A Message to the young ones.

 It has been almost a week now that my cousin sister and I called her Piah, has passed away, she was one of those relatives that I am very close to and will miss her presence even though we see each other every once in a while due to circumstances. I was at her funeral and threw some earth into her grave as a gesture of my farewell at the end of her burial proceedings. She had succumbed to her abdominal cancer which was ironic for one who loves to cook and enjoys eating. What came to my mind while at the funeral was how my nieces and nephews has an attitude problem when it comes to respecting their elders. I am not talking about her children but in genral as I have many of my own and many with their own children. I have been keeping this observation not wanting to make it an issue myself but as it is my intention to untangle the tangles in my own personal life, it is imperative that I take on this issue once and for all. My brothers and sisters all have their own children, my nephews and nieces and some of the have their own children making these my grandchildren. As I get older I began to notice how distanced these children are from me as though I do not exist, much less to be concerned with.

 Not a call nor a message on face book or any form of communication whatsoever over the year so much so that if we were to pass each other on the road we would not know who or how we are related to one another. I am not expecting any warm and cordial attention from them just a simple hello now and then would suffice. Perhaps the elders today have much to be blamed for the manner in which the younger generation has little or no respect for them or their status in life. Perhaps it is the shades of what is to come where the family unit in concern; call it family distancing.

For myself having been living in the same house with my two adult children I have come to realize that Love alone does not cover the whole spectrum of bringing up your kids, the love has to be accompanied by respect and appreciation. Recognizing their abilities and accomplishments their success and failures and serving them needs without having to be asked is crucial in creating a strong bond in the parent child relationship. Not imposing my own will, albeit religious or spiritual thoughts and ideals, is also a part of the process and most of all getting to know and understand who they are or having grown into and encouraging them in every step forward they take is a very important awareness to not take it for granted. When dealing with my children as they become adults I assume them to be treated more as my trusted friends than my kids. If they cop an attitude then i learn what it is that is not going right or I would simply retreat into my cave usually meditating or reading my novels and if they are successful in any small ways I let them know that I am aware and am proud of their accomplishment. If they insist that I should watch Liverpool play at 3am. I make an effort to enjoy the game or watch Game of Thrones for the second round for that matter.  Their opinions matters more than my own on things that pertain to daily living like keeping medical appointments and grocery shopping. I am beginning to feel like I am entering a phase of playing a reverse role in our relationship; the father becomes the child. I never claim to be a good father but I do my best to make amends where amends are needed and carry my responsibility with sincere determination as a father

There is no sure fired way to deal with your children especially when they have become full flesh adults themselves and circumstances has made it such that you are not able to leave them and be on your own like you used to. However i have a strong believe in teaching by example I do what I feel is right by me and if by chance they like it good if not well you go your way I mine and thus there is no coerce or forcefulness in getting across my message to them. One of the reasons why I keep making my postings in this Blog, right or wrong it is up for debate and nothing is etched in stone. The crux of the matter is to share my thoughts and actions as best i can before I make my final entry in this Blog of life itself; start a new Blog in the afterlife.

 

  

How Many Moments are there in a Day?

  Living in this world of make believe it is hard to convince myself that most of the illusory manifestations that pops up within and without myself, are intrinsically not real and how much harder it is to convince others.  What is real and what is not kinda overlaps and sometimes  one gets lost in them and forgets what the practice is all about when it comes to putting life into perspective. Putting life into perspective, what that even mean? Life happens moment to moment as far as I have been alive and there was never a doubt in my mind that the next will happen one way or another and the last moment will never ever return except as my memory or upon my reflection. A friend once told me that I have no plans for the future in my life, I simply live without any sense of planning my next move except off course for the simple necessities of daily chores and routine survival, like doing the dishes and cooking the dinner. Even then I just had to ask my daughter before I sat at the computer what i should make for dinner tonight; I had no plan of making Kailan, (kinda spinach like veggie) chicken but there it is as she suggested, Kailan chicken it is. My life as I am beginning to discover has no real perspective to it to speak of and never had as it seems events simply happens and I simply respond as best I can moment to moment.

