Aku diajar tentang Fitrah
Tentang naluri teras ciptaan
Yang terukur teratur indah
Jadi batu asas sang Insan
Mereka diajar tentang Fitrah
Kalau lelaki begini jadinya
Kalau perempuan begitu pula
Semuanya lazim mengikut lumrah
Kita diajar tentang Fitrah
Seolah insan wataknya mudah -
Kalau lelaki: ketua keluarga
Kalau perempuan: dapur tempatnya
Kalau lelaki: jadi pemimpin
Kalau wanita: menyalin lampin
Tugas lelaki: mentadbir buana
Tugas wanita: menggoncang dunia
(Nun jauh rantai asbabnya
Kononnya buaian mencerna kuasa)
Ini ajarku perihal Fitrah:
Setiap insan pelbagai lumrah
Maksud Adil penuh ma’rifat
Setiap sesuatu terletak tepat
Kalau Rafidah: jadilah Menteri
Jangan disorok tepi perigi
Kalau Zeti: jadilah Gubenur
Pasti iktisad cantik teratur
Kalau Jemilah: jadilah Doktor
Harum nama negara masyhur
Ini hakikat ertinya Fitrah:
Setiap insan dicipta Allah
Lengkap kamil dengan cirinya
Setiap seorang tiada sama
Tanda hormat sesama insan:
Mengukur kain pada sang badan
Tinggi budi tinggilah maqam
Itulah janji Allah Yang Akram!
On Cussing
One of the most difficult things that I had to get used to, when I first came up to boarding school in Melaka, was the cussing. It was not just that it was casual – friends would greet each other by the side of the road with “Woi, sial! Lama tak nampak!”, faces beaming – but that it was constant and unthinking. Everyday, everywhere, all at once, you could hear a chorus of Babi and Lahanat and Celaka in a hundred parallel conversations at any given moment.
Cussing was a big part of the culture – the price of admission to be part of the tribe.
I remember one afternoon, a couple of us played a stupid parlour game to see who can let out the longest unbroken stream of expletives, like a string of polished pearls of excrement – gleeful wannabe rappers with a bad case of Tourette’s, going babikaulahanatcelakapukimakpantatlancaucibaimakkau! at the utmost top of our voices.
Swearing as an art form: we were incorrigible.
Not long after boarding school, when I went overseas for A-Levels, I became the unfortunate existential trial that God inflicted on my pious, budak-sekolah-agama housemate. He would wince at every profanity that came out of my foul mouth. Certainly he was too polite to tell me off, so I had to find out from someone else that he was seriously considering moving to another house to get away from my baleful influence. Of course, I found this mortifying – I thought of myself as a good boy, and my housemate was such a gentle soul that the very thought of him moving out, because of my cussing, was a painful thought.
I cleaned up my act, and my potty mouth, pretty quickly.
On Becoming a Person ( or A Book Review of Carl Rogers’ 1961 Classic Book on Psychotherapy)
This classic book by Carl Rogers, first published in 1961, will likely be the most important book I read this year.
Useful and enlightening, Carl Rogers’ approach to psychotherapy resonates with what I believe to be my own take on life: that humans are deeply unique, and that one of our most primary tasks in Life is to give full expression and flowering to the most singular and delightful aspects of our human existence.
Unlike other luminaries of psychotherapy such as Freud and Jung, Rogers believed in a far more grounded and almost ridiculously basic approach to therapy: that the primary responsibility of the therapist is to provide a safe and confidential space for persons to learn to listen to themselves, and to fully experience the entire spectrum of their emotions. His belief was that when patients rediscover what it means to become and be themselves, they will learn that they already have the resources within themselves to recover their own dignity and self-worth.
Most importantly: Rogers walks the talk. Through his flowing and honest prose, the reader gets a sense of who he is – humble, curious, empowering, democratic, authentic, sincere, perhaps even a touch naive.
Rogers also brought two novel approaches to psychotherapy. The first was his conviction that the efficacy and usefulness of what he called “client-centred therapy” or “person-centred approach” could be proven scientifically, through rigorous experiments which were carefully documented and published in the leading psychology journals of his day. His other innovation, which was to grow to become a leading preoccupation for him in his later years, was that the basic principles of his approach to psychotherapy had real and vital applications in fields far beyond the therapist’s room: in the classroom, amongst married couples, and even in the drawing rooms and conference halls of high diplomacy. He was certain that the greatest problems of his age could be solved by an appeal to the fundamentals of human creativity and decency.
