Its Raining and its pouring!!

Today my cousin has decided to pull out of the farming project leaving me out in the lurge what with no more money and having to vacate my rented place, I am up shit creek as they say! Rahim is generally not happy with the whole idea as there is too many uncertainties, but his main concern was that it is too much for his wife to take on the extra burden of work at the Chicken chop and Char Koay Teow stand. However I should try my best to stay with the project and make it happen as we have put alot of effort into it he insisted. But if I decide to give up I should let him know as he has ideas on how to get it going. I just listened to his excuses and nodded my head knowing fully well that his main problem was working with me someone he founf a little difficult to order around like his former Indonesian workers when he was a contractor or his wife and workers at the food stand. Perhaps out of respect he gave me all the other excuses except this fact and perhaps it it my age that stops me from pointing out his hidden agenda. Not that I can blame him as I am used to working in my own ways and at sixty it is kind of hard to keep up with the demands of a younger man.
Offcourse his insisting that I continue was a farce as he fully well knew that I could not even afford to get to the site what with the gas and the toll I will have to pay to get there, I did get there however perhaps just to see what the Cikgu has to say. As I got into Tasik Gelugor the Cikgu called to let me know that he was not going to be around at the farm as he had some business with the Jabatan Pertanian, so my trip was wasted anyway and it rained which did not help either. I thought of how idiotic to be out there trying to rake and burn half dried grass in a thtree acre piece of land, this is modern argriculture and one is doing something just to justify that one is doing something no matter how tedious or energy and time consumming. I stopped when it started to rain and decided that enough was enough.
I sat there in Cikgu's shack for awhile thinking things out and wondering where it will all end up at and where my life is headed for. I had intended to introduce Rahim to Cikgu with the hope that Rahim will find a project for himself other than selling Chicken Chops of which he was forever complaining as not what he had in mind to be for the rest of his life. The truth being it was not even for my own benifit in the long run but it seems like I am standing in the way as an added burden at leasr financially for him. At 50RM a day more or less to get a five acre field cultivated was too much. Had we stuck to the original plan of constructing a shack fo me to stay at the farm it would have cost even less, but ideas change and when changes are made not every factors are taken into account especially if it is not benificial to the new ideas which primaryly to get the planting in as soon as possible. I saw the wisdom in the idea but I also knew we were headed for trouble when previous plans were not adhered and compensations and adjustments made thus resulting in a whole lot of misunderstanding. So much for plannings.
I am in a quandry in this matter and whatever their intentions may be I know I will be out of the game friend or no friend. My gut feelings tells me I am again about to be taken for a ride simply because I am financially strapped. I tried to do my best to find a solution to my problems but it seems like there is no end to it as I am stuck between the devil and the deep. My son had warned me against this venture but I decided that to do something even if it fails is better than sitting on my hands and worry about how to earn my keeps. I called him, to talk to him whileI was sitting and pondering my future but he SMS and told me that he cannot call because he was in a test at work. Its past midnight now and he has not called or Faqs me, another let down? Perhaps he too is tired of my crap or simply has no more to offer. In a way it is good to know the truth about who or what you can or cannot depend on in life especially when the chips are down.
I can hear voices telling me, get a job! Dont pander your self esteem, dont depend on anything or anyone as the Buddha had warned. You are being tested someone told me and being in a poverty state is bringing you closer to Allah so be patient and perservere. Yessir! Being an artist is not work, farming is not work maybe I should try my hand at fishing.
Tonight upon entering the Gallery at Kapitan Kling I found that my friend Rashid has changed the lock to the computer room and a note of the door said that I should use the computer outside as the one in the office is for his personal use only. Again I am loosing another good friend. Although this Gallery belongs to the Malay Artists members in Penang it is more of a Rashid Art Gallery and studio where three quarters of the works hung belongs to him and his children and grandchildren runs the place in the day time, but I had never said anything about this as he well deserved the place I thought because he happens to be the chairman or the Malay Artists Group here. Many of my fellow artists had raised the issue but so far no meeting had ever been held as far as the Malay Artists are concern and so you cannot blame Rashid for running the place as his own.
Maybe I am suffering from self dellusions thinking that others should give a shit about my well being. But personally as Allah bears witness tonight as I write this, I know mysel that I will give my own shirt off my back to anyone in need if and whenever I could aford to. To some this has been accused of being my fault because I am too charitable sometimes beyond my means. I simply have to stop expecting or hoping for returns simply because I am a giver. It is all an experiment, life is one long experiment to find out the truth as it occurs. There is none to blame nor a right or wrong simply results for better of for worse. As one approaches death one looses everything close to one and some you just have to give up. As the reality of the economic downturn hits home friends can easily become strangers and even children will turn their faces from you. This is what the Buddha meant by suffering is also because of impermanence, for nothing last not love nor friendship. Everything is relatively conditional based in this day and age on how do you do.
I blame only myself in all these as I chose to live my life in constant research, evaluating and analyzing every thoughts and ideas humanly possible. I seek to expose the truth as to how I live my faults as well as my strength my ups and downs, I seek to unbear what it is to be human. I believe in the AlMighty the One true Creator who manifested all this and that I am merely His pawn in His greater schemes of life. Nothing I have experienced or done and nothing that had befallen me in my past or in my future is without His consent but it is my choices that has placed me in this predicaments. I have chosen to record my life in this manner so that it becomes a guide as well as a catharsis as I continue on till I am called to my final evalution or when the fat lady sings, knowing fully well that I cannot fall asleep even if I wanted to tonight. Hopefully tomorrow brings better news from somewhere as I sure have tried looking for the silver lining behind every dark cloud that had been hovering over me lately.