Dreams

Every night, I am visited by dreams. And they are anxious dreams, tiring dreams and very often the most violent ones involve water.

Tsunamis are a common theme. Of being trapped with the tidal waves all round and above me, and I wait in terror for the final crash that never comes. In all, the fear is palpable and they linger even when I open my eyes. I don't think I would be any less scared in a real situation.

Yet recently I dreamt of water again. I was at the edge of a very tall rushing waterfall. The spray rendered everything white. Despite the size, it was all silent. I stood at the edge and I threw myself off the cliff. The one time I have ever dreamt of actually meeting the water. And it was peaceful and intentional. I didn't see myself crash at the bottom, but just disappearing in the mist.

I remember thinking, how nice..

 

 

Perennial questions

I think I must be the most clueless person in the world. I once described myself as a tumbleweed. Many years since then, I am still a tumbleweed. I thought I would have figured it by now. You know. Life.

Most people have, well according what they have been posting on Facebook anyway. Career and offspring feature prominently.

I came across a youtube video of a crying girl asking her teacher why wasn't she not born like everyone else with hearing. Her teacher simply asked her, why be like everyone else.

 

I guess that is in essence what this conversation is about. How we define happiness and does it fit in with everybody else's. Some say its service to others. Some say its sacrifice for family. Some say one should only live for one's self.

 

In the end I would say, in all honestly, that I want to matter.

For my life to have meaning beyond being just a face in the crowd, sized up by salesmen if I am worth their sales pitch or by cashiers if I am worth their smile.

 

Yet even what matters is so personal. In this world, money matters. Image matters. The superficiality matters as much as we want to deny it. My stints in marketing and communication reinforces this. And yet it feels shallow to want to matter to people who care for so little.

 

All round I hear how people are reduced to dollar values and the spirit counts for small change. The increasing number of feel good sites and forwarded inspiring stories fill the holes in our hearts because as a community we are running low on faith and hope. We all crave for good news.

How can someone with so little courage dream of making a difference. I guess I should try to start small.

I have the rest of my life to wing it. A tumbleweed looking to bring meaning and to actually matter. Sounds so crazy it may even work.

 

 

People Watching

After months of solitude, the hermit has had enough of her own company (God, is she depressing). I have since christened my neighbourhood Starbucks as my office. Wifi, caffeine and many a distraction. What's not to love (besides the coffee).

Hipsters bump chairs with insurance sales people who try to talk above the loud businessmen with their mobile phones - oblivious to the student looking to stay as long as she can with her homework and a tumbler of discounted Americano.

My least favourite patron is the loud contractor businessman who unabashedly suck up to Datuks and in a heartbeat spew insults into his Samsung handheld presumably to some underling. Yes la. We know you are important hot shot la. Ok, so its a million dollar deal. Still not your money right?

Which makes me wonder if this is the real face of business in Malaysia. That it is brash and loud and manipulative. The sub-prime mess was a result of an unconscionable Wall Street yet I am not sure if lessons are suitably learnt.

The rethoric of all encompasing economic reform is jarringly different from the financial pages which still is all about one upmanship - how do you make more money, safeguard your intrest and get ahead of everyone else.

While our social entreprenurs talk about sustainability and social responsibility, a running theme in every feel good TedTalk there is, our bankers are still telling us how to run our businesses and build debt, governments tell us how to live our lives (chicken too expensive, dont each chicken lah) and society still reveres the financial tycoon who fights tooth and nail to delay the implementation of minimum wage.

I reject the notion that making money has to be at the expense of society. Microfinancing and crowd sourcing are wonderful new paradigms that make up today's economic and social narrative. It still begs the question of how many of our current industries will support and participate in a new economy where there is no place for corruption and old world bad behaviour. I feel my MBA materials are obsolete already.

The businessman with the Samsung handheld looks at me and shifts his eyes. Somehow I am not feeling optimistic.

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time, I was called a Wordsmith.

Perhaps it is time to be called one again.

