Back to, Back to Writing Sense.

Five years and three months since my last post. Now what was I doing for that long period of time? Can only think of one preoccupation - that of the head kind. Yes, the PhD also notoriously known as the permanent head damage. But oh well, it's over. Oh well, it's over?! By the grace of god it's over! 

Now having swum through the treacherous waters of intellectual mania, and having arrived at the Other side of the shore, it took me what - another year to remember that I had a blog. Frankly speaking, I had to scramble through my brain/head to locate the password. Having successfully recovered it - well here I am. Hello. My name is ...

Does anyone even read this? I always imagined that my blog would remain undiscovered like perhaps an exotic island on the Pacific Ocean, that reveals itself sometimes. But if no one discovered it - would it really exist? This is kind of like that conundrum - if the tree falls in the forest and no one saw it - did the tree really fall? Yes, sort of the same thing - but only difference is - this tree/island has long been under the warm waters of the Pacific. It is not Hawaii, so please leave your paddles and fins at the airport.

Since no one actually reads this, it is safe to say, the only audience is the author. I like that. I like that very much because it gives me room to breathe. A tree/island, unwatched, undiscovered, snowed in under a blanket of beautiful white clouds. The tree grows, so magnificently wild and uncontrolled, and becomes the only fort on that island. The roots are the only foundation of an otherwise floating rock in the sea.

Imagine yourself totally free. What would you write?

Growing Past Pain

Two books that I was reading this week has sparked a thought in my mind.

In Farish A. Noor's "The Other Malaysia", he writes: "The Other Malaysia was an attempt to write a deconstructive form of political history, showing that history and historiography themselves were political in nature and that awkward silences and blindspots in the national historical narrative were not there by accident. If and when such erasures occur, they do for a reason and with ideological motives behind them." In fact, Farish admits that it was the "sustained attempt at recovering the forgotten episodes of our collective past and present" that motivated him to write his articles.

It is not just Malaysia that erases memories but other nations as well.  This habit or culture is even portrayed in communities and families. There is a sense of wiping out of blocks of the past and this leaves as he puts it "blindspots in the...historical narrative..." In a community, the leaders of which wish to put aside 'incidents' or 'accidents' which embarrass or cause discomfort, they may conveniently push it under the carpet. This they do because of fear. Fear of embarrassment, fear of being accused, fear of handling the truth. The past collects under the dark discomfort of a Persian rug wishing to be one day released. You see, the past has a mind of its own. It may sleep in ignorance for a time and be triggered to awake and reclaim its lost spot in history.

Speaking for families, memories and stories that shed humiliation and pain to a particular family face a fate similar to the nation's and community's "forgotten episodes". I cannot speak for others, but my own family has its share of dark secrets never to be spoken of, just in case, the community police come in full force to arrest and put on trial our values, or worse parade it in front of "Other" families. If we cannot even muster the courage to deal with our own individual past, or our family's past, how do we expect the nation to move on? Surely, the nation, with diverse and various communities with their own history, share a common history? Just like individuals with a past, share a common past within their own family? Are we not in the end "a family"?

But why bring the past up? Should it not be buried, along with Aunty Mabel's long lost cousin, who was killed during the Japanese occupation for reasons that were buried along with him? More pertinently, why bring it up now? Well the answer is I think a little ironic. We must bring up the past now, for the precise reason we have been burying it. "To have closure."

This is where the next book I read comes in. Robin Sharma's "Discover Your Destiny". Here he writes: "Visit the places that frighten you." "Once we do the inner work required to move through the fears that are running us, we move these shadows into the light of human awareness...moving a shadow into the light causes it to disappear. The fear leaves us."

What Robin seems to say is that running away from our past will not heal us. Precisely what Farish puts in one of his talks as "history is not meant to heal." The past is not meant to heal. Which is why, it should not be hidden in the shadows. If history or the past causes pain, then, that is it's role. We cannot hide it for fear of pain and suffering. We must suffer history, so to speak. This is the only way, we can grow. The only way, the fear will leave us.

More importantly, Robin says, "You must make the time to confront your resistances and examine yourself when frustrations or fears surface, rather than making it about others and avoiding self-responsibility." So in resisting our past, we fail to examine our own flaws and fears, and then we turn around and blame the rest of the world for our problems. Whether it is in nation or community or family, we fail to take responsibility of our past. We fail to feel the pain. We fail to grow.

Pain is a lesson we must learn in order to realize our true selves. Who we are as an individual, a family, a community or a nation will only be truly known if we stop resisting our painful past/history and embrace the lesson.

