When nature calls...

Waking up especially early today, I sat by the lakeside behind my condo, waiting for my lawyer to turn up so that we can complete the strata title transfer document. Turn up, she did. In fact, we completed the whole formality in a jiffy, no more than 10 minutes to be exact.

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The lawyer is very much of my age if not few years younger. As she was handling my documentation, she filled me in with her golf adventures with the top guns of few developers and her karaoke sessions with well-known bankers. However, in few occasions throughout the conversation, she never failed to slip in few words of complaint about how busy her schedule is. Amidst the professional tone that most of the lawyers employed whenever they carry out their duties, I heard a faint trail of frustration in her voice.

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Without battling an eyelid, I asked her then why would she subject herself to such torment. She basically has a choice. Everyone does. She shrugged her shoulders and casually replied, "Just like everyone else, I strive for the money".

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I am convinced that everyone of us has a calling. Indeed, we have been called numerous times ever since we were toddler. The calling I mean here is the mode of reaching out from our higher consciousness to our day to day consciousness. It is supposed to be the guidance from our higher self so that we can sail through our lives effortlessly. Claiming such mechanism to be embedded in our pyschological sphere, should not be that outrageous given that as proven by science, homosapiens are capable to evolve for self-defense purposes. Unfortunately, we are always clouded with mundane worries and let such calling pass us by. Indeed, few of us have the sufficient courage or confidence to answer the calling. Most of the time we are so busy strategizing our career advancements or even some get rich plans, that we rather bury the calling deep inside our heart and never let it resurface ever again. While also at times, we are so blinded by the sense of security that we even hate the sound of such calling.

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Just like the young lawyer that I met today, we do not differ from her much. We are so willing to let ourselves be guided by illusion of wealth, fame and status but we shun the calling that we so yearn to follow. Even though we know such calling promises us happiness and satisfaction in the end, the prominence of insecurity just puts everyone off.

Towards the end, while she hastily made her move for her other appointments lining up to the late evening, I solemnly chose to remain by the lakeside and let myself be bathed in the morning sun. So what will you choose?

If you were to stretch out your hand and try to catch hold of time, you will find that it seeps through your fingers effortlessly

It has already been some time since the last time I posted here, being busy with my renewed hobby, which is photography. Much time has been spent on roaming the KL streets and exploring some unknown territories, just to find an interesting object to shoot. Indeed, these few days, I get to know KL deeper than what I have already known for the past 10 yrs. Hence, for the first time I appreciate KL as it is.

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Of course for most photography enthusiasts, Putrajaya occupies at least the top 3 positions in their "must shoot scene" list. I am of no different. The only difference is beyond the majestic buildings, grand bridges and serene man-made lakes, Putrajaya is also a place, which is very dear to me. Back in 1997, when the economic crisis triggered by currency speculation hit hard at Malaysia, I was already enrolled in Inti College Malaysia under their 2+1 UK accounting degree program, which required me to spend at least 1 year in a Scottish university to complete my degree. But everything changed with a blink of an eye, when my father's business almost gone under. Though that period seemed so distanced now, it was still a tough period to go through. In the end, I completed my degree locally, which I have no qualms.

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Nevertheless, things took a sudden change again, when my father was awarded with a contract to transport more than 50% of the lamp posts to be installed in Putrajaya. That contract alone revived my father's business and also entitled me to spend a year in UK for my master degree. Therefore, it is not unusual that I occasionally visit and pay homage to Putrajaya, as an appreciation for giving me the opportunity to see the world.

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Nevertheless, taking Putrajaya's pictures today made me reminisce the past, it didn't help at all with the rainy weather and gloomy sky, which accentuated the woeful feelings in me. While everyday I make plans for the short-term, I have forgotten the long journey that I have paced all these years. It was neither a smooth journey nor a turbulent one but it is quite a memoir, nonetheless. Even challenges back then have lost their grief and gradually become my cherished memories, what more those sweet experiences that I manage to pick up along those years. Looking back, indeed, the space in my memory as hard disk, has gradually diminished day by day, while its content increases. I guess it is the sign of ageing, when your heart is bogged down with so much memories that you yearn to play back. However, past is past. To live the past once again, is utterly impossible.