What Does Travel Mean to Me? Good Question.

I just found out that Tourism Selangor is running a competition surrounding  What Travelling Means to You. This is just as I am compiling an account of a family trip to the East Coast of Malaysia.  While timing is extremely tight, I am nevertheless intrigued by the question.

Despite being a pedestrian all my life, I have been so fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel quite extensively, being allowed to share space, breathe in new surroundings, learn about people and have them change me in return. 

It is rejuvenating as it is humbling. It is a reminder of how I am a citizen of the world and yet how little I am. 

The meaning of travel has changed for me personally throughout the many years. 

Travel is putting myself out there and saying "show me. I am here to learn".  

It started as unadulterated awe of being able to bear witness to monuments that only seemed to exist in dog-eared Sejarah textbooks. Let me tell you a secret. I actually felt woozy when I stumbled upon the Hammurabi Code of Law at the Louvre, a long long way from Taiping, Perak.  It was awesomeness overload. Plus a confirmation of my geek-hood. 

Yet looking back now, my best memories are those  simple, unexpected and emotional connections to places and people encountered along the way.  

My best recollection of Seville is having the bar patrons laugh when I professed that my future profession was to be an Avocado as oppose to an Abogado thereby reducing my legal ambitions to a pear. From maneuvering a gridlocked roundabout in Dhaka to feeding eagles over an emerald sea in Langkawi, the emotional associations are so palpable, they remain surreal and larger than life, long after the Polaroids have faded. 

Which brings me to the conclusion that when I or anyone else for that matter travel, we don't just visit, but we bring the location and our hosts back with us - the joy as well as the heartbreak, the beauty and the tragedies. It demonstrates our capacity for compassion, it allows us to understand and it spurs our aspirations, so we end up learning about ourselves as much as we do our destination.

Upon my travels end from abroad, I absolutely love coming home to be greeted with the cheery "Selamat Pulang ke Tanahair". More than anything, travel never fails to remind me of where my heart truly is. 

Thunderstorms

You don't experience rain when you live in an apartment. Not really. Sure you hear the wet pattering against the roof tiles and rattle of window panes rapped by wind and water. Yet being 22 storeys high, you hear the descent in full glory yet never the impact. No heavy sploshing of water hitting the ground, no cacophony from a torrent crashing against cement floors, car hoods, rubbish bins and wooden doors.

You would miss out on the after-glow as well. No intoxicating breeze of newly shiny grass or even the sticky steaming damp rising from a drenched lawn or puddled tar road. No crumpled newspaper boats in the longkangs, long way from home.

When it rains, here in my box in the sky, I only hear the fall of heaven, not the embrace of the earth.

Maybe its time to make my way home.

 

Truism

“Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.”

― Maya Angelou

 

Blogging is dead

Well that's what people are saying. As attention spans shrink and content expand, who has time for long posts? People who write them that's who.

So yeah. Here I iz. I am still seeking. Seeking what there is to seek. The usual suspects: Purpose, sanity, redemption, glory and world domination. One would think that I would have found it by now but then I suck at keeping my head above water long enough.

There will be some changes in the blog in the weeks to come. I have an exam in a couple of weeks and I am running out of distractions hence this is it.

Lets hope these crusty fingers can still scratch out an awesome analysis of why our economy is going to the dogs.  Actually WRITING answers is so stoneage. 

Older and wiser, we hope

I celebrated my birthday this week. This prompted a good deal of self reflection. My 2013 LE1 exercise.

In short, I am yet the woman I aspire to be. That much I know.  

The feeling of being a lesser person for not being true to myself has been gnawing at me for the best part of the last 2 years.  I am one of those hand-wringing, eyebrow-furrowing matrons who try too hard because I didn't think I deserved anything if I didn't pay a price for it.  So I kept paying and paying fearing that if the hamster wheel stopped, so would everything good in my life.

Fear’s best bedfellows are of course anger and hate. This may explain why I believe that in a parallel universe, I make a kick-ass Sith Lord.

