual body is strong, I am also ready, willing and able to face the months ahead one day at a time.
As they say in sports; Let's go out and win the race.
Have a great second half of the year.
Saturday, June 17, 2023
I love you. Rabindranath Tagore
The Bard of Bengal
The first Asian and non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, Rabindranath Tagore wrote poetry, lyrics, dance dramas, songs and stories since he was 8. By age 16, his first substantial work - The Songs of Bhanushingo Thakur was described as 'long lost classics' by literary authorities.
In 1910 he wrote Gitanjali - Song Offerings in Bengali.
The translated version was admired by WB Yeats and Ezra Pound. The former wrote a lengthy intro for his book. His fame grew as his works spread to the western world and he was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours but Tagore renounced it after the Jallianwala Bagh Amritsar massacre in 1919.
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| Tagore with Gandhi |
Featured here is a poem from the Gitanjali;
Unending Love
“I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times.
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, after age, forever.
Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age old pain,
It's ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.
You become an image of what is remembered forever.”
~ Ravindranath Tagore.
Monday, June 12, 2023
I love you. Peter & Paul.
THE JUDGMENT OF PETER AND PAUL ON OLYMPUS
Here is another poem in prose about religion ostensibly replacing Greek mythology. Which is a myth onto itself.
As civilisations evolve, beliefs and ideology change with the times as power favours the organised. The Roman empire stretched from England (Wales) to Egypt, encompassing everything in between stretching to Constantinople in the East. The Romans originally believed in Pantheism- the worship of many gods inherited from Greek mythology featuring the promiscuous Zeus and his supporting cast of beautiful heroes. The cast remain somewhat intact just a change of names to Jupiter, Juno, Mars, Mercury, Neptune, Venus, Apollo, Diana, Minerva, Ceres, Vulcan, and Vesta.
It was the Emperor Constantine whose open-mindedness allowed freedom of worship for subjects of the vast Roman empire. He embraced Christianity when he had a dream to paint the symbol of Christianity on the shields of his soldiers. He did and his men won the battle. Also the religion that Jesus preached was in stark contrast to the anger, jealousy and punishment that many of the Roman dieties seemed to encompass.
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| The Council of Gods on Olympus by Peter Paul Rubens - The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain |
THE JUDGMENT OF PETER AND PAUL ON OLYMPUS
A POEM IN PROSE
IT was a night of spring, calm, silvery, and fragrant with dewy jasmine. The full moon was sailing above Olympus, and on the glittering, snowy summit of the mountain it shone with a clear, pensive, greenish light. Farther down in the Vale of Tempe was a dark thicket of thorn-bushes, shaken by the songs of nightingales—by entreaties, by complaints, by calls, by[Pg 56] allurements, by languor, by sighs. These sounds flowed like the music of flutes, filling the night; they fell like a pouring rain, and rushed on like rivers. At moments they ceased; then such silence followed that one might almost hear the snow thawing on the heights under the warm breath of May. It was an ambrosial night.
On that night came Peter and Paul, and sat on the highest grassmound of the slope to pass judgment on the gods of antiquity. The heads of the Apostles were encircled by halos, which illuminated their gray hair, stern brows, and severe eyes. Below, in the deep shade of beeches, stood the assembly of gods, abandoned and in dread, awaiting their sentence.
[Pg 57]Peter motioned with his hand, and at the sign Zeus stepped forth first from the assembly and approached the Apostles. The Cloud-Compeller was still mighty, and as huge as if cut out of marble by Phidias, but weakened and gloomy. His old eagle dragged along at his feet with broken wing, and the blue thunderbolt, grown reddish in places from rust, and partly quenched, seemed to be slipping from the stiffening right hand of the former father of gods and men. But when he stood before the Apostles the feeling of ancient supremacy filled his broad breast. He raised his head haughtily, and fixed on the face of the aged fisherman of Galilee his proud and glittering[Pg 58] eyes, which were as angry and as terrible as lightnings.
