I did this on Sunday the 15th. Eating like there is no tomorrow.
I felt this on both the following Monday and Tuesday. Vegetating and feeding on drugs... zombie-like-state...
This happened to me on Wednesday and Thursday. Bloating and floating with gasses. Blurry days...
Friday, the remaining. Slightly better than the previous days.
Saturday, I drove my sisters and the kids here. Breathing in the fresh Melaka air.Blood returned to my pale sickly complexion. Happy. Grateful.
I climbed up till Kolam Puteri Gunung Ledang on Sunday. Wow! I have proven to myself that I am not sickly and obviously not old. Hurrayyyy! Take note of my pink of health. The blushed rosy cheeks and the sweats. Double happiness.
But... on Monday and Tuesday, I experienced this again... Flatulence. Feverish. Muscle aches. So on and so forth...
Alas! The pearls dropped down. The sadness is unbearable. I am no longer machess.
Let me first recap our Friday morning conversation with Prof on the subject matter of empowerment. Brother Mas'ud posed a question, "What is needed to become a person with empowerment?". Prof said, "Empowerment is you don't feel that you are the dirt of the earth . In reference to the notions of Al-Rahman, Al-Rahim and Lailahaillallah, each one of us has a spiritual significance." Yup! I realise this, always. Yet sometimes the environment that I am living in, the people that I am associating with, and the socially constructed reality that I am confronted with make me feel I am at the bottom. The "busuk". Kinda lack of self-confidence and a very poor self-esteem.
Anyway, I will always justify these feelings by relating to my efforts to become a humble being on this earth. On the surface, people might take me as a jolly happy-go-lucky person who seems to lead a happy (aimless?) life. Beneath, the struggle within is enormous and to know self and to know the ultimate aim of life is not something easy. It demands sacrifice and lots of pains.
A person scoffed and laughed at me when I said that I don't have a credit card. A lawyer he is, he doesn't believe that at my age I don't possess any. I told him that I am a poor student and even my study is partially sponsored by my parents. Plus, I don't see any reasons why should I use one when the most important for me at the moment is to try living without any debt. Obviously, death is an unexpected visitor. My time might come today as I am driving home or even tomorrow. I don't want to impose my burden of debts upon the ones I love. It will be unfair for them. Coming back to this person whom I just got to know only from a single communication over the phone, he assumed that my parents are rich. Even if they are, who am I at this age to put extra burden on them. This is the time when it is me who is supposed to take care of them. My encounter with this person has some how enhanced my "busukness" feelings though I know that I should just ignore his thoughtless remarks. He had somehow pulled me down, making me feel wealth matters so much.
Another scene, someone who asked me to help her with her translation works called me few days ago. I wrote about this qualm in my previous entry. Though, she said that she was just calling to ask for my well-being, I smelled that it was actually more about the well-being of her papers. Despite of my poor health, my inefficiency in translating the papers is also due to my being sceptical of the whole matter. She interrogated me (it did sound like that) and never did mention about any particulars on the payment. It is not that I do things because of money. People who know me well will understand my working attitude. I look forward to help. However, sometimes, when my professional contribution is not justly acknowledged, I would get the "busuk" feelings that I mentioned above. To add, she also seemed difficult to accept that I don't have any secured permanent job. Huh? Why is it it is so difficult with some people to accept the reality of life. Why is it difficult for them to accept the reality of my life is constructed on "freedom" which I have defined it towards a more noble objective in life? Nevertheless, she succeeded in making me feel more "busuk" than ever.
To depart from the two scenes above, the point is, it is not easy to become an empowered person. When you feel that you have strength in you, meeting people like these may deplete your sense of empowerment. These are people who are not close to you. How about of those who are near to you and yet they make you feel inadequate without realising it? This is even worse. These people are close to you and sometimes you have no other choice except to accept things as it is, to follow the flow, with the thought that you don't want to jeopardise your relationship with them. Inside, it bites you like fire eating piles of woods. A very excruciating pain. You want to run away yet you can't because they are so close besides you.
I don't want to explain further. Let my thoughts hang here. But this is the reason of why I couldn't stop my tears from falling down. It has nothing to do with jealousy. It has nothing to do with questioning fairness. It has nothing to do with patriotism. It just feels that way. Out of nowhere. I think I should stop this ramble and buy myself a good flask of coffee. Hope I have enough in my purse...
My tears cannot stop pouring. Out of hunger at most.
Everything is wrong today. As if everything is against me. I woke up early to do my laundry as early as 5 a.m. While waiting, I tried to get hooked on to the net but the GPRS connection made me impatient. I accidentally slept after half an hour and woke up at the smell of fried fish from the kitchen. That already made me a bit jittery and angry. The washing machine is next to the stove and my clothes would get smelly. I was already angry at my sister/s for not waking me up before frying those keropok lekor. Luckily the smell did not penetrate the machine and seep into the fabrics. Luckily it was not the real fish, else, things would get even worse. I went out to hang my clothes. Happy with the sun and the strong wind. No longer that angry.
