Horton Hears a Who!

I saw a movie today, Horton Hears a Who! on DVD. Slept half-way through, not that it's boring but I was indisputably heavy-eyed. To be uncomplicated, I was sleepy. But then I woke up, keen to finish the movie, no rationale, just out of boredom and curiosity, I sit and watch.

Did not think of it much when I watched it, was no more than a 3d animation to me. Horton discovers that there's a whole town (Whoville) full of tiny people (the Whos) on a tiny speck of dust that's come floating his way. His neighbors think he's lost his mind. But Horton decides it's his calling to protect the life on the speck: "A person's a person no matter how small," he insists.

Dr Suess' ideology was an allegorical politically critique for me to grasp. It is too immense to converse this matter in a larger scale, quite controversial although I'm very fond of ideologies. I'm at my deepest point of slumber, I won't discuss it now, maybe later, tomorrow, I don't know but the point being of writing this post? Well, we could be the specks that Horton found. What I'm trying to imply here is for us to stop being stupid and ignorant, shudder those hypocrisy, read and study more to discover the universe because every living creature matters, everything we do affect others and everything around us. Acknowledge other ideas, gain more knowledge, move forward.

Bla bla bla . . .

Paolo Coelho

"When you want something, the whole Universe conspires to help you realize your dream." Paolo Coelho


The Alchemist, his tour de force, was his first book that I read. I haven't done much with my life at the time. Immediately after reading the last sentence, I sit still in awe, impressed by his talent and anxious to start my life again.

The book was about understanding the reason for the existence of life. Which will encourage you to make your life meaningful instead of being a slave to your own life. This book teaches you to be in control of everything you do, because whatever that happens in your life it is your responsibility. When you blame others, you give up your power to change, and life is always changing, it waits for no man.

Then after I read The Pilgrimage, The Zahir, Maktub, Eleven Minutes and a few others. It is life changing. His books are delicate.

Paolo Coelho is blessed as god has given him a great gift. A genius he is.

This is my tribute to Paolo Coelho, to me he is a living legend.

Tick Tock Tick Tock

Exams, back to reality then life happens.

Its been a while since I write anything productive, this is due to my brains not functioning well these days, oh.. and the time constrain too. I haven't done much lately but time just seems to fly so quickly. Time wastes our bodies and our wits, but we waste time, so we are quits.

Nothing has happen much since my last politically influenced post. Exams. Sucked my energy dry. I lost my momentum for everything else. Not much to studying, pretty much worrying actually, anxiety. But oh well, a few more days then I'm liberated. Back to being a potato couch, movie marathon, not taking a bath until I really have to, read read read and more reading and write too. Oh how I love days with nothing to worry about..

Well, no time to lose, I will continue studying, maybe.. if nothing distracts me. Funny, there's always something though. Excuses.


"Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end." William Shakespea

Again

I am confused to how much sensitivity is too much?

Malaysians seem to be in a particularly irritable mood of late. It's not as if our deplorable lack of manners while driving has worsened overnight, or that we're even more inclined to cut the queue than before. Everywhere around us, it seems as if our levels of tolerance have dropped significantly, and in less than a year the public domain has shrunk equally so.

It is no longer possible to talk about matters deemed sensitive to some quarters, be it the question of freedom of religion and belief, to entrenched and institutionalized economic disparities in our midst.

Every time one of us displays the temerity to raise the obvious, the voice is hushed by the virulent tirade. We have become ever-so-sensitive, albeit in the most insensitive and often intolerant ways.

They want a bright Malaysia with bright young minds who could think and differentiate the positive and the negative, but if all around us, from our parents to our teachers and lecturers tell us to keep sensitive matters to ourselves and we cannot discuss it, then how can these so called bright young minds move forward, if we, us, they, are held back from voicing out?

How much sensitivity is too much?

Status Quo ?

For a country that prides itself as being the cradle of so many Asian cultures, there seem to be a distinct lack of homeliness in Malaysia right now. Anyone with an attentive eye to a nuanced reading of history should be able to see this. We in Malaysia, seem to be well bending on erasing all traces of alterity and difference around us.

What irks so many Malaysians today is the thorny debate over freedom of belief and religion, which has already led to a few loud and angry demonstrations, death threats, hate mail and a blanket ban on discussion on all subject religious. The central issue here has always been the salient status of the secular constitution of Malaysia and the rule of law. It is very confusing in Malaysia. At no point was this ever an issue of mass conversion or an attempt at undermining any particular religion in the country.

Yet,this is how debate has been framed, with some groups claiming that by taking their cases to the higher courts of the land, the few Malaysians who have asked to be allowed to convert to another religion have placed Islam and Islamic law on a secondary status.

Here the issue of comfort and homeliness is brought into play. Those who are opposed to groups like Article 11 have argued that by simply defending the principle of freedom of belief, they are jeopardising the comfort and homeliness of others. Comfort and homeliness here are defined in terms of protecting the status quo ante-which obviously leaves the settled assumptions of the majority intact.

If this is how homeliness and comfort are to be defined in Malaysia now on, then what we are witnessing is really the entrenchment of institutionalised and normalised majoritarianism in no uncertain terms.

Confused? So am I.