Olympus, accustomed to tremble before its ruler, shook to its foundations. The beeches quivered with fear, the song of the nightingales ceased, and the moon sailing above the snows grew as white as the linen web of Arachne. The eagle screamed through his crooked beak for the last time, and the lightning, as if animated by its ancient force, flashed and began to roar terribly at the feet of its master; it reared, hissed, snapped, and raised its three-cornered, flaming forehead, like a serpent ready to stab with poisonous fang. But Peter pressed the fiery bolts with his foot and crushed them to the earth. Turning[Pg 59] then to the Cloud-Compeller, he pronounced this sentence: “Thou art cursed and condemned through all eternity.” At once Zeus was extinguished. Growing pale in the twinkle of an eye, he whispered, with blackening lips, “᾽Ανάγκη” (“Necessity”), and vanished through the earth.
Poseidon of the dark curls next stood before the Apostles, with night in his eyes, and in his hand the blunted trident. To him then spoke Peter:
“It is not thou who wilt rouse the billows. It is not thou who wilt lead the storm-tossed ships to a quiet haven, but she who is called the ‘Star of the Sea.’”
[Pg 60]When Poseidon heard this he screamed, as if pierced with sudden pain, and turned into vanishing mist.
Next rose Apollo, the Silver-bowed, with a hollow lute in his hand, and walked toward the holy men. Behind him moved slowly the nine Muses, looking like nine white pillars. Terror-stricken, they stood before the judgment-seat, as if petrified, breathless, and without hope; but the radiant Apollo turned to Paul, and, in a voice which resembled wondrous music, said:
“Slay me not! Protect me, lord; for shouldst thou slay me, thou wouldst have to restore me to life again. I am the blossom of the soul of humanity; I am its gladness; I[Pg 61] am light; I am the yearning for God. Thou knowest best that the song of earth will not reach heaven if thou break its wings. Hence I implore thee, O saint, not to smite down Song.”
A moment of silence came. Peter raised his eyes toward the stars. Paul placed his hands on his sword-hilt, rested his forehead on them, and for a time fell into deep thought. At last he rose, made the sign of the cross calmly above the radiant head of the god, and said:
“Let Song live!”
Apollo sat down with his lute at the feet of the Apostle. The night became clearer, the jasmine gave out a stronger perfume, the glad [Pg 62]fountains sounded, the Muses gathered together like a flock of white swans, and, with voices still quivering from fear, began to sing in low tones marvellous words never heard on the heights of Olympus till that hour:
To thy protection we flee, holy Mother of God.
We come with our prayers; deign thou not to reject us,
But be pleased to preserve us from every evil,
O thou, our Lady!
Thus they sang on the heather, raising their eyes like pious nuns with heads covered with white.
Other gods came now. Bacchus and his chorus dashed past, wild, unrestrained, crowned with ivy and[Pg 63] grapevine, and bearing the cithara and the thyrsus. They rushed on madly, with shouts of despair, and fell into the bottomless pit.
Then before the Apostles stood a lofty, proud, sarcastic divinity, who, without waiting for question or sentence, spoke first. On her lips was a smile of derision.
“I am Pallas Athene. I do not beg life of you. I am an illusion, nothing more. Odysseus honored and obeyed me only when he had become senile. Telemachus listened to me only till hair covered his chin. Ye cannot take immortality from me, and I declare that I have been a shadow, that I am a shadow now, and shall remain a shadow forever.”
[Pg 64]At last her turn came to the most beautiful, the most honored goddess. As she approached, sweet, marvellous, tearful, the heart under her snow-white breast beat like the heart in a bird, and her lips quivered like those of a child that fears cruel punishment. She fell at their feet, and, stretching forth her divine arms, cried in fear and humility:
“I am sinful, I deserve blame, but I am Joy. Have mercy, forgive; I am the one happiness of mankind.” Then sobbing and fear took away her voice.