Feels and Thinks

Speaking of Inner Voice in the previous post, it occurs to me that great writers have learned to listen to their Inner Voice for the Great "American" Novel did not write itself. Words spewing out with such care and precision, with such passion and great thinking, it could only come from a deeper source than a rambling mind. To write what one truly feels and thinks. Yes, "feels and thinks", for here is a sparkling thought: the heart and mind can work hand in hand. The heart know what it wants and it produces the Inner Voice but only the mind can put the words to work so to speak. The mind is a brilliant tool that you should use to achieve what the heart wants.

So here is my quest, as writer, to utilise the mind in order to achieve what the Inner Voice seeks. To many a skeptic out there, it sounds crazy and out of this world, but what is a skeptic anyway, but a mind that has lost its ways and grasps at what others say? Its judgmental and overbearing to say the least. The skeptic is the crowd. Skeptic has a role - a good role at that too - to create awareness. If you didn't know what you were doing right, just ask your biggest critic.

Inner Writer awakens and out of the compost a phoenix shall arise.

Inner Voice

Since the teenage years, I have heard plenty on this notion of "inner self" or "inner person". This, due to the reading of many great books on spirituality and spiritual persons, coupled with being involved in various religious organizations, writing scripts for plays on great personalities and learning about the enlightened beings on this planet. As all teenagers do, I forgot and lost my way somewhere in early adulthood, only to keep being reminded of this notion now and then again.

Upon rediscovering it in a book on finding your own destiny, I have quickly renewed my faith in the Inner Self or what I like to call the Inner Voice. Great writers write that we are born pure and purposeful knowing in our hearts what we were destined to create, to do, involve ourselves in, change and the list is endless. Somewhere along the way, we lose our way because we start to change according to the external environment and listen to the crowd.

How many people have you heard say, "I really didn't want to do this, but my parents..." or "My real dream was to become a...." Too many I'm sure. You yourself may be one who has recited this to your friends. We certainly change to fit ourselves in the mould that society wants. Unfortunately, this mould may be different to what we were truly destined to become. Out of fear we relent and allow the crowd to dictate our life and path.

As a child, we are running wild and free to think and dream, but as we grow, our parents, our teachers and society moulds us to fit in and in that process, all our wild dreams are buried deep. This I believe is the true source of unhappiness in people - for they have muted the Inner Voice and allowed the Crowd Voice to permeate their soul.

At all times, that I took the unsual path, I was the most happiest. At all the times, that I took the "other way" was I the most ecstatic and excited to feel life unfolding itself. When I stopped listening to the Inner Voice and allowed the crowd to dictate my life, did I find unhappiness very quickly.

The crowd may call you a rebel, but rest assured, I was a rebel with a cause. That cause is my destiny. It has taught me a lesson or two on how to listen carefully and decipher what the heart truly wants, instead of putting it to sleep. I believe all the great thinkers and philosophers were rebels too, because they advocated new things and fought for great things. All the revolutionaries and masters of change were rebels with a cause - they changed quickly and succeeded in finding true happiness.

The inner voice - had to imagine, but it's ever so easy to listen to. Just shut up the mind and stop listening to the crowd. You will hear it.

Ancient Days 1

Composted by Thaatch Kananatu

An old man was left in the lurches last week, near a desolate filthy river. There are no longer trees or bushes. Only heaps of garbage and hills of rubbish. Rivers are polluted with waste from factories, from condominium developments and the common litterbug. In such a river, that once flowed like an ancient blue sky, floated sardine cans of maggots, plastic wrappers with faded words, dead fish and rotten plant-life. Here he stood, the old man with a stick.

How he got here is a mystery to him. He stood there, staring into the eye of a dead frog on a slimy rock. His eyes squinting, fitted uneasily in deep sockets enveloped by creases of brown tanned skin spotted with poking white hair. He laments.

“A feeling of morose has crept back into my mind. Thoughts swirl this time and it wears me down. I am disinterested in speaking or listening. I wish to brood in isolation until the morose nature passes.”

A black crow perched itself on a failing trunk of a dead tree. The crow's eye zoomed in on him, like a weapon locating its mark. Directly under it sat an old woman like a heap of old discarded clothes. In fact, the municipality often mistook her for just that: the odd garbage man with a distinct mark on his face would spit out his anguish at the mistake of trying to clear her out of there. They discovered her because of a strange murmur-like monologue. As if the clothes spoke of its former life.

“My existence reminds me of years ago when I showed passive aggressive behaviour. Some natural due to tiredness, some on purpose.”

She was a slob like creature embedded to the ground, speaking of her glorious past. It would infuriate a "normal" human being, but it had no effect on the old man. Her mannerisms were small, but so is a sharp pin in your rear end. The world could come crumbling down but she would sit still and say, “Its crumbling.” Even if provoked, her own passivity would only charge out like a sarcastic mule. What avail?

She reminded him of something he read once in a tattered page. A book by that Conrad fellow, A Smile of something? “I was seduced by the moody expression of her face, by her obstinate silences, her rare, scornful words; by the perpetual pout of her closed lips, the black depths of her fixed gaze turned slowly upon me as if in contemptuous provocation.”