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I once heard, life is like rollercoaster, the uphill is just like our adolescence years, when we keep pressing the accelerator. While downhill is like our midage and thereafter, when we keep applying the brake, only to find that the brake fails us. The profound meaning of this saying bit me hard today, after all, we always leave a part of us in the past.

One Litre of Tears

As the name suggests, anyone who watches this Japanese TV series, is more likely than not to cry at least a litre of tears. I belong to the minority as I have just cried half a litre when I watched this series.

The series is based on a true story set in Japan. It is about a girl called Aya Kitou, who was diagnosed with a certain brain disorder, which is too complex for me to name. Anyway, this brain disorder is not only incurable but also has a reputation to make its patients to die in the most cruel way ever discovered. As the starter, the patients will lost control of their limbs. They lose their ability to walk or move around. Their body parts become so uncontrollable that to write or type on keyboard is almost like to move a mountain. Then, move in the main course, the patients will slur in their speech and subsequently lose their ability to talk. Next, as the ultimatum, the patients will become close to paralyse until death take them in. During the whole process, they never lose their consciousness or their ability to think. Therefore it is like withnessing their own bodies whittling away.

Aya Kitou was so special that despite her disability she was determined to contribute in her own way to the society or to the people around her. For a disabled person, only the act of contributing can give them a sense of wellness and a feel of completeness. Because of this, Aya Kitou being not bothered by her disability, insisted and persisted to write her diary. She started off to write her diary as an avenue for her to express her suffering in the exact own words that she chose. Gradually she realized that her diary could become a source of motivation for other patients who suffered the similar fate. Knowing the potential of helping thousands if not millions of people through her diary, she unselfishly continued to write to the point she could no longer hold a pen.

Over the years, despite not translated to English, her diary has already sold more than a million of copies. And this TV series is inspired by her diary. For those who always complain about the nitty gritty of life, try to watch this. It may change your whole paradigm.

After finishing the series, I just have this to say, according to Mother Theresa, we should see God in everyone. Unfortunately because of our deluded mind, we don't. Therefore whenever God wants to talk and reach out to us, he chooses his representative on Earth. In this case, he has chosen Aya Kitou and through her, God spreads the message of love.

The Unnatural Love Story (Part 1)

As the first stream of sunlight bleached the velvet dark sky. I witnessed the lonely darkness, which had been accompanying me since the previous night, gradually retreating and gave way to the luminious morning sun.

rtttttttt

Lying on my bed, I patiently waited sleep to engulf me once more like a mum embracing her child, but it never came. Indeed, sleep has deserted me ever since you left. Its occasional visit delighted me once in a while, but its often absence tormented me deeply. As I stared deep into the only picture we have taken together, I was enthralled by your beauty. Despite you have been long gone, the effect you had on me had never once diminished.

ewrrrrrrrrr

Unconciously, my mind journeyed to the day you told me of your fatal disease. "Come on, stop pulling my leg! This is not funny, ok?" I said with a slight impatience. At that moment, tears strolled down your cheeks. It didn't take long before your words alternated with sobs. How I wished then I could fling my arms around you and keep you safe in my embrace? But God forbade.

tryrtyrt

Suddenly, back in my room, my hands felt chilly cold. They trembled slightly before an uncontrollable violent shake took over. Breathing became heavy, followed by a sharp pain in my heart. Clenching a fistful of my duvet cover, warm tears oozed out from my overdried reservior. As my heart thumbing harder, every ounce of my energy was drained out from my body, leaving me weak and feeble like an overgrown stalk. Despite going through this ritual almost every night since you were gone, the familiarity did not make it any easier for me. In fact, the heart ache that always followed after a poignant reminiscence of you, filled up the void in me, whenever I was devoid of you.

sdfsfsafsa

- to be continued -

Being Analytical or Critical?

Today I was impressed with a question posed by my colleague. She asked me how analytical I am. This is a very good question, which I have no answer to that. But that triggered me to write out how my thinking process works. Therefore I started this post.

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Consider the following statement - Smokers have at least 3x the chance of getting cancer. While, drinkers have only 2x the chance of getting cancer.

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What can you comment about the statement above? Come on! Be creative! Take a pen and a piece of paper and write down what come across your mind.