But Peter looked at the goddess with compassion, and placed his aged palm on her golden hair, while Paul, bending toward a cluster of white[Pg 65] field-lilies, broke off one blossom, and touching her with it, said:
“Joy, be henceforth like this flower, and live thou for mankind.”
Then came dawn—the divine dawn that looked out from beyond a depression between two peaks. The nightingales stopped singing, and immediately finches, linnets, and wrens began to draw their sleepy little heads from under their moistened wings, shaking the dew from their feathers, and repeating in low voices, “Svit! svit!” (“Light! light!”).
The earth awoke, smiled, and was delighted, because Song and Joy had not been taken from it.
Thursday, May 25, 2023
I love you. ee cummings
Depth & Death in One Sentence. A Poem.
l
(al
ea
fa
ll
s)
on
el
in
es
s.
l(a leaf falls)oneliness.
The layout of ee cumming's shortest poem is presented as such. Vertically descending.
Though the shortest poem, it probably evokes the most amount of discourse, discussions, dissections and definitions.
Obsessed with using letters in lower case, including his name, ee cummings laid use of letters (and parenthesis's) putting them to great utility in the arrangement for optimum effect in serving the idea and the message/s intended.
What is the meaning of this one-sentenced poem? Best described as, a falling leaf interrupting the word loneliness after the first letter lowercase 'l'. To read l()oneliness
For me, it's a diss on the word 'loneliness' metamorphosing the word to 'oneliness' when we realise that a person's life, best represented by a single leaf that one day must fall to the ground. So to feel lonely is to miss the point that it is in our 'oneliness' or oneness with the all that completes the whole.
We are never alone in this cosmos, we are always in oneness with it.
And once we come to this realisation, we no longer wallow in loneliness but unite in 'Oneliness' with the cosmos.
Loneliness comes when all our days are spent in self-centredness.
The very activity of self-centredness produces loneliness.
It is narrowing the whole vast extraordinariness of life into one small 'me'.
Amen.
Thursday, April 13, 2023
I love you. 65
Reality or Science Fiction? Or just a rant.
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| Pohon Beringin*by PineForest |
I am quite sure nobody remembers what actually happens on one's birthday. Or is it just me? Who is not so big on birthdays.
My mother always used to say; "If you're happy everyday, everyday is your birthday." Having said that; she'd still cook meesua soup with hard boiled eggs for me on my birthday. Thanks Abu.
Be that as it may, I'm going to remember this one.
On the night before, having gone to bed only at the wee hours, after the usual sojourn on my easy chair perched on my balcony, I finally drifted off to sleep as Alan Watts droned on my Spotify app. I find his talks very soothing if not tranquilizing, especially on the subjects of polarity and psychedelics.
I woke up just after eight to the sound of my phone ringing. A brother from another mother rang to shout greetings in my ear, seems like from a script that alluded to brotherly love, long life, happiness, joy and weed. Interestingly enough, I have spent more time with brother JB than any other person over the last few years. Hence it is no surprise why I had earlier texted him expressing my desire to spend today with him to 'jalan-jalan cari makan'. Unfortunately for me, he's away on a job in the north. Insyallah we meet next week when he returns.
Well, it seems that I have made it to 65, 15 years after 50 and 5 years after 60.
Both occasions were celebrated with a grand party. The first, a surprise party thrown by my family and my colleagues (master-minded by my ex-wife) when I hit 51. I wasn't in the mood to celebrate but I was blown-away with the gift of an exquisite memorial book that never fails to bring tears to my eyes each time I turn the pages.
When I hit 60, I splurged on a big Hollywood-themed party that felt as dramatic and as strange as a Hollywood script. On hindsight it turned out to be a farewell party for my closest and dearest. I left my home and my family that year. That brought tears to my eyes too.
Am I wallowing in self pity and remorse right now?