Keropok lekor in the morning would never satisfy my tummy. My hands were still shaking for real food. A fussy diabetic. We tried to wake my brother [hmmm...] up from his slumber but he only was up and about after three hours from this first event. Ayah asked him to get something real for breakfast. I was really hungry and went to bed in the hope that when I woke up the hunger would go away. But, it didn’t go away. I was even hungrier and angrier.
I managed to get a bit of sleep where in the midst I woke up with another smell. The smell of smoke from outside. My anger was greatly enhanced. Somebody put fire on their piles of garbage and the smoke was everywhere surrounding the house. My clothes! I dashed to the kitchen and almost screaming I scolded the one who did that, in which I didn’t know who. My sisters were panicking observing my early morning tantrums. Dila tried to soothe me by saying, “ Ala Long biasa la tuh... orang kampong.” I barked at her and said, “Orang kampong la yang patutnya lebih prihatin, lebih faham konsep kejiranan! Bakar la sampah waktu petang lepas orang angkat baju, dah jadi bodoh ke apa semua orang kat dunia ni! Benda basic pun tak mau ingat lagi nak kecoh pasal isu Gaza la, isu rebut kuasa la! Stupid!” Yeah... basically that was the line [with a bit of exaggeration]. Yeah, I am a bit fussy about smelly clothes. My sister always told me that I got smelly and stinky at the end of the day. Now, how could I wear a smelly dress in the morning? Imagine how smelly and stinky I would become at the end of the day. Fullstop.
It is now 12 noon. I got all mad again. With my enhanced hunger, with my brother [who only is nice towards his girlfriend and no longer towards me], with my neighbour who made my clothes smelly, with my sisters who escaped themselves by going for sightseeing somewhere at Masjid Tanah [they always choose to ignore me whenever], with my another neighbour who is making noise with his grass cutter machine from morning up until now, with the slow internet connection, and the most is with MY OWN SELF for not being able to keep my sanity intact and be virtuously patient.
I was insufficiently connected with the world last week. The ADSL is still kaput, the EzNet is too slow and the broadband was in Mersing, following its owner... huhuhuh... As Angah arrived last night, my face glowed with hope and happiness. Yup! When you are used to having such facility, to be deprived makes you restless and aimless. Bad huh? C'mon. Think about those of have nots. I should be grateful. Though I am not as rich as the others [read: rich is a subjective concept], at least my basic necessities are filled. I still can afford to eat rice with nyummy dishes twice a day. I still have a shelter and my own room. I still have a car - though now I'm driving Dila's auto car - to move around. I still have clothes to wear though they seem like my daily uniform. Above all, I still have. That's the more reason for constantly being grateful.
This reminds me of the day when I went out to hang with friends in three different places on previous Thursday. KLCC, Pavillion and KL Central. We had a marvellous galla day. It has been years since I did such kind of activities - hanging out with friends, eating good food, watching movies. I am fortunate to be blessed with good friends who are there in moments of happiness and in moments of sadness. They nicely treated me on many occasions. I promise myself that later, when we hang out again, I'll be the one who will treat them. It is just that I need to earn enough in order to be able to do such. It feels bad when friends came from afar, yet I don't have enough. I always scold myself for being a loser, useless, busuk, and tapette. My sisters would scold me and tell me that I am never such. They said that I am hardworking yet, only people do not appreciate what I've done. Two institutions are still owing me a huge sum of payment which I should get sometime in October 2008. Too bad. But, that's the path that I have decided upon. To become a part-timer. I want to focus on my study. I do not want bosses to dictate my study life and it is also in compliance with my deteriorating health conditions. Nope! I am not sighing. I am grateful for what I have now. It only bothers me when sometimes I feel oppressed by the society. In times like this, I would remind myself to not become an opressor.
Another recollection, on Thursday, I had lunch in KLCC. I ate McD's Double Beef Prosperity Burger. However, with every bite I felt a stinging pain inside. Guilt. I was thinking of the have nots around me. There I was eating a RM21 burger. For RM21 I can buy four plates of rice with decent dishes. I wasted the money [read: given by Dila] on this stupid hideous gluttony desire of mine. Who is getting properous? Did I feel or become prosperous? Nope. I still feel bad. Thinking of the social justice and of how what I have learnt was not transformed into wise practices. Bad. It was even worse when I ate at Kenny Rogers for dinner. Though my friends treated me this, I was partly to be blamed for asking my friend to treat me such. Bad. Bad. I am an accomplice to the social injustice. I wasted Dila's and my friend's money on private whims and whisicals. Bad. Bad. Bad.
Friday, the guilt was greatly enhanced. A friend treated me in a Muslim Chinese restaurant. Spending RM100+ for a plate of rice and some other dishes. Again, an accomplice to social injustice. To being in Prof's class has made me realised that all these while I was deviated from the right path that I was originally in. Whatever he preaches in theory was already practiced by me in practice, through my societal involvement. However, as a every limited person, I tend to forget. Following the desires, I was swayed from the path. I was reminded of that, again, after a soul-enriching talk at a camp near Alang Sedayu. Thank you abang Olin for that great reminder. I have waited all these years and only that night I understood. Nothing can describe how grateful I am.
Okie tokie, enough of this contemplation for the day. I have to be involved with and in the world in order to achieve that divine aim. May Allah bless me!