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Here I go. I believe most smartalecs wannabe, would straightaway ask the questions - how large is your sample size? Is it representative of the population? Did you sample everyone and anyone? How significant is 2x? The list goes on.......

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Though, these are very valid questions, they are merely scratching the surface. Think deeper and longer, there are many other dimensions to the statement, which I stumble upon. Hereby I categorize as below:

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The Black Hole Effect

The black hole effect is termed by me but there are people who call it the salience effect. Let's say 1 out of 100 healthy normal being contract cancer. So the probability of a normal person contracting cancer is 1%. The probability for smokers is 3x more, so 3%. While the probability for drinkers is 2%. Let's say there are 100,000 smokers and 200,000 drinkers. In absolute no, only 2000 people got cancer due to smoking, while there is 3000 people who got cancer due to drinking! Which is more damaging now?

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The Time Trap

This is my favourite. Just love to use this to make some smartalecs shut up! Now, how long is the observation period? Let's say the survey only observe people who have been smoking or drinking for 20 yrs. Then the question is, what will be happen in 30 yrs!?! 40 yrs!?! 50 yrs!?! The conclusion maybe different.

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The Causal Relationship

The statements above cannot affirm that smoking or drinking causes cancer. It can't prove there is a causal relationship. Maybe there is a 3rd element that cause beings to contract cancer and beings contracted cancer are more likely to smoke or drink. If I want to go up to the top, I can even bullshit that this 3rd element will make people smoke and drink 20 / 30 / 50 yrs before the 1st symptom of cancer surfaces. Can you prove me wrong? If this cannot be proven wrong, then there is no conclusion that can be drawn.

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Anyway, there are more examples I can put up. But the more I write, the more I feel these are nothing but thrashes. Why thrashes? What I have done above, while I still hold that they are valid considerations, they are largely ineffective. I am a fan of quantum physics now (I mean the application part. Not the calculation!!!). Researchers of the 21st century, based on quantum physics, have come out with a new field of study called the Science of Oneness. To put it simply, scientist / researchers / philopshopers have one thing in common. They are in pursuance of ultimate knowledge albeit different method. As claimed by these researchers, Science of Oneness is the ultimate knowledge. Indeed, the Science of Oneness is the hallmark, where science and philosophy converges. What the Science of Oneness says is that, for facts or incidents or phenomena to exist, they are a lot of conditions to fulfil, the fulfillment of these conditions also depends on the 2nd set of underlying conditions, so on and so forth. If it is not mind boggling enough, according to these researchers, these conditions that shape the facts or phenomena are INTERDEPENDENT or INTERCONNECTED. That's why it is called the Science of Oneness. You will be surprised, this is the essence of Buddhism. In Buddhism, it is known as Dependent Arising, (in sanskrit ~ pratityasamupada). You will also be surprised, this is also the essence of Tao Te Ching.

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So, what I did above is just playing with the conditions i.e. given these conditions, this is true but given that conditions, this is not true etc etc. It is really nothing great. In fact it can be harmful and ineffective at times. For example, if you are presented some data finding, and you apply The Causal Relationship to question the validity of the data. What good does it make? You can't really articulate or negate the effect of causal relationship. The Science of Oneness says that all conditions are interdependent but they can't prove how it is dependent. Therefore, what you can get out of it, is basically making the presenter annoyed.

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However, such thinking process can also be helpful at times. Most people call such thinking process as critical thinking. Why critical thinking? It is named so because behaviorists believe that beings always think on a default mode. When they think on the default mode, they hit a lot of blind spots, some of those I mentioned above. Therefore, behaviorists claim that we have to think critically if we want to be effective. I readily agreed to that.

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At this juncture, you probably want to say I am fickled-minded. Sometimes I said being critical is useless but other times I agreed being critical is helpful. Well, again as taught by the Science of Oneness, every fact or phenomenon existence depends on a varieties of conditions. You can't practice generalization. It is useless when it is used on certain basis and it is helpful when it is used on another basis. As a conclusion, if our intention of being critical is just to show that we know a lot, then we are degrading critical thinking. It becomes useless because it has the aptitude of making the people beating around the bush without a final agreed action. However, it becomes a good tool if our intention of being critical is to be aware of the unknown and make our decisions conciously based on that.