I wouldn't be writing to commemorate this day if I were. I am writing because I have not felt this good in as many years. At least not that I can recall. Nor can I recall a more painful journey.
Perhaps the best way to mark this milestone is to list the 10 things I learnt under it.
And call it - What I know now at 65.
1. Life is to be enjoyed in-between the gaps of sorrow that will engulf us.
The secret is to live it fully, regardless. We are playing a game of hide and seek with ourselves here. In the end nothing really matters. We staged all this so that we can experience ourselves in this life. We came here as a Persona. Hence Person. The definition of which is Greek for a mask. A mask from which we put on a front/facade with an open mouthpiece that amplifies our voice to an open theatre. Latin verb per-sonare, literally sounding through.
Because we so cleverly staged this life, we also cleverly caused ourselves to forget this staging. After all where's the fun in playing games where we already know the outcomes? And one thing is for sure, woman/mankind love to play games and be entertained. The more challenging, the more real, the more brutal, the more heartbreaking, the better. Or else what else is there to do? Even falling in love and making babies these days are falling out of favour but the constant consumption of stories continues.
The stories begin with the self. Our body, our possessions, our feelings and our beliefs. As the world gets smaller our lives intertwine with others and engage with the world at large. The players, including ourselves, play our parts so well that soon we buy into the stories whole-heartedly. We get entangled in the drama and we get deeply attached to the passions, possessions and people in our lives. With deep attachments we get disappointed, dissatisfied and disillusioned. Pain and suffering follow inevitably.
Remember, it's all a play. The sooner we wise up the better the play.
2. We look in all the wrong places.
Then the search for meaning and purpose of life begins. We look for other passions, possessions, and people thinking they may be the answer. We get to soothe ourselves again momentarily. But they're just temporary, soon the same cycle of pain and suffering resurfaces and we sink further into destitute, desperation and depression. We resort to medicating our pain with alcohol, drugs, shopping or other therapies but nothing on this road can bring us lasting relief. Sounds familiar? That's pretty much where the human race is at.
The good news is the search for meaning and purpose continues. Because deep down, we know, we just know that, there is something we have to remember about ourselves..
Remember, it's all Maya. An illusion. Wise up.
3. This life is not about me. It is about ALL of us.
Life is certainly very seductive. One cannot be faulted if one falls heavily infatuated with it, or worse head over heels in search of pleasure. It isn't and it shouldn't be about pleasure. At least not in the way Hollywood portrayed it to be. As much as I abhor isn'ts, wouldn'ts and shouldn'ts, the pursuit of pleasure is not prohibited. But I have discovered that pleasure comes with it's inseparable terrible twin called pain. Pursue pleasure by all means, but be prepared to face the pain that comes with it. It's guaranteed.
But I for one has been brought up on the concept of pleasure and I intend to live in pleasure whenever I can. Pleasure in this respect as defined by the stoics;
"The absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul." ~ Epicurus
Whatever your religious inclinations, beliefs, ideologies, philosophies, or superstitions, this is mine;
I know deep down, we all come from the same place, the same source. The universe is conscious. How do I know? Because I am conscious. Conscious of the fact that, just like Copernicus and Galileo discovered, the sun doesn't revolve around our earth. Our Sun, one of many suns in our galaxy, one of many galaxies in our universe, keeps our solar system in place with Mercury in first, Jupiter in fifth is our largest planet. It is our sun's gravity that pulls the planets in our solar system together to revolve around it. Much like how electrons revolve around protons. By design, the configuration of atoms that make up our body is almost identical to our solar system. It is no coincidence that we are designed and configured as such. It is a universal spirit, tao, energy, god or brahman that unites us. We are ONE.
Remember, we are ALL in on this charade. The ONE playing all the roles.
4. The answer lies within us.
Our knowledge of outer space, however minuscule, serves little to satisfy our curiosity about the immensity that surrounds us day and night. The empty space that we gaze out upon, seem to be full of 'nothing'. Is it really just nothing? Or can only something come out of nothing? That idea can only be understood when we explore inner space which we know so little about compared to outer space.
