Debatable

"We will meet your goals!" Jimmy Lovine by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Ab-Soul.

So earlier today I attended an English Parliamentary Debate between the two top schools in Kedah. I was never a debater, but debates have always intrigued me. How people argue their cases to get to the truth, that's always cool. However, in competitive debates, it's not really about getting to the truth as much as claiming to be right and saying that your opponent is wrong, whatever the case may be.

In the debate that I watched earlier, there was an obvious winner. The team of three consisted of three guys. They had solid arguments and presented them in a convincing manner. The other team, on the other hand was not very convincing. I'm not trying to be misogynistic, but the team did consist of three girls. Their performance made me wonder how they got to the final in the first place. This judgement is based purely on their debating ability and the arguments they put forward. By the end of the debate, I had very little doubt in my mind who were going to win, and I was pretty confident that everyone else on the floor shared my thoughts on this. At the end of the debate, both teams handled themselves professionally, the guys going over to the girls, smiled and bowed to which the girls smiled and bowed back (they didn't shake hands because cooties, duh).

However, when the results were announced, the less convincing team won. You could see that the guys were pretty devastated, from the actual debaters to the reserve team members as well as their coaches. I myself was speechless by the announcement. To me, they were head and shoulders above the other team. How they lost remains a mystery to me. 

When the dust had settled, one of the teachers expressed her disappointment with the results to the guys. She mentioned that she might even protest the results by filing an appeal. But then one of the students said "Can we not make a big deal out of this?" and that struck me as being very mature in the face of defeat. 

You see, when entering any sort of competition, it should always be your goal to do your best, and when you have done your best, you have reached your goal, regardless of the result. "You don't have to win to be successful" is one of my father's sayings as a coach, and it definitely rings true to anyone who has ever been in competition before. This maxim will make one a humble winner as well an honourable loser. Because at the end of the day you know that you are only responsible for your performance, as the results are out of your hands. They are in God's.

The boys definitely gave it their all on stage. They proved that they were the better team, regardless of the result. They didn't need to win to be better. They had already succeeded, and no scoresheet was going to disprove that.

May peace and blessings be upon you.

Cheers!

Fiction Character 1.1

"I can't change, even if I tried, even if I wanted to," Same Love by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis feat. Mary Lambert.


He wanders. He wonders. About many a thing at a time. So many things, in fact, that he loses track and in effect gets distracted rather easily. Too easily. He could be in the middle of contemplating Khalil Gibran, for all he could, and a passing motorbike would make all those thoughts join the carbon monoxide to come up in smoke.

His focus is weak. He can’t pay attention to anything for more than ten minutes. He opens the Pages document on his computer to write something up and is scrolling through his Facebook home in less than two minutes. It not that he wants to lose focus. He just does.

At least that’s what he says to himself. Comforting is the thought of not having control of yourself. You are no longer responsible for your actions when you aren’t in control of yourself, and that’s the way he likes it. Not taking responsibility for himself. For his own development. For the feelings of the people around him. For his relationship with God. 

It’s not under his control. If it was, he would be the best human being ever. He would be able to do so many things. He would read a lot more. He would learn how to play every sport that he can. He would pray on time all the time. He would be helpful at every opportunity he can. He would work on his assignments as soon as he receives them and wouldn’t stop until they’re finished. He would proofread his work, thrice, making improvements every time. He would get high distinctions. He would get a first-class degree.

But it’s not under his control. He’s tired all the time, so he sleeps way too much and works too little. He’s too slow a reader, so he puts his books aside. He’s way too busy, so he postpones any actual work until the very last minute. He’s not fit enough, so he doesn’t go down to the field to play any kind of sport. He was always a one-sport-guy anyway. He oversleeps, so he misses prayers. He doesn’t like proofreading his own work, so his first drafts are his final drafts. His EQ is low, so he hurts the people who love him.

Ah, not being in control is the best thing that could ever happen to a person. After all, how can God judge a person for how He has made His creation? These flaws aren’t mine, he says to himself. They were given to me. I did not choose to be this way. If I was born hardworking, then things would be different. But I wasn’t. So I’m not. 

And that’s perfectly fine.

Fiction Character 1.0

"I want to sail away from here," Otherside by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.

As he sits there typing on his MacBook Pro, his head is frantically looking for something to say, something meaningful, something truthful, something inspiring. But he isn’t feeling very inspired himself. He asks himself, “why do I want to write?” and the answer slaps him in the face: he doesn’t know.

He likes the idea of writing. Of people being able to get a glimpse of what is going on in his head. For what purpose, he’s not fully aware. It might be that he feels that writing could relieve his stress. He’s been feeling emotionally unstable of late. That is, if the past year can qualify for “of late”. It might also be that  he feels that letting other people read his thoughts would inspire other people to greatness. He admits that he is by no means great,but people seem to think that he is worth watching and listening to, thus he would like to reveal to people that any Muhammad or Atiqah could be twice as successful as he is, if what he is can be considered a success.