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Therefore, to conclude being critical or analytical is not equivalent to being smart or intelligent. Being smart or intelligent is to be aware when to be critical or analytical, therefore yield the effectiveness of critical or analytical thinking. So the next time before opening your mouth to be smartalecs, better ask yourself what you are going to say whether is going to help or not.

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The above is written without any cross-reference and only based on my two pence worth of thoughts. Therefore, my understanding on certain topic may not be proficient enough. Thus, do read with caution. If any of the topics, arouse your interest, I will be glad to provide you some recommended readings.

Private vs Public

One of my friends, who I have invited to read this blog, asked me today why didn't I set my blog as public. She complained that it is really troublesome for her to search my invitation email, everytime she intends to read my blog as she is not bothered to register as a member.

Well, I have this to say. I don't really think there is any difference for me to set my blog as private or public. My postings are just not good enough to attract the masses to read. (very seldom see me so humble, eh?) Whether I set in private or public, I don't foresee there will be much people recurring to read it. Therefore I blog mainly to express myself. If that being the case, I rather keep it private, for then I can blog on something ....hmmm...something personal.

30th September 2009 - another day of bloodshed? Let's pray not

I first learned the word tsunami on the 26th December 2009. Yes! It was the Boxing Day. Supposedly a joyful and auspicious day, but as fate had it, 230,000 people from 11 countries perished on that day. Even more people lost their family members and friends just within that split second on that fateful day. Thousands if not millions of kid, overnight became orphan.

Ever since then, I had never pay much attention to tsunami as it mushroomed around the region. Maybe it is a case of being lack of compassion. Nevertheless I felt safe and sound in Malaysia then. But today I felt the tremor myself. Even though it was just a mild shake that I felt, compare to what the victims must had felt, it had already sent a part of me to Padang, Indonesia. For that spilt second, vision of damage houses, cries of the fearful filled up my senses as the tragic unfold. My heart went out to the victims.

As I skimmed through the internet news, there was no report on the number of casualties yet. Let's pray together while death is out for hunting, let him be merciful and spare the good souls.

Om Namo Bhagavate Bhaisajayaguru Vaiduraya Phrabarajaya Tatagathaya Ahate Samyaksambuddhaya Tadyatha Om Bhaisajye Bhaisajye Maha Bhaisajye Bhaisajye Sammugate Soha

A simple Buddha Medicine prayers to keep the hope alive.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

It is truly a shame for me to only lay my hands on this book after it has been published for thus long. It just doesn't do enough justice to Mr. Paulo Coelho if I were to describe this book as merely inspiring as some of the critics do. This book is much more than just inspiring. In fact it is empowering.

It is rare indeed, for me to have the opportunity to read such a masterpiece, as I have not come across a single book, that manage to articulate so clearly its intended message by telling a fiction story. Mr. Paulo Coelho had done that beautifully. He managed to convey his view and message about life by camouflaging under the pretext of a fiction story, which is full of fantasies and magic.

As I flipped through the pages and my eyes taking in the alphabets, I felt my heart was gradually swelling with regret. If only I have read this book in my younger days, maybe my life will be very much different now. Well, regret is a word that the overly thick dictionary can do without with. But I just want to accentuate how impactful this book is.

I shall not steal the fun by telling the storyline here. I urge if anyone read this, do give this beautiful book a chance to empower you.

Why am I a Buddhist?

Someone in the Dharma class today asked me, why do I become a Buddhist? Hmmm...I have written about this somewhere but I couldn't seem to locate it.

Anyway, I vaguely remembered ever since I was a kid, I always pestered my parents to bring me to temple. There is a cave in Ipoh, which houses a Buddhist temple called Perak Cave. It is located near my father's office. So he always brought me to the cave before I started schooling. I couldn't recall whether it was due to the cooling atmosphere in the cave or the awesome yet serene Buddha statute that made me feel very much at home and at ease there.

I was only that close to Buddhism back then. I knew nothing about Dharma moreover meditation. However, something happened in recent years that made me turn to Buddhism for solace. It was then that I took up meditation and gradually be serious in Buddhism. I started off as a Theravadin but somehow I ended up more like a Vajrayana practitioner. Yet I am not really into initiations or empowerments like most Vajrayana practioners do. So it is kind of a mix and match thing as to certain extend I am still practicing Theravada teaching.