Inner space has two parts- the first is physical space on our planet, our own backyard, our forests, rivers, seas and oceans. We seem to know more about the other planets than our own planet. That's because the powers that can afford to do this has conquest driven by ego on their agenda. This line of thinking pretty much defines the relationship we humans have with the cosmos including nature, they are to be conquered and controlled. Hence the fight with nature and the conquest of outer space.
Second, there's the inner space within us. That space some would call our higher self, inner being or just our consciousness. This is the space that is the most important but least visited hence least known- ourselves. This is our 95%.
Remember, we are connected to a higher eternal source.
5. Who Am I?
Who we truly are or Who am I? is the question that is as old as the existence of the human race. Yet it remains the current question that confronts all generations. It is one of the most confounding and perplexing questions that has ever riddled humankind. Perhaps because the answers are difficult to find or perhaps the answers we have on hand are difficult to comprehend, we turn to seek external answers from religion, science or philosophy. Having found, read, listened to thinkers, writers, philosophers like David Friedrich Strauss, Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Neitzsche, Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. These sages paved the way for nihilism, existentialism and absurdism, they killed God and triggered the search for life's meaning and purpose.
The better question to contemplate and query; Who Am I? The answer is... see #4.
6. Nature is separate from us. (?)
Therefore it has to be conquered and controlled. Hence the destruction of the rainforests and flattening of the earth to build steel and concrete cities and communities with little regard to nature.
Results show that this belief is not only not working but it is threatening all lives on the planet. Science tells us that we inhale oxygen produced by plants and trees through photosynthesis which uses the carbon dioxide we and other animal lifeforms produce as waste. Isn't that already a miracle of life? A symbiotic relationship in action.
There is so much we don't know about nature and the life that surrounds us. Science- originally known as Philosophical Studies was the pursuit and search for the truth. The philosophers were our first scientists. Truths and theories were already discovered since the days of Socrates, Copernicus and Galileo. Then it became institutionalised and politicised from as far back as time in memorial.
Nature is not separate from us humans. We are part of nature just as stars are part of the sky. Nature is intelligent, nature has immense power, nature is god. We come from nature. Therefore when we destroy nature we destroy ourselves.
ALL of us are guilty of this. This is a note to self #nts.
7. Mankind is a superior being created by god separate from all other forms of creation.
Some forms of man is even more superior to other forms of man. Therefore some people see it fit to impose their will upon others. By force when the others refuse to succumb to their demands. Hence the propagation of wars and conquest of people and nations in the name of god, righteousness, threats, suspicions of threats, fabrication of threats, with no regard to the suffering imposed upon the lives of innocent human beings.
Again, the slaughter of fellow humans come with great ease and little remorse amongst us. Nothing seems to have changed since the beginning of civilisation. As I write this, major conflicts and wars are still being propagated in Asia, Europe, South America and Africa.
Remember Socrates was sentenced to death by the Athenian court, Jesus was killed by his own people, the Jews, Copernicus and Gallileo were branded heretics by the catholic Church, Gandhi was murdered by an Indian, and JFK was assassinated by a white American. What were their sins? All of them had only one thing in common, they discovered, spoke and stood for the truth. Now didn't Jesus say that, "the truth shall set you free?" but obviously not for these blokes. And more evidently; all of them had the support of the masses.
So if man can turn on itself with such ferocity and self righteousness, what hope do 'lesser' beings or organisms have?
Good and Evil is the inseparable duality within the singularity.
8. The earth, nature, we, are all doomed to destruction and extinction.
Seems that way however all is not doom and gloom when we consider this generation of humans as the most comfortable, convenience-empowered and most informed about almost everything everywhere.
Thanks to technology, which is a by-product of science in the pursuit of the conquest and control of space, nature and nations, we get to enjoy high speed internet connections enabling more bandwidth for multiple layers of interactions to better living in the comfort of wherever we are.