So, the old man ignored her. Ignored her presence and acted as if she was in fact a pile of old clothes. He told himself, “I am myself – mostly. Morose but happy to be.”

The Monk and the Sumo Wrestler.

I was reading Robin Sharma's The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and came across something called "Kaizen". Intrigued at first at the thought that this was some sort of martial arts tactic from Japan, like sumo wrestling, I quickly called up my brother who is a Black Belt at Taekwondo to find out more details. He hadn't heard of it. Funny. So I speedily read the book to reach to the Chapter on Kaizen and discovered that it had nothing to do with martial arts but it did have a "nine-foot-tall, nine-hundred pound Japanese sumo wrestler".

Here is what Sharma says on "Kaizen":

"...many centuries ago in the ancient East, the great teachers developed and refined a philosophy called kaizen. This Japanese word means constant and never-ending improvement. And it's the personal trademark of every man and woman who is living a soaring, fully awakened existence."

Kaizen is all about self-mastery. It is about building a strong character, a discipline filled with energy and optimistic thinking. Sharma quotes Epictutus who said, "No man is free who is not a master himself." How do you develop kaizen? The techniques include: Doing the things you fear and the 10 Ancient Rituals for Radiant Living. Want to know what it is? Read the book.

The wisdom of kaizen is: making self-mastery the DNA of life mastery. Okay so what does this all have to do with Lean Six Sigma? Well, Lean Six Sigma includes kaizen of an albeit not too different kind. Kaizen aftter all is about "constant and never-ending improvement" which falls squarely into continuous improvement. In the book, Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive Business, Maasaaki Imai popularised the term.The concept is applicable to self-improvement and continuous improvement in any area of business. Much like Lean manufacturing, eliminating the waste and improving standardised activities and processes.

In Chinese, they say "gai shan", which means "change for the better" or "improve". "Gai" means "change" or "the action to correct" and "shan" means "good" or "benefit".
Essentially, to benefit - whether it is individual benefit or company benefit, or societal benefit, one needs to change. Kaizen is all about change. As Sharma puts it:

"Change is the most powerful force in our society today. Most people fear it, the wise embrace it. Zen tradition speaks of a beginner's mind: those who keep their minds open to new concepts - those whose cups are always empty - will always move to higher levels of achievement and fulfillment."

(See http://www.dmaic-net.com/blogm_view_blog.php?ID=29 )

The Duke of York & the odd vacuum cleaner

It was a delight to listen to HRH Duke of York, Prince Andrew on 29th August 2007, at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. Meeting and greeting British royalty for the first time, I was of course concerned of the social faux pas. His Royal Highness was both charming and witty in adddressing the crowd of Malaysian socialites, Chevening Scholars (past, present, possibly future), and Malaysians connected to the British education system in some way.

The Duke spoke in length of the relationship of Malaysia and UK for the past 50 years, indicating the dawning of a "new chapter" in terms of trade and education. Malaysia has such a history with the UK, from 1957 to 2007, a half century of post-colonial hang-ups. Almost like a child taking its first steps, throwing a tantrum and learning by knocks and falls.

What is crucial is the next 13 years, as we have little time in which to reach our goal of "developed nation", by 2020. In terms of trade and education, the UK has assisted us indeed in many ways, as the British High Commissionar announced, there will be an increase in Chevening Awards in the ensuing years.

The UK like the elderly parent now needs to advice us on issues like multiculturalism and human rights. We, like the adult offspring, should heed from the old man, and find ways to "take the good, and omit the bad". Malaysia's aspiration should not be to become the UK, but to become a better Malaysia. That is the next chapter in the story.

And as for the odd vacuum cleaner, well, a Dyson will come in handy. As we are all aware of, Malaysia is quite a veteran at shoving dirt under the carpet.

Happy Birthday Malaysia!

Ol' Thatch Tavern

Many centuries ago, Shakespeare sat in the Old Thatch Tavern, on Greenhill Street, located in the centre of Stratford-Upon-Avon, on a warm summer's day (back in the days when summers were warm, winters bitterly cold and men were men), taking a swig of beer and conjuring up sonnets in his head. If such a man existed at all, or whether all the works of Shakespeare were conjured up in one head, or whether this tavern stood in this place at the time of a man called Shakespeare, or whether he really did sit in the Ol' Thatch Tavern, is completely irrelevant. For my story here, he did. Shakespeare that is. A man who produced poetry every time he sneezed, and beautiful sonnets, each time he spoke, such a man exists in this story. And this Shakespeare sat at the Ol' Thatch Tavern, in the midst of a busy Stratford-Upon-Avon and sipped, neigh, swigged beer and wrestled with characters from his stories.