I would never forget that during my first few Dharma classes, there was this lady who claimed that by practicing certain Vajrayana purification practices, she managed to save her business from going down under. She was so gung-ho about Vajrayana purification practices that she mentioned her life was totally changed, to the better of course! I do not deny the truth in what she said. In fact I practice full length prostration as well as mantra recitation. I am convinced that purification practices work and there is a logical explanation to that.

A lot of people turn to Buddhism due to such reasons. They thronged to temples asking for mantra to recite so that they can accumulate wealth or health, if not both. They invite deities and conscerate in their altar so that these deities can do their jobs and protect their families. These are not wrong. Albeit some literature that claim Buddhist do not believe in God, we actually do. Out of the 6 realms (or 5 realms as believed by Theravadins), Buddha has mentioned one of it, is a God realm. It is just that Buddhist shall not rely on deities, as liberation is very much individual effort. However Buddhist can seek deities assistance, who are Dharma protectors to guide us to the enlightment path. So it seems there is a condratiction, indeed there is only a fine line drawn between the two. The question is how much guidance is deemed sufficient?

Due to this, Buddhism has very much become a wish fulfilling gems to its followers. Again this may not be wrong. It is just that such followers may not have done full justice to Buddhism. Buddhism is much more than that. Yes! Through purification of negative karma, the quality of your life improves. But it is merely the painkiller to your current problem because every day you live, you are basically engaging new negative karma. By negative karma here I don't mean bad karma that will bring you serious repercussions. No! What I mean by negative karma here is karma that will obstruct you from liberation.

Therefore in short, besides engaging purification practices such as mantra recitation, which is very good by itself, the essence of Buddhism is mind training. Only by transforming our mind, we can neutralize adversities. Only by transforming our mind, we can see the nature of reality and that's the ultimate goal as a Buddhist.

I can continue ranting about Buddhism, but to answer the question why I become a Buddhist, I only have this to say. After years of searching, only in Buddhism I can catch a glimpse of the nature of reality, also known as the fundamental truth. Whatever you call it, it is the only antidote to the cause of suffering.

Heart warming Incidents over the Ramadan month ~ Salam Zahir dan Batin

Incident 1

There is a stray dog who lives under one of the pillar in Kelana Jaya LRT station. Every morning after I have parked my car and walk towards the train station, I will pass by the dog. He then will stand up much like giving you a greeting and trail you to the train station. Thereafter he will walk back to its cozy little corner. Everytime after work, I always remind myself that I need to buy something for this poor little dog to eat. But needless to say, I always forget. With God's grace, last Friday I remembered, so I bought 3 fish balls from 7-eleven. Well I took one as I was too hungry, but I gave the remaining two to him. As I walked closer to his corner, he stood up and if I was not hallucinating, the dog actually bowed to me. Then I noticed two bowls on the floor. One of the bowls had some rice remained, while the other bowl contained fresh water. A sudden joy filled my heart. Despite constant publicity in the newspaper on crimes, wars and violence, here in a city called Kuala Lumpur, I knew at least there is one good-hearted people, who tend to the poor little dog. It was a relieved.

Incident 2

I was feeling a bit feverish and sickly tonight, but I didn't resign to the sickness. Instead of retreating to my cozy bed, I took a walk at the lake below my condo. It was a breezy evening and a quiet one too. While I was enjoying myself at the lakeside, I saw a plump elderly lady carrying few trays of "kuih" for the guards to devour. It was the festive spirit that really warm my heart.

~Postcript~

Day in, day out there are a lot of things happening around us. We subconsciously choose what we want to see. If we are always engulfed in pessimism, we only view life from the negative aspect. But if we were to just open up a bit and let life bask you with joy, you will find that, to live is a blessing.