Just finished reading "For The Time Being'', a novel by Ruth Ozeki and at the end of the novel and it's worth quoting here,

"The Zen nun Jiko Yasutani once told me in a dream that you can't understand what it is to be alive on this earth until you understand the time being, you have to understand what a moment is.

In my dream I asked her, What on earth is a moment?

A moment is a very small particle of time. It is so small that one day is made of 6,400,o99,980 moments.

 When I looked up afterward I discovered that this was the exact number cited by Zen Master Dogen in his master work the Shobogenzo, ( the Treasury of the True Dharma Eye)

Numerals resist the eye, so let me spell it out in words: six billion, four hundred million, ninety-nine thousand and eighty. That's how many moments Zen Master Dogen posited are in one day and after rattled off the number old Jiko snapped her fingers. Her fingers were crazily bent and twisted with arthritis, so she was not very good at snapping, but she somehow got the point across.

Please try it, she said. Did you snap? Because if you did that snaps equals sixty-five moments.

The granularity of the Zen view of time becomes clear if you do the math or you can just take Jiko's word for it...

if start snapping your fingers now an continue snapping 98,463,,077 times without stopping, the sun will rise and the sun will set, and the sky will grow dark and the night will deepen, and everyone will sleep while you are still snapping, until finally, sometime after daybreak when you finish up your snapping 98,463,077 snap, you will experience the truly intimate awareness of knowing exactly how  you spent every single moment of s single day of your life....

That's what it means to be a time being, old Jiko told me, and then she snapped her crooked fingers again.

And just like that, you die."

Appendix A: Zen Moments.

#ruthozeki, #shobogenzo, #zenmasterdogen, #thetimebeing 

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Look at what they done to my world, Ma!

 The Israel- Palestinian conflict is flaring up again like an old sore that refuses to abate once and for all. Many are concerned and the escalation of the conflict seems immanent in the near future as more and more countries are taking sides and aggravating the situation even more so. Basic human faith and belief, human decency and love for one another is being put to the maximum scrutiny by the entire world as the Internet and various other Media spreads each their own version and perspective of the events unfolding in the Gaza Peninsular. There is not a single act of love or care for another, or any act of human decency being exposed but just the acts of  brutality.rage and murder that each inflict upon the other on a daily basis. It is like the world is being entertained online by a Real Life horror show which evidently is what is selling on the Media market today. We are insatiable movie buffs and we love our reality shows the more real the better and now we are being delivered what we wish for to satisfy our urge for blood lust morbidity, the desire to see hell being inflicted upon others as long as it is not happening in our living room. 

We like to seem righteous when it comes making our thoughts and feelings known especially when a judgmental perspective is called for or sides to take on. We ever so often make our points expressed from our own personal and socio - cultural stand, we make our choices based upon how conditioned we are and how the religious as well society has a hold on our views. We are also influenced by our own self interest, like how can we benefit from whatever we are being exposed to. In this day and age most of us are trapped into this mode of expression as we face our day to day trials and tribulations, the choices we have to make and the excuses we are ask to give. However no matter how deep and thorough we look into ourselves we eventually will come to a realization that we can never justify enough, and no justification we make can convince, not even to ourselves; we are creatures of our thoughts and what we think is never what truly is. Our thoughts and perceptions of what our existence is all about is conditioned by our past experiences and thoughts and ideas imposed upon us by parents, teachers and society at large, rarely do develop our very own original intuitive perception that is free from these influences.

As more lives and properties are being annihilated by the ongoing conflicts in and around the Middle Eastern Countries and Myanmar, not to mention the countries in the continent of Africa where famine and tribal warfare are still rampant, we who are able to sit and make our observations and give out interpretations and perspectives, we are no better than mere tourists visiting a zoo taking stock of things with our cameras keeping an ongoing record for posterity. It would take a real miracle worker to make a difference in what we as humanity is experiencing, it would take a true awakened being, a real enlightened mind, but these are in short supply or so it seems and they exist somewhere they are not willing to make an appearance unless there is a call to by some cataclysmic event that threatens their own cave somewhere. In the meantime it is left up to you and me to keep trying to make sense out of every bit of nonsense that comes our way if nothing else for the sake of our own sanity. 

