Educated Guesses, People

During the past Olympics some companies promised a total prize of RM 4 Million in cash if any Malaysian would win us our very first gold medal. Unfortunately nobody came home with the gold, but that isn't the case in discussion. I overheard some people saying it's probably a good thing nobody won the cash prize, and it would be put to better use if these money were given to the poor and unfortunate. Well that's very noble of you to elect this money be given to the needy.

People have no idea how difficult it is being a national athlete and having to fight an ideology especially if they don't have a mentor to show them it's possible. I learnt this while climbing: everyone, given almost similar in skills and strength, will keep struggling on a problem until one manages to top out. Then everyone else will automatically be able to do the same, surprisingly, with less effort than they thought they needed. Its because they know it is now possible to do it. The case is same here with an Olympic gold. Because we have never gotten it before it will seem like an impossible task, especially for the pioneer.

Don't get me? Then you don't deserve to judge athletes and say their jobs are easy. If you think his gold medal incentive should be given to 'deserving' poor people, then lets also give all your increment and bonuses to the poorer people instead. Good idea, no?

While it may sound generous to be giving all the money to poorer people, one must also measure its effectiveness. For example, how many time have you seen people crossing busy roads right under the overhead bridge? Each overhead bridge takes almost a million bucks to build, and it was built to significantly reduce the risk of pedestrians trying to get to the other side. Money is only worth spending on people who deserve them. Many people are poor, not entirely but partly, because they choose to remain so. Wealth is not measured by how big your car or house, but how efficiently you use the limited resources you have. Wealth is measured by how much of your own lives you want to live.

So giving money and building free facilities for the poor will not solve poverty. But creating opportunities will. Award the deserving, regardless of wealth. They will spend some of the money, and these money will go into the pockets of other deserving people regardless of wealth, and so on and so on. And if the poor wants to become rich, they will need to show the world they deserve to be so.

So now that nobody won that gold medal. Do you think the companies will give the money away to charity anyway? Chances are not likely. But what if he'd won? He may use 1 million to buy himself a nice car, another 2 million a house and the final million to start a business. The car seller will make enough commission to send both her kids to a good private school. The house developer will be able to pay their contractors for the work and material spent building that house. The contractors will be able to put food on the home table. The business will hire workforce and rent real estate and take out loans from banks. You get where I'm headed. Everything described above would lead to opportunities for people to earn an honest living, and that was just the first stage.

It's silly for some people to blabber uneducated comments on how companies should 'better spend their dollars'. I have worked, very briefly, in one of those big banks. And I've gotten confirmation from friends in the industry that these multinationals are filled with useless people sitting around all day and getting fat paychecks for sucking up to their bosses. Managing their stakeholders, they say. Delegating jobs, they say. At least our athletes fought for something. At least they put themselves physically and mentally on the edge every time they step into the court. 

You, You and You

A great part of my life revolve around friends. In times when family could not, friends were the only ones who could be there when I needed help the most. Many of my friends I still have even after so long. Some I found when times were bad, some I made along the way firstly as classmates and eventually evolving into the closest of brothers. But today I will not talk about you guys. Today I talk about those who disappeared half way, those whom I lost all contact with.Yes. You, you and you. We grew up, we learnt, we taught each other, we protected each other, we inspired each other. But somewhere along the way we lost each other. To circumstances, to bad decisions, to wrong paths. 

You were the first. The one who taught me the number before ONE is ZERO, the one who told me after December ends it will become January again. Those days were very vague, and I was quite shocked that I could remember bits and pieces of them. Like when you used to always bring the coolest pencil boxes to school, those with compartments that would spring out from all angles. I don't even remember your name now, and I don't have anything to refer back to no year book no photographs. Maybe I still have some photographs. I could look them up.

I sat beside you in school. I went to this school alone so I didn't have any friends. My inability to speak like a normal person made it harder for me to voice my thoughts for fear of embarrassment. So there you were, sitting beside me. Apart from the people around who know my name, you were the only one who'd actually talk to me. You were a great artist back then, you could draw out awesome looking dinosaurs and suns and mountains and bears. Because dad didn't give me much money for lunch I would not go to the canteen during recess. And you'd stay with me in class and you'd teach me how to play those game books. Honestly I had no idea what I was doing or what was going on with my character. All I knew was if I made a wrong move and my character died, I'd backtrack and choose the other page number. I think it was the next year when you left, but I couldn't quite remember to where. We never exchanged numbers because we had none. I hope you're doing well now, I hope you're still drawing. I remember your name. I hope you remember mine.