Sequel of Li Ren translation

Leaving for exile in the wilderness
Is like entering a fifth season
Discord day and night Willfulness constant as the tide
Spring has no meaning for us
Leaving amidst torrents of tears
Avoiding our inevitable parting
You fear to think of tomorrow
I refuse to say goodbye
Some say that with every parting
A star is extinguished in the sky

Bad Day

A bad day but it will pass, just like any other day. All it needs is just a little push with a small laugh :-)

~Translation of a Wonderful Song~

Came across this song called Li Ren by Lin Zhi Xuan. Really a beautiful song with touching lyrics. So I attempted to translate the lyrics to English here. I couldn't translate it word to word as it will lost its eloquence. So I re-write the lyrics but retain the original meaning :

~

A small silver colored boat swaying gently from side to side

Resembling a crescent moon hanging on the velvet dark sky

Your vast sadness and blues filled my little heart

How would the deep love I have for you, not made me lonely

For I am missing you madly

My luggage standing tall and odd by itself reminding me of my battered self

~

To be continued.....

An Eventful Adventure ~ 18SX : Please read with parental guide

The light was dimmed but I could still vaguely make out my silhoutte against the sparsely colored wall. Stripped to my birthday suit, I laid down on my abdomen. With a think towel covering my lower part body, I felt a pair of hands massaging my stiff shoulder. Tenderly but not without strength, the pair of hands continue to work downwards towards my spiral chord and finally my pelvic bone.

Then, each hand forming the shape of a cup and both wrist joined together, the pair of hands started to press on my backbone from the spinal chord, all the way up to my shoulder blade. With each press, a comforting pressure is exerted and quite automatically trapped air was released from my lung through my mouth. To say it was relaxing is just lack of adequacy. It was more than just relaxing but stimulating at the same time.

Next, turning on my back, I felt hot air breathing down my neck, electrifying every cell found in my body. It stopped and lingered a while on my chest. It wasn't long before it started working downwards again. Yes ! It was still going downwards....

Just at that very critical moment, I felt a stinging sensation on my face !

"Was it the latest face massage technique?" I wondered.

But then few more blows rained down on my face. With shock and frustration, I opened my eyes. To my horror I saw my housemate staring squarely at me.

"Did you give me a massage?" I murmured.

"Hell! No! I gave you few slaps and you were smiling!" He replied

Amidst the confusion, my senses finally settled down. Jumping out of the bed, I screamed. "What the fuck!! I am late for work again!!"

A Conversation

Just to share a clip of conversation that I had with a close friend over a cuppa of coffee over the weekend.

Friend : I feel very troubled. He is always in my mind 24 hrs a day. I thought of him every moment, during eating, walking, working and even during my sleep I frequently dream of him.

Me : So you love him?

Friend : I think I do. Yeah I do love him.

Me : Why don't you tell him? Tell him how you feel about him.

Friend : I don't even want to go there. It is really complicated. Please don't ask me why. Just take it that telling him is the last option or rather it is not an option at all.

Me : Ok I shall not ask further then. But I just want you know that you do not love him. You merely desire him.

Friend : Is there a difference? All I know is that I want him. I want to be by his side and care for him.

Me : Of course there is a huge difference. When you are in love, you put his priorities over yours. Everything you do, revolve around him. Just like planet Earth revolves around the Sun. And yes, you don't seem to get enough of him. You miss him easily and you always try to be close to him as much as possible.

Friend : That's what I do. Yeah this is exactly how I am feeling right now at this very moment. Have you experienced it before?

Me : Of course I have. I am made of flesh and blood. But the ultimate testament to whether you really love him is that you do the above with goodwill. You do a lot for him but you do not hope for any returns. You do it out of a sincere wish that he will be happy. And you take pleasure that whatever you have done brought him joy.

On the contrary, if you are merely desiring him, then whatever you did, you expect some kind of returns. You feel let down if he never reciprocate your actions. You feel jealous whenever he is with some other people and not you. If you go down this path, you will have to mend your broken heart sooner or later.

Friend : Whatever you have just said are so philosophical. Everyone knows that love is selfish.

Me : My friend, you may not understand it now. But do spend some time to think about it. Whatever I have said is very much pragmatic and practical. Only those who have not loved before would say that love is selfish. It is not. I can testify to that.

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying desire is bad. A relationship without desire is a relationship without passion and it won't last either. All I am saying is, just like cooking, desire is only one of the many flavouring that you add to make your dish taste better. You have to use it skillfully or else your dish may just turn out to be disaster. Desire without love is not real. Just like masturbation, you will feel empty after the climax.

Friend : What should I do now?

Me : Learn to cook. Learn how to apply your flavouring skillfully. Control and balance your desire. To do that, ultimately you have to ask yourself, do you really love him?