Jack Kilby, (and Robert Noyce) in 1958, invented the integrated circuit or microchip at Texas Instrument, they had no idea this creation would change the world with information. Later Noyce together with Gordon Moore founded Intel to work on the production of semiconductor memory chips which became Intel's first big commercial success. They worked on improving the integrated circuit and microprocessor which led to a law bearing Moore's name postulating that the number of transistors on a single chip will double every 18 months to 2 years. This exponential law prophesized in1965 is still delivering. The microchip today has shrunk to an invisible 2 nanometers (nm) housing an incredible 60 billion transistors. A single strand of human hair is 100nm in diameter. As I write this, IBM has this latest capability in store.
The microchip will be the world's most affordable commodity, it will be cheaper than scrap paper. Soon everyone will be wearing contact lenses infused with microchips storing and accessing information tethered to the www. In just a blink, information is presented in our sight in real time.
Artificial intelligence will grow body parts, organs, bones, skin, tissue from our bodies. At the risk of this post sounding like a science fiction novella, it is highly likely that I get to see the human body regenerate itself and even reverse ageing in this lifetime. As much as the new technology and AI sounds inspiring, it is also frightening.
Humans have evolved with environmental factors. We are already cyborgs in the making.
9. What will become of us?
Machine learning and AI will be so advanced that perhaps it is inevitable that they take over. The rise of the machines seems plausible now as it was mooted since the science fiction days of Asimov, Clarke and Wells.
In 1997, the world's greatest player of chess, Gary Kasparov, was defeated by the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue in a highly publicised match. He then described the loss akin to playing against sheer brute force.
Then in 2016, the ancient Chinese game of Go widely played in China, South Korea and Japan, succumbed to Google's DeepMind AlphaGo program. Go was considered a more complex game than Chess with far more possible moves which requires more intuition and is far less susceptible to brute force. The unthinkable happened. The machine beat top-ranked Lee Sedol in a game where the number of legal board positions has been calculated to be approximately 2.1 x 10170 which is far greater than the number of atoms in the observable universe, estimated to be of the order 1080 (read as ten to the power of eighty).
While DeepBlue relied on brute computational force to evaluate millions of positions, AlphaGo relied on neural networks and reinforcement learning. See the thrilling award-winning documentary >HERE
The machines have arrived, the gradient of exponential doubling of transistors on a microchip has metastasized into a wall. A wall of unstoppable brute force propelling mankind into a super bright future or condemning us to a dark world where we become slaves to the machines. Gordon Moore's vision of exponential growth has been realised much like the evolution of the species that started with a single-cell organism.
It appears we have come full circle.
10. What do we do?
We should keep on doing what we have been doing or have been trying to do for the longest time. Nothing.
Let's face it, we have basically been doing nothing. Except when the life as we know it, tries to tell us to get busy doing things that don't make sense or even matter. These so called 'things' that we were told or told to do by our parents, teachers, preachers, bosses, the system were useful only to the extent of merely surviving as humans. The great potential, found in the 'being' equation of 'human beings' was left largely unaddressed, needs to be seriously addressed. After all, we are human beings not human doings.
Perhaps now, with the rise of the machines we are compelled to face, meet, confront our being to discover who we really are.
There has never been a better time than now to sit and do nothing while the machines do all our non-essential work that doesn't require our own special creativity, taste, feelings or emotions.
We sit in stillness to connect with our divine nature tapping into the unlimited realm of endless possibilities.
Here is the search for meaning and purpose.
Here is where we bestow meaning and purpose in our lives to pursue our hearts desires.
Here is when we create our art to share with the world.
Here is where we ask the difficult question of; Who am I?
And here is where we start to tell our stories from our hearts, which the machines do not possess.
Start doing Nothing. Start with Meditation.
Thank you for reading/listening to my Birthday rant.
See you on the other side.
