Friday 29 January 2016

keeping busy

I wish I could write more about road-safety stuff like RD suggested in a previous posting.

Unfortunately, after that last rant about what we need to do to aggressive drivers/motorists that add to road accidents statistics, I kind of moved on to other transport-related things.

The problem is, I am kind of trying to get away from doing the numbers.

My entire life has been about dealing in numbers that I have developed the tendency to calculate everything in life.

That has significantly eroded any vestiges of spontaneity that I might have had and turned me into a dull and boring person.

So I have decided to stay clear of numbers as much as I can.

So went to see what Annie, my super spontaneous and interesting blogging friend who got me onto the road-safety thing, is cooking in Life of Annie for inspiration.

[yup, I have not been prowling around my shrunken territories since the last time I went on a cleaning spree of my blogroll, believe it or not ...]

And that's why I have totally missed the "Exposing Annie" episode [apparently still going on somewhere else by someone Annie refused to acknowledge by name]  ...

 Heh ..

Never mind, Annie, I know you write from your heart, just keep doing your thing and don't let haters get to you.

The political situation in this country has become too toxic even for a casual bystander like me, so I have decided to venture into other more constructive areas, like the merging of Asean into a single market.

I am currently reading up on the EU and Asean case studies, on the differences and similarities.

If there is anything interesting, I'll be sure to write it down here to be recorded and shared.

Wednesday 27 January 2016

trying not to take myself too seriously

Someone told me to lighten up.

She told me that I take myself too seriously and would go ballistic when provoked.

Maybe I am ... my only excuse is that I tend to put everything into what I do, full commitment and all.

I admit that I am not really a fun and laughter kind of person .. my humor tend to be the dark and sarcastic kind.

That's the reason I have been steering away from certain topics which would bring out the worst in me.

Life is too short for me to waste in being angry and upset over something that I can't do anything about.

So when she wanted me to continue blogging, I was like "I thought you wanted me to lighten up?"

Ann: write something funny
Me: i am not a funny person
Ann: write something about the work that you did in JB
Me: that wasn't a fun experience
Ann: it doesn't have to be fun, just not angry
Me: when i write i come across as angry?
Ann: you take yourself too seriously, you go ballistic when provoked
Me: i don't go ballistic, i just can't stand stupid
Ann: there you go
Me: what?
Ann: you sound angry
Me: i am not angry
Ann: yes you do
Me: no i don't

... and thing degenerate from there.

I am not really sure that I want to write about what I actually did in Johor during the run up to the 13th GE.

It was in the past and I doubt that anyone would be interested in what our team did to defend the state, although it would not do any harm as I was told that the current team at Kota Iskandar are doing things differently.

So it wouldn't be like I will be spilling the beans on the strategies and tactics of the old team.

The reason my friend wanted me to write about it is because I had shared with her some aspects of my work back then and she felt that I have a lot of material to share here.

Heavily censored of course, to protect some of the organisations and individuals involved in the defense of Johor.

The thing is, I doubt anyone cares to know about my experiences back then .. after all that was the past and the past has been rubbished by the present.

What I know is, the two years I was directly involved in the defense of Johor leading up to the 13th GE was a very tiring and sobering experience for someone who had no prior knowledge nor exposure to Malaysian politics.

On top of my actual job, the one that I actually got paid for, I had to read up a lot of history, analysed a lot of data from a number of diverse sources, traveled a lot throughout the state even to its furthermost corner, met a lot of people from all strata of life, and sacrificed a lot of my precious sleep time .. all on my own time.

It wasn't fun .. it was exhilarating, exciting, frustrating and exasperating, especially when you were trying to convince people of what they needed to do while they tried to convince you that they knew better than us and their ways were the winning ways.

I had been told that some of those people said that my data was rubbish/useless, that my analysis was wrong, my methods wouldn't be effective .. but I was proven right that night when the results were announced .. my analysis wasn't far off at all, in fact it was scarily accurate.

I am tired of trying to help people who do not want to be helped.

I can't stand arrogance just as much as I can't stand stupidity.

So I just leave things be.

Sunday 17 January 2016

volatility

Firstly I would like to congratulate our security forces for their relentless effort in keeping Malaysia safe from ideological-inflicted disasters.

While news of deaths and destruction caused by bombings and acts of terrorism across the world from Burkina Faso to Indonesia dominate headlines, Malaysia has so far managed to avoid being included in the list of global deadly exploding nations (literally).

The story of IS-linked arrests in Kuala Lumpur that was carried by almost all the major news outlets throughout the world this week got me thinking though, how many have these arrests have been made all these while, done on the quiet, completely without attracting anyone's attention, let alone major news outlets?

Pretty sure that they have been doing this for a while now, but the latest Jakarta bombing has brought into prominence efforts by Malaysian police to curb the destructive nature of these imported ideologies from affecting our lives in Malaysia.

I really don't get how these people can even contemplate destruction and multiple deaths in the name of religious commitment.

No matter what the provocation is, nothing justifies mass murders of innocent lives and mass destruction of public places in a peaceful country.

What saddens me even more is when the atrocities are committed in the name of religion when it was really a political ideology imported from regions that have no political nor social similarities to ours.

Why do these people have the means to study and absorb these foreign ideologies but not have the capacity to analyse and rationalise the outcome of their actions?

Why do they feel that they need to belong to a foreign group that use religion as a reason to destroy their very own land, where people can live and earn a living in relative peace?

Have we lost any sense of appreciation for the less than volatile state of our country that we are so willing to create chaos when we have been shown time and time again that violence beget violence?

Why are we so absorbed in petty political squabbling when there are family members and friends involved in these negative social network activities?

Why do we allow social network being used to spread negative ideologies, political trash and hatreds?

Have we lost all sense of civility and self-respect, when using unsavory vocabulary and language has more or less been considered and accepted as the norm?

What are we turning into?