But Darksides aside, the soalan cepu emas remains - how does one begin all over again with all this hard coding.  Doing the same things expecting different results is the proverbial fool’s errand, especially if its something so personal as finding purpose and redemption.

So this year I made the biggest decision of my career - by putting the breaks on it.  It has taken every ounce of courage, optimism and faith to leap without a parachute.  

Still, despite the struggles within, it would be ungrateful to not acknowledge that I have been blessed, painful mandible not withstanding. 

So back to the list, here is what I learnt when I was 35:

·         Toxic people are infectious.  They turn you into them with time, just like zombies. RUN.

·         Let sleeping dogs lie.

·         The biggest problems are ones that blindsides you on some idle Tuesday (nod to Baz Luhrmanm here). So don't sweat the small stuff. And that includes laundry. 

·         Always keep a hot pack and a cold pack at home.

·         Man proposes, God very quickly disposes.  So PRAY.

·         Putting together a perfect suji cake and devil curry.

·         Never put up with people who won’t respect you as a person. This includes people you had a high regard for. 

·         Don't owe anyone an apology. Freaking stop with the sorrys already.

·         Happiness is an autographed Neil Gaiman book. Gloating euphoria is TWO!

·         If you wrap sprigs of mint in a wet paper towel and stick them in a ziplock bag in the fridge, its stays fresh for many cups of tea.

·         Darjeeling dust direct from India tastes superior to the packed rubbish from England

·         Love and respect are not entitlements, but rewards. Dispense wisely.

·         Never be afraid to ask questions at the risk of looking like a fool.

·         Never enter a store sale when you are broke. You WILL find something you can’t live without which your conscience will not let you buy. Don't seek heartbreak.

·         When on tour, eat where the tour guide eats, not where the rest of the tourists go.

·         From Dhaka- do not let despair blind you to what beauty lies within.

·         From HY, everything is a choice.  Including happiness.

·         Articulation and mastery are the keys to greatness.

·         Professionalism is a concept. Personalities rule, from the guardhouse to the top floor corner office. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

·         Everything is a sales pitch.

·         Guilin is beautiful.

·         P1 is incompetent and a corporate bully.  I hope the company collapses and directors be made personally liable.

·         Do not engage with angry activists/politicians/office warriors in love with their own voices. They are blinkered to only one point of view.  

·         Whittard teapots remain gorgeous.

·         Smiling is the most elegant way of baring teeth. So smile at thy enemies.

·         You cannot support others when you need supporting yourself

·         The Mahabaratha is epic! heh.

·         Do not procrastinate with what you want to do when you are still able to. Life is unpredictable and too short.  

Disquiet

And it is 2013. It feels like a watershed year. Spent the tail end of the previous year working over my master plan and am now spending most of the time working up the courage.

Fragility and frailty of life as experienced by the people I know and of the people I have met, all make for uncomfortable reminders of mortality. Sickness, breakdowns and deaths - seeing the circle of life played out accords little comfort to fellow journeymen, and dont we all have our one-way tickets.

As years blur into each other, time takes liberties on the body, mind and spirit. And as so often happens to the middle aged, we collect responsibilities as we once we collected dreams. Being trapped by fear and duty, it becomes easy to justify the paths not taken.

Tolkien articulates this best as Lady Eowyn describing her fear

A cage. To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recalls or desire

A bit high brow to be quoting Tolkien so early in the year. Still its the hallmark of bonafide geeks who don't go out much. I digress.

But it's one thing to be knowing yet another to be doing. And deciding. A career change, going back to school or fleeing to the hills, I would have the priestesses of Delphi on retainer if they still existed.

The most debilitating human ability next to worry is regret. And I have made oscillating between the two close to an art. More than stressful work, I am quite convinced that an idle mind will send me rolling into the grave much sooner.

Still here I am. Like a boulder at the edge of a precipice. Brimming with potential energy yet too weighed down to fly off the cliff. Perhaps all that is needed is a swift kick.