We were friends for about a year or so, and we were close. You were like a replacement for the one who left the year before, and I would teach you how to read game books and draw dinosaurs and suns and mountains and bears. We were like hermits, not wanting to hang out with anyone else not wanting to play the games everyone else would play. Our friendship ended quite quickly. It was good while it lasted because we'd hardly talk to anyone else and I didn't feel uncomfortable talking to you. And when the teacher asked me to call my name out, you'd do it for me because you knew it would be difficult for me to do it. But then it was brief. I think you left the year after, or were we separated when our class got broken up and combined with others. I couldn't remember much about that. But I do remember your name. I hope you're doing well too. Better than I am doing.

We'd travel to school together by bus. We became close because we stayed just a couple of blocks away from each other, and it was rare because our school was about 10 kilometers from our homes. We'd bring our bicycles out on the weekends and holidays, and cycle to the famous curry house nearby. We'd play football, basketball, buy Doraemon comics and read them in the park. Society didn't really approve of our friendship, I didn't understand why. I still don't understand now. But we remained good friends, until the day came when you were replaced. My new friends were, well, newer I guess. And slowly we lost contact and never talked anymore. We still saw each other in school until graduation, but we never noticed each other anymore. I stay on the same block as you now. Whenever I drive home at night I'd remember the friend I ditched and forgotten, the friend who cared but were not returned the same kindness. I know this apology will not get to you, and it will not make me feel any better but I'm not ready to walk up to your house and talk to you just yet. So I'm sorry, from afar. 

We'd known of each other's existence but never actually got close until that year when we sat opposite each other. Then I found out you stayed near my house. And I found out your grand dad had an entire housing garden and roads named after him. But that didn't stop us from becoming friends, best friends even.That didn't get your parents too protective of their sons for hanging around people at the bottom of the food chain. Well we never knew of food chains. We knew of friendship and homework, nothing more. When we moved to secondary school, you left. Off to better schools. It was a good move, our public schools were crap anyway. I don't know where you are now, where you are staying and whether or not you are married. But every time I drive pass that corner house with the blue roof I'd remember you. 

You were probably the greatest loss of my life. I can't say it was my fault for you walking out on us all, but it was my fault for now working hard enough to look for you. We spent a good 5 years as the best of friends. We were so close people often thought we were brothers.We got into trouble together, we skipped school together, we started smoking together, we went for Friday lunches at the food court below Metrojaya together. Remember the Curry Laksa? You always loved the uncle's Assam Laksa. What the fuck happened? Why the fuck did you just abandon all the years of friendship and left? You taught me how to be what I am today. You told me when I was having the biggest trouble handling my temper, that I should not close it up instead learn how to use it to my advantage. You taught me, in the midst of all the politics we were facing in the scouts, to keep calm and carry on. You taught me, even beyond my own eyes, that I was better than how I saw myself. But you were not the same. You didn't dare face your SPM results until a year after we got it. You blamed us all for causing you to consistently fail in college. Come on, prove to me what I said was wrong. Come the fuck out and tell me what I heard was crap. Two of our best friends got married last year and the first thing they did was asked me to look for you. Don't fuck around anymore. We all miss you. I miss you. You are a great friend, one I don't want to lose. Come back, dude. We grew up together, that's gotta count for something. 

Friends come and go. Some stay in your heart, others you just forget ever existed. But there are a few, the few that shaped your life and made you who you are today. You learn from the mistakes you made with them, from the things they said to you, the times they stood by you when shit hit the fan. 

End of Freedom in Malaysia?

This is it. Somehow we knew it would reach Malaysia. Get to know the diagram above very very well. If this Act is not removed, freedom on the Internet as we know will end. No, make that THE INTERNET as we know will end.

I know this little blog is too insignificant to do anything or cause any harm to anyone, but this is all little old me have got and this would probably end too :(

Feather Fighter

Source: http://www.veryicon.com/icon/png/Application/Database%20Filter/Filter%20Feather.png

Well this is awkward. I never thought I would be writing about you in here, cos you were never anyone important to me. Not because you're not good in what you do, you no doubt are the best. But so is she, and just because her sport is not in the Games doesn't make her any less respectable. I didn't care much about the way your game is played, although I've grown up playing it every now and then. It's a rich man's game and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. 

It has always been awesome, how you fell. How you kept falling, over and over again to the same man. I say awesome not because I loved watching you fail so many times, but because you immediately got back up and looked to your next meet with him. I come not as a professional national athlete, but as someone quite similar. You see, my sport did not enjoy the same equality and support as yours mainly because it is misunderstood. I did not get into your sport just to be equal and understood because I'm sure you'd agree that passion cannot accommodate stigma. 