We can only empathize with what is going on all around and render aid where we can afford to accordingly, however it is impossible to carry the cross of the suffering of humanity for we are not equipped to do so. it can even detrimental to our health to attempt to do so as it would would tear us apart to the foundation mentally and physically.All that can be done is to pray if we are a divine being surrendering to the will of our divine nature that has the capacity beyond our human endurance and become the channel through which miracles can be called upon to happen in times of dire need for the sake of the rest of sentient beings around us. To accomplish his we have to come to realize our innate nature of being an eternal soul with a universal consciousness not bound by the laws of karma or conditioned by the laws of man. We have to discover our true nature that transcends all limitation and operate from that state of unconditional love and compassion. However most of humanity has lost or even are oblivious to this state and have accepted our lot as a helpless entity subjected to the whims of fate. How can we be of service to humanity when we are lost in our personal egocentric, self serving sense of personal survival.  

#Israel- Palestinian conflict, #                

Post Ramadan 3 days after Review.

 The Chinese cemetery at Batu Gantung is turning green and so is the race course area and the hills are much greener now after the spell of hot weather we had a few weeks ago. How predictable nature is in making sure that all is well accordingly in the cycle of life and its is most reassuring to me that somethings remain in accordance the laws of nature. The Penang Hill is slowly being used and abused by those tah can afford to do so in the need to confirm of the wealth and status for all the rest to witness and wondering who or what kind of people has the audacity to clear the hillsides for their creature comfort. It is a sad feeling to bear witness to the slow balding of the hillsides where patches of cleared forest can be seen like scabs upon the skin. The skies are littered with white clouds rising from behind the hills that stretches from one end of my vision to the other and the bright blue sky was like a curtain behind in the background. Morning has broken and I watered the plants and fed the pigeons on the neighbor's roof, they were waiting for me as soon as I stepped out of the apartment.

The thrid day of Eid Mubarak three days had passed after the fasting month of Ramadan and I posted on fb, " Now that Ramadan has passed, and the pandemic has forced you to stay home, what have you learned about youself?" Threw some cloths into the washer and did the dishes, fed the cat and continued reading, "A Tale For The Time Being," by Ruth Ozeki. It is a gem of a novel that brings back memories of my three years spent in Sendai, Japan and having spent two years as a Zen student at the Green Gulch Zen Community in Marin County, California. It is a novel I would gladly recommend to anyone who has the desire to understand Japan and its culture and traditions, her ups and down and Japan is still one of my favorite places among all the places i Have had the privilege of residing in my gone by days. The spirit of Bushido and that of Zen practice, the master pieces of Hokusai and Utamaro, the Old temples and the Bullet trains and the Sakura blooms in spring, they all were etched into my mind as a special treat for me and my family. The story included places I had lived in as we were located in the Miyagi Prefecture and the life of the people described are as real as I had experienced them. Reading this novel is like revisiting the places that I had visited while living in Sendai.

As part of the scenario in the story depicts the writer's life in the United States, Sunnyvale in California and the Pacific Northwest, I can relate with them as I had lived in both the areas and am familiar with the life and conditions personally having lived in the San Francisco Bay area for ten years and the Aleutian Chain area of Alaska for two years. Hence as I am reading the book I am being transported in time by memories of these places and the experiences I had being there.

Sunnyvale (/ˈsʌniveɪl, vəl/) is a city located in Santa Clara County, California, in Silicon Valley. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 140,095.

Sunnyvale is the 7th most populous city in the San Francisco Bay Area and one of the major cities comprising Silicon Valley. It is bordered by portions of San Jose to the north, Moffett Federal Airfield to the northwest, Mountain View to the northwest, Los Altos to the southwest, Cupertino to the south, and Santa Clara to the east. It lies along the historic El Camino Real and Highway 101.

On this 3rd day post Ramadan the country is on partial lockdown due to the pandemic and so there is very little travelling as it used to be where city folks would migrate to their home villages better in Malay as Balik Kampung to visit their family and friends they had left behind to seek their fortune in the big cities. In a way it is a blessing indisguise as there is less fuel waste on the highways and fewer accidents, less garbage thrown out of car windows along the highways and most importantly less wastage on food. To the Muslim Malays Eid Mubarak is like Christmas or Thanksgiving where familes get together and exchange to strengthen their family bonds or as known in the Islamic way as Silatulrahim, the renewal of kinship with one another. This year only the diehard visit their friends and families in the same locality risking being fined for breaking the pandemic curfew. 

