by Syed Amierul Asyraf
God, let's talk for a minute.
God, let's talk for a minute.
As much as I can muster it, I try my best to live by a set of rules. Depending on who I am talking to at any given moment, that either means I am a very rigid person or just slow to adapt to different life challenges.
A great deal of these things pertain to my religious beliefs and by extension, my own moral code. While about 95% of my friends and acquaintances are liberal, I try my best to balance my own worldview and being a good Muslim.
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Some of personal codes come as a result of having suffered the consequences of my own actions. I have tried many things and performed many deeds which can easily be classified these days by my current self as "fucking stupid".
For example, I tried eating bubur pedas with ketchup once.
I ended up vomiting my intestines off the whole night.
So now, I have the phrase "don't eat bubur pedas with ketchup" permanently etched onto my brain so I don't repeat the same mistake for as long as I live. I suppose if one were to crack my skull wide open you can read the phrase out from my brain's wrinkles.
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I hope it makes sense now that a 27 year-old with an insatiable curiosity, the innate ability to switch off his logic circuits whenever he gets too excited and an assortment of both personal and professional failures to have quite a laundry list of things he should not be doing when circumstances line themselves up.
That also explains why I have a very wrinkly brain.
Sorry, that was a bad joke.
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I suppose ever since I moved back to Kuching I really want to start doing things right. I want to learn to live a life that fulfills both my own well-being and my various duties to my family, friends and society. I don't want to be caught doing something just for the hell of it, knowing very well that some of these things might either be a wild goose chase or a result of some hedonistic impulse, at the detriment of people around me.
I thought it would be safe to turn back to religion. That's what people usually do, right?
"Balik ke pangkal jalan", as my forefathers would say in TV3 on their prime time slots.
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...which brings me back to the past few days. I begin to realise that in order to really get to where I want, or go through things easier I almost always end up having no choice but to abandon my principles.
I loathe networking. There had been enough of those in KL, and I am idealistically hoping that things might just come a little more naturally here in Kuching. However, if I want to make something out of myself anywhere I go, even here, that will be the very first activity I have to lean onto.
Most of the time if I want to meet up with friends to discuss something I will have to forsake the VIP time slot that I have reserved for God. If I have to meet them at their preferred setting and for them to feel comfortable, I will have to head to a bar somewhere and sit uncomfortably for hours while I inhale enough cigarette smoke and beer whiffs to win a free kiss from the nearest toilet bowl.
Now I am in between scrolling through Tinder and deleting it in a weekly basis because I can either live alone, or try my luck by wading into a virtual cesspool of ladyboys, horrible grammar and three-filter-minimum selfies. Jodoh, am I right?
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God, perhaps this is some sort of test you're dishing out to me. This blog seems to be a weird place to complain, since even other humans don't read this. What more to say a divine being such as Yourself?
These days when I pray, I only ask for You to meet me halfway. I can only swim so far, and this pool is starting to smell like someone just barfed bubur pedas and ketchup into it.
For example, I tried eating bubur pedas with ketchup once.
I ended up vomiting my intestines off the whole night.
So now, I have the phrase "don't eat bubur pedas with ketchup" permanently etched onto my brain so I don't repeat the same mistake for as long as I live. I suppose if one were to crack my skull wide open you can read the phrase out from my brain's wrinkles.
---
I hope it makes sense now that a 27 year-old with an insatiable curiosity, the innate ability to switch off his logic circuits whenever he gets too excited and an assortment of both personal and professional failures to have quite a laundry list of things he should not be doing when circumstances line themselves up.
That also explains why I have a very wrinkly brain.
Sorry, that was a bad joke.
---
I suppose ever since I moved back to Kuching I really want to start doing things right. I want to learn to live a life that fulfills both my own well-being and my various duties to my family, friends and society. I don't want to be caught doing something just for the hell of it, knowing very well that some of these things might either be a wild goose chase or a result of some hedonistic impulse, at the detriment of people around me.
I thought it would be safe to turn back to religion. That's what people usually do, right?
"Balik ke pangkal jalan", as my forefathers would say in TV3 on their prime time slots.
---
...which brings me back to the past few days. I begin to realise that in order to really get to where I want, or go through things easier I almost always end up having no choice but to abandon my principles.
I loathe networking. There had been enough of those in KL, and I am idealistically hoping that things might just come a little more naturally here in Kuching. However, if I want to make something out of myself anywhere I go, even here, that will be the very first activity I have to lean onto.
Most of the time if I want to meet up with friends to discuss something I will have to forsake the VIP time slot that I have reserved for God. If I have to meet them at their preferred setting and for them to feel comfortable, I will have to head to a bar somewhere and sit uncomfortably for hours while I inhale enough cigarette smoke and beer whiffs to win a free kiss from the nearest toilet bowl.
Now I am in between scrolling through Tinder and deleting it in a weekly basis because I can either live alone, or try my luck by wading into a virtual cesspool of ladyboys, horrible grammar and three-filter-minimum selfies. Jodoh, am I right?
---
God, perhaps this is some sort of test you're dishing out to me. This blog seems to be a weird place to complain, since even other humans don't read this. What more to say a divine being such as Yourself?
These days when I pray, I only ask for You to meet me halfway. I can only swim so far, and this pool is starting to smell like someone just barfed bubur pedas and ketchup into it.
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