*Pohon Beringin or Tree of Life symbolises the abundance of life. Life in the water, on land, in the air, in Kelantan shadow puppet. The Banyan tree is the symbol of the wayang kulit at the start and the end of the show. Art by Wayang Kulit, Kelantan.
Sunday, April 09, 2023
I love you. Jesus Christ
The True Meaning of Easter
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| The scourging of Jesus who was tortured prior to his crucifixion. DeAgostini/Getty Images |
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| Pilate washing his hands off Jesus' death. DeAgostini/Getty Images |
"In order to live a good life you have to place truth above everything else, so that you don’t fear speaking the truth even if the truth harms you as you speak." ~ Tolstoy
Jesus also said;
“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” ~ John 8.31-32
They dragged him before Pilate* to be tried for blasphemy—for claiming, they said, to be King of the Jews. And they pressured Pilate, the only one with power to impose a death sentence, to call for his crucifixion.
According to the Gospel of Mark, Pilate came to the defence of Jesus before yielding to the desire of the crowd.
*Pontius Pilate was the Roman prefect (governor) of Judea, a subprovince of Syria, who ordered the crucifixion of Jesus. As prefect, Pilate commanded Roman military units, authorized construction projects, arranged for the collection of imperial taxes, and decided civil and criminal cases.
So what was it exactly that got Jesus nailed to the cross?
Apparently they say it is the words that he uttered or someone uttered that alluded to him being the King of the Jews.
The crowd including the Jews who gathered at his hearing before Pilate, instigated that he be crucified. Something the equivalent of a lynching mob that harassed Pilate into condemning the man to death.
Research reveals the real reason Jesus was crucified was because he committed an offence in Jewish law. The high priest regards Jesus' claim as blasphemous. For this reason Pilates wanted to release Jesus realising there is no substance to the chief priest's accusations.
He offers the crowd the choice between Jesus and Barabbas hoping to be able to set Jesus free. But his plan fails when the chief priests malevolently incites the crowd to ask for Barabbas to be freed and for Jesus to be crucified.
Pilate vainly continues his desperate struggle to save Jesus from an unjust fate by appealing to them; " Why? What evil has he done?"
But he is eventually forced to submit to the fanatical Jewish mob baying for Jesus' blood and reluctantly condemns Jesus to death by crucifixion.
The rest then is history.
Happy Easter all.
Saturday, March 18, 2023
I love you. Bitter Sweet Symphony
Life.
'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, that's life
Tryna make ends meet, you're a slave to money then you die..' ~ The Verve
The original composers of the iconic and most controversial song was first attributed to Mick Jagger & Keith Richards. After 22 years of legal battles (over minor technicalities) between the managers and their lawyers, the rights to the song was finally given to The Verve whose 1996 recording and video became a huge hit.
How did they finally resolve the long standing suit?
Simple. By simply asking. All they did was ask Mick & Keith and they said yes.
The person involved in the middle of this fracas was Allen Klein, the shrewd and successful manager for both The Beatles as well as The Rolling Stones.
Anyway that's just a little trivia about the biggest injustices of the music industry around one of the most beautiful songs in the music industry.
Isn't this a Bittersweet Symphony in itself? Life's like that isn't it?
Enjoy.
(And Don't be a slave to money.)
Thursday, March 02, 2023
I love you. February
A Clear Night. A Full Moon. An Outdoor Party. Family and Friends.
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| Photo by Alexa on Unsplash |
Chap Goh Mei, the 5th of February kicked off a much awaited and well deserved holiday celebration making up for Xmas, New Year, Chinese New Year and even Valentine's Day. And coinciding with Thaipusam.
I came out of hiatus to celebrate with family and friends. Lots to eat, lots to drink and lots to talk about, non-stop around the clock till dawn, then rest and repeat all weekend. That’s when I learnt that celebrations are mandatory among family and friends with wild boar ribs and cutlets roasting alongside chicken wings and drumsticks on the bbq. The more we have the more joyful we become when it's naturally isolated with no neighbours within sight.