~Unity in Diversity~

Over the weekend, I was reading a book by an international bestseller, Khaleed Hossein. The book is a fiction entitled A Thousand Splendid Suns. Initially, I bought it as a birthday present to a friend. Anyway that aside, my attention was solidly captured when I flipped through the initial few pages. The story, which set in Afghanistan, is about women discrimination and how they strived under the Taliban rule.

To describe the story as heart wrenching, is perhaps an understatement. Apart from swelling your eyes with tears (to someone perhaps but not me), the story drives you to think deep about discrimination. So in this post, I just want to pen down some haphazard thoughts about this topic.

Even in the 21st century, sad to say discrimination still happens in almost every society. It appears in different forms. It can take the form as gender discrimination, racial discrimination, sexual preference discrimination and many more. Being a smoker, sometimes I am also discriminated by that too!

It is really mind puzzling how discrimination can happen. I have read of accounts that women being gang raped in Middle Eastern countries. If that is not devastating enough, there are also not short of accounts, where women being burnt to death in India. In most society, women are always sidelined. Sometimes I suspect, we can even drown the whole world if we were to collect one drop of tears from each woman who has been discrimated since the last century.

Living in a multi culture society, I do not even want to talk about racial discrimination as it has become an everyday life affairs. If you want to get a feel of what is racial discrimination, nothing speaks louder than a copy of Utusan Malaysia (one of the Malaysia mainstream newspaper in Malay language).

From friends to relatives and even family members, my sexual preference seems to be very much of their interest. Maybe it is due to my level of sensitivity, which surpasses any normal guy, numerous times I had been harassed with the question whether I am gay. The peculiarity is I am not really angered by such a question but more like amused by it. Have you heard of people being asked are you straight? The rule of large numbers applies here. As the majority of world's citizens live a straight normal life i.e. getting married and have a football team of children, any deviation from it, is viewed as abnormal or against the nature. However, nature is not shaped by the majority. Nature is merely what you see, hear, taste or feel from the physical world. In other words, nature is largely defined by the experience when your senses contact with the outer world. Therefore, NATURE, to the contrary of most people believe, is largely a personalized individual experience.

If every human were to spend just a second to think - you and me and everyone else are not really so much in difference. You will find that gender, skin colour or even sexual preference are merely the attributes that shape an individual. Deep down everyone, regardless of gender, race or sexual preference, only has one aspiration and that's to be happy. If that's so why don't we help each other to achieve it together?

A Horizontal Sand Clock

Today is a quiet Saturday. No appointments to rush to and no plans made ahead. It was a good opportunity to spend some time with myself. So I headed to the gym for a quick workout after a simple lunch. Well, the work out part was merely a self-comforting statement, as the time I spent for work out is not even more than 45 mins!

It was really rare indeed, for me to step into the sauna. It seemed that even a mere 15 mins is too much a hassle to sequence out from my time. But today time is a luxury for me, so I seated myself in the sauna and enjoyed the heat. It was so relaxing that I almost dozed off. Just at that moment, something peculiar caught my sight. It was a sand clock. It was just any normal sand clock that you see in a sauna room. But what really caught my attention was that somebody had placed the sand clock horizontally instead of the usual vertical position.

There were only two reasons I could think of for anyone to put the sand clock horizontally. Either that person did it out of mischief or he is trying to stop time, at least metaphorically. It was something I naively tried to do sometime ago. Back then I knew that I was inching towards a bad state of emotion as the time progressed. I knew given a bit of time whatever or whoever that I was enjoying or cherishing would leave due to the natural course of events. I did whatever I could to prevent it from happening. My only prayers and hope was that time could just stood still a bit longer. Of course it never did. Human is just too minute to act againts the course of changes. Whatever that are bound to happen, will happen. In the end, after it happened, I did plunge into the deep dungeon of emotion torment. But I was surprised it was my enemy i.e. TIME was the one who healed me and made me a much stronger person than I was before.

So to the person who had put the sand clock horizontally, I sincerely prayed things will work out fine for you but most of the time it depends very much on ourselves. TIME is neutral. It does not mean to make enemy or friends with anyone. Most of the time, we are the ones who made enemy with it. And there starts the suffering.....