Or maybe it’s just for the ego trip that he gets when he receives feedback from people. He’s fully aware that his English is head and shoulders above the majority of those who use it as a second language and people tweet that his English is so fluent, they want to be like him, they want him to teach them how to be like him. Maybe that’s it.

But it’s not.

He hates the notion of people trying to be him. He knows himself. He sucks. As a teacher. As a writer. As a friend. As a family member. As a human being. He sucks.

And he is always intrigued by the idea that people actually think highly of him. Or maybe it’s disgust. Paralyzing disgust. Disgust in himself that he is still able to sleep at night and smile when he is awake and allow people to sing his praise. It’s disgusting how much he allows people to be deluded into thinking that he is a righteous person with very little flaws to show. And him? A role model? Please.

If people were actually like him, there would be a lot more cynical people in the world. Fake smiles would be plastered onto their faces while sarcastic remarks form in their heads. People would be sad all of the time, without really knowing why. People would be tired, and hate having to live through another day. People would be emotional. People would be judgmental. Most of all, people would be insincere. 

But they won’t do good deeds for money. No, much too “surface” for this type of human. That would be way too easy to judge, and he’s not anything if he’s not afraid of judgement. Or rather, negative judgement. He has to be seen as a flawless human being, a model citizen. The example for Muslims, or even human beings in general. Because he’s full of himself like that. Because he needs to be seen as a superior person.

So he puts on a mask for everyone to see. What he thinks everyone should see. The bright side. The smiles. The happiness. The righteousness. The motivation. The optimism. And right behind that mask rots the depression. The downright cynicism. The bitterness. The pessimism. The hypocrisy.

So he doesn’t want people to be like him. Because that’s too messed up. Even for him. I suffer alone is his mantra. Other people are too good for him. 

He still likes the idea of writing though. But why, he can never really say.

Story Telling

"Can you remember when we laughed together?" 1986 by Ely Bruna.

So earlier today we attended a story-telling workshop. It was conducted by a Roger Jenkins. Here's a video of him in action to allow you to get the feel of what we experienced.




The video doesn't really do justice to the workshop that he conducted, but I will tell you that we had our minds blown away by this amazing performer. We sat through the 2-hour workshop like it was a half-an-hour episode of Friends.

He stressed the importance and usefulness of story-telling in the classroom, and I'm sure a lot of us went away wishing that we were able to tell stories half as well as Mr Jenkins.

I can't deny the effectiveness of telling stories in capturing the attention of other people, especially children. I remember when I was talking to a class of primary children who didn't know who I was, and I failed miserably at capturing their attention with my psuedo-motivational hooblah, evidenced by the students' actions of drawing on their pieces of paper throughout my session. As bad as the experience was for me (and even more so for the students, I think) there was definitely one shining moment of redemption on my part. I noticed that when I said "Ni saya ada satu cerita masa saya kecik dulu," I could immediately see heads popping up to look at me, in anticipation for my story. I told them about how I got caught lying to my parents when I was 10 and got punished for it. Thing is that telling the story was totally unplanned, so the story jumped all over the place and I wasn't very consistent. But their eyes stayed on me until I finished my story. I even got to include some moral values at the end (even though this practice isn't encouraged by Mr Jenkins).

Bottom line, story-telling is a boss thing to do, and when you can do it well, you become that much better a teacher.

Me? I'm the worst story-teller ever. But Mr Jenkins' answer to the question "What if I'm not a good story-teller?" made it clear that anyone can improve.

"Did you come out into the world knowing how to ride a motorbike? How about swimming? Was anyone of you able to walk right out of your mothers' bellies? It takes practice. You develop the skill by doing it. You get better. Practice."

May peace be upon you.

Cheers!

Kain Telekong Tesco

"Why don't we break the rules already?" Some Nights by Fun.

So I just noticed that I didn't post anything in February. Now my 2013 archives won't look pretty. Boohoo ;_;

So here's a story:

I was in my car, getting out of the maktab gates with some friends, when, while signing out, another friend of mine, let's call her Maddy, was also signing out. We asked her where she was going, and she said Tesco, so since we were going there anyway and there was still space in the car, I asked if she wanted a lift. She accepted.

She was carrying a bag, so I asked her what was in the bag.

"Maddy, ada apa dalam beg?"

"Kain telekong."

"Hang nak pi juai ka apa?"

"Dak aih. Saja amek kain telekong had ada kat surau Tesco tu bawak balik basuh. Ni nak bagi balik ah."

"Aik? Awat hang pi basuh plak?"

"La, biaq pi kat aku la nak buat apa pun!"

The end.

There are always ways to make the world a better place. And those ways don't have to be extravagant or big scale. Something as little as picking up a piece of plastic on the sidewalk and putting it into a nearby garbage can. Or moving a rock from the road. Or seeing that the prayer garments in a surau you frequent are dirty/smelly, and washing some. Or smiling to a stranger. It improves not only our own lives, but also others'.