Having being blissfully ensconced in my cave since November, progressing through December and January until February, I decided to spend at least one major holiday differently- alone.
Did it with all three major holidays and ended up having a most enjoyable time.
My lifelong valuable lessons;
1. There is already so much to do alone, what more if there were another person/s around?
One would not have the luxury of space, time and silence to spend with oneself doing one's desires or simply doing nothing.
2. The self-incarceration enabled me to get to know myself even more intimately.
Hence the saying; "If you're never alone, you cannot know yourself. And if you do not know yourself, you will begin to fear the void."~ Paulo Coelho
3. The time spent alone also got me to get clear on life's meaning and purpose.
There is no meaning and there is no purpose in life. In short, life has no meaning therefore no purpose. Albert Camus' writings plays a major influence on existentialism here. Special mentions to his speech in NY City on "The Human Crisis" and his book "The Myth of Sisyphus"
4. Right in the middle of isolation and solitude in mid-January or thereabouts, I get to uncover the genius of Carl Jung through a commentary by Alan Watts.
Jung said; "Stop running away from your self. Let go and face yourself squarely."
Which brings to mind a story about Jung by Alan Watts on the fate of Adolf Eichmann, a main architect of the Holocaust who was captured, tried and executed in Jerusalem.
On the war between good and evil, Jung said; "To the degree that you condemn others and find evil in others you are to that degree unconscious of the same thing in yourself." "Or at least the potentiality of it."
Alan goes on to say; "There can be Eichmanns, Hitlers, and Himmlers, just because there are people who are unconscious of their own dark side, and they project that darkness outwards into Jews, or Communist or whatever the enemy may be, and say there is the darkness and the darkness is not in me. And because that darkness is not in me, I am justified in annihilating the enemy whether it be atom bombs or gas chambers.
Like the moon, everybody has a dark side, and in facing ourselves squarely we get to face our dark side and accept even embrace it. Then we begin to see that between consciousness and unconsciousness, if we were placed in a similar situation of conflict, we would probably do the same if not worse.
5. Spirituality aside, I also get to come to grips with that four-letter word - Work.
I realise that it's not work if you thoroughly enjoy it or when you can't stop thinking about it. Or both.
So, work or play for me is a WIP on a moment to moment basis. But whatever I'm working on, I'm landing it without chasing it. Sitting at my work station or my zero-gravity chair on my balcony, I conjure solutions for problems not yet existent for businesses by way of corporate storytelling.
The mantra I use for the business equation - "All Progress Begins with the Truth."
Imagine all business starting with the truth. Their truths.
What stories we can begin to tell...
But... truth be told, I realised that it's what we have been doing from the start...!
6. Last but not least this insight landed softly upon my consciousness;
"I am but a small iteration of a larger eternal cosmos. If I can't control and manifest my iteration's every desire here, then I am not worthy of transcendence and ascendance to the higher realms."
Namaste.
May March bring us an abundance of new prosperity, wisdom, and courage to create and pursue our hearts' desires.
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But this Merdeka it feels as different as events & news, weeks and days running up to the day, hold much hope & promise of impending change on the horizon.
There seem to be a new hope as the new leadership takes back the wheel nudging the trajectory of our nation’s course back to the founding fathers aim set 66 years ago today.
Admittedly hopelessness and fatigue have long set in since we lost count of the number of pretenders for the top job in as many years.
With this new fresh breath, it is apt for me to give light to a quote I will always remember tattooed long ago on the arm of a loved one that read; “ when you feel like giving up remember why you started in the first place.”
So just when many of us may feel like giving up, we can now draw upon and channel the purpose and energy of the Man and his team who steered this great nation to independence.
Happy Merdeka everyone.
Keep the faith.
#tunkuabdulrahman #merdeka2023 #anewhope #healingmalaysia