Most importantly, from my point of view, his perspective on human communications suggests that we already have the tools we need to form a better life for ourselves:
- The faith that every single human being is, at their core, a decent and dignified human being, and that rediscovering that core humanity requires us to actively work towards listening to and understanding ourselves and others.
- The courage to be sincere with how we feel, at any given moment, and to embrace the implications of those emotions in how we deal with others.
- The curiosity to truly listen to what others have to say, to fully experience the words and the tone and the music with which others communicate themselves to us.
- The commitment to constantly work towards becoming better versions of who we are, to lean into our self-knowledge and self-understanding and bring ourselves to the fullest flowering of our unique and indivisible selves.
Some books come along at the moment when you most need them. Reading this book gave me further validation that the way I see the world is a way that could work well, and I finished the book with the hope that here was a roadmap that I could walk in my every day to become a better person.
In other words, this was a 5-star read that I would highly highly recommend to anyone interested in an engaging and coherent approach towards living a Good Life.
Tentang Hidup Seorang Melayu Borjuis
Aku selalu bingung.
Aku diajar untuk patuh taat. Ikut perintah ayah. Ikut perintah mak. Ikut perintah guru. Patuh arahan loceng sekolah, patuh pengawas, patuh peraturan sekolah.
Aku ikut. Patuh. Belajar rajin-rajin. Masuk universiti. Dapat degree. Kerja keras. Beli kereta. Beli rumah. Kawin. Dapat anak. Dapat kenaikan pangkat. Kalau untung, dapat gelar Datuk, gelar Tan Sri.
Patuh arahan lampu isyarat, patuh undang-undang, patuh saranan Kerajaan.
Semuanya aku ikut. Jadi kenapa aku masih rasa bingung? Kenapa aku selalu rasa ada benda yang memulas dalam perut, memulas dalam kepala, katanya kenapakausiniapakaunaksiapaengkauapamaksudsemuaini?
On Humaning
We were walking through the throngs of shopping mall patrons, side-stepping wayward jaywalkers like a crazed penguin computer game, trying not to bump into daydreaming children and their dazed parents.
From behind us, a toddler was bawling her brains out, desperate screams piercing through the mall muzak. Seconds later, we noticed the mother walking briskly past us, her right hand firmly clasped around her child. The kid must have been around three years old, thrashing around in her mother’s arms as she was being carried like an unruly roll of carpet, limbs a-flailing in time with her wailing.
“Parenting is hard,” Kat noted as we saw the mother rush through the crowd. The mother was struggling to keep her game face on, grimly marching forward as onlookers stared at her carrying her banshee child through the mall.
“Humaning is hard,” I said.
“Amen.”
On Sleeping
I sleep very well at night, these days. I make my ablutions, I commit to my prayers. I seek His guidance and His mercy. I take a bath – I slough off the detritus of the day’s struggles. Into bed, and into a book – the words and pages and chapters are a benediction. My evening meditation against the defeats and disappointments of a human existence. Then the words lull me into a welcome embrace – it’s alright. Everything is alright.
Three Things I am Thinking about Today #7
- There has been a lot of discussion about broadening the tax base in Malaysia, especially since the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax, which was eventually abolished by the Pakatan Harapan government. In an age when income inequality is foremost on the minds of policymakers and commentators, it is interesting to see the Malaysian Socialist Party (“PSM”) and the Democratic Action Party (“DAP”) at loggerheads over the idea of a Capital Gains Tax. My take is that policy choices in Malaysia would become much, much clearer on that day when we finally introduce clear rules around transparency of political financing. Then we will see, who exactly is fighting for the people, vs. those who merely talk a good game.
- Being married to Kat Rahmat inevitably means that there will be a lot of conversations around the meaning of Life and Death. In particular, the two of us often have conversations around the fear – nay, terror – of impending death, and how we engage in various convolutions and distractions, to take our eye off the stark reality of permanent departure from this world. This piece is consoling: that even physicists, who we would imagine to be the most rational of the best of us, cannot escape postulations that help us to find peace with the idea of our eventual expiration.
- The Great Resignation is real, and it is coming. As many workers have spent months away from the office, they have had time to evaluate their lives and careers, and many have begun to explore different options for how to live their post-pandemic lives. This article reminds us that it is okay for people to leave, and it is equally as important to pay attention on those who choose to stay. As for me, I look back at my career over the past decade and realise that even though I have technically moved jobs 5 times since 2010, those job moves have actually involved me shuttling back-and-forth between just Pemandu and Ekuinas. I would like to think it is a good sign that I have been able to return back to old stomping grounds, not just once but twice. Loyalty and trust can be hard to build, but they are very powerful currencies in our journey through life.