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Two more days to go - Ramadan.

 And what have I learned from having fasted for almost a month now? Highly doubtful that it makes me a better Muslim, who am I kidding? A better person? Perhaps, but not to the extent that i would be given wings. Nah, I am still who I am not much change where life is concern except that my one big snag is that I need to have a better car now as my present one is on the brink of a lock down as the engine is smoking like a train as I drive down the road and now i have cars following me at a greater distance than is normal. She is old no doubt and should have been retired to the car heaven sometime ago, but I am in no position to purchase anything beyond one or two thousand much less a car, even a used one. COVID has its silver lining in some ways as I always maintain, the cleaner environment, the lesser vehicles on the the road, the, closer bonding in the family unit, the better survival of the wild life and the slowdown of the big rush of life itself for us humans. For old farts like me this is good, its timely and it makes a whole lot of sense. A few years ago when we moved into this apartment I told myself never to work anymore at least not for anyone, or even earn a living like ordinary folks. I told myself that i am taking a leave of absence from the life out there and focus on the life in here. Little did i imagine that my wishes has been granted in more than one ways, I am now stuck like a hermit in a cave o my own making. Not bad really seeing that i have been able to come to grips with allot of my habits and tendencies and see them for what they are. 

Being a recluse has its advantages as one becomes more in tune with what is than what is out there. There is lesser and lesser thoughts to be entertained when there is less and less relationships to entertain. These days the mind is focused on relationships that truly matters like bonding with my adult children and accepting them and their ways with ope heart and clear conscience. Making sure that they eat well and spend their hard earned income to better themselves healthwise and keeping their psycho-emotional state in a more stable and reliable form. Sharing what is pertinent to life spiritually and socially in a more relaxed and give and take, win win manner which is called by the Buddha called by skillful means. Being a guardian and a friend rather than a father or a parent. Learning even at my old age that i can be wrong and it is okay to be ignorant sometimes as it gives others the chance to be wise for your sake. That it is okay to be needy sometimes as it allows for others to be beneficent and charitable, that it is okay to loose when you see there a whole to be gained through acceptance of losses. Hence here I am, a few days to go, fasting as best i can on this fasting Month of Ramadan.

The essence of the purpose for fasting as I might have mentioned before is to confront and annihilate the egotistical tendencies inherent in us. Yes it is the  clarion call that has been made throughout the ages by practically all spiritual leaders and religious faith. 

"Faqala ana Rabbukumu la- 'ala (79:24). Ego has a big Claim. It wants to be God itself. It claims that It is God. Don't say La illa haillaAllah, I am here! Say. Laillaha illa nafsi, there is not God but my ego. Accept my Lordship. Accept my Divinity. I will not be pleased if you accept someone else." ...from talks by Shaykh Nazim's SaltnatTV.

Ego is full of disloyalty and evil. Don't look for evil elsewhere. why do you look for evil somewhere else when you have its source in you.

The Peophet of Allah (PBUH) has said," Lord, protect me from my ego. Don't leave me even for a blink of an eye."

Azazzil who later was known as Satan was said to be the most devoted worshiper of the Lord, He did not fell from Grace because of any worldly affections but because of His ego in assuming that His devotion to God entitles Him not to bow to Adam

"Ara'aitaka hadha lladhi karamtaa 'alayya." (17:62)

" Look, You created him from clay just now. He hasn't promise to You yet. He hasn't prostrated to You yet, Despite all my worship You have not grant me this respect and instead honored this one and You dressed him with the attribute to be Your Khalifa."

Yes the gist of the matter is that the ego has to go and as someone pointed out, drop the 'E' and go! The fasting month has been quite an experience this time around and I have the feeling that I may see the rewards in some small ways later, just loosing some weights if nothing else or discovering that i do have the chances yet of becoming a good Muslim.

