I suppose one cannot measure everything. You can build a dam but the water may still flood. You can measure the amount of coffee you put in the cup everyday and it still wouldn't taste the same. Or, like Bridget, you can measure your calories you take in and still will not make it to your initial target for your weight. Once in a while, you allow one thing or another to overflow, to slip out of your hands before your own eyes - you smoke one more cigarette, you eat one more ice-cream, you but one more dress - even when you know exactly what it is that's about to happen.

People speak how little one person can do to change the world. How many times have we relentlessly question our own abilty to make a difference? Truth be told, ambitions are for those who can afford it. We speak about equality, or about how much we want it. We want ourselves to get as many toys as our siblings do. We want the teachers at school to treat all children the same way. We want the government to treat every living citizen without disparity because of our age, colour and religion. But, you cannot measure everything. Equality, perhaps, was never meant for us.

It is not about how little one person can do to change the world. It also is not about how much one person can do to change the world. It probably isn't even about changing the world. It's about how little or how much one will do in the end - to make a difference. After all, what good are thoughts if actions never did come after. Efforts aren't measured. You do what you can to help. Because, as the popular traffic campaigns in Malaysia go, "You can make a difference." We don't quite measure the difference you make.

You can count the number of caps David Beckham needs before he reaches his hundreth. You can count the number of goals Crouch has scored in the games he has started. You can count the number of races Schumacher has won in the season. You can count how many words there are in this bloody entry.

But, you cannot keep score with what happens in your life - not everything, everytime anyway. There are times it works your way, and many other times - it simply doesn't. Anything could change and it could change at anytime - with no clear signs of warning. You simply cannot prepare for everything - and keep score of everything. You cannot keep score of who won the last fight. You cannot keep score of the times someone else is late for a meeting. You cannot keep score of what difference one person could and would make in a lifetime.

Because, there simply are things you cannot count - not because it's too difficult to. Simply too exhausting.



Cheers.

[[ music ]] John Legend - Ordinary People
[[ book ]] Jodi Piccoult - My Sister's Keeper
[[ mood ]] blank

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So much happens in a day and yet it is such a wonder how little seems to be able to make a lasting mark – something one could reflect on or think over once the day is done and before the next begins. It was once said that everything, however trivial, happens for a reason. It is a little bit of a cause and effect chain of events. Yet, how often is it that we realize how closely things are bound to each other and how irrevocable these events may turn out to be.

Very little can be said of what has happened in the past week although many others whom may have experienced similar if not the same events have much to comment on. For truth be told, it really is nothing significant in any way to me. There was no anxiety, excitement or any form of exaltation or the contrary. My car was not stolen. I have yet to be sent out of class or cause an argument. The other trivialities that I have been through were, in the very core of it, what everyone has gone through in the first week in university, only perhaps, I go through them with much less emotion. I have been through the state of boredom and ennui from lectures to meetings to what seems to me now the never ending reading of law materials.

It is difficult to say how long it is that would take me to be full charged again – to return to the former state of thought of knowing what has to be done in a day, a week and a month – thinking in the way that has helped me pull through so many empty mornings and silent nights. It has been months. But, one has to do what one has to do.

Many people go about doing things they have to do without really knowing why they do it. So many are obliged to do what they are obliged to do – not because one could derive any form of delight and pleasure from it but simply because one knows, understands and accepts the way in which the world now works. Some have, what appears to me, to be an immeasurable amount of energy to keep up with their Herculean sense of personal drive. I, unfortunately, have not the talent or skill in the area.

It is unlikely I should speak of my own, distinguished personal drive. Sometimes, it strikes me that I never did feel it existed to begin with. Never in my memory have I recorded a moment of desperation to achieve something or experience a ‘sink or swim’ situation. Never. There are things are things I want to do but it is not in my memory that I was ever desperate to get them done. I do not forget what I want to do. How could anyone? But, it is perhaps best forgotten. The important thing is to never forget what one has to do. Obligations.

