I have come to realize that I am living the life of a schizoid as there are it seems two distinct sides to who I am, how i think and how I act it seems is govern by these two personalities. One of them thinks and dreams in English and the other does it in Malay. My western nature seeks the fulfillment of the physical and material realm to the fullest while the Muslim me keeps my in check from drifting too far from the Din of Islam and the teachings of the Awakened One. In other words the Eastern me is the one that held me back when I stand at the edge of the abyss, giving me faith in something far greater then what this life has to offer. My western nature has kept me alive, active, inquisitive and creative of which I had let my ego ran wild especially while living in the United States for 21 years. The West gave me the freedom to choose to be while the East has given the wisdom of the ages that of my father's and mother's and theirs before them. The Faith they had in these religions has helped sustained generations of my ancestors and here i stand as a legacy of their strong commitment to their faith. I am not my body nor am I my mind, these ar my tools and instruments of expression and manifesting all my actions in this physical realm and as such I take very good care of their functional capacity to the best of performance. I have pushed my body to the limits as every career i had would testify to this and i have fine honed it to perform more delicate and sophisticated performances such as painting and printmaking and i can play the guitar and the flute. I may not be of a master class at these but i always gave it my best when I set my mind to it.
The West in me has brought out my animal nature, my darker shadow nature that obeys the command of the ego and often unconsciously until he steps on a mine or tripped by a wire, then he sits back and justify to himself the how and the whys. I do this and I am talking exactly about how my mind is divided in every move I make by the dichotomy of the East and West. { not saying this metaphorically but am aware that i am divided in my thoughts between the western way of decerning, thinking dreaming planning just about any forms of mental formation i express I find my mind has to make a choice, should i express or manifest myself with my western persona or should I reserve myself with a more spiritual approach of an Easterner. Ironic it seems after having spent almost 30 years of thinking and living my life with a western mentality, I discovered faith and spirituality in the West and as a matter of fact I had unconsciously rejected religions altogether when I arrived in the United States sometime in 1973 - 4 and i was 25 years of age married with a four month old boy arrived at The Austin Straubel Aitrport, aka "The Gateway to Lambeau." in Green Bay, Wisconsin in the dead of winter! It was no doubt a life changing experience for one who grew up in Georgetown, Penang where the day is always warm and the nights are always cool and there was never a worry about snow. I can safely say that my soul was put to the grind in just trying to figure out what is Halal and what is not, How i coped later on is a subject well worn out from repetition so help yourself its in there somewhere just type Green Bay in search. I keep repeating my stories so they overlap filling in more details as I keep reaching back for answers or try to make sense of what, where or when events took place in the course of mu life.
I realize that whatever I have written and or documented, sketched or painted in my journals, are really of no significance or have any value at the end of the day when I depart from this life; at least not to me. What i have got thus far from having undertaken this self discovery research assignment is the ability to distinguish who I am from who I think I am. I also have a good handle on how my mind operates towards any given time and space i have learned from it also that nothing really is Real at least nothing last in time or nothing is eternal except this that is ever bearing witness to every aspect of life and navigating the way through tick and thin with the least of resistance and effortlessly. It has spelled out almost my entire history from birth till this date laying bare my weaknesses and strength even though at this stage .barely scratching the surface for the deep rooted karmic consequences are still buried deep perhaps best kept buried for good. I one keeps picking off the scab from the wound one is bound to cause more infection it is best in some cases to let the wound dry out by itself naturally no matter how much the scab itches to be picked.
When my Wife, son and I was driven off from the Airport by my mother in law to our home in Duck Creek of Shawano Avenue, Brown County, Green Bay, Wisconsin, I felt my life as a Malay,{I never thought of myself as any other than being a Malay,} had slipped away from me; I felt like a soul in transition neither here nor there, I was scared. Henceforth my life as an American, a westerner began and i found myself burning the bridges behind me as part of my survival instinct which I realized later in life that had helped kept me alive and able to take on life whatever it had to throw at me and keeping this journalistic, documentation, biographic diary of a Blog is an will be on going till Google breaks down or i die. I am proud to say thus far I have never earned a dime from this Blog writing and so I owe no one any favors except my son whose computer I am using. Whether I am looking back at myself with a western or an eastern mind it does not really matter as having a slight understanding of how my mind operates helps to keep myself from being overly judgmental when making a posting or telling a story. Now that I am enjoying it how do i get off from this addiction, it is an addiction like it or not when you sit up at 3 in the morning writing about yourself for no one in particular but yourself and justifying to it by saying it is a labor of Love and Healing, it helps to keep the soul from being totally sucked into this whole illusion we call Life!
So, How do I un-educate myself?
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