He's great and all, but that's only because he had you. Look at the sprinter. You think he's having a lot of fun? At the final moments of his run, he looked up at the time to see if he had broken his last record. That's not fun, that's a morning walk. Who is Superman without Luther? Spiderman without Carnage? Batman without the Joker? Holmes without Moriarty? Every champion needs an arch rival. This arch rival keeps him on his toes, keeps him on the edge, keeps him alive. You are this arch rival. Do not despair for although the arch rival almost always loses in the end, he is just as important as the hero himself. Because this arch rival is the only reason why the hero wakes up every morning actually feeling alive.  

I know despair. I know how it feels to have fallen over and over again, fought and fought and fucking fought and can NEVER get what you want. I don't know how it feels to be doing it for the first ever medal for our country, but I know how it feels to be doing it for myself. 

This set us apart from each other. This is the reason why you're there and we, mortal humans, sit here and watch as you fight valiantly. You lost again. But you won, again. Because nobody else can go this far.  

If her sport was in the Games, it would be the both of you. Then maybe you'll feel a little less pressure, you'll feel a little less like puking from the nerves. But it's not, so you're all we have. You always fought like a God. Not because you were great from the beginning, but because every time you face him you are better than you were before. That is God in my eyes. 

There will be no story for those who come, win, and leave. There will be no immortality for a hero without his greatest foe constantly chasing him down. You have achieved immortality. People will talk about you, about how you kept fighting and kept falling just inches behind. People know that real life is never as beautiful as the stories. Not everyone wins. But life is also never just about winning. Life is about fighting. The complacent who stay in their comfort areas and tell everyone their lives are complete, they don't know shit. 

If you go on, do this for yourself. Don't carry too much weight this time. Look into his eyes and take him down, for yourself. Everything else will fall into place. We may have a holiday, we may have free food, they don't matter. What matters is you. 

Don't get me wrong. I have not gotten renewed faith in you, I've not taken a liking for you and your game. Although it's nice to watch, I don't like it any more than I did before. But I know that while taking the road less traveled, I'm not easily inspired. But for this brief moment I am. The thing with people who fail too much is that they have too many reasons not to get back up after a fall. I am inspired by your relentless desire to achieve, by the little time you take on the ground, by how quickly you get yourself back up. 

The Awakening

The chime. The wind moves and this little chime lets lose a short burst of orchestra. Again. And again. They all sound the same, so they all bring me back to the same memory. That of the days when problems were smaller, but seemed like everything I could ever not bear. That spot where I'd always go to seek temporary escape from the confinements of social conformity. I'd smoke, I'd smoke up. Nobody knows, nobody sees, nobody hears. Nobody but the select few of us.

I hear sound of crashing waves. I see the sun through palms desperately trying to block it's rays from me. Their shadows dancing on white sand. Nobody as far the eye can see. A bowstave, white, silent save the crashing waves. A hammock is a beautiful companion, a book beams you to an alternate reality. A gust of wind would ruffle the leaves above. Sometimes I think it was the rain, but it was just the wind ruffling leaves above me.  

Rain is beautiful. It cleanses, it washes away the dirt. Grey clouds reflect the world's true state of mind. Tick and tock they tap on the tin roof. Tick and tock they tap on gravel. The way it is accompanied by an angry mob of storm winds, swaying trees and raging rivers. Then it would end in a calm and still lake, a mirror reflecting the sky. It smells pure, it smells like acid being removed from the world. It smells like the cleansing of evil. 

Smells warm. Smells calm. Smells like the past, the times when everything you ever cared about is what to do tomorrow. Smells like a snooker center, the One Dollar coins cascading into horse machines, the crackling of clove cigarettes, of pool balls crashing onto each other. That distant buzz of a defected fluorescent lamp. Smells like that cheap whiskey you just puked out by the road side. Smells like mint and pepper in that rolled up joint. Smells like a stagnant room of old and stale cigarette smoke in the air. Smells like the soggy carpet below, never been washed. 

Close your eyes. It will make you see. It will show you the true world. On the fourth floor of that car park, with a six-pack. Rewind. Turn that dial back and feel it click and click and click. As it goes, feel it tighten. When it cannot be turned any further, release that dial and see everything come to life. A complete rerun of your life, what happened and who you met. How you managed to survive every single hardship thrown at you and how you always managed to stay on course. You see with your eyes, but they are not your guide. They betray you. 

Cry. Laugh. Scream. Love. Hate. Embrace existence. Embrace consciousness. Feel while you can, enjoy the good enjoy the bad. It will end soon, for all of us. This is one thing we all have that we cannot change. It doesn't matter if you're the most influential person in the world, the richest one ever lived. Touch that oil painting, look into your dog's eyes, listen to every instrument made in the history of man. See people. See yourself. See yourself in the eyes of people around you. See yourself in the eyes of your dog. Scream. Laugh. Love. Hate. Feel. Smell. Hear. See.