It doesn’t take long to realize what one has to do and what wants to do are almost certain to be different. Not all are fortunate in circumstance to tread the overly admired road not taken. Some are granted with less courage, less heart, less wit and less passion. But, it does not take a prodigy to understand what is important is one’s ability to remind one’s self of persisting obligations that one should never try to forget. Once you have decided to take a route, whatever it may be – new or old – trodden black or not, one should not think of turning back. As the famous line goes, ‘way leads on to way’.

Steadiness, is, after all, what one needs – not courage, heart, wit or passion. Plain steadiness - it's what equals the task.

...

[[ book ]] Elizabeth Gaskell - Mary Barton
[[ mood ]] working

1 comments

"Datuk Laksamana
Memang benar rupanya orang Melaka bersopan-santun
dan Laksamananya pula pandai berpantun."
- Gusti Puteri Retno Dumilah, Puteri Gunung Ledang - The Musical



When I heard these lines for the first time, I was really too much in awe to really notice what the actress was saying and how they sounded, not especially when Stephen Rahman Hughes was there. Now, well ... it's just - funny.

I miss theater.

[[ music ]] PGL Musical Soundtrack - Di Puncak Tertinggi
[[ book ]] Mark Twain - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
[[ mood ]] silly

2 comments

I am SOOOOOoooooooo horridly pissed.

[[ mood ]] PISSED

1 comments

"Mengapa aku masih
Diduga dan terus diperuji?
Sedangkan semua telah ku bukti
Hingga tersisih diri sendiri."
Hang Tuah, Rindu Seorang Insan (Puteri Gunung Ledang - The Musical) OST



The recent revival of my interest in the musical came after I heard the tracks again.My interest lies more on our legendary Hang Tuah than on other characters. I saw Malaysia's best looking Hang Tuah on stage. After all the years of education in Malay Literature, it is a wonder that I should only be interested now - the power of entertainment and good looking Hang Tuahs. I could (I swear) go on and on about Stephen Rahman Hughes.

Less people are willing to forgive Tuah for what he did if it's true what he did. He killed his best friend who happened to betray the one man (Mahmud of Malacca) Tuah has lived to defend. After that he killed his best friend's wife and only child only after he promised not to do so.

The musical, of course, was less interested in friendship. There is almost a consensus in literature and theater that if one wants a big successful show, one should only speak or write of love and war. So, Tuah, apparently fell in love with a princess whom Mahmud was desperate to get at the same time. And, as the legend goes, he gave her up. Of heartaches and struggles, we pay no attention. After all, he is a symbol of strength, not of weakness.

All he has shown to us and to many generations before and ahead of us would be his undying loyalty. Yet, if loyalty is what he represents, we forget very often he is the very symbol of ingratitude. I wonder if he thought about the duty he has to himself. Then again, he has lived only to serve one man. Whether or not Hang Tuah has had his fair share of doubts, hessitations and heartaches for we could not ascertain that ourselves since they never did hinder the performance of his duties, we wonder if the questions of love and friendship has ever return to haunt his living days.

Yet, I am more willing (than most) to forgive the chap, just like I am more willing to forgive Antony for giving up his empire for Cleopatra; and I am more willing to forgive Tristan for leaving Isolde and although I love Arthur I forgive Lancelot and Guinevere.

But, could one serve so abidingly without losing one's own identity? Could one really ignore what one's self really want for another? More so, could one forget the affections and devotions one has evoked on another?

He is a symbol of contradiction in the human mind and heart. But, he had a stronger mind and heart than most of us. What makes it difficult to submit to the notion that Hang Tuah is more than just a Malaysian legend is not what he did or did not do. It is, rather, the common believe that no living man now would give up what he has given up and gained so little for it. Afterall, can one really give so much and ask for so little?

At the end of the day we are all battered warriors.

But we are warriors, nonetheless.

[[ mood ]] thoughtful

2 comments