As The End Approahes- Ramadan

Has been a while however it is never too late to listen to Kitaro's "Matsuri" on You Tube while I allow my mind to drift on the COVID19 Saturday Morning. I had just sat facing the panoramic view of the Penang Hills and was blessed with a clear rainbow that from one end to the other arching over the Kek Lok Si Temple with the 60 feet standing Kwan Yin statue that completes the whole picture. Earlier as I was walking towards the stairs where i would sit, I had to free a pigeon from being trapped in a net hanging from the ceiling. The bird was flapping its wings in a desperate attempt to escape from the predicament it was in and as soon as I ripped the net from its foot she took off after dropping a few floors downwards towards the ground. I had not wanted to share the morning initially but simply kept it to myself as the morning's gift from the Universe, or was it from the Goddess of Mercy, Herself, however I decided that good positive feelings should be shared no matter how trivial it may seem as we face all the negativity that is being thrown at us from the world out there. 

One of the reasons for my writing and posting my thoughts and experiences all these years is to share with all those who take the trouble to read these little episodes in my life that otherwise would have simply vanish with time and never to be thought of, lost in memory. What did it felt like to watch a pigeon hanging upside down flapping its wings in a desperate attempt to free itself. I felt fear in the bird and in myself and I felt as though it was meant to be that happen to decide in doing my morning routine than went back to sleep as I almost did. I felt the bond between us as I know that i have been feeding this same bird along with the rest from the neighborhood almost everyday with my leftovers. I felt the nagging in my mind stopped and the migraine and lack of energy and enthusiasm slipped away replaced by a more exuberant state of, "hell yea, it's beautiful morning and good to be awake to watch the sun rise and the birds sing all around me: then as I sat came the rainbow! It was a care package of positive vibes to help pass yet another day in the COVID prison. May all beings in the six realms and ten directions enjoy the day and may all their suffering be lightened.

Love is the key, the essence the net that holds together the 'whole' that we truly are, the wise ones has been saying for eons and yet man creates formless demons to destroy their fellow man all in the name of control. COVID19 is man made, created in a lab for the purpose of mass control. It is an experimental virus that has gone awry, out of control and as a result has spread like wid fire and not even the antidote that was created to maintain as a safe guard over its spread is proving useless; it is like a runway train that is loaded with toxic chemicals running down its track towards a final destructive end. There s no justification for this manifestation of inhumane act of mass destruction of lives except for the greed for power and the ultimate egotistic need to dominate. Only a Godless, soulless regime is capable of such atrocity of mass genocide. I always ask myself ,who stands to profit from this mess we find ourselves in and why are we as a specie with all ur great minds and technology are not able to track down the culprit who set it all in motion. The answer I can come up with to satisfy myself is Dajjal or the Anti Christ and it may sound as far out there by a long sane shot, I cannot see any other schemer of such a grand scale capable of or dare to bring humanity to its knee.

I know most who read this would be skeptical and by right they should as for along time now throughout our human history we have been led by our nose towards the fulfillment of an agenda set about by the our dark side our shadow and this shadow goes by different names as many as God goes by different names and in different guises. Man has been lulled to sleep ever since the battle for the control of our destiny and that of the planet was set between light and darkness, God and Satan, angels and demons. The shedding of human blood all over the world has become a common phenomena as wars continue to claim lives and create havoc and misery. The planet faces one man made disaster  after another making it an added cause for the decadence and eventual demise of species, but most of us are oblivious to what we are manifesting, too busy taking care of number one; self preservation and survival of the fittest, the all mighty ego. 

Thus spoke my paranoid mind for lack of better thoughts to share and this too will pass as they say, the COVID, the wars, the Famine, the environmental degradation, the self mortification, it wiil all pass or I will pass on. However in the meantime the same ol same ol thoguhts will cirurlate and be regurgitate like the drifting of the plastic waste in the world oceans floating and drifting following the currents whereever it flows. What a waste of human potential, human probabilities and abilities, what a waste of good food and good wine and good woment to come to this after all these years of drifting. Time will tell as time will heal and mend a broken spirit and time will take its toll before it forever is lost into oblivion. The fasting month can bring the est and the worse out of a person and there three more days before it is over when we celebrate the Eid Fitri to commemorate the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

     

"The Color Purple" - Against all odds.

 'The Color Purple" a novel by Alice Walker made into a movie by Steven Spielberg tells of the endurance of two sisters who grew up in the South and were separated by fate and unfortunate events in their lives. Played by Danny Glover and Whoopie Goldberg in the leading roles the movie to me is a classic that encapsulates the spirit of the Colored South. The movie tells of the strength and deep faith that the African American had to keep them struggling to survive while enduring the post slavery age in their history and the history of the Southern States. It exposes the raw deals that the Black families subjected to while crawling out from under the foot stools of the Whites as well as their own family traumas due to ignorance and social pressures. The African Americans has proven that perseverance and resilience in spirit can overcome all odds and adversities no matter how harsh and bitter life can be. Hope is hope no matter how small and bleak it may seem, it was hope that kept Ms.Celie alive and enduring the abuses of her husband,the hope that she would one day see her sister Ms.Nettie and her children again and she would triumph over it all at the end of the day.

"The Color Purple documents the traumas and gradual triumph of Celie, an African American teenager raised in rural isolation in Georgia, as she comes to resist the paralyzing self-concept forced on her by others. Celie narrates her life through painfully honest letters to God."...Britannica.

The story by Alice Walker and co-authored by Oprah Winfrey I feel is a must read for college literature and cultural studies of the post Slavery life the African Americans or the South. It may be a work of fiction, but it has all the ear marks of a cultural history that began at the very root of the family life and expanded into the society at large reflecting a struggle for a cultural heritage that would lay claim in history as a triumph of the human spirit against all odds. It is a story that could be told of by any given society anywhere on this planet. It is a microcosmic drama played out at the most raw and sensitive level of the human emotional and psychological family level to the level of a community as well as into the macrocosmic level of the global level. Notches in the tree of life of the African American history captured on a screen by great minds that pooled together such as Director Steen Spielberg and Producer Quincy Jones and superb actors such as Danny Glover, Whoopie Golberg and Oprah Winfrey, and many others that played major and linor role in this movie to bring it to life a documentary of a piece of human history.

The geniuses who told stories.

 My daughter brought home a few second hand novels from the Sunday market at the Hin Bus Depot where she herself was selling face masks produced by her company: Marimask. I just finished reading the first, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting published by Yearling. It was a refreshing fast read as it took one on a fantasy adventure that needed not much thinking. The book about a Naturalist, Dr. Dol;ittle, brought back my childhood memories of the children adventure stories that i had read, books like those by Enib Blyton, Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling and the likes; I was an avid reader at a very early age and my English language subject had won me many awards at the end of the year on Parents' Day. Reading saw me through my teenage years while living on the East Coast in Kuala Terengganu where i was exposed to numerous novels of all kinds thanks to my oldest brother who was also my English teacher at the Sultan Sulaiman Secondary School. He had spent several years in England and upon his return home had brought back with him two large suitcases of novels which he had hidden under his bed as most of these were considered not suitable for an average teenager for their erotic nature. This however only had my curiosity fired up and I stole into thee suitcases and devoured as many of the literature as i could. Hence My English subject improved tremendously only it was not as well appreciated in school  when the English teacher was your older brother.

I was reading the likes of James Michener,s "Hawaii", "Alaska" "Chesapeak" and a few others, or Harold Robbin's, "The Carpet Baggers," and "Tycoon. " Alistair McClean's many great thrillers like,"Ice Station Zebra", "Guns of Navarone", "Where Eagles Dare," most of which were later turned into epic movies with roles played by great actors such as Gregory Peck in the Guns of Navarone and Clint Eastwood in "Where Eagles Dare." I devoured James Clavell's, "Taipan" and "Shogun" within a short time  many other great writers of the time. I had spent hours of my time sitting under the, Flame of the Forest tree in front of my brother's teacher's quarters residence pouring through one novel after another oblivious to the world around me. In between reading my eyes would venture upon the horizon of the South China Sea that was set before me where I was sitting. This was when my mind developed the yearn to set out and venture beyond the horizon to discover what it was like to feel the snow under your feet or the warmth of the desert sand, the streets and sky scrappers of large cities where I had visited in my imagination while reading the novels. There is no doubt in my mind that reading had a great influence on my life and had planted the bug that led me to become footloose and fancy free while travelling the globe in my adult life. 

Reading of books especially novels has become a rarity as today's young adults are more immersed into the attractions of the Internet and various other outlets for entertainment other than the archaic paper backs. They would rather carry an I-pad or mobile phones with endless source of games and videos than lug around a thick novel. Finding a person with nose buried in a book in cafes is a rare sight these days and books are becoming more expensive due to the rise in cost to have them published. However I still love the feel of an old paperback novel in my hand and cherish the smell of the musty worn out pages, nothing like a second hand paperback to keep the mystery of life alive. The fact that book may have been read several others before you or where it has been before ending up in your hands is in itself a mystery. It is sad to say that minor mysteries like these are of no values to the young minds of today, that sense of awe about the ability to conjure up tales and stories that would entertain one in the privacy of one's own imagination is slowly is becoming a thing of the past. 

I feel much fortunate and obligated to those great writers whose works I had the opportunity to read in my younger days as they had fed my imagination and set me up to be able to be who I am today. I still marvel at their abilities to narrate such epic works as by J.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling that today has captivated the minds of millions around the world young and adults alike. Names like Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum, Dan Brown and John Grisham has produced great movies from their novels and I feel most fortunate that in my lifetime I have been able to enjoy their works both as a reader as well as a movie buff. To witness the transformation of their literary works projected on to the silver screen is a marvel that still defies my imagination. If ther is anything to say spiritually I would say this is the result of a collective consciousness triggered by a great if not enlightened mind; these are geniuses of our times.        

   

What fb frienndships means to me.

  Of late I have been receiving many friendship requests from strangers mostly Malays in their middle age and most seem well educated and established in their lives and careers. I accepted quite a few thus far simply out of respect and curtsy lest I be deemed a fb snob. I also accepted these request out of curiosity to discover their story, what they have in mind, expect out me; their intentions. Most thus far are regular polite gentlemen and a few are most probably have the same reasons as I. I am slowly seeing an image of a middle class Malay men who perhaps bored like the rest of us for having to pretty much stay home due to COVID19 and have made the Face Book as well as other Internet links to while their time away. Some are genuinely looking for new friendships but most are out to check out as many characters that captures their curiosity, while many are showing off their place and positions, prowess and accomplishments in the Malay society. For me it is becoming a great cross cultural study and so I am choosing to entertain as many as i can afford to to add to fb collections of strangers who wish to know me. I get to to have a peek at their lifestyle and their personal characters, theri interests and how well informed they are and how well they communicate as middle aged, middle class working Malays.

As son as I have accepted them they would promptly message me to get to know me better, pry into my personal life with personal questions like, still married, how many children, still working? What  nationality exactly, and this they do right off the bat and I feel often like I was being interrogated by a country bumpkin. So I decided to poish up on my poor Malay and the art of communication with total strangers while in some small way try to educate them into observing some etiquette, or decorum when communicating especially with an elderly gentleman like myself. Where or when else do i get a chance to better myself at interpersonal communication especially with the Malay men who are mostly introverts, reserved in nature when talking about themselves to strangers, are very inquisitive about wanting to know about you and they pry almost rudely by Western standing. However i dont think this is done consciously and this is perhaps because of their lack of communicative experience when it comes to online meeting.

I am beginning t enjoy the age factor of being the elder in society which simply put,I dont give a hot what you think of me but mind your manners when you address me cause this age comes with a whole lot of knowledge and experiences both good and ugly and survived. Sometimes I forget what a demon I was and allow for the little petty tyrants of today run my life for me with their petty bullshit of trying to hoodwink the unfortunate and get away with it. However there is the other side of the coin that what a spiritual practice is hinged upon and that is detachment from all that is external in whatever colors shapes and forms; lest i forget. And so I am involved but detached from the involvement - detached involvement, plucking the lotus without getting my fingers wet, For the sake of the well being of the rest of sentient beings in this real of existence i will play the role of the ignorant clown and mingle with the crowd who knows one or two of God's creatures might be enlightened by my idiocy or inadvertently even find the door to liberation from this realm of delusion. 

"If manners maketh man, as someone says,

Then he is the hero of the day,

It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile,

Be yourself no matter what they say."...An Englishman in New York

-Sting.