There are an excess of opportunities to do good in the world and make it a better place. We just have to look.

May peace be upon you.

Cheers!

Notes on a Plane

"Never want to put my heart on the line," Locked Out of Heaven by Bruno Mars.

So I've been wanting to write for forever, but the usual mind blank happens everytime I open blogger. Sungguh tak sihat.

So I've scrolled the "notes" I have in my phone and I came across this list of thoughts I had while being really bored on the plane back to Malaysia in December. Here they are:

- When you're in the service business, please smile to your clients/customers, at the very least.
- When a client/customer asks "Can you help me do that?", one of the worst responses you can give is "Can you please help yourself?"
-Because the air outside can reach temperatures as low as -50 degrees Celsius, airplanes must have heaters instead of coolers, huh?
- I wonder if any airline still condones smoking in their aircrafts.
- Remember to always have a handkerchief handy. You never know when your nose is going to run. Tissues just don't get the job done very well. They might even be making it worse.
- I wonder what good seatbelts do on an airplane.
- I wonder if I'll be calling Sydney regularly after this. I hope I do.
- Should be high time airplanes have free wifi (pun intended). At least good airplanes.
- Help others and don't expect anything in return. You'll be disappointed if you do. The root of all disappointment is expectation. Or something like that.
- Malaysia. Food. Goody.
- I wonder when squat toilets will be the norm worldwide.

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In retrospect, the list isn't very extensive for an 8-hour plane ride. But then again I was trying my hardest to sleep the whole way to avoid being all sad and stuff.

May peace be upon all of you!

Cheers!

How Significant We Are

The following is a quote from Carl Sagan (1934-1996):

Consider again that dot.
That's here, that's home, that's us.
On it, everyone you love, everyone you know,
everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was
live out their lives.
The aggregate of our joy and suffering,
Thousands of confident religious, ideologies and economic doctrines.
Every hunter and forager, every hero and coward,
Every creator and destroyer of civilisation,
Every king and peasant, every young couple in love,
Every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer,
Every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician,
Every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species,
Lived there on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
There Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.
Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that,
in glory and triumph,
They could become the momentary "masters" of a fraction of a dot.
Think of all the cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel
on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner.
How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another,
how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance,
The delusion that we have some privileged position in this universe,
are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the enveloping cosmic dark.
In our obscurity, in all this vastness,
There is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life.
There is nowhere else, at least in the near future,
to which our species could migrate.
Visit, yes.
Settle, not yet.
Like it or not, the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.
There is perhaps no better demonstrations of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.
To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another.
And to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot,
The only home we've ever known.

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I came across this quote on Zen Pencils, a cool comic blog that adapts inspirational quotes into comics. Part of the description of this particular quote goes as follows:

"The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of Earth taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft at a distance of 3.7 billion miles away. The spacecraft had completed its primary mission and was passing Saturn, hurtling through space at 40,000 mph. Carl Sagan requested that the spacecraft turn around and take a photo of Earth, not for any scientific purpose, but as a sobering reminder of our planet’s insignificance. The resulting image inspired Sagan to write this now famous and breathtaking passage."



When I read the quote through the comic, I was like, "Yeah man, we're REALLY small. This guy speaks the truth."

But then I googled the picture.

The Pale Blue Dot.

And I cried.

Take a minute and try looking around you right now. Look. Please?

Now look back at the pale blue dot.

We look around and think that this Earth is so big, that our houses are so big, that our cars are so big, that our selves are so big.

But that's a lie.

We're nothing but a fraction of a dot. And that's from just a few billions of miles away. How big is this space we're floating in? How big is all of creation? How big then is The Creator?

Yet we think that we're so important. That we're all that. That we're so significant.

Just think, in the sight of God, how significant are we? How significant can we be?

We're nothing. And yet we live our lives as if we're high and mighty. As if the world owes something to us.

Everyone from Adam a.s. all those years ago to Muhammad s.a.w. to you and me right here and now has only ever lived on this speck of dust that seems to be merely existing amongst the darkness. 

We have to realise that we are not big. Thus there is no rational to claiming that we are better than anyone. We're specks, just like everyone else in the world. How good we are is not for us to say. It is the sole responsibility of Allah SWT to say where we go after we leave the pale blue dot.

Allah SWT has sent us models in the form of the Prophets s.a.w. for us to make examples of how to carry ourselves on the pale blue dot. So be kind. Smile. Don't get angry. Show affection. Bring peace everywhere and to everyone you meet. Seek and speak the truth. Love.

And every time you feel an ego-trip coming, you could always come back to the pale blue dot and get a reality check.

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Among other things, Carl Sagan was an astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist and author. He was also known to be an agnostic. 

May peace be